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Islam, murder and hate speech

November 4, 2014

Islam, murder and hate speech, Dan Miller’s Blog, November 3, 2014

(Wilders is, of course, an Islamophobic hater of peace. As Obama and Kerry are pleased to inform us, Israeli settlements and prayers are the greatest sources of hate, the greatest threats to peace and hence to civilization. — DM)

November 2nd was the tenth anniversary of the Islamic assassination of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam. Islam is the religion of death and slaughter. Those who understand and therefore oppose it are targets of Islam. Often, in formerly free western nations, they are prosecuted for “hate speech.” Obama, Kerry and other “leaders” of the international community call Islam the “religion of peace” which is not to be disparaged.

Mr. Wilders’ address is in English. For those who would prefer to read it, the text is available at New English Review. Here’s a short excerpt:

Van Gogh warned us in  strong language, as clear as the colors that his great-granduncle Vincent used when painting his landscapes.

He was a brave man. When he realized the danger of Islam, he did not run like a coward.

He would have hated to see how our freedom of speech has been restricted in the ten years since his death.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, the more Islam we get, the less free our societies become. Not only because of the islamization but also because of the weak appeasers who call themselves politicians. [Emphasis added.]

We are no longer allowed to crack jokes or draw cartoons if Islam feels insulted by it.

If you do so, your life is in danger, as Kurt Westergaard and Lars Vilks can testify. You might even get arrested, as happened a few years ago with the Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot.

. . . .

Last Summer, my home town, The Hague, witnessed scenes which brought back memories of the darkest period in our history, the Nazi era.

Sympathizers of the Islamic State paraded in our streets. They carried swastikas, they carried the black flags of ISIS. They shouted “Death to the Jews.”

Instead of rounding up these hatemongers, the authorities did nothing. [Emphasis added.]

When we warn against Islam, the authorities call it hate speech and bring us to court. But when the grim forces of hatred march down our streets, the police look on and do not interfere. It is a disgrace. It is a scandal. It is intolerable. [Emphasis added.]

Islam is waging a war against the free West.

Indeed, we are at war. Only fools can deny it. Islam has declared war on us.

America and its allies are currently bombing the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Excellent.

My party supports this offensive. I am glad that Dutch and Danish F16s participate in it and that our two nations stand shoulder to shoulder in this endeavor. We should liquidate Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi and the other criminals who are leading the Islamic State.

But we have to do more than that.

Far more important than fighting Islamic State abroad, is the fight to preserve our own security in our own countries, in the Netherlands, in Denmark, in all the other European and Western countries. It is our homes that we must defend. [Emphasis added.]

It is just to bomb the Islamic State in the Middle East. But our first priority must be to protect our own nations, our own freedoms, our own people, our own children, here, at home. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

[T]he future of human civilization depends on us. Now is a time when everyone in the West must do their duty. We are writing history here.

So, let us do our duty.

Let us stand with a happy heart and a strong spirit.

Let us go forth with courage and save freedom!

The Obama Nation and its allies are fighting — sporadically, with no viable strategy and with little effect, against the Islamic State and its cohorts, which they tell us are “non-Islamic.” The Islamic State, et al, are pure Islam and gain more supporters and fighters daily because they are. Until our “leaders” recognize and acknowledge this, Islam will continue to advance and we will continue to retreat at our grave peril. As Mr. Wilders said,

[O]ur leaders still refuse to defend our freedoms because they are either cowards or appeasers. This is why the task of defending freedom has now fallen on us. On you, on me, on ordinary citizens.

Are we cowards and appeasers as well? Or will we eliminate the curse of Islam in our own countries?

Categories: International Community, Islam, Islamic State, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Kerry, Obama
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U.S. strategy against Islamic State hits major hurdles

October 31, 2014

U.S. strategy against Islamic State hits major hurdles, LA Times, David S. Cloud, W.J. Hennigan, Raja Abdulrahim, October 30, 2014

(Happy Halloween from the Obama Administration. — DM)

la-epa-epaselect-syria-homs-car-bomb-jpg-20141030Syrian police and residents inspect the site of a car bombing in Homs on Oct. 29. The U.S. plan to raise a rebel army in Syria to fight Islamic State has run into steep political and military obstacles. (European Pressphoto Agency)

The Obama administration’s plan to raise a 15,000-strong rebel army in Syria has run into steep political and military obstacles, raising doubts about a key element of the White House strategy for defeating Islamic State militants in the midst of a civil war.

Pentagon concerns have grown so sharp that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sent a two-page memo to the White House last week warning that the overall plan could collapse because U.S. intentions toward Syrian President Bashar Assad are unclear, according to a senior defense official who read the memo but was not authorized to speak publicly.

President Obama has called on Assad to step down, but he has not authorized using military force, including the proposed proxy army, to remove the Syrian leader.

At a news conference Thursday, Hagel declined to discuss his memo to national security advisor Susan Rice, but he acknowledged that Assad has inadvertently benefited from more than five weeks of U.S.-led airstrikes against the Islamic State, one of the most powerful antigovernment forces in Syria’s bitter conflict.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry sought to paper over the problem Thursday, telling a forum in Washington that the proposed proxy army “can have an impact on Assad’s decision-making so we can get back to a table where we could negotiate a political outcome, because we all know there is no military resolution of Syria.”

Rebel leaders in Syria say they would reject joining a U.S.-backed force that is not aimed at defeating Assad, their main enemy.

Senior U.S. military officers also privately warn that the so-called Syrian moderates that U.S. planners hope to recruit — opposition fighters without ties to the Islamic radicals — have been degraded by other factions and forces, including Assad’s army, during the war.

It will take years to train and field a new force capable of launching an offensive against the heavily armed and well-funded Islamic State fighters, who appear well-entrenched in northern Syria, the officers say.

“We’re not going to be able to build that kind of credible force in enough time to make a difference,” said a senior U.S. officer who is involved in military operations against the militants and who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “We’ve watched the moderate opposition dwindle and dwindle and now there’s very little left.”

The Pentagon plan calls for putting 5,000 rebel fighters into Syria in a year, and 15,000 over the next three years.

It is the least developed and most controversial part of the multi-pronged U.S. strategy, which also includes near-daily airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, deployment of U.S. military advisors and other support to assist Iraqi government and Kurdish forces, along with attempts to choke off the militants’ financing from oil sales and foreign donors.

When officers involved in high-level Pentagon deliberations in the summer raised concerns about building a rebel army from scratch, they were overruled by senior commanders, who warned that airstrikes alone would not defeat the militants, one of the officers said.

But Pentagon unease has intensified in recent weeks as Jordan and Turkey, two allies that the Obama administration is counting on to help train the proposed proxy force, made it clear that they are lukewarm to the plan, two U.S. officials said.

Washington and its allies are chiefly split over whether the proposed force should focus on reclaiming Syrian territory now held by the Islamic State militants, which is the U.S. priority, or should also battle troops loyal to Assad, the allies’ main concern.

Turkey said this month that it would train a portion of the Syrian force, joining Saudi Arabia in training on its territory. U.S. officials don’t expect to assemble the first group of “moderate” rebels, drawing them from inside Syria or from crowded refugee camps in nearby countries, until early next year at the earliest.

But Turkish officials have signaled that the rebels it trains would concentrate on battling Assad’s forces, not Islamic State, once they return to Syria.

Jordan has not joined the training effort, although it hosts a separate, smaller, CIA-run operation for Syrian insurgents.

U.S. officials say greater involvement by Turkey and Jordan would allow them to increase the number who can be trained, and provide easier conduits for support and resupply when they return to Syria.

The dispute reflects the complex calibrations now in play as the Islamic State militants shake long-established political and military fault lines in the Middle East.

Most dramatically, perhaps, U.S. forces are now in at least tacit alignment with traditional enemies such as Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant and political group, against a common threat.

Syrian rebel leaders and Arab allies complain that the U.S.-led airstrikes have helped Assad by weakening one of his most powerful foes and enabling his army to step up attacks on other rebel factions.

A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella organization claiming to represent largely autonomous rebels in Syria, said fighters were incensed by the U.S. insistence on focusing entirely on Islamic State.

“They have forgotten that tens of thousands of civilians are suffering because of the regime,” said the spokesman, who did not want his name published because it could endanger his family. “Our main cause is the regime, and that will remain our main cause.”

A rebel commander, a defector from the Syrian army who also asked for anonymity, agreed. The U.S. plan “doesn’t work for us,” he said.

“They are concerned with ISIS … but we are concerned with the regime more than ISIS,” he said, using one of several acronyms for Islamic State.

U.S. Central Command, which is overseeing the effort to build a Syrian force, says questions about its direction will be resolved once the fledgling program is underway.

“We are early on in this and there’s much to be figured out,” said Maj. Curtis J. Kellogg, a spokesman for Central Command.

Frederic C. Hof, a former special advisor to President Obama for Syria, said the U.S. plan “is going to be a tough sell” in Syria.

“You can always get people by providing weapons, ammo and pay, but your appeal to a large number of Syrians will increase dramatically if it is a force whose goal is eventually to govern all of Syria,” not just beat one faction, he added.

The caution reflects, in part, a U.S. desire to reassure Iran, one of Assad’s closest backers, that it is not seeking to oust him by force. If the U.S. backtracked on that promise, Iran might step up military support for Assad.

Tehran also could respond by using local Shiite militias to attack U.S. personnel or facilities in Iraq. The Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq have coordinated their attacks on Islamic State with the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.

“If we really focus on Assad, the Iranian piece of this coalition [against Islamic State] will fracture, and we will have Shia militants trying to target us,” said the senior U.S. military officer.

The U.S. experience with proxy military forces is laced with disappointment.

The Kennedy administration backed a failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961 after training a counterrevolutionary brigade. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration bankrolled the Contras in Nicaragua, who were unsuccessful against the Sandinistas’ socialist revolution.

“We’ve helped arm insurgencies before,” Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who now is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Nearly all of them have been complete failures or marginal to the final outcome. But there was one spectacular success.”

The CIA, working with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, covertly poured $4 billion into arming a rebel force in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, helping them drive out Soviet forces. Riedel, who wrote a book about the undertaking, said the CIA operation hastened the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

The Syrian rebel forces, with their fractured leadership and rival sponsors, bear similarities to the competing Afghan mujahedin factions during that war, Riedel said. If the U.S. can secure tight-knit partnerships with neighboring countries on training the rebels, it could also see success against Islamic State.

“There’s no reason we can’t do it again,” he said. “But it doesn’t happen overnight.”

Categories: Air strikes, Combat troops, Free Syrian Army, Generals, Iran, Iraq, Islamic State, Kerry, Obama, Syria
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The Islamization of Jerusalem

October 29, 2014

The Islamization of Jerusalem, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 29, 2014

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The murder of little girls like Chaya Zissel Braun does not take place in a vacuum. The Islamizers of Jerusalem gain confidence when they see that the international community stands behind their demands. In 1920, racist Muslim settler mobs in Jerusalem had chanted “Mohammed’s religion was born with the sword”, “Death to the Jews” and “the government is with us” as Muslim policemen under British colonial rule had joined with them in the rape and murder of the indigenous Jewish population.

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

Chaya Zissel Braun was murdered on her first trip back from the Western Wall where the indigenous Jewish population of Israel continues to pray in the shadow of the shrine established there by the Muslim conquerors from which the racist Muslim settlers rain down rocks on the Jewish worshipers.

The three-month old baby girl died when a Muslim terrorist rammed a car into a crowd hurtling her into the air and headfirst onto the pavement. Her death did not take place in isolation. It was not caused by a tiny minority of extremists. Her blood was spilled on the street for the Islamization of Jerusalem.

The Islamization of Jerusalem is an international cause. It does not just come out of Gaza City or even Ramallah. Nor Doha or Istanbul. The politicians and diplomats of every major country demand the Islamization of Jerusalem. When they talk about a Palestinian State with its capital in Jerusalem what they are really demanding is the restoration of the Muslim ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem in 1948.

They demand it with words and boycotts, but the Muslim settlers on whose behalf they cry for the Apartheidization of Jerusalem are writing their murderous demands with the blood of little girls.

The baby girl was murdered to Islamize a city. She died as the Israeli soldiers had died reunifying Jerusalem after the Arab Legion had ethnically cleansed the Jewish population and as ordinary Jerusalemites had died at the hands of Jordanian snipers searching the city for Jewish and Christian targets. The victims of those years of Muslim occupation included Yaffa Binyamin, a 14-year-old girl sitting on the balcony of her own house, and a Christian carpenter working on the Notre Dame Convent.

Like Chaya, I was born in Jerusalem. Like Yaffa, I lived in a building targeted by Muslim snipers. But the Six Day War had ended the reign of Muslim snipers over the city. The building where my parents made their home had been cheap once because living there could mean instant death for anyone looking out of a window at the wrong time. The liberation and reunification of Jerusalem had made it a place where Jewish children could play on balconies and Christians could repair churches without being murdered.

Under Muslim occupation, while Jordanian snipers were cold-bloodedly murdering their children, the Jewish residents living under fire couldn’t so much as put up an outhouse without being reported to the UN for illegal construction. In one case a UN observer organization held four meetings to discuss an outhouse for local Jewish residents before condemning Israel for illegal construction.

It did not however condemn Jordan when one of its soldiers opened fire on a train wounding a Jewish teenage girl.

Muslim outrage over Jewish outhouses mattered more than the Muslim murder of Jewish children. It still does. Today the State Department calls the murder of that little girl a traffic incident while warning that Jews living in Jerusalem will end any possibility of peace.

Hillary Clinton spent 45 minutes shrieking at Netanyahu over the phone after a planning committee allowed new housing in Jerusalem to advance to the public comment stage, and told the media that the proposal that Jews live in a part of Jerusalem that she believes should belong to Muslims is “insulting” to the United States.

The latest firestorm exploded over seven Jewish families moving into homes that they had bought legally in an area from which Jews had been ethnically cleansed by racist Muslim violence in the twenties and thirties. Earlier the State Department and White House had warned that Israel was alienating “even its closest allies” by proposing to build houses on Airplane Hill, a place mainly known for having an Israeli plane crash there during the Six Day War that had formerly hosted temporary housing for Russian and Ethiopian immigrants.

Meanwhile when Chaya was murdered, the State Department urged “all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.” It wasn’t as if anything important had happened. Just an Israeli-American baby murdered in pursuit of their shared goal of Islamizing Jerusalem.

Secretary of State John Kerry did not call President Abbas, the unelected president of the PLO’s Palestinian Authority, to berate him when one of his advisers called the murderer of that child a “heroic martyr”. Hillary Clinton did not come out of retirement to shriek at him over the phone when his party suggested that the killer would be receiving his 72 virgins in paradise.

If only something more important had happened than a presidential advisor to an Obama-backed terror state calling the murderer of an American child a hero; like planning for new housing “advancing”.

No one objects when Muslim settlers build houses in Jerusalem or anywhere else. But the objections pour in when the indigenous Jewish population builds so much as a house or an outhouse.

What we are talking about here is not peace, but ethnic cleansing. In 1948, the Jews were ethnically cleansed from Jerusalem to Islamize the city. Their synagogues were blown up by the Muslim occupiers. Their tombstones were used to line the roads traveled by the racist Muslim settlers.

“For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter,” Abdullah el-Talal, a commander of the Muslim invaders, had boasted. “Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews’ return here impossible.”

In his memoirs he wrote, “I knew that the Jewish Quarter was densely populated with Jews who caused their fighters a good deal of interference and difficulty…. Only four days after our entry into Jerusalem the Jewish Quarter had become their graveyard. Death and destruction reigned over it.”

Life magazine published photos of the atrocity writing that, “Muslim censors, not only in Palestine but in   neighboring Arab countries which have major communication outlets, tried for a fortnight to keep the news from leaking out.”

The Life photographer who took the photos was sentenced to death by the Arab High Committee.

This ethnic cleansing is what Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have been defending. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the thrust of all the peace plans put forward.

The entire phony “Palestinian” narrative in which the regional Sunni Arab Muslim majority that is busy slaughtering Christians, Kurds, Shiites acts as if it’s the victim because its racist ethnic cleansing plans were frustrated when its Jewish victims fought back and won.

The Muslim occupiers have added insult to injury by pretending to be the indigenous population to aid in their attempts at displacing the indigenous Jewish population through terror and lies.

Abdullah el-Talal said, “I have seen in this defeat of the Jews the heaviest blow rendered upon them, especially in terms of morale, since they were evicted   from the Western Wall and from the Jewish Quarter, for the first time in fifteen generations.”

Every politician denouncing Jews for building houses in Jerusalem, but not Muslims doing the same thing is endorsing Abdullah’s genocidal vision and all the terrorism that goes with it.

The murder of little girls like Chaya Zissel Braun does not take place in a vacuum. The Islamizers of Jerusalem gain confidence when they see that the international community stands behind their demands. In 1920, racist Muslim settler mobs in Jerusalem had chanted “Mohammed’s religion was born with the sword”, “Death to the Jews” and “the government is with us” as Muslim policemen under British colonial rule had joined with them in the rape and murder of the indigenous Jewish population.

Too many governments still stand with those who wave the sword of Mohammed and cry death to the Jews. They encourage them, defend their agenda and issue weak rebukes when blood is spilled in the name of Islamizing Jerusalem.

Those politicians who endorse the Islamization of Jerusalem cannot escape responsibility for the crimes of the Islamizers.

Categories: Antisemitism, Apartments, Hamas, Islam, Islamic jihad, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Jews, juden ist verboten, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama, Palestinians, Two state solution
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Israel’s allies and enemies – which is which?

October 28, 2014

Israel’s allies and enemies – which is which? | Anne’s Opinions, 27th October 2014

The looking-glass world of international relations in the Middle East during the Obama Administration.– AP)

Lately I have been feeling that, like Alice in Wonderland, we have stepped through the looking glass and are living in an alternative universe. Our old allies have turned against us whilst our old enemies are now siding with us and even doing our dirty work for us.

Case in point: It has been documented several times recently how petty and thin skinned is the US Administration. Last week they demonstrated this nasty characteristic once again with their juvenile and petty behaviour against Israeli Defence Minister Moshe (Bogie) Yaalon.

One meeting which did take place: Moshe Yaalon meets US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel

 

The Administration refused to arrange a meeting between Yaalon and Vice President Biden and other US officials because of their annoyance at Yaalon’s criticism of John Kerry and the US appeasement of Iran:

The Obama administration this week refused Israel defense minister’s requests to meet several top national security aides, still miffed over negative comments he made about Secretary of State John Kerry’s Mideast peace efforts and nuclear negotiations with Iran, US officials said Friday.

While Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon did see Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, the officials said the White House and State Department rejected Israeli proposals for meetings with Vice President Joe Biden, national security adviser Susan Rice and Kerry on his five-day trip to the United States. The administration had sought to stop Ya’alon from seeing Power but the objections were made too late to cancel the meeting, according to the officials.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the snubs, which were first reported by several Israeli media outlets.

…
Earlier this year, Ya’alon infuriated officials in Washington with comments accusing the administration of being weak on Iran and questioning the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security. That followed reports that Ya’alon had criticized Kerry for being unrealistic and naive in trying to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

The blogger Abu Yehuda has more on the pettiness of the US Administration and their stupidity in thinking that the Muslim terrorists are not out to get them too.

In another example of American duplicity, the Administration was rather upset at the killing of a Palestinian-American teenager who was shot by the IDF as he was throwing firebombs at Israeli cars. The US has demanded a full investigation. However I did not see them demand a full investigation of the Palestinian American who drove his car into a crowd of commuters, killing baby Chaya Zissel Braun.

The blogger Edgar Davidson chronicles the American hypocrisy:

Israeli security forces killed a Palestinian who was throwing Molotov cocktails at them. And the US Government really did issue the following statement:

The United States expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a US citizen minor (Orwah Hammad) who was killed by the Israeli Defence Forces during clashes in Silwad on October 24. We demand a speedy and transparent investigation into his killing.

This came just two days after the US government initially refused to condemn the Palestinian terror attack that killed 3-month old American-Israeli baby girl Chaya Zisel Baron, and injured many others – an attack that had not only been incited by the rhetoric of PA President Abbas but was wildly celebrated by both Hamas and the PA. The US government – which insists Israel must make concessions to Hamas and the PA – did eventually issue a half-hearted condemnation but in the same statement demanded that Israel “show restraint”. The US Government has also desperately tried to cover up the fact that Chaya (and several of the other injured victims) were US citizens. This is especially strange since we are now seeing a trend whereby the US Government is very keen to announce that Palestinian terrorists ‘victims’ are ‘US citizens’.

So now it seems that any Palestinian terrorist can not only be a hero martyr to Hamas and the PA, but can also be considered an American citizen, thereby gaining the protection of the US government in addition to the UN.

All this while Israeli Jewish Americans receive little to no support from the US Administration they so sensibly left behind.

Karen Yemima Muscara HY’D, murdered in the Palestinian terrorist attack by car

 

Tragically the death toll from that attack has gone up as another victim died yesterday. Karen Yemima Muscara, a new immigrant from Ecuador who had converted to Judaism, was buried last night in Jerusalem.

Outrageously, her funeral had to be delayed so as to avoid riots as her terrorist murderer was buried nearby. Isn’t it amazing that when Jews are murdered and buried, they don’t go on rampages and riots?

Hundreds attended the funeral early on Monday of a woman killed in last week’s terrorist attack on a Jerusalem light rail station, including Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and the Ecuadorian ambassador to Israel.

Karen Yemima Muscara was an Ecuadorian citizen in her 20s, had come to Israel to convert to Judaism after discovering she was descended from Conversos, Spanish Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism after 1492.

…

The funeral was postponed so as not to coincide with that of Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi, the man who drove his car into the Ammunition Hill light rail station, killing Muscara and a three-month-old baby and injuring seven others. Police shot Shaludi as he attempted to flee the scene on foot and he later died; he was buried Sunday night in the Muslim cemetery outside Jerusalem’s Old City.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat eulogized Muscara saying that she was “a delicate soul and guardian of peace who fought to be a Jew,” the NRG news site quoted him saying.

“Like many before her, she also fell in love with Jerusalem. Seven months ago she joined us and tonight, with unbelievable pain, she is parted from us,” Barkat said. “As mayor of Jerusalem I say that the situation won’t continue. It’s unacceptable that those whose live their whole lives for peace fall victim to those who glorify death.” He vowed once again to restore calm to Jerusalem.

…

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday flew in Muscara’s parents after she suffered head wounds and was seriously injured in the attack. Her mother said Sunday that her daughter’s dream had been to come to Israel and build her life here, but her life was cut short.

May Karen Yemima’s memory be for a blessing and may her parents, family and friends be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi

Meanwhile our erstwhile enemy, and often very cold peace partner Egypt is acting more forcefully against Hamas than we could ever hope to do without world condemnation. After a deadly car bombing by Jihadi terrorists against Egyptian forces in the Sinai, killing 28 soldiers, Egypt has cancelled its attempts at reviving Israeli-Hamas peace talks, has closed down the Rafah crossing and is planning building a wall to close off Gaza:

After a terror attack on Friday killed at least 30 Egyptian soldiers in the northern Sinai, Cairo has declared a state of emergency in the area, closed down the Rafah crossing from Gaza, canceled indirect cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas, and now says it will build a wall to block smuggling with the coastal enclave, Israel’s NRG News reported.

…

On Friday, militants mounted a complex, combined attack at an Egyptian base using what appeared to be a suicide car bomber, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside charges. Despite Hamas denying involvement, Egyptian security officials charged that attackers utilized smuggling tunnels from Gaza in perpetrating the attack, leading to the breakdown in relations.

Hamas is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, which, under the rule of Mohammed Morsi, was deposed last year.

Hamas leaders warned that the strip was on the verge of an “explosion” if the passage with Egypt remained closed. Israel, meanwhile, has continued allowing humanitarian aid and construction material to enter the enclave.

One would expect that Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas would be outraged at this move by the Egyptians. One would be wrong. In another topsy-turvy turn of events, Mahmoud Abbas is supporting the Egyptian move, as the Elder of Ziyon reports:

Now, this means that Egypt will once again be enforcing a blockade on Gaza. People will not be able to leave Gaza for medical, educational or professional reasons. This is what would be characterized as “collective punishment” if done by Israel..

Egypt, by any yardstick, is treating Palestinians in Gaza worse than Israel is. Israel has not closed the Erez crossings and hundred of truckloads of materials go to Gaza every weekday from Israel.

But how does Mahmoud Abbas respond to Egypt’s latest moves to enforce a crippling siege on Gaza?

He supports them!

After Sisi’s speech, Abbas said “We stand by Egypt’s leadership, government and people, and we support all measures to be taken by the Egyptian leadership in order to maintain security and stability in Egypt in the face of terrorism in the Sinai and all the Egyptian territories, because of the service of the Palestinian cause and the Arab national security.”

Abbas praised the Egyptian position as being “courageous in the face of terrorism,” saying he has great confidence that Egypt will overcome the enemy.

How’s that for hypocrisy?

He probably learned the hypocrisy from the Americans. Or taught it to them.

Flag of Azerbaijan

 

In another subject of interest regarding Israel’s changing alliances, the Algemeiner has a report from the Muslim world is that Azerbaijan is becoming one of Israel’s emerging Muslim-majority allies in place of Turkey which has become one of our fiercest opponents:

But now, along comes Azerbaijan—the world’s first Muslim-majority democracy, which is fast taking the place of Turkey in becoming a crucial ally of Israel in the Muslim world. It’s no surprise that of all Muslim-majority countries, Azerbaijan would fill the void. Like Turkey before Erdoğan, Azerbaijan has proudly and sometimes aggressively reinforced its secular society, banning the hijab (veil) in schools.

In a gathering with the Jewish community held in the Washington, D.C. area last month, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the United States, Elin Suleymanov, recoiled from the criticism his country received from the U.S. and others for its tough line on maintaining its secularism. “We are criticized because our girls are not forced to wear the hijab, and this is the worst problem in the Middle East?” he said.

…

To date, Israel’s relationship with Azerbaijan has taken an almost identical trajectory as its early ties to Turkey. As it had with Ankara, Israel has steadily ratcheted up defense ties with Baku. Last month, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon visited Azerbaijan, one of a number of such recent defense-oriented visits.

As it had with Turkey, Israel has established a vital economic lifeline to Azerbaijan, which provides the Jewish state with 40 percent of its imported oil.

As with Israeli-Turkish relations, bilateral ties between the two countries signal Azerbaijan’s desire to strengthen its connections to the U.S. and the West. The country has become an invaluable NATO supply line to Afghanistan and has joined NATO war efforts.

When much of the rest of the world interrupted flights to Israel during the conflict with Hamas last summer, Azerbaijan continued flying.

…

Undoubtedly, Israel sees the tremendous potential in its relationship with Azerbaijan, as does Azerbaijan with Israel. American supporters of Israel must do their part to reinforce that relationship in Washington. As was discovered with Turkey, Muslim-majority allies don’t grow on trees.

Indeed. And not only Muslim-majority allies. It seems that Western liberal democratic allies not only do not grow on trees, the ones that have grown seem to be dying and falling like shrivelled leaves.

Israel needs to focus on its own interests and if an ally turns against us, we must learn to stand on our own two feet, besides finding other allies.

A good example of coping with negative fallout: It turns out that during Operation Protective Edge the Americans really did block not only shipments of Hellfire missiles to Israel, but a lot more than that:

The Obama administration stopped shipping to Israel all defense items – and not just Hellfire missiles as previously reported – for a short time in the middle of the war against Hamas, reported Israel Defense’s Amir Rappaport, the well-informed and highly credibly editor of the website.

Makor Rishon added to that report that the US actually cut off all communications with Israel’s Ministry of Defense purchasing offices in the US for days.

In response, Israel is now looking to produce its own weapons so as not to be reliant on fair-weather friends in the future:

The Defense Ministry, now realizing it cannot always depend on the Obama administration in a time of crisis, already has decided under a “veil of secrecy,” according to Israel Defense, to manufacture a highly sensitive weapon in Israel instead of buying it from the United States.

The change in policy is a major step that would wean Israel away from dependence on the United States and which also would be a significant change in the policy of buying American-made weapons with most financial assistance from the United States.

American aid to countries, including Israel, usually is conditioned on a majority of the money being poured back into the American military-industrial complex.

“The Israeli defense establishment will reduce the production of weapon systems in the USA in the context of joint Israeli-American projects, and will rely more heavily on Israeli-made products” as a result of the punitive action taken by President Barack Obama, Rappaport wrote.

…

The ministry also is examining the possibility of using Israel-made precision guided air-to-surface munition to replace Hellfire missiles, a project that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions.

The American decision is cutting off their nose to spite their face, since their military aid to Israel is spent mostly in the US itself, providing jobs and income. But if that’s how they want to play it, Israel too can play the game.

Except that for us it’s not a game. It’s an existential matter of life and death.

Categories: Israel, Palestinians, Kerry, Middle East, Obama, Terrorism
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Israel’s Security and Unintended Consequences

October 23, 2014

Israel’s Security and Unintended Consequences, Gatestone Institute, Richard Kemp, October 26, 2014

(Please see also Terror attack by vehicle in Jerusalem – 3-month old baby killed — DM)

Would General Allen — or any other general today — recommend contracting out his country’s defenses if it were his country at stake? Of course not.

The Iranian regime remains dedicated to undermining and ultimately destroying the State of Israel. The Islamic State also has Israel in its sights and would certainly use the West Bank as a point from which to attack, if it were open to them.

There can be no two-state solution and no sovereign Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan, however desirable those things might be. The stark military reality is that Israel cannot withdraw its forces from the West Bank.

Fatah leaders ally themselves with the terrorists of Hamas, and, like Hamas, they continue to reject the every existence of the State of Israel.

If Western leaders actually want to help, they should use all diplomatic and economic means to make it clear to the Palestinians that they will never achieve an independent and sovereign state while they remain set on the destruction of the State of Israel.

When in 1942 American General Douglas MacArthur took command of the defense of Australia against imminent Japanese invasion, one of the plans he rejected was to withdraw and fight behind the Brisbane line, a move that would have given large swathes of territory to the Japanese.

Instead, he adopted a policy of forward defense: advancing northwards out of Australia to attack the Japanese on the island of New Guinea. MacArthur then went on to play a pivotal role in the defeat of the Japanese empire.

At the end of last year, during the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations involving U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, another extremely able and widely respected American General, John Allen, drew up a plan progressively to withdraw Israeli forces from the West Bank and hand over Israel’s forward defense to a combination of Palestinian Arab forces, international monitors and technology.

Given the range of existential threats emanating from, or through, the West Bank today, known and unknown threats that will develop tomorrow, and the exceptional geographical vulnerability of the State of Israel, such a proposal is blatantly untenable. No other country would take risks with the lives of its people and the integrity of its territory by contracting out their defenses in this way — nor should it.

753General Douglas MacArthur (left) strongly believed in forward defense. General John Allen (right) also believes in forward defense — but for U.S. forces only, not for the Israel’s military defending its borders.

Britain, for example, where no such existential threats exist, even refuses to adopt the EU’s Schengen arrangements, which would hand over the security of UK borders to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Spain, Italy and its other European neighbors. It is a long-standing opt-out that looks wiser by the day as international jihadist aggression against the West increases.

General MacArthur would never have recommended the “Allen Plan.” MacArthur, however, was not then under the same political pressure as General Allen. If he had been, he would have repulsed it. In 1934, as Army Chief of Staff, he argued against President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s intention to cut drastically the Army’s budget with such vehemence that he vomited on the steps of the White House as he was leaving.

Would General Allen – or any other general today – recommend a similar plan to his own president, if it were not Israel’s security, but the security of the United States, that was at stake? Of course he would not.

Indeed, U.S. generals unsuccessfully argued the opposite course of action when U.S. President Barack Obama decided on a total withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in 2011, a move that made inevitable the resurgence of large-scale violent jihad.

General Allen is now leading the American and allied forward defensive operations against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq [ISIS]. In the face of what he has defined as a “clear and present danger to the US,” he is not recommending withdrawal of American forces back into the continental United States and reliance on Arab forces, peacekeepers and technology to protect U.S. interests. The reverse, in fact, is true.

The reverse is also true for the forward defensive operations of the U.S. and its Western allies against violent jihad in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia and elsewhere. All are significant threats to the West, yet none is as immediate and dangerous as the threat to Israel from an undefended West Bank.

Despite the determination of so many in the West erroneously to view the Israel-Palestine conflict as a mere territorial dispute that could be settled if only the so-called “occupation” ended, the forward defensive measures necessary for other Western nations are necessary for Israel as well. The stark military reality is that Israel cannot withdraw its forces from the West Bank — either now or at any point in the foreseeable future.

For those willing to see with clarity and speak with honesty, that conclusion has been obvious for many years. It is even more obvious, perhaps, for leaders with direct responsibility — such as General MacArthur had in Australia in 1942 — than for those who do not have to live with the consequences of their actions — such as General Allen in Israel in 2013.

Recent events have made this reality even more certain. Through incessant rocket fire and the construction of a sophisticated tunnel system to abduct and massacre Israeli civilians on a large scale, Hamas has just delivered another powerful object lesson in the consequences of IDF withdrawal.

Fatah leaders may take a somewhat different stance for international consumption, but they ally themselves with the proscribed terrorists of Hamas. And, like Hamas, in reality they continue to reject the very existence of the State of Israel. They apparently continue to want only a one-state solution: Arab rule from the river to the sea, with the ethnic cleansing of the Jews that would follow.

They are consistently encouraged in this intent, both wittingly and unwittingly, by Western nations, particularly in Europe. Not least by Sweden’s commitment in September to support a unilateral Palestinian state, the UK Parliament’s recent vote for the same thing, and similar moves across Europe that are likely in the coming weeks and months.

Especially with such encouragement, there is no possibility that Palestinian Arab political leaders’ rejection of the Jewish State will modify in the foreseeable future. The launch pad that an IDF-free West Bank would provide for attacks against Israel is so dangerous it makes even Gaza look about as threatening as Switzerland.

The external threats are at least as serious as those from within the West Bank. Despite the wishful thinking of many Western leaders and the alluring grins from Tehran, the Iranian regime remains dedicated to undermining and ultimately destroying the State of Israel. By funding and fomenting violence, Iran’s leadership will continue to exploit the Palestinian Arab populations in both Gaza and the West Bank to these ends.

Those who are currently arguing for Israeli military withdrawal from the West Bank and the establishment of a sovereign state must have missed the war General Allen is fighting against the Islamic State [IS] and their jihadist bedfellows across the border in Syria. The Islamic State also has Israel in its sights and would certainly use the West Bank as a point from which to attack, if it were open to them. In the hands of international monitors and Palestinian Arab forces, the West Bank would be wide open to them.

We have only to look at the reaction to aggression of almost all international peacekeepers over the decades to know they would not last five minutes. And we have only to look at the performance of the battle-hardened Syrian and Iraqi armies when confronted by Islamic State fighters to know how long Palestinian Arab forces would withstand such aggression, whether by infiltration or frontal assault.

Whatever happens to the Islamic State in the future, this resurgent Islamist belligerence is not a flash in the pan. On the contrary, it has been building for decades, and President Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and other world leaders acknowledge it as a generational struggle.

This means that for Israel, as far as the West Bank is concerned, both the enemy within and the enemy without are here to stay. And if the IDF has no choice but to remain in the West Bank to defend Israel, there can be no two state solution and no sovereign Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan, however desirable those things might be.

Nor can there be a one-state solution with democratic rights for all because that would spell the end of the one and only democratic and Jewish state and the beginning of a new autocracy and the next exodus of the Jews.

For those who do not want that to happen, the harsh reality is continuation of the status quo. But the status quo can be significantly improved, by gradual and progressive increases to PA autonomy in the West Bank, to the point where a state exists in virtually all aspects other than military security. That progress can only be achieved through low-key bilateral negotiations with concessions from both sides. It cannot be achieved by Kerry-like peace processes that demand big sweeping strokes to deliver groundbreaking, legacy-delivering announcements.

Nor can such progress be achieved in the face of a Western world that reflexively condemns every move Israel makes and encourages the Palestinian Arabs to believe that the fantasy of a two-state solution or a one-state solution on their terms can become a reality in the foreseeable future.

As so often in the paradoxical world of geopolitics, the well-meaning actions and words of national leaders and international organizations have unintended consequences. For the Israel-Palestine situation, the unintended consequences of Western actions are to deprive Palestinian Arabs of increased freedom and prosperity and to undermine the security of the only stable, liberal democratic state in the Middle East. If the West actually wants to help, its leaders need to face up to this unpalatable truth rather than continue to delude the Palestinian people as well as themselves.

Instead, Western leaders should use all available diplomatic and economic means to make it clear to the Palestinians that they will never achieve an independent and sovereign state while they remain set on the destruction of the State of Israel and while they continue to brainwash future generations to believe in that goal.

Categories: Fatah, Hamas, IDF, Islamic jihad, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Jihad, juden ist verboten, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama, Two state solution
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What The “Two State Solution” Has to Do with the Rise of Islamic Extremism: Zero

October 20, 2014

What The “Two State Solution” Has to Do with the Rise of Islamic Extremism: Zero, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, October 20, 2014

(How about the “one state solution” satirically proposed by Andrew Klavan in 2011?

Nope, that makes more sense but wouldn’t work either. — DM)

The “Arab Spring” did not erupt as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, it was the outcome of decades of tyranny and corruption in the Arab world. The Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans and Yemenis who removed their dictators from power did not do so because of the lack of a “two-state solution.” This is the last thing they had in mind.

The thousands of Muslims who are volunteering to join the Islamic State [IS] are not doing so because they are frustrated with the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The only solution the Islamic State believes in is a Sunni Islamic Caliphate where the surviving non-Muslims who are not massacred would be subject to sharia law.

What Kerry perhaps does not know is that the Islamic State is not interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all. Unlike Kerry, Sunni scholars fully understand that the Islamic State has more to do with Islam and terrorism than with any other conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim that the lack of a “two-state solution” has fueled the rise of the Islamic State [IS] terrorist group reinforces how clueless the U.S. Administration is about what is happening in the Arab and Islamic countries.

Speaking at a State Department ceremony marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Kerry said that the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians was vital in the fight against Islamic extremism, including Islamic State.

749‘Forget ISIS… let’s talk more about a Palestinian state.’ Above, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry greets U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities Shaarik Zafar during an Eid al-Adha reception on Oct. 16, 2014 at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. (Image source: State Dept.)

“There wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation,”Kerry said. “People need to understand the connection of that. And it has something to do with the humiliation and denial and absence of dignity.”

The U.S. State Department later denied that Kerry had made the statement attributed to him.

Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters that Kerry’s comments were distorted for political gains; she pointed a finger at Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett.

“What [Kerry] said was that during his travels to build a coalition against the Islamic State, he was told that should the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be resolved, the Middle East would be a better place,” Harf explained.

The Islamic State is one of the by-products of the “Arab Spring,” which began as a secular revolt against Arab dictatorships and degenerated into anarchy, lawlessness, terrorism and massacres that have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims.

The “Arab Spring” did not erupt as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, it was the natural and inevitable outcome of decades of tyranny and corruption in the Arab world.

The Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans and Yemenis who removed their dictators from power did not do so because of the lack of a “two-state solution.”

Nor did the Arabs revolt because of the failure of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. This is the last thing these Arabs had in mind when they took to the streets to protest against decades of dictatorship and bad government.

It is this “Arab Spring,” and not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt. And it is the same “Arab Spring” that saw the emergence of Islamic terror groups such as the Al-Nusra Front, the Islamic Front, the Army of Mujahedeen, Jund al-Sham and, most recently, the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

The rise of the Islamic State is a direct result of the anarchy and extremism that have been sweeping the Arab and Islamic countries over the past few years.

The thousands of Muslims who are volunteering to join Islamic State are not doing so because they are frustrated with the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. They are not knocking on the Islamic State’s doors because they are disappointed that the two-state solution has not materialized.

Kerry is anyway naïve to think that the jihadis believe in something called a “two-state” solution. The only solution the Islamic State believes in is the one that would lead to the establishment of a radical Sunni Islamic Caliphate across the Middle East where the surviving non-Muslims who are not massacred would be subject to sharia law.

Not only is the Islamic State opposed to the “two-state solution,” it is also opposed to the existence of both Israel and a Palestinian state. Under the new Islamic Caliphate, there is no room for Israel or Palestine or any of the Arab and Islamic countries.

Had Kerry studied the goals and ideology of the Islamic State, he would have discovered that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not even at the top of the group’s list of priorities.

In fact, the “liberation of Bait al-Maqdis” [Jerusalem] is ranked sixth among Islamic State’s objectives.

The group’s first goal envisages stirring chaos in the Arab and Islamic countries.

Second, the group will move on to what it calls “management of savagery” in these countries.

Third, Islamic State will embark on the process of establishing an Islamic Caliphate.

Fourth, it will proceed with “liberating neighboring countries and expanding the size of the Islamic Caliphate.

Fifth, the group will start the process of “liberating the Islamic countries,” including Bait al-Maqdis.

Obviously, Kerry must have missed the speech delivered by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last July.

Al-Baghdadi did not talk about the “two-state solution.” Nor did he call on Muslims to join his group because of the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Instead, al-Baghdadi told his followers that, “Allah likes us to kill his enemies, and make jihad for his sake. O Allah, give Islam victory over the disbelief and the disbelievers, and give victory to the mujahideen, in the East of this earth and its West.”

What Kerry perhaps does not know is that the Islamic State is not interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all. The terrorist group did not even bother to comment on the last military confrontation between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The failure of the Islamic State to express solidarity with the Palestinians or Hamas during the war drew strong condemnations from some of the Arab world’s leading columnists.

“What is shocking and strange is that the Islamic State and other terrorist groups that claim to speak on behalf of Islam did not make a single move as Israeli planes were shelling civilians inside the Gaza Strip,” remarked Egyptian columnist Jamil al-Afifi. “Nor did any of their wise men come out to condemn the ruthless killings (in the Gaza Strip).

Kerry did not reveal the identity of the “leaders” who told him that the absence of peace between Israel and the Palestinians was a “cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation” in the Arab and Islamic countries.

What is clear, however, is that Sunni scholars do not seem to share Kerry’s assessment.

Last month, over 120 Sunni scholars issued an open letter denouncing the Islamic State and its religious arguments. “You have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder,” the letter said. “This is a great wrong and an offence to Islam, to Muslims and to the entire world.”

Needless to say, the scholars did not mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a cause for the rise of Islamic State.

That is because unlike Kerry, the Sunni scholars know that the Islamic State is completely unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And unlike Kerry, the Muslim scholars fully understand that Islamic State has more to do with Islam and terrorism than with any other conflict.

Categories: Islamic State, Israel, Kerry, Obama, Two state solution
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John Kerry’s Dangerous Worldview

October 19, 2014

John Kerry’s Dangerous Worldview, Israellycool, Mirabelle, October 19, 2014

(Please watch the Kerry video at the bottom, or at least the part about Israel, “Palestine” and world peace beginning at 11:20. The world is probably not completely insane — yet: Kerry did not blame Israel or the Jews for the Holocaust and World War II. — DM)

Kerry’s scapegoating of Israel has become a dangerous pattern, one that is indicative of a worldview that underlies his behavior and his decisions with respect to the Jewish State.

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The operative question for the US State Department now appears to be, is there anything left that John Kerry won’t blame on the Jews?

Earlier this year, the Secretary of State famously sat before Congress and blamed Israel for the failure of the peace talks that he pushed so hard for, even though, as was subsequently revealed, it was Kerry’s own miscommunications that doomed the talks from the start. Prior to that, he had implied that if a third intifada started, it would be Israel’s doing. Now it seems that, at a State Department event for the festival of Eid al-Adha onThursday, Kerry has blamed Israel for the rise of ISIS.

Kerry’s pronouncement calls to mind this satire piece from PreOccupied Territory, titled “Free Will Is Only For White People,” and “attributed” to Kerry’s former right-hand man and Qatar-stooge Martin Indyk:

Since Arabs, as nonwhites, lack free will, the only ethical method of achieving change is to demand concessions from Israel. A society or individual with genuine volition and sense of right and wrong could be held accountable for translating political grievances into the bombings of cafes and buses, but that is not how we, or our European allies, view the Palestinians. They have no choice but to resort to brutality, since that is their nature.

Satire. Except, it’s not. Kerry’s various statements about the peace talks, Palestinian terrorism, or ISIS all remove the agency of the actors involved. The individuals who join ISIS — at least those who are adults and not teenagers — do so of their own accord. They have agency, and they alone are responsible for their own actions. Kerry would never excuse the actions of a rapist on the ground that he had been provoked or led on by his victim. He should never justify the actions of the most depraved terrorists on the ground that they have a political gripe.

Taking this mentality a step further and making the claim that Israel’s actions towards the Palestinians have anything to do with the rise of ISIS requires a logical leap into the absurd. Kerry claimed that “there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation.” Even setting aside the issue of holding individuals to account for their own actions, one still must wonder, why Kerry would take such assertions at face value. ISIS directs its jihad against Christians, Yazidis, Kurds, and other Muslims but, somewhat surprisingly, it has not attacked Israel. If Israel were the source of ISIS rage, wouldn’t ISIS have attacked Israel? ISIS’s gripe, however, is with all of western society, not with Israel. And it recruits from Europe and the US, as well as from the Mideast. The suggestion that Israel has caused ISIS makes about as much sense as the suggestion that Israel has caused global warming. There simply is no cause-and-effect relationship.

The State Department’s division of black-is-white-and-day-is-night, in the person of Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf, has of course attempted to walk back Kerry’s comments, saying, Kerry “didn’t make a link between growth of ISIL and Israel, period.” But this is not a case of he said, she said, and it is not a case of misplaced context. Kerry’s entire speech is on theState Department website for anyone to see:

As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL coalition, the truth is we – there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt – and I see a lot of heads nodding – they had to respond to. And people need to understand theconnection of that.

Doofus

That is to say, that in the context of discussions regarding ISIL/ISIS, other Arab leaders raised the issue of the Palestinians, and Kerry feels that people need to understand the connection. To say that this is not an attempt to link ISIS to the Palestinian issue is the most obfuscatory double-speak. For those who have the stomach for it, you can watch the video yourself, embedded below. The relevant comments start at about 11:20. Note the way that Kerry uses hand gestures for extra emphasis when he says “understand the connection.”

Kerry’s scapegoating of Israel has become a dangerous pattern, one that is indicative of a worldview that underlies his behavior and his decisions with respect to the Jewish State. Although Jeff Goldberg wrote persuasively in 2013 that “the past two years have proved the theory of linkage [i.e., the theory that the Mideast would be stable if the Israeli-Palestiniandispute were solved] to be comprehensively false,” Kerry appears unwilling to move on from it and to accept a more reality-based perspective. It is no wonder, then, that his actions in the Mideast have been, to put it kindly, ineffective.

In the same speech, Kerry also spoke about introspection on the Muslim and Jewish holidays. It seems that Kerry would benefit from some introspection of his own. In doing so, he might consider that, had he not been so obsessively focused on Israel and its real or perceived failings, he might have woken up to the ISIS threat sooner. He might also consider his own department’s definition of anti-semitism: “Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, the state of Israel, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.” Kerry’s scapegoating of Israel for his own failures and for those of others is one of the most traditional forms of anti-Semitism around.

 

Categories: Gaza, Hamas, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Palestinians, Jewish occupation of Israel, Kerry, Middle East, Obama, Syria, Terrorism
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Congress Calls for Investigation into VOA for Pro-Iran Corruption

October 18, 2014

Congress Calls for Investigation into VOA for Pro-Iran Corruption, Washington Free Beacon, , October 17, 2014

(Surprise! Not. — DM)

Hassan RouhaniHassan Rouhani / AP

“Regrettably, while VOA-PNN has given voice to the pro-Tehran crowd inside the Beltway, it has censored the views of those who seek a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear republic in Iran,” Sadeghpour said in a statement provided to the Free Beacon.

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

Congress is calling for an investigation into Voice of America’s (VOA) Persian language news service as a result of what they say is the station’s systemic pro-Iran bias and cozy ties to the anti-American ruling regime, according to a letter sent recently to Secretary of State John Kerry.

Lawmakers and Iranian dissidents have long accused VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) of producing sympathetic coverage of the Iranian regime and blacklisting prominent Iranian opposition voices from appearing on the air.

The call from Congress for an investigation into these alleged practices comes just a month after the Washington Free Beacon revealed that PNN had banned from the network a prominent Iranian opposition member and placed him on a so-called “black list” after he attacked Iran’s ruling regime for sponsoring terrorism.

Nine House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are now demanding that the State Department launch a formal investigation into potential mismanagement at PNN, according to a letter sent to Kerry on Wednesday and obtained by the Free Beacon.

“We request that you [Kerry] look into this matter and investigate any possible mismanagement and slanted coverage of news by VOA-PNN, including the oversight of management, staffing, and content,” the lawmakers wrote.

Those members concerned about PNN’s coverage include Reps. Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.), Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.), Steve Stockman (R., Texas), Trent Franks (R., Ariz.), Howard Coble (R., N.C.), and several others.

The lawmakers say that their Iranian-American constituents have been complaining about PNN’s failure to cover Iran’s human rights abuses and other matters that are potentially embarrassing to the ruling regime.

“We have received complaints from our Iranian-American constituents that VOA-PNN programs have neglected to adequately cover the abysmal situation of human rights violations in Iran, particularly the alarming and dramatic rise in executions,” they write in the letter.

“During [Iranian] President Hassan Rouhani’s first term in office, nearly 900 hangings have been ordered with very few of these executions receiving VOA-PNN coverage,” they say. “In our efforts to protect and give voice to vulnerable populations, we must ensure that VOA-PNN upholds its mission to provide truthful news and does not suppress the voices of those Iranians seeking human rights protections and Democratic change in their country.”

In addition to a significant rise in executions, including one scheduled for a female rape victim who spoke out against her attacker, Iran has continued its pursuit of nuclear weapons and support for terrorism in the Middle East.

PNN critics, including former staffers and guests, have discussed systematic corruption at the network that includes a policy of censoring those who criticize the regime and those who may reveal information damaging to the network’s senior officials, some of whom have had ties to the Iranian regime.

“We are concerned that this network, which is meant to promote freedom and democracy through objective news and information, may have harmed instead of helped the plight of Iranians seeking to claim their human rights,” the lawmakers state in their letter.

Iranian-American community leaders welcomed Congress’ call to investigate PNN.

Majid Sadeghpour, political director of the Organization of Iranian-American Communities-US (OIAC), said that U.S. taxpayers expect better of VOA.

“Regrettably, while VOA-PNN has given voice to the pro-Tehran crowd inside the Beltway, it has censored the views of those who seek a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear republic in Iran,” Sadeghpour said in a statement provided to the Free Beacon.

Regime opponents who have been invited onto PNN say that their comments have been censored, and in some cases they have been thrown off the air.

Nikahang Kowsar, an Iranian cartoonist, journalist, and regime critic, told the Free Beacon that he was booted off PNN’s airwaves in March in the midst of an interview for discussing corruption in Iran’s oil industry that could be traced back to high-level officials.

Kowsar was being interviewed on VOA Persian’s Last Page program when the host was apparently ordered to cease the interview.

“I was waiting for the second round of questions” when a PNN host claimed that “he was told and ordered not to ask any more questions to me,” recalled Kowsar. “Then a gentleman from the studio came and disconnected my microphone.”

Kowsar said he was shocked by the experience. He later petitioned the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees VOA and PNN, about the incident.

“When I was in Iran I went to prison for drawing a cartoon, I was cut off from national TV … I was censored in Iran, so somebody who has been censored inside the Islamic republic is not news. But being in the VOA studios in the U.S., the land of the free, and then learning that I have to be censored is … news.”

“If VOA is the channel that wants to talk about American values and freedom of speech and is run by people who have the Islamic republic mindset, that’s not nice,” Kowsar said.  “In a way you see that the Islamic republic has exported its values to the heart of Washington and I can’t tolerate that.”

In September—a few months after Kowsar was booted off air—Majid Mohammadi, an Iranian-American academic and critic of Tehran’s hardline regime, was purportedly placed on the station’s “black list” for comparing the Islamic Republic to the terror group Islamic State (IS, ISIS, or ISIL).

“After the program, I was called and one of the staff members of PNN (Mr. Homan Bakhtiar) told me that Mr. Mohammad Manzarpour, the editor, has put me in the black list and PNN will no longer contact me for providing my expertise on Middle East issues in VOA Persian programs,” Mohammadi later wrote in a letter to the BBG.

PNN editor Manzarpour has been singled out for particular criticism by several of the station’s critics and even former employees who have worked with him.

Manzarpour, they allege, has had ties to the Iranian regime and uses his platform at PNN to censor information he finds objectionable.

Manzarpour, his critics note, has previously worked for Iran’s Atieh Bahar Consulting company, which helps foreign companies invest in Iran’s oil sector and “acts as intermediary between them and the government,” according to the Iranian American Forum.

Manzarpour’s previous ties to Atieh Bahar could influence his editorial decisions at PNN, Kowsar said.

“There is something wrong over there, a virus,” Kowsar explained. “You feel there is a sort of conflict of interest over there. Why should somebody coming from Atieh Bahar be in charge of the editorial staff over there?”

“When he cuts me off from a program relating somehow to the oil [industry] … you feel something sketchy over there,” he said.

Setareh Derakhshesh, the director of the VOA-PNN, admitted to the Free Beacon last month that the network has had issues and that she is working to rectify the appearance of a pro-Iran bias.

“We are very well aware [of the issues] that VOA Persian had,” she said at the time. “We have actually rebranded” in recent years and are “aware of the bad press and infighting and the one sidedness.”

However, VOA Persian has “turned a corner and made changes,” she said. “We still have a long way to go but we know we are improving.”

Categories: Iran, Iranian nukes, Kerry, Voice of America
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Defense Department fights global warming with courage and determination

October 16, 2014

Defense Department fights global warming with courage and determination, Dan Miller’s Blog, October 16, 2014

It’s the greatest threat of all time. Aside from Ebola, the DUH DOD has little else to do. According to the Daily Pest Beast, nurses fight Ebola more bravely than members of our military, so only 4,000 of our bravest and best boots on the ground are being ordered to Africa to fight it. Although the (non-Islamic) Islamic State is a bit of a nuisance now that Al-Qaeda is on the run, whatever we say or do about it might defame Islam. Since that would be “as bad as rape,” we must not do it.

Fantasy Island Obama

We have much to learn from Secretary Kerry, even beyond the horrors of man-caused climate change, which has not manifested itself during the past eighteen years or so but might someday. Or might not. For example, Kerry recently called on his vast wisdom to tell us that defaming Islam is as bad as rape. It’s a bit confusing, but there are probably two possibilities: (1) he was defending the Religion of Beheading, Rape, Pillage, Genocide, Sharia Law and Slaughter in General Peace yet again, or (2) he was trying to diminish “rape” and “microaggression” so that feminists would focus more on highlighting all of the horrors of the Republican War on Women with equal vigor and harshness.

In the recent past, our fair, honest and objective news media constantly researched and reported stuff with extraordinary competence, if not honesty. Surely, by now they have taken Andrew Klavan’s advice and become less stupid and corrupt.

Since they still consistently tell us that most Muslims are “moderate” and merely engage is a bit of normal workplace violence now and then, we don’t have to worry about them despite this hatefully Islamophobic and therefore racist nonsense:

Please see also, In Search of the ‘Moderate Islamists’.

Modeate Muslim

As all right left thinking people know, here is no valid reason why the truly moderate Islamic Republic of Iran should not have nuclear weapons. It tells us, repeatedly, that it neither has nor wants them and, in any event, won’t use them unless it wants to. Accordingly, we and the rest of P5+1 under Obama’s corrageous leadership will say, “OK that’s cool.”

Probably, most Islamists are harmless fruitcakes and we should try to get along better. We just need to try harder, that’s all.

Categories: Iran, Iraq, Islamic State, Islamism, Kerry, Middle East, Obama, Syria, U.S. Military
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Not Satire: Kerry: Defaming Islam is as Bad as Rape

October 15, 2014

Kerry: Defaming Islam is as Bad as Rape, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 15, 2014

(Defamation: “the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.” Is Kerry “defaming” Islam with his false statements, or is he getting into the “war on women” by minimizing rape?– DM)

Kerry whispering

[T]he Islamic State is not insulting Islam. Its religious scholars know Islam far better than a scholar of windsurfing like Kerry does. Kerry released a press release in response to an ISIS magazine explaining the Islamic basis for their actions.

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The Islamic State is Un-Islamic. But so is Islam.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry harshly condemned the treatment of women by the arch-terrorist organized death squad known as ISIS.

Kerry is horrified that ISIS “takes credit for the abduction, enslavement, rape, forced marriage and sale of several thousand Yezidi and other minority women and girls.”

“Just as despicably, ISIL rationalizes its abhorrent treatment of these women and girls by claiming it is somehow sanctioned by religion. Wrong. Dead wrong.”

“ISIL does not represent Islam and Islam does not condone or honor such depravity. In fact, these actions are a reminder that ISIL is an enemy of Islam.”

I don’t really see that ISIS’ supposed defamation of Islam is as bad as rape. Western elites are stuck in permanent hysteria over supposed Islamophobia, but the sale and rape of women and girls is a lot worse than any supposed insult to Islam.

Furthermore the Islamic State is not insulting Islam. Its religious scholars know Islam far better than a scholar of windsurfing like Kerry does. Kerry released a press release in response to an ISIS magazine explaining the Islamic basis for their actions.

If Kerry were really capable of debating the issue, he would have responded with citations from the Koran instead of hot air.

Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, enslaved and raped women. He married and raped a little girl. These facts are not in dispute.

His companions seized and looted property as well as people. Mohammed pocketed a percentage of the things they stole and the people. The women were raped. Sometimes he chose to marry them if they converted to Islam to get some control over the sexual violence that the earliest followers of Islam had subjected them to.

ISIS is pure Islam. It’s naked Islam. It’s Islam as it was practiced by Mohammed and his followers.

“We conquered Khaibar, took the captives, and the booty was collected. Dihya came and said, ‘O Allah’s Prophet! Give me a slave girl from the captives.’ The Prophet said, ‘Go and take any slave girl.’ He took Safiya bint Huyai. A man came to the Prophet and said, ‘O Allah’s Apostles! You gave Safiya bint Huyai to Dihya and she is the chief mistress of the tribes of Quraiza and An-Nadir and she befits none but you.’ So the Prophet said, ‘Bring him along with her.’ So Dihya came with her and when the Prophet saw her, he said to Dihya, ‘Take any slave girl other than her from the captives.’

Bukhari: 1:8:367

When Dihyah protested, wanting to keep Safiyah for himself, the Apostle traded for Safiyah by giving Dihyah her two cousins. The women of Khaybar were distributed among the Muslims.

Ishaq:511

Categories: Islam, Islamic State, Kerry
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