Iran Prepares Militarily And Politically Vis-à-vis Trump Administration: Strategic Alliance With Russia, Dragging Israel Into War With Hizbullah, Palestinians

Posted March 4, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Iran and Russia, Trump and Iran
Tags: ,

Iran Prepares Militarily And Politically Vis-à-vis Trump Administration: Strategic Alliance With Russia, Dragging Israel Into War With Hizbullah, Palestinians, MEMRI, March 3, 2017

(The footnote suggests that the article may not reflect the views of the Iranian regime. — DM)

On February 21, 2017, the Iranian reformist news agency Amadnews reported on information from a military source in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) about preparations being made by the Iranian leadership following President Donald Trump’s threats against Iran.[1] According to this IRGC source, the Iranian leadership had accepted a recommendation to ally strategically with Russia so that Russia would defend Iran in the event of a U.S. military attack on it. In exchange for the Russian defense umbrella, the Iranian officials had recommended to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that Iran grant Russia extensive economic and military privileges, in the form of concessions for the oil fields in southern Iran, as well as access to the Persian Gulf – which would give Russia control of Iran’s ports, and profits that would compensate it for the U.S. sanctions against it. An additional recommendation, which is already being implemented, is reviving the battlefront against Israel by means of Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Palestinian resistance organizations in Gaza and the West Bank, to keep Israel busy fighting and keep the Trump administration focused on Israel, not on Iran.

At the end of the report,  Amadnews underlined the price that Iran would have to pay for the implementation of these recommendations, and noted that they constitute an explicit contradiction of the goals of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and of the legacy of revolution founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini, it said, had insisted that Iran follow neither the U.S. nor the then-Soviet Union – that is, that it be independent of both of them.

6811aAmadnews.com, February 21, 2017.

The following is the translation of the Amadnews.com article.

“A knowledgeable military source told Amadnews that at secret consultation meetings aimed at deciding on how Iran should confront the threats by the new American president Donald Trump, the decision makers in Iran spoke about serious decisions that contradict [Iran’s] national interests.

“According to this knowledgeable source, many meetings were held, under the title ‘How To Respond To The Threats of The New American President,’ and the conclusions were sent to the Leader [Khamenei]. The decision makers discussed a big question: Is it possible to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Iran? And if the answer is no, how can Iran respond in a way that will reduce the increasing threats by America – threats that can turn into an extensive military confrontation?

“Political, security, and military experts expressed their opinion [at the meetings] and determined that the decision makers in Iran should not deal with reopening the U.S. Embassy in Iran or with normalizing relations with [the U.S.]. Instead, Iran should deepen its strategic ties with Russia, such that in the event of an extensive war, Russia will defend Iran from American threats. According to this report [to Khamenei], there are many ways to deepen Iran-Russia ties: At these meetings, a strategic alliance with Russia was recommended, and three important recommendations were presented to the Leader.

“This team of experts’ first recommendation was to grant Russia a permit for development, concessions, and production in the oil fields and wells of southern Iran. This recommendation will bring Russia annual profits of over $50 billion, at least, which can save it from economic crises stemming from the American sanctions against it because of the Crimea issue.

“The second recommendation is to realize Russia’s decades-old dream of access to free waters. This team proposed giving Russia access to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, so that if America attacks Iran, Russia will be able to defend Iran against the mighty sea and land strength of America.

“For over a century, Russia has sought access to the ‘warm waters’ of the Persian Gulf, but Iran has refrained from allowing Russia to do this, for fear of Russian infiltration and influence in Iran. If Russia has a Persian Gulf presence, and access to the warm waters of southern Iran, it will take control of southern Iranian ports, and will benefit from increasing economic prosperity despite the severe American sanctions against it.

“The Russians have already been granted the right to use the Noje military base in Hamdan in order to demonstrate [their] military presence in Syria. This right was granted to the Russians by direct order of the Leader [Khamenei] and without the involvement of Iran’s decision-making apparatuses.

“The third recommendation is to involve Israel in a war with Hizbullah, and with the other Palestinian groups, so that it is too busy to discuss [uniting ranks] with other countries worldwide against Iran, and uniting global public opinion against it. A new war between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon, as well as with Palestinian groups, will completely divert global public attention from Iran and focus it on Israel. Such a war could become the focal point of the first four-year term of Donald Trump, and prevent an opportunity to fight Iran.

“Yesterday [February 20], Hizbullah secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave an interview to [Iran’s] official Channel 1 [TV], and the Palestine conference [i.e. the International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada] was held, with the Leader’s attendance. These two things happened because of other recommendations by the team of experts.”

Here, the Amadnews article summarizes the information from the military source, and criticizes the Iranian leadership for deviating from the dictates of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who had clearly outlined a policy of political independence vis-à-vis the Western bloc, led by the U.S., and the eastern bloc, led by the then-Soviet Union. The article then continues:

“In exchange for giving these rights to Russia, the Russians are supposed to make a military commitment such that if there is a war with any country, Russia will remain Iran’s military ally. But there is a big question: If Iran does not become entangled in a war with any country, how will the Russians give Iran back the rights that they have received? Not least that one of the main slogans of the people of the 1979 Revolution and the toppling of the Shah’s regime was ‘Neither East nor West – [Only] The Islamic Republic.'”[2]

____________________________

[1] Amadnews.com was established by journalists who were arrested or threatened during the 2009 Green Revolution, which maintained that the June 2009 presidential election results had been faked. The journalists said that they were continuing the Green Movement by publishing news transparently and acting to expose corruption in the Iranian regime so as to help the people obtain its rights. Amadnews.com/about-us, accessed February 21, 2017.

[2] Amadnews.com, February 21, 2017.

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Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama’s ‘Silent Coup’ vs. Trump

Posted March 4, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: 2016 elections, FISA, Intelligence community, Intelligence leaks, Obama administration and Trump, Trump and Russia, U.S. Congress
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Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama’s ‘Silent Coup’ vs. Trump, Breitbart, Joel B. Pollak, March 3, 2017

obamacanwalkThe Associated Press

In summary: the Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.

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Radio host Mark Levin used his Thursday evening show to outline the known steps taken by President Barack Obama’s administration in its last months to undermine Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and, later, his new administration.

Levin called Obama’s effort “police state” tactics, and suggested that Obama’s actions, rather than conspiracy theories about alleged Russian interference in the presidential election to help Trump, should be the target of congressional investigation.

Drawing on sources including the New York Times and the Washington Post, Levin described the case against Obama so far, based on what is already publicly known. The following is an expanded version of that case, including events that Levin did not mention specifically but are important to the overall timeline.

1. June 2016: FISA request. The Obama administration files a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers. The request, uncharacteristically, is denied.

2. July: Russia joke. Wikileaks releases emails from the Democratic National Committee that show an effort to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from winning the presidential nomination. In a press conference, Donald Trump refers to Hillary Clinton’s own missing emails, joking: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” That remark becomes the basis for accusations by Clinton and the media that Trump invited further hacking.

3. October: Podesta emails. In October, Wikileaks releases the emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, rolling out batches every day until the election, creating new mini-scandals. The Clinton campaign blames Trump and the Russians.

4. October: FISA request. The Obama administration submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. No evidence is found — but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for national security reasons, Andrew McCarthy at National Review later notes. The Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.

5. January 2017: Buzzfeed/CNN dossier. Buzzfeed releases, and CNN reports, a supposed intelligence “dossier” compiled by a foreign former spy. It purports to show continuous contact between Russia and the Trump campaign, and says that the Russians have compromising information about Trump. None of the allegations can be verified and some are proven false. Several media outlets claim that they had been aware of the dossier for months and that it had been circulating in Washington.

6. January: Obama expands NSA sharing. As Michael Walsh later notes, and as the New York Times reports, the outgoing Obama administration “expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.” The new powers, and reduced protections, could make it easier for intelligence on private citizens to be circulated improperly or leaked.

7. January: Times report. The New York Times reports, on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties. Other news outlets also report the exisentence of “a multiagency working group to coordinate investigations across the government,” though it is unclear how they found out, since the investigations would have been secret and involved classified information.

8. February: Mike Flynn scandal. Reports emerge that the FBI intercepted a conversation in 2016 between future National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — then a private citizen — and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The intercept supposedly was  part of routine spying on the ambassador, not monitoring of the Trump campaign. The FBI transcripts reportedly show the two discussing Obama’s newly-imposed sanctions on Russia, though Flynn earlier denied discussing them. Sally Yates, whom Trump would later fire as acting Attorney General for insubordination, is involved in the investigation. In the end, Flynn resigns over having misled Vice President Mike Pence (perhaps inadvertently) about the content of the conversation.

9. February: Times claims extensive Russian contacts. The New York Times cites “four current and former American officials” in reporting that the Trump campaign had “repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials. The Trump campaign denies the claims — and the Times admits that there is “no evidence” of coordination between the campaign and the Russians. The White House and some congressional Republicans begin to raise questions about illegal intelligence leaks.

10. March: the Washington Post targets Jeff Sessions. The Washington Postreports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had contact twice with the Russian ambassador during the campaign — once at a Heritage Foundation event and once at a meeting in Sessions’s Senate office. The Post suggests that the two meetings contradict Sessions’s testimony at his confirmation hearings that he had no contacts with the Russians, though in context (not presented by the Post) it was clear he meant in his capacity as a campaign surrogate, and that he was responding to claims in the “dossier” of ongoing contacts. The New York Times, in covering the story, adds that the Obama White House “rushed to preserve” intelligence related to alleged Russian links with the Trump campaign. By “preserve” it really means “disseminate”: officials spread evidence throughout other government agencies “to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators” and perhaps the media as well.

In summary: the Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.

Levin called the effort a “silent coup” by the Obama administration and demanded that it be investigated.

In addition, Levin castigated Republicans in Congress for focusing their attention on Trump and Attorney General Sessions rather than Obama.

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Obama Admin. Arranged Sessions’ First Meeting with Russian Ambassador, Fmr. DOJ Atty. Reveals

Posted March 4, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Department of State, Jeff Sessions, Obama administration, Republican National Convention, Russian ambassador
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Obama Admin. Arranged Sessions’ First Meeting with Russian Ambassador, Fmr. DOJ Atty. Reveals, CNS News, Craig Bannister, March 3, 2017

sessions2_0

It was actually the Obama Administration that set up Senator Jeff Sessions’ (R-Texas) first meeting with a Russian ambassador last year, which Democrats are attempting to demonize, a former Justice Department attorney reveals.

Attorney Hans A. von Spakovsky, former civil rights counsel for the Justice Department who also served two years as a member of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), lays out the innocuous details of Sessions’ first meeting in his commentary, “Get real, Democrats, there is no good reason for Sessions to resign”:

“So what are the two meetings that Sessions had? The first came at a conference on “Global Partners in Diplomacy,” where Sessions was the keynote speaker. Sponsored by the U.S. State Department, The Heritage Foundation, and several other organizations, it was held in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention.

“The conference was an educational program for ambassadors invited by the Obama State Department to observe the convention. The Obama State Department handled all of the coordination with ambassadors and their staff, of which there were about 100 at the conference.”

So, Obama’s State Department not only sponsored the event, but it also invited the Russian ambassador Democrats are now vilifying, thus setting Sessions up to interact with him, Von Spakovsky explains:

“Apparently, after Sessions finished speaking, a small group of ambassadors—including the Russian ambassador—approached the senator as he left the stage and thanked him for his remarks.”

It would be impossible to clandestinely plot anything nefarious in such a public gathering, von Spakovsky concludes:

“That’s the first ‘meeting.’ And it’s hardly an occasion—much less a venue—in when a conspiracy to “interfere” with the November election could be hatched.”

So, members of the Obama Administration sponsored and arranged the event. Then, as The New York Times reports, they carried out plans to sensationalize and draw suspicion to the very encounter with the Russian ambassador that they prompted.

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Kudos to Trump for Ignoring McMaster’s Advice Against Using Term ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’

Posted March 4, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Gen. H.R. McMaster, Michael T. Flynn, Trump and Islam, Trump and Islamic terrorism, Trump and Islamists, Trump appointments
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Kudos to Trump for Ignoring McMaster’s Advice Against Using Term ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’, Algemeiner, Ruthie Blum, March 3, 2017

(One of the good things about being the President is that you don’t have to follow the advice of your subordinates. — DM)

mcmasterH.R. McMaster with President Donald Trump. Photo: Twitter.

Kudos to Trump for doing it anyway and reassuring us that he has no intention of emulating Obama.

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Despite his impeccable military and other credentials, US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, began his job — the one he got as a result of the resignation of Gen. Michael Flynn — with a whimper. If reports are correct, McMaster told Trump last week that he should cease using the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” so as not to alienate Muslim-majority countries allied with the United States.

There were those of us who had argued, prior to Trump’s inauguration, that the only thing Americans and Israelis had to fear about the sui generis leader, if anything, was that he would end up more like his predecessor, Barack Obama, than the “alt-right” fanatic they were making him out to be.

“He’s not a fascist, a racist or an antisemite,” I would say confidently. “But he was, up until recently, a member of the Democratic Party.”

Once Trump started announcing his picks for cabinet and other positions, however, even the die-hard Republicans who initially froze over the fact of his leapfrogging over them to head their party thawed. Not only had the real estate magnate who talks from the cuff and shoots from the hip led them to sweeping victories in the House of Representatives and the Senate, but he began appointing real conservatives to top posts, including the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Flynn, with his staunch stance against Islamists in general and Iran in particular, was among this group. But since he left almost as soon as he assumed his job, someone had to be found to replace him. That person was McMaster, and he also seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

In his 1997 book Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam — written as a doctoral thesis — McMaster examined the failure of the White House and Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide a successful plan to defeat the North Vietnamese Army.

“The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of The New York Times, or on the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, DC, even before Americans assumed sole responsibility for the fighting in 1965 and before they realized the country was at war,” McMaster wrote.

It is thus odd that his first piece of advice to Trump was to suggest he tone down his rhetoric against the West’s sworn enemies, rather than coach him on how to put it into action.

So much has changed since the Vietnam debacle, both politically and militarily, but one thing remains the same: Democracies are always at a disadvantage when fighting rogue groups and states with no morals or rules of engagement.

Even Israel, whose government and military have had no choice but to confront the often impossible task of killing terrorists without resorting to their methods, is often at a loss when it comes to asymmetric warfare. But it does not hesitate to identify and call its enemies by name.

When Obama took office in January 2009, two days after the end of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in Gaza, he made it his business to reach out to radical Islamists, rather than defeat them. This move was born out of a dim view of American power and the accompanying belief that the US was hated by the mullah-led regime in Tehran and terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood with good reason.

In keeping with this policy, Obama eliminated terms such as “radical Islam” and “terrorism” from his administration’s lexicon. Indeed, the self-described “leader from behind” of the free world tried to alter reality with a pencil eraser — all the while working furiously toward inking a nuclear deal with Iran.

The electoral ouster of the Democrats was due in large measure to the above. Why, then, would Trump’s national security adviser tell him not to mention it in his address to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening?

Kudos to Trump for doing it anyway and reassuring us that he has no intention of emulating Obama.

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The Lessons of the Hamas War

Posted March 3, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: "Humanitarian aid", Gaza war, Hamas, Netanyahu and Middle East, Obama and Hamas, Obama and Israel, Obama and Middle East, Operation Protective Edge
Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Lessons of the Hamas War, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, March 3, 2017

hamas-3

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

Sunni regimes, led by Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Saudi regime and the United Arab Emirates, were shocked to discover that the Obama administration was siding with their enemies against them.

If Israel went into the war against Hamas thinking that the Obama administration would treat it differently than it treated the Sunni regimes, it quickly discovered that it was mistaken. From the outset of the battle between Hamas and Israel, the Obama administration supported Hamas against Israel.

America’s support for Hamas was expressed at the earliest stages of the war when then-secretary of state John Kerry demanded that Israel accept an immediate cease-fire based entirely on Hamas’s terms. This demand, in various forms, remained the administration’s position throughout the 50-day war.

Netanyahu asked Sisi for help in blunting the American campaign for Hamas. Sisi was quick to agree and brought the Saudis and the UAE into an all-but-declared operational alliance with Israel against Hamas.

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The State Comptroller’s Report on Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s war with Hamas in the summer of 2014, is exceedingly detailed. The problem is that it addresses the wrong details.

Israel’s problem with Hamas wasn’t its tactics for destroying Hamas’s attack tunnels. Israel faced two challenges in its war with Hamas that summer. The first had to do with the regional and global context of the war. The second had to do with its understanding of its enemy on the ground.

War between Hamas and Israel took place as the Sunni Arab world was steeped a two-pronged existential struggle. On the one hand, Sunni regimes fought jihadist groups that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood movement. On the other, they fought against Iran and its proxies in a bid to block Iran’s moves toward regional hegemony.

On both fronts, the Sunni regimes, led by Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Saudi regime and the United Arab Emirates, were shocked to discover that the Obama administration was siding with their enemies against them.

If Israel went into the war against Hamas thinking that the Obama administration would treat it differently than it treated the Sunni regimes, it quickly discovered that it was mistaken. From the outset of the battle between Hamas and Israel, the Obama administration supported Hamas against Israel.

America’s support for Hamas was expressed at the earliest stages of the war when then-secretary of state John Kerry demanded that Israel accept an immediate cease-fire based entirely on Hamas’s terms. This demand, in various forms, remained the administration’s position throughout the 50-day war.

Hamas’s terms were impossible for Israel. They included opening the jihadist regime’s land borders with Israel and Egypt, and providing it with open access to the sea. Hamas demanded to be reconnected to the international banking system in order to enable funds to enter Gaza freely from any spot on the globe. Hamas also demanded that Israel release its terrorists from its prisons.

If Israel had accepted any of Hamas’s cease-fire terms, its agreement would have constituted a strategic defeat for Israel and a historic victory for Hamas.

Open borders for Hamas means the free flow of armaments, recruits, trainers and money to Gaza. Were Hamas to be connected to the international banking system, the jihadist regime would have become the banking center of the global jihad.

The Obama administration’s support for Hamas was not passive.

Obama and Kerry threatened to join the Europeans in condemning Israel at the UN. Administration officials continuously railed against IDF operations in Gaza, insinuating that Israel was committing war crimes by insisting that Israel wasn’t doing enough to avoid civilian casualties.

As the war progressed, the administration’s actions against Israel became more aggressive. Washington placed a partial embargo on weapons shipments to Israel.

Then on July 23, 2014, the administration took the almost inconceivable step of having the Federal Aviation Administration ban flights of US carriers to Ben-Gurion Airport for 36 hours. The flight ban was instituted after a Hamas missile fell a mile from the airport.

The FAA did not ban flights to Pakistan or Afghanistan after jihadists on the ground successfully bombed airplanes out of the sky.

It took Sen. Ted Cruz’s threat to place a hold on all State Department appointments, and Canada’s Conservative Party government’s behind-the-scenes diplomatic revolt to get the flight ban rescinded.

The government and the IDF were shocked by the ferocity of the administration’s hostility. But to his great credit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surmounted it.

Netanyahu realized that Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood nexus of jihad and also supported by Iran. As a result the Egyptians, Saudis and UAE rightly view it as a major enemy. Indeed, Egypt was in a state of war with Hamas in 2014. Gaza serves as the logistical base of the Salafist forces warring against the Egyptian military.

Netanyahu asked Sisi for help in blunting the American campaign for Hamas. Sisi was quick to agree and brought the Saudis and the UAE into an all-but-declared operational alliance with Israel against Hamas.

Since the Egyptians were hosting the cease-fire talks, Egypt was well-positioned to blunt Obama’s demand that Israel accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms.

In a bid to undermine Egypt, Obama and Kerry colluded with Hamas’s state sponsors Turkey and Qatar to push Sisi out of the cease-fire discussions. But due to Saudi and UAE support for Sisi and Israel, the administration’s attempts to sideline the Egyptians failed.

The cease-fire terms that were adopted at the end of the war contained none of Hamas’s demands. Israel had won the diplomatic war.

It was a strange victory, however. Netanyahu was never able to let the public know what was happening.

Had he informed the public, the knowledge that the US was backing Hamas would have caused mass demoralization and panic. So Netanyahu had to fight the diplomatic fight of his life secretly.

The war on the ground was greatly influenced by the diplomatic war. But the war on the ground was first and foremost a product of the nature of Hamas and of the nature of Hamas’s relationship with the PLO.

Unfortunately, the Comptroller’s Report indicates that the IDF didn’t understand either. According to the report, in the weeks before the war began, the then-coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eitan Dangot, told the security cabinet that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was at a crisis point and that hostilities were likely to break out if Israel didn’t allow humanitarian aid into the Strip.

On Wednesday we learned that Dangot’s view continues to prevail in the army. The IDF’s intelligence chief, Maj.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel must send humanitarian aid to Gaza to avert a war.

There is truth to the IDF’s position. Hamas did in fact go to war against Israel in the summer of 2014 because it was short on supplies.

After Sisi overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt the previous summer, he shut Egypt’s border with Gaza because Gaza was the logistical base of the insurgency against his regime. The closed border cut off Hamas’s supply train of everything from antitank missiles to cigarettes and flour.

The problem with the IDF’s view of Hamas is that providing aid to Gaza means supplying Hamas first and foremost. Every shipment into Gaza strengthens Hamas far more than it serves the needs of Gaza’s civilian population. We got a good look at Hamas’s contempt for the suffering of its people during Protective Edge.

After seeing the vast dimensions of Hamas’s tunnel infrastructure, the then-OC Southern Command, Maj.-Gen. Sami Turgeman, told reporters that Hamas had diverted enough concrete to its tunnel project to build 200 kindergartens, two hospitals, 20 clinics and 20 schools.

Moreover, the civilian institutions that are supposed to be assisted by humanitarian aid all serve Hamas. During the war, three soldiers from the IDF’s Maglan unit were killed in southern Gaza when they were buried in rubble of a booby-trapped UNRWA clinic.

The soldiers were in the clinic to seal off the entry shaft of a tunnel that was located in an exam room.

Hamas had booby trapped the walls of the clinic and detonated it when the soldiers walked through the door.

All of the civilian institutions in Gaza, including those run by the UN, as well as thousands of private homes, are used by Hamas as part of its war machine against Israel.

So any discussion of whether or not to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza is not a humanitarian discussion. It is a discussion about whether or not to strengthen Hamas and reinforce its control over the population of Gaza.

This brings us to the goals of the war in Gaza in 2014. At the time, the government debated two possible endgames.

The first was supported by then-justice minister Tzipi Livni. Livni, and the Left more generally, supported using the war with Hamas as a means of unseating Hamas and restoring the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority to power in the area.

There were four problems with this notion. First, it would require Israel to reconquer Gaza.

Second, the Obama administration would never have agreed to an Israeli conquest of Gaza.

Third, Israel doesn’t have the forces to deploy to Gaza to retake control of the area without rendering its other borders vulnerable.

The final problem with Livni’s idea is that the PLO is no better than Hamas. From the outset of the war, the PLO gave Hamas unqualified support. Fatah militias in Gaza manned the missile launchers side by side with Hamas fighters. PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas represented Hamas at the cease-fire talks in Cairo. He led the political war against Israel in the West. And he financed Hamas’s war effort. Throughout the war Abbas sent a steady stream of funds to Gaza.

If PLO forces were returned to Gaza, they would behave precisely as they behaved from 2000 until Hamas kicked them out in 2007. That is, they would have acted as Hamas’s full partners in their joint war against Israel.

The second possible endgame involved a long-term strategy of defeating Hamas through attrition. This was the goal the government ended up partially adopting. The government ordered the IDF to destroy as much of Hamas’s missile arsenal as possible and to destroy its offensive tunnels into Israel. When the goals had been achieved to the point where the cost of opposing Obama grew greater than the battle gains, Netanyahu agreed to a cease-fire.

For the attrition strategy to have succeeded, the cease-fire would have only been the first stage of a longer war. For the attrition strategy to work, Israel needed to refuse to resupply Hamas. With its missile arsenal depleted and its tunnels destroyed, had Israel maintained the ban on supplies to Gaza, the residents would have revolted and Hamas wouldn’t have had the option of deflecting their anger onto Israel by starting a new war.

The IDF unfortunately never accepted attrition as the goal. From the Comptroller’s Report and Halevi’s statement to the Knesset this week, it appears the General Staff rejected attrition because it refuses to accept either the nature of Hamas or the nature of the PLO. Immediately after the cease-fire went into force, the General Staff recommended rebuilding Gaza and allowing an almost free flow of building supplies, including concrete, into Hamas’s mini-state.

The Comptroller’s Report is notable mainly because it shows that nearly three years after Protective Edge, official Israel still doesn’t understand what happened that summer. The problem with Hamas was never tactical. It was always strategic. Israel won the diplomatic battle because it understood the correlation of its strategic interests with those of the Sunni regimes.

It lost the military battle of attrition because it permitted Hamas to resupply.

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U.S. Senator Colludes With Russians to Influence Presidential Election

Posted March 3, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: "Drain the swamp", Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Democrat Party, Democrats and Russia, Department of Justice, Ted Kennedy and Russia, Trump agenda, Trump and Russia
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U.S. Senator Colludes With Russians to Influence Presidential Election, PJ Media, J. Christian Adams, March 2, 2017

kennedy-sized-770x415xc

Yes, a United States senator really did collude with the Russians to influence the outcome of a presidential election.  His name was Ted Kennedy.

While Sen. Al Franken (D-Ringling Bros.) and other Democrats have the vapors over a truthful, complete, and correct answer Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave in his confirmation hearing, it’s worth remembering the reprehensible behavior of Senator Ted Kennedy in 1984.

This reprehensible behavior didn’t involve launching an Oldsmobile Delmont 88 into a tidal channel while drunk.  This reprehensible behavior was collusion with America’s most deadly enemy in an effort to defeat Ronald Reagan’s reelection.

You won’t hear much about that from CNN and the clown from Minnesota.

To recap, from Forbes:

Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Kennedy’s message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. “The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations,” the memorandum stated. “These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.”

Among the promises Kennedy made the Soviets was he that would ensure that the television networks gave the Soviet leader primetime slots to speak directly to the American people, thus undermining Reagan’s framing of the sinister nature of the USSR.  Event then, the Democrats had the power to collude with the legacy media.  Kennedy also promised to help Andropov penetrate the American message with his Soviet agitprop.

That’s right, folks.  Even 30 years ago, Democrat senators were colluding with America’s enemies to bring down Republicans.

And no, Jeff Sessions didn’t perjure himself.  It’s not even a close call.

So now they are after Jeff Sessions instead of Ronald Reagan.   Ideological comrades throughout the Justice Department are helping out this time.  Just before Trump’s inauguration, the Obamites widely distributed intelligence information throughout the Department of Justice, where their political comrades could be counted on to leak the information after January 20.

This is a problem that will plague President Trump and General Sessions until they drain the swamp at the Justice Department — something that isn’t even close to getting started.  Ideological leftists throughout the DOJ are serving as agents of the Obama regime and undermining the new administration.

For example, even now, the front office at the Civil Rights Division is largely made up of Obama holdovers and “permanent career political” appointees.  The Obamaites expanded the number of deputy assistant attorney general slots throughout the Department of Justice and populated them with the most reliably radical people.  They also appointed swarms of radicals into political offices on January 18 to “assist” the transition.  They, too, are still there watching, observing, and probably “reporting.”

Nobody thinks the noise about Jeff Sessions is a substantive issue. Eric Holder was found in criminal contempt of Congress and there wasn’t a fraction of the sanctimonious outrage from Democrats and CNN like we see today.

Today’s Justice Department drama is a tactic by Democrats to personalize and polarize a target.  It is a strategy to make Jeff Sessions devote time and energy to this instead of protecting America from foreign influences and cleaning up the Justice Department from the lawless rot that Obama caused.  The Democrats prefer the lawless rot, so they want Sessions to be diverted from his job.

Of course the leaks are going to continue until the new administration has the guts to clean the place out of all the radicals that were embedded there.

Leaks are pouring out over large and small matters because so far nobody is afraid of crossing the new administration.  The attacks on Sessions started when some of his own employees decided to leak intelligence information — just like happened to General Flynn.  It will continue unless the administration realizes the media isn’t the only gang in Washington opposed to the interests of the American people.

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Anti-Trump Leftist Muslim reporter arrested for Jewish Center bomb threats blamed on Trump supporters

Posted March 3, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Attacks on Jews, False flag attacks, Trump Derangement Syndrome
Tags: , ,

Anti-Trump Leftist Muslim reporter arrested for Jewish Center bomb threats blamed on Trump supporters, Jihad Watch, , March 3, 2017

Dozens of Jewish Community Center bomb threats have occurred throughout the country since President Donald Trump’s election, and liberal groups and politicians have attacked Trump for them. The president condemned the threats during his address to Congress, but he reportedly said earlier that day, “sometimes it’s the reverse, to make people — or to make others — look bad.”

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So many things illustrated here: the fanatical hatred of the Left; the absolute unscrupulousness of Leftists in their quest to defame and destroy those whom they hate and fear; the Leftist/Islamic alliance; the Jew-hatred of the Left in general and of Leftist “journalists” in particular; the credulousness or willful ignorance of the establishment propaganda media; and the fact that the Left will stop at absolutely nothing in its quest to destroy free societies. Juan M. Thompson took matters farther than his former colleagues at Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept, but he and they share the same mindset, world view, and goals.

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“Anti-Trump Communist Arrested For Jewish Community Center Bomb Threats,” by Alex Pfeiffer, Daily Caller, March 3, 2017:

A disgraced former reporter was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Friday for several bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers, Jewish schools and other Jewish organizations around the country.

Juan Thompson, 31, was arrested in St. Louis by the FBI for making at least eight bomb threats and the cyberstalking of an ex-girlfriend. Thompson was a former reporter for The Intercept, and was fired after it was discovered that he made up sources and stories, including one about Charleston shooter Dylann Roof.

The criminal complaint states that threats made to the Jewish establishments across the country by Thompson were under his name and the name of his ex-girlfriend, and occurred after the relationship ended. The threats were made by both email and phone calls.

Dozens of Jewish Community Center bomb threats have occurred throughout the country since President Donald Trump’s election, and liberal groups and politicians have attacked Trump for them. The president condemned the threats during his address to Congress, but he reportedly said earlier that day, “sometimes it’s the reverse, to make people — or to make others — look bad.”

Thompson’s Twitter account, which is referenced in the criminal complaint, espouses communist and anti-Trump beliefs. Several tweets from the Twitter account are mentioned in the criminal complaint….

Thompson also tweeted about the Jewish Community Center threats as recently as this past week. “Another week, another round of threats against Jewish ppl. In the middle of the day, you know who’s at a JCC? Kids. KIDS,” the former reporter wrote Monday.
He also tweeted, “[Trump] is not insane. That’s a slur against ppl who actually suffer w/mental health issues. He is simply a racist/sexist/capitalist monster.”

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Bernie Sanders to Friedman: Should Some Israel Funds go to Gaza?

Posted March 3, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Bernie Sanders, David Friedman, Gaza, Israel, J Street, Jewish left in America
Tags: , , , , ,

Bernie Sanders to Friedman: Should Some Israel Funds go to Gaza?, Jerusalem Post, March 2, 2017

(Why shouldn’t we give everything to the IRGC, Al Qaeda and the Taliban instead? Aren’t they our allies in fighting the non-Islamic State.– DM)

bsandersBernie Sanders speaking at an event in Phoenix, Arizona.. (photo credit:GAGE SKIDMORE)

Washington (JTA) — Sen. Bernie Sanders asked David Friedman, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel, whether he would back using funds earmarked for assistance to Israel to help rebuild the Gaza Strip.

Sanders in a letter he handed Friedman after they met Wednesday also asked whether he thinks the tax-exempt status of groups that fundraise for settlers should be reviewed. JTA obtained a copy of the letter on Thursday.

The questions in the letter are significant as they suggest the path forward for Israel policy among progressive Democrats.

Sanders has emerged as a de facto leader of progressives following his insurgent but unsuccessful campaign last year for the Democratic presidential nomination. In perhaps the best-received speech over the weekend at the annual conference of J Street, the liberal Middle East policy group, Sanders pushed the theme that pro-Israel Jews need not hesitate to criticize Israeli government policies.

His letter outlines three questions for Friedman: whether he supports a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the appropriateness of an ambassador having deep involvement in the settler movement as a fundraiser and advocate, as Friedman does; and regarding Israeli assistance.

Two states has long been Democratic policy and for 15 years was official U.S. policy until Trump retreated into agnosticism on the issue when he met last month with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The second two points, however, venture into areas that Democrats have yet to embrace.

“As ambassador, would you take steps to end the flow of donations to illegal settlements, perhaps by supporting the re-examination [of] their tax-exempt status?” Sanders asked.

J Street has advocated for withdrawing tax-exempt status for groups that fundraise for settlements. Other pro-Israel groups – including some of J Street’s allies on the left – oppose the position, in part because it could trigger far-reaching consequences for all nonprofits on the left and right while turning tax-exempt status into a political battlefield.

Sanders also asked Friedman whether “a portion” of the $38 billion in defense aid to Israel over the next 10 years under an agreement signed last year by former President Barack Obama “should be directed toward measures that would facilitate a much greater flow of humanitarian and reconstruction materials” to Gaza.

Aid to Israel in Congress and the pro-Israel community has been sacrosanct, and no president has seriously proposed cutting it since Gerald Ford in the mid-1970s. Subsequent presidents used short delays in delivery of assistance and the amount that the United States guarantees Israel’s loans as means of leveraging pressure on Israel, but assistance has been untouched.

Sanders cast the proposal in part as one that would help secure Gaza by stabilizing the strip. But it comes at a time that Republicans in Congress are proposing cutting assistance to the Palestinians as a means of pressuring them into direct talks with Israel and pushing the Palestinian Authority to end subsidies for the families of jailed or killed terrorists.

Friedman, a longtime lawyer to Trump, did not reply to a request for comment. His ambassadorship is controversial in Congress and in the Jewish community because of his past involvement with settlers, and because of the rhetoric he has used to describe Jews who disagree with him.

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Facebook and Twitter censor Jihad Watch, block thousands from reading it

Posted March 3, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Censorship, Facebook, Hate speech, Jihad Watch, Media, Twitter
Tags: , , , , ,

Facebook and Twitter censor Jihad Watch, block thousands from reading it, Jihad Watch, , March 3, 2017

(Please see also, Facebook enables Fatah terror promotion by reopening their terror promoting page. — DM)

The facts at hand presumably speak for themselves, but a trifle more vulgarly, I suspect, than facts even usually do.

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, February 2, 2017: 16,683
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, February 2, 2017: 1,051

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, February 6, 2017: 12,882
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, February 7, 2017: 1,880

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, February 7, 2017: 23,783
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, February 7, 2017: 1,718

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, February 8, 2017: 18,926
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, February 8, 2017: 1,091

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, February 9, 2017: 11,914
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, February 9, 2017: 974

And then the very next day:

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, February 10, 2017: 2,923
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, February 10, 2017: 295

The dropoff has continued:

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, February 20, 2017: 3,408
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, February 20, 2017: 416

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, February 27, 2017: 2,369
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, February 27, 2017: 329

Referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook, March 2, 2017: 1,645
Referrals to Jihad Watch from Twitter, March 2, 2017: 206

mark-zuckerberg

Did thousands of people who used to click on Jihad Watch articles from Facebook and Twitter suddenly on February 10 lose interest? Of course not. This is what happened: Facebook and Twitter are censoring Jihad Watch as “hate speech.” Now, I do not accept and will never accept the idea that reporting on jihad activity and Sharia oppression constitutes “hate speech,” but that is, of course, the longstanding claim of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Muslim groups in the West, and has been uncritically adopted by the Left, with which Facebook and Twitter are so firmly aligned.

In reality, what constitutes “hate speech” is a subjective judgment. The label itself is a tool in the hands of the powerful, enabling them to control the discourse and silence dissenters to their agenda. That is ultimately what this is about: the purveyors of the Big Lie always have to shut down those who tell the truth, because they are aware that their whole enterprise rests on a lie and is deeply threatened by the truth. They can only put their lie across by constant repetition and relentless persecution of those who tell the truth. The truth-tellers, in contrast, need not resort to censorship against the liars, for they are confident that the truth, if given a fair hearing, will be obvious and compelling.

The good news in all this is that despite this choking-off of referrals from Facebook and Twitter, Jihad Watch’s overall readership is growing. Apparently many people who used to come here from Facebook and Twitter are finding different avenues. That is very important in general: free people must not accept this censorship, which is a desperate lashing-out of a discredited and weakening political and media elite against an inexorably growing populist revolution. If Facebook and Twitter shut out the truth, then we have to, in large numbers, shut out Facebook and Twitter. That is certainly what I am going to do: while each Jihad Watch post automatically goes up on Facebook and Twitter (for as long as that will last), I will never personally go to either one again.

And despite the ever-decreasing platform for those who dissent from the socialist, globalist, internationalist agenda of these sinister and authoritarian elites, there is every reason to be confident. They have all the money and all the power and all the platforms, and even so, Brexit was voted in, Trump was elected, and much, much more is to come. There is, after all, one weapon they do not have on their side, and that is why, for all their intermediate success, they are doomed to failure: that weapon is, of course, the truth.

“EU Reads Riot Act to Facebook, Twitter, Google Over Hate Speech (FB, GOOG),” by Rakesh Sharma, Investopedia, December 5, 2016:

The European Union has warned Facebook Inc. (FB), Twitter Inc. (TWTR), Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Google (GOOG), and Microsoft Inc. (MSFT) that they could face the prospect of hate speech laws, if they fail to clamp down on such speech on their platforms. The companies, which own or run social media platforms with member numbers that run into millions on the continent, had signed a code of conduct to take down instances of offensive and hate speech within 24 hours back in May. (See also: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft Agree To Report Hate Speech To The EU).

According to a new report that quantifies their efforts, the tech behemoths still have some way to go. The report, which will be discussed by EU ministers this week, stated that the companies reviewed 40 percent of reported cases within the first 24 hours and 80 percent within 48 hours. Germany and France saw the highest rates that were “in excess” of 50 percent while only 4 percent and 11 percent of reported posts were removed in Italy and Austria respectively.

“If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months,” Vera Jourova, EU’s justice commissioner, told FT in an interview. (See also: Facebook May Allow Third-Party Groups To Censor Content In China)….

And:

“Google Launches AI Program to Detect ‘Hate Speech,’” by Lucas Nolan, Breitbart, February 23, 2017:

Google has launched a new AI program called Perspective to detect “abusive” comments online in an effort to crack down on hate speech.

Publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Economist are testing the new software as a way of policing comments sections, according to the Financial Times.

“News organizations want to encourage engagement and discussion around their content, but find that sorting through millions of comments to find those that are trolling or abusive takes a lot of money, labour and time,” said Jared Cohen, president of Jigsaw, the Google social incubator that built the tool. “As a result, many sites have shut down comments altogether. But they tell us that isn’t the solution they want.”

Perspective is available to all publications that are currently part of Google’s Digital News Initiative, which includes The Guardian, the BBC and The Financial Times. In theory, the software could also be utilized by social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter. Twitter has recently attempted to impose stricter rules on users in an attempt to reduce supposed harassment on the platform.

CJ Adams, a product manager at Jigsaw, discussed the adaptability of their program, saying, “We are open to working with anyone from small developers to the biggest platforms on the internet. We all have a shared interest and benefit from healthy online discussions.”

Perspective is used to filter and compile comments on websites for human review. In order to learn what exactly counts as a “toxic” comment, the program studied hundreds of thousands of user comments that had been deemed unacceptable by reviewers on websites like The New York Times and Wikipedia. “All of us are familiar with increased toxicity around comments in online conversations,” said Cohen. “People are leaving conversations because of this, and we want to empower publications to get those people back.”…

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Facebook enables Fatah terror promotion by reopening their terror promoting page

Posted March 3, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Facebook, Fatah, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian child terrorists, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Palestinians and media
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Facebook enables Fatah terror promotion  by reopening their terror promoting page, Palestinian Media Watch, Itamar Marcus, March 2, 2017

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pal2[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 20, 2016]

Three days ago, Facebook shut down Fatah’s terror promoting account. The Palestinian Authority protested the closure as evidence of unfair collaboration between Israel and Facebook against the Palestinians (see below). Yesterday, Facebook reinstated the account, without removing any of the terror promoting material that is regularly posted on the page by Fatah. In 2016 alone, Palestinian Media Watch documented over 130 posts glorifying individual terrorist murderers and terror attacks, and posts encouraging violence and terror.

The following are examples of the terror and murder promotion that Facebook has reopened for public viewing:

A video produced by Fatah’s student movement at Birzeit University urges Palestinians to murder Israelis and seek Martyrdom by carrying out stabbing and car ramming attacks. The video shows a staged car-ramming and stabbing attack at a checkpoint near Ramallah. [Official Fatah Facebook page, April 20, 2016]

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Fatah expressed pride in the first Palestinian female suicide bomber Wafa Idris, who murdered 1 and wounded over 100 in 2002: “Her pure body exploded into pieces in the Zionists` faces” [Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 27, 2017]

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Fatah posted an image encouraging stabbing Jews on its Facebook page, at the beginning of the 2015-2016 terror wave. The image depicts a religious Jew screaming in pain with a knife stuck in his shoulder, accompanied by the text: “Here is Jerusalem, you crazies, beware!” [Official Fatah Facebook page, Oct. 4, 2015]

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A Fatah student movement election campaign poster showed a bloody knife shaped as the PA map of “Palestine”. Text on poster: “Plant it [the knife] in the heart of your enemy.” [Official Fatah Facebook page, Apr. 26, 2016]

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Fatah celebrated murdering 116 Israelis, when it bragged about its “10 most outstanding operations” and “10 most outstanding operations during the Intifada” in two separate posts [Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 16, 17, 2016]

PA accuses Facebook of bias

Before Facebook reopened Fatah’s page, the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information complained that the closure was due to an “an agreement” between Facebook and Israel:

“The [PA] Ministry [of Information] emphasized in a statement… that the targeting of… Palestinian national platforms on social media constitutes blind bias in favor of the occupation and a violation of the international conventions and decisions. It also constitutes additional proof of an agreement – whose existence Facebook has been denying for a long time – between its administration and the freedom oppressing occupier (i.e., Israel).”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, Feb. 28, 2017]

Reacting to the closure of Fatah’s page, Head of Information at the Fatah Commission of Mobilization and Organization Munir Al-Jaghoub, who manages Fatah’s Facebook page, emphasized that Fatah “will establish an alternative page and new accounts,” and complained pages of “settlers” and “ISIS” have not been shut down:

“There are Facebook pages of settlers who post pictures of weapons and weapon training, and [Facebook] does not oppose them. The Facebook administration claims that it is not receiving complaints about these pages. This is in addition to the pages of ISIS, which every day post scenes of murder, slaughter, and weapons, and which have approximately a quarter of a million followers – and they are not closed or blocked… This page belongs to the [Palestinian] National Liberation Movement (i.e., Fatah), not a gang. It has had historical glory since the day of its founding.”

[Wattan, independent Palestinian news agency, Feb. 28, 2017]

The following are longer excerpts of the responses to Facebook’s closure of Fatah’s page:

Headline: “The [PA] Ministry of Information: Facebook’s supervision of our forums is bias in favor of the occupation”<

“The [PA] Ministry of Information said that the fact that the Facebook administration closed the Fatah Movement’s official page and the page of a private radio station constitutes blind bias in favor of the occupation, and siding with the hangman who creates terror and spreads hate through all the means and pictures day and night.<

The ministry emphasized in a statement today, Tuesday [Feb. 28, 2017], that the targeting of the media platforms and Palestinian national platforms on social media constitutes blind bias in favor of the occupation and a violation of the international conventions and decisions. It also constitutes additional proof of an agreement – whose existence Facebook has been denying for a long time – between its administration and the freedom oppressing occupier (i.e., Israel) who disdains the international conventions.

The ministry added that the Facebook administration closed the Fatah Movement’s official page and the page of a media outlet, which was a victim of ongoing incitement and acts of terror by the Israeli occupation army against its employees. This requires its administration (i.e., Facebook’s) to clarify its steps, so as not to be perceived as one that follows the path of the occupation and violates the standards of individual and public freedoms…

The ministry called on the site’s administration to take back the unfair decision, as one who spreads freedom of speech and thought and defends its platforms in the world cannot support the occupation and side with racism and dark terror that expels the people of Palestine who is thirsty for its freedom.”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, Feb. 28, 2017]

Headline: “A picture of late President Arafat causes the closure of the Fatah Movement’s Facebook page”

“The ‘Facebook’ social media administration closed the Fatah Movement’s page on the site. According to the movement, the Facebook administration notified it that the reason for the closure was the posting of a picture of late President Yasser Arafat, in which he is seen holding a Kalashnikov rifle that had been in the possession of an Israeli soldier – after [the soldier] was captured in Beirut in the ’80s – and next to him [current Fatah Deputy Chairman and] leadership member Mahmoud Al-Aloul.

Head of information at the Fatah Movement Bureau (sic., Commission) of Mobilization and Organization Munir Al-Jaghoub told the [independent Palestinian] news agency Wattan: ‘The Facebook administration closed the page, which has approximately 70,000 followers, and said that the reason for the closure was that the picture contradicts Facebook’s standards.’ He added that ‘The admin pages that manage this page were blocked for a period of 30 days.’

Al-Jaghoub noted that they were warned by the Facebook administration that the page would be removed if they continued to post pictures like this, and said: ‘In the past approximately four warnings reached us before [the page] was closed today [Feb. 28, 2017].’

He responded to the closure by saying: ‘There are Facebook pages of settlers who post pictures of weapons and weapon training, and [Facebook] does not oppose them. The Facebook administration claims that it is not receiving complaints about these pages. This is in addition to the pages of ISIS, which every day post scenes of murder, slaughter, and weapons, and which have approximately a quarter of a million followers – and they are not closed or blocked.’

Al-Jaghoub continued: ‘This page belongs to the [Palestinian] National Liberation Movement (i.e., Fatah), not a gang. It has had historical glory since the day of its founding.’

He also emphasized that they will establish an alternative page and new accounts, as this is the second time that the movement’s page was closed; approximately a year and a half ago the Facebook administration closed this page when it had 200,000 followers.”
[Wattan, independent Palestinian news agency, Feb. 28, 2017]

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