RIGHT ANGLE: 2016 — Year in Review, Bill Whittle Channel via YouTube, December 30, 2016
RIGHT ANGLE: 2016 — Year in Review
Posted December 31, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Obama's America 2016
Tags: Obama's America 2016
Divine Islamic Revelation Now International Law
Posted December 31, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Islam and Israel, Islam and Jews, Islamic law, Islamic myths, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Jerusalem, Obama and Islam, Obama and Israel, Obama and the UN, UN and Islamic law, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Tags: Islam and Israel, Islam and Jews, Islamic law, Islamic myths, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Jerusalem, Obama and Islam, Obama and Israel, Obama and the UN, UN and Islamic law, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Divine Islamic Revelation Now International Law, American Thinker, Jonathan F. Keiler, December 31, 2016
Who is the real winner in the passing of U.N. Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli “settlements” in so-called Palestinian land? It is not the Arabs who live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, nor the leftist BDS movement, nor the world community which acted in usual blind lock-step in condemning Israel, or even the Obama administration which sacrificed American stature and credibility to express personal pique, though all appear to be gleefully rubbing grubby hands. The real winner is radical Islam, which the aforementioned parties claim to oppose.
For all the talk of preserving a “two-state” solution between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, and its attendant equivocating between Arab violence and incitement and the peaceful building of Jewish homes, the real heart 2334 is the first paragraph, which states that the Resolution
Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law…
That “international law” is the creation of U.N. Security Council, which invents such law with the passage of resolutions, regardless of whether standard principles of law-making, such as precedent, judicial or statutory authority are present. If the U.N.S.C. passed a resolution declaring Mars and its “inhabitants” a country, that would be international law. Its resolutions on Israel are almost pure exercises in self-referential circular reasoning. But that does not mean that they are without legal or practical impact, especially when endorsed by the United States, still — if barely — the world’s preeminent power.
With Resolution 2334 the U.N.S.C. and the United States (thanks to President Obama) have endorsed and enshrined in international law the idea that Jerusalem is a historically Arab city, a bit of myth-making that could have come directly from an ISIS spokesman. For while it is a fact that Jerusalem (East and West) is and mostly has been a Jewish city, about which there can be no reasonable historical cavil, it has been the mission of Islam to convince otherwise.
That Islamic mission is part and parcel of the broader Muslim conception which sees Islam as the true and culminating expression of the god of Abraham. By extension Jews and Christians are, at best, deluded inauthentic monotheists, who may pay to be tolerated by Muslims, but nothing more. Denying Jerusalem’s Jewish identity denies its Christian identity as well. Thus, this resolution is as much an attack on Christians and Christianity as it is on “Israeli settlement activity.”
A couple days before the passage of the Resolution 2334, historian Bat Ye’or carefully delineated the U.N.’s continuing attack not only on Israel but on the West and Christianity in criticizing last April’s Jerusalem Declaration of UNESCO which ignores historical Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and declares the entire area Muslim. Unlike U.N.S.C. resolutions, the decisions of UNESCO’s executive council are not considered binding international law, but taken in conjunction with Resolution 2334 that is now the practical effect.
This is yet another example of how Islam, including its most radical adherents, is winning the war of ideas with the Judeo-Christian West, a war that has been going on physically and intellectually since Mohammed’s first “revelation” in the early 7th Century.
From the start, Mohammed was acutely aware that to spread the new faith he had to give it legitimacy in the eyes of pre-Islamic pagan Arabs who were already gravitating toward monotheistic beliefs, some tribes having already adopted Christianity or Judaism. Mohammed supplied this legitimacy in large part by tying Allah’s revelations to existing belief systems, pagan and monotheistic alike. Thus, the Quran famously references Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and several other notable New and Old Testament figures. Per Mohammed these men were all Muslim prophets whose words and deeds were misinterpreted by the Christians and Jews who created the Old and New Testaments.
So obviously, Christians and Jews have long presented a problem for Islam. Mohammed believed that they would be eager converts to Islam, since they were already monotheists and Allah’s “revelations” acknowledged those Christian and Jewish prophets. When this did not happen, Mohammed and his successors variously slaughtered, enforced conversions or reduced the status of the “people of the book” and taxed them.
Jerusalem plays an important role in this process as I explained in detail here. While Jerusalem in not mentioned in the Quran, supposedly, early in Mohammed’s time in Medina — possibly to encourage Jewish conversion to Islam — Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem. Mohammed gave this up after a few months and turned toward Mecca.
Islam’s second caliph, the very capable Umar, captured Jerusalem a few years after Mohammed’s death. He deliberately chose the Temple Mount, where the Jewish temple stood and where Jesus walked, as the site of Islam’s first work of monumental architecture, the Dome of the Rock. He claimed the space for Islam not only physically, but spiritually, asserting that the rocky outcrop within the shrine was the very rock upon which Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed, and Muslim scholars began to claim that the “furthest precinct” referenced in the Quran as part of Mohammed’s “night journey” was Jerusalem.
Of course, this was a lot of hooey and still is. Certainly, medieval and later Christians didn’t buy it, nor Jerusalem’s Jews then or now, but evidently President Obama and the U.N.S.C. does. Because between the UNESCO decision and Resolution 2334 it now appears that “international law” (with the concurrence of the sitting U.S. Government) establishes East Jerusalem with the Temple Mount and its ancient Jewish Quarter as historical Arab territory, although it most assuredly is not.
Unlike the New and Old Testaments, the Quran eschews narrative. It is neither a story nor a history. Muslims believe it is the direct revelation of Allah given to Mohammed as Allah saw fit, which is not man’s role to question. In failing to veto Resolution 2334 in the wake of the UNESCO move, the United States along with the rest of the international community, has now officially bought into the Islamic version of Jerusalem’s history, and with that, effectively the Muslim assertion of divine revelation in support of Islamic activity and the implementation of international law. That is a godsend to Islamic terrorists and they will see it that way too.
Sweden: Five Muslims convicted of gang-raping boy, but won’t be deported
Posted December 31, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Islamic invasion, Islamic perversions, Islamisation, Law enforcement, Sweden
Tags: Islamic invasion, Islamic perversions, Islamisation, Law enforcement, Sweden
Sweden: Five Muslims convicted of gang-raping boy, but won’t be deported, Jihad Watch,
According to local media, the alleged perpetrators and the victim knew each other but the motive for the attack is not yet known….
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They won’t be deported because their homeland is too dangerous, despite the fact that in that homeland, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Islamic world, this kind of behavior is broadly tolerated. Women are so devalued, men look to other men and boys for sexual pleasure. Also, the Qur’an promises not just virgins to the blessed, but boys like “scattered pearls”:
“Those are the ones brought near in the Gardens of Pleasure, a company of the former peoples and a few of the later peoples, on thrones woven, reclining on them, facing each other. There will circulate among them young boys made eternal with vessels, pitchers and a cup from a flowing spring.” — Qur’an 56:11-18
“And they will be given to drink a cup whose mixture is of ginger, a fountain within Paradise named Salsabeel. There will circulate among them young boys made eternal. When you see them, you would think them scattered pearls. And when you look there, you will see pleasure and great dominion.” — Qur’an 76:17-20
“Five Afghan teenagers are convicted of gang-raping a boy at knife-point in Sweden – but NONE will be deported because their homeland is ‘too dangerous,’” by Julian Robinson, MailOnline, December 30, 2016 (thanks to Maurice):
Five Afghan teenagers have been convicted of gang-raping a boy in Sweden – but none of them will be deported because their homeland is ‘too dangerous’, it has emerged.
The victim, who is under 15, was filmed during the attack, which happened in woodland in Uppsala, south east Sweden.
He was beaten and dragged out to the forest at knife-point before being subjected to an ordeal lasting more than an hour, prosecutors say.
After a trial, the teenagers were found guilty of aggravated rape – but despite requests by prosecutors, they will not be expelled from Sweden because of their age and the dangers they would face in their homeland.
The court said that the boys would have been ‘hit very hard’ by deportation because of the security situation in Afghanistan.
Four of the defendants received jail terms of 15 months while the fifth was given 13 months, Expressen reports.
Prosecutors had claimed that one of the attackers filmed parts of the assault, overnight on October 24 and 25, and posted the footage on social media.
The victim, also from Afghanistan, went to police before five suspects were detained on child rape charges, it has been reported in Sweden.
All five denied the accusations with one saying he was not present.
Two others said they did not remember what they were doing while the final pair made ‘some concessions’.
Court papers said the teenagers, aged 16 and 17, ‘inflicted beatings’ to the child’s head and body before ‘grabbing the defendant, covering his mouth and dragging or carrying him into a woodland area’.
At this point, the court papers say, each of the accused carried out serious sexual assaults on the child who was also bitten on the back and spat on.
All arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors seeking asylum and could be deported if convicted.
According to local media, the alleged perpetrators and the victim knew each other but the motive for the attack is not yet known….
‘We don’t need this America,’ deputy minister says after UN vote, Kerry speech
Posted December 31, 2016 by Joseph WoukCategories: Uncategorized
Source: ‘We don’t need this America,’ deputy minister says after UN vote, Kerry speech | The Times of Israel
Former ambassador to US Michael Oren: Obama Administration’s current attitude to Israel ‘sad, tragic and dangerous’
President Barack Obama welcomes Ambassador Michael B. Oren of the State of Israel to the White House Monday, July 20, 2009, during the credentials ceremony for newly appointed ambassadors to the United States (White House photo)
Deputy Minister Michael Oren on Thursday slammed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s address on the peace process as historically inaccurate, offensive and dangerous, and called for a total reset of US-Israel ties.Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, also said that the outgoing administration’s critical view of the Israeli government, which culminated in the American abstention on Friday’s Security Council resolution condemning the settlements, was preordained by President Barack Obama’s insistently unwavering ideological disposition.
“Kerry’s speech was very disturbing for so many reasons,” Oren told The Times of Israel. “It is disturbing that this is the point to which US foreign policy has fallen. It’s sad, tragic and dangerous. We don’t need this relationship. We don’t need this America.”
He elaborated: “The US-Israel relationship is vital for us, for the region and I believe for the world, but we need an America whose strength and commitment to its allies is unquestioned.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry lays out his vision for peace between Israel and the Palestinians December 28, 2016, in the Dean Acheson Auditorium at the Department of State in Washington, DC.
(AFP PHOTO / PAUL J. RICHARDS)
During his speech, held Thursday in Washington, the secretary of state drew a distinction between American and Israeli values and cast doubt to Israel’s commitment to democracy, Oren charged. “But he did not raise the raise the question of why those values doesn’t lead the US to do something to save hundreds of thousands of lives in our region.”
In his lengthy address, Kerry insisted that the Obama administration “cannot be true to our own values — or even the stated democratic values of Israel — and we cannot properly defend and protect Israel, if we allow a viable two-state solution to be destroyed before our own eyes.”
Michael Oren with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador Dan Shapiro in Jerusalem during President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel in March 2013 (Facebook)
Oren, a member of the centrist Kulanu party who in August was appointed a deputy minister for diplomacy in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, took offense not only with the content of Kerry’s speech but also with the tone he struck.
“When he talked about Palestinian terror and incitement he spoke with a more or less regulated voice. But when he addressed the settlements? Oh my God, he was impassioned, furious.”
Oren said he was also deeply troubled by “the systematic distortion of the historical record” in Kerry’s presentation. “In the secretary’s records, there is no Second Intifada. There was the Oslo peace agreement, but he never stopped to think why Oslo wasn’t implemented.”
Kerry also failed to acknowledge Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and wide-reaching peace offers extended by Israeli leaders in 2000 and 2006, Oren said. Furthermore, the secretary did not sufficiently address the Palestinians’ strategy to shun bilateral talks and to internationalize the conflict instead.
Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador in Washington from 2009 and 2013, said the administration often promised him one thing and then did something else.
Kulanu party member Michael Oren attends a political debate held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on March 03, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
“It was one broken promise after the other,” he said.
Obama is guided by an ideologically rooted disdain for Israeli settlements, including the settlement blocs and Jerusalem neighborhoods outside the 1967-lines, Oren indicated. No Israeli leader — even a sworn leftist willing to dismantle most settlements — would have been able to change the president’s hostile policies vis-a-vis Israel, he postulated.
“It is the most deeply held conviction I have: that with any other (Israeli) leader, from whatever party, the result would have been the same,” Oren said. “There’s nothing we could have done changing that outcome.”
Even if Netanyahu had not accepted an invitation to address the US Congress last year to rail against the Iran nuclear deal Obama was advancing, the administration’s ostensible anti-Israel stance could not have been avoided, according to Oren. Netanyahu, he insisted, could thus not be blamed for the bad relations with Washington.
Obama was determined to combat Israel’s settlement movement from the moment he stepped into the Oval Office in early 2009, Oren continued. As ambassador in Washington, Oren advised the Israeli government “to roll with the punches” and silently accept the US’s criticism about settlement expansions. But ultimately that school of thought failed to produce results, because the president was unwilling to change his mind on any issue regarding Israel.
Since quiet diplomacy failed to achieve anything, Netanyahu is right to publicly confront the president over policies he deems detrimental to Israel’s security, Oren argued.
Then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the 2016 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference at the Verizon Center, on Monday, March 21, 2016, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)
“We were on a collision course to last Friday starting in 2009,” Oren said, referring to the anti-settlement UN Security Council passed that day.
It is any president’s prerogative to have a worldview different from that of the Israeli government, Oren said, but Obama’s strategic decision to put “daylight” between Washington and Jerusalem made it impossible to have an “intimate” relationship, which led to an inevitable series of crises. It was impossible to frankly and productively discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because Obama was utterly unwilling to consider points of view other than his own, Oren charged.
“One hope that I have for the upcoming administration of Donald Trump is that we can enter that discussion, enable that process to move on, to create a horizon,” he said. “You can only do that if there’s no daylight and if there’s intimacy.”
Making Sense of the Russian Hacking Saga
Posted December 31, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: 2016 elections, Clinton advisers, Clinton campaign, Clinton e-mails, Hacking, President Elect Trump, President Reject Clinton, Russian hacking
Tags: Clinton advisers, Clinton campaign, Clinton e-mails, Hacking, President Elect Trump, President Reject Clinton, Russian hacking
Making Sense of the Russian Hacking Saga, PJ Media, Charlie Martin, December 30, 2016
Now, we have leaked files that exposed real corruption in the DNC and real conspiracies against private citizens. We’re told this is an attack on our democracy. At the same time, there was an ongoing effort to lobby, coerce, even threaten electors to get them to change their votes in the Electoral College.
So you tell me what the bigger threat to democracy is: Revealing actual facts about the DNC and the Clinton campaign? Or trying to suborn the electors and change the election results?
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A quick trip to an alternate timeline:
New York Times, December 7, 2016
Trump Campaign Claims Times’ Coverage Skewed Election
“Hacked” Emails Responsible for Trump Loss
In a dramatic announcement, failed presidential candidate Donald J. Trump accused the New York Times and the Russian FSB of sabotaging his campaign by hacking and releasing emails from the Trump campaign’s mail servers.
Mr. Trump announced a campaign to convince members of the Electoral College to vote for him even if their state had voted for Mrs Clinton.
“A source inside the FBI told me that the Russians released these emails because they wanted Crooked Hillary to win,” Mr Trump said. “They call electors who change their votes ‘faithless electors’ but we should call them ‘faithFUL’ — faithful to what Alexander Hamilton meant electors to do. They should vote for me, to prove to Vladimir Putin he can’t corrupt American elections.”
President-Elect Clinton’s spokesperson issued this statement: “As we saw before the election, Mr Trump refused then to promise to accept the election results, and continues to refuse, even going so far as to attempt to subvert the electoral process by suborning electors. President-elect Clinton won fair and square, and Mr. Trump is, at best, grasping at straws.”
So I admit it: the “what if a Republican said that” trope has gotten to be so much a cliche that I honestly hate to use it. The problem is, it’s so often right.
For the last several weeks, people in the Democratic Party, the press, groups of crazies like Media Matters, and individual nuts like Keith Olbermann have been pushing this idea that the Rooosians are hacking our elections, doom!
So get out your tinfoil hats and let’s see if we can make some sense of this mess.
What we know for certain. Starting on July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks started releasing emails obtained from the Democratic National Committee going back well into 2015. These emails proved to be, at the very least, embarrassing to lots of people involved with the Hillary Clinton campaign: they resulted in Debbie Wasserman Schultz being forced to resign as head of the DNC when it became clear she and the DNC were conspiring behind the scenes to prevent Bernie Sanders from being nominated; they also revealed that Donna Brazile, acting head of the DNC, had been passing supposedly confidential debate questions to the Clinton campaign.
In November, WikiLeaks started to release emails obtained from John Podesta’s personal email accounts. These also proved embarrassing for many reasons — not just because of the campaign, but by exposing Podesta and the Center for American Progress conspiring to use political pressure against private citizens, in one notable case very successfully intimidating Roger Pielke Jr. into leaving the Climate Change debate entirely.
There is one more thing we know: with the exception of a desultory attempt to claim the emails had been modified, there has been essentially no attempt to deny the illicitly obtained emails were authentic.
How were the emails obtained? The consensus of the legacy press and the Clinton campaign has been that the emails were “hacked.” Now, any time you read a news story about anything relating to computer security, it’s worth remembering that to most people in either media or politics, the word “hacked” means “this happened somehow with a computer and computers are scary.” In this case, what people really mean is that somehow someone illicitly got access to a bunch of embarrassing email.
What we know is this: There were active Russian efforts to hack both Democrats and Republicans. To anyone with even a vague knowledge of intelligence and counter-intelligence — say, anyone who has read a detailed history of World War II, or a John LeCarré novel — the basic reaction to this should be, “well, duh.” The Russians are almost certainly trying to hack various email systems — as well as trying to intercept Internet traffic, exploit zero-day flaws, seduce young and impressionable (and old and lonely) staffers, dig through trash, and everything else that has been part of spying since Ur and the Assyrians. So are the Americans. And the Israelis. And the Chinese. And the Germans and the French and pretty much everyone else.
(Just as an aside — if the Russians were hacking the DNC successfully, I wonder what happened to the clintonemail.com server…)
In the case of the Russians, though, we have something more, since we have a number of statements on the part of the DNI and the DCIA that there were active Russian attempts to hack U.S. servers. And I have sources of my own who confirm the intelligence community really does have good evidence the Russians were involved.
There’s another point here: while the Russians were trying to hack both parties, there are only some unsubstantiated assertions the hackers were successful with the RNC computers. The RNC has repeatedly denied they were successfully hacked.
WikiLeaks says they didn’t get the emails from the Russians. This is one of those things that we don’t know how to evaluate. WikiLeaks honestly has a pretty good record of their released data being the real thing. When Julian Assange and Craig Murray are willing to come out publicly and say they got these emails from a disgruntled DNC staffer disgusted with what happened to Sanders, we ought to at least consider it.
On the other hand, it’s exactly what we’d expect if Assange really were a front for Russian intelligence.
What to make of that? I don’t know.
What we can suspect. Now we come to the part where I dance. These are some things I find suspicious.
- What is the evidence the Russians wanted to help Trump? As far as I can tell, the public evidence for this assertion is that derogatory information was leaked about the DNC and not the RNC. But then, the RNC tells us they weren’t actually hacked.
- Why did the evaluation change so quickly? In October, there was no evidence the Russians were taking sides. On November 17, there was no evidence the Russians were taking sides. On December 9, the CIA (according to anonymous sources) had decided it was an effort to help Trump, but the FBI disagreed. By December 16, the FBI reportedly came around.Here’s one other thing we know: over that same interval, a Democrat-connected PR firm began a campaign to suborn electors.
- It’s possible everyone involved is telling the truth. That is, the Russians really did hack the DNC, and a DNC insider really did leak the emails to WikiLeaks.
This is an article that, by the nature of things, doesn’t have any conclusions. There’s too much we don’t know. And yes, before someone starts up on “how dare you not trust the CIA?!,” I’m just going to tell you, it’s easy.
The CIA, like every other bureaucracy, suffers from the SNAFU principal: in most circumstances, bureaucrats will tell their bosses what they think the bosses want to hear. (Yes, this is not exactly the original SNAFU principal. For a longer exposition, see this Ignite talk I did some years ago.)
Intelligence assessments almost never say something with absolute certainty; they’re usually phrased to lay out all possibilities and then say which ones seem most probable. When you hear that the intelligence says something certainly — think “slam dunk” — it means the SNAFU principle is probably in action.
After all these years, though, I am pleased to see the strange new respect the CIA is getting from the Left.
Did the Russians or WikiLeaks or both “hack the election”?
Now, here’s where we run into a third version of the word “hack.” No one is asserting that the Black Hats, whoever they were, actually affected the voting. (Well, there was one person at New York Magazine suggesting computer scientists were suggesting this, but no one took it seriously, including the computer scientists he was misinterpreting.) All that anyone is suggesting is that publishing the emails may have led some people not to vote for Clinton.
What to make of all this?
Here, at last, we wrap around to the little parallel-universe story that started this piece. We know that a number of emails, ranging from embarrassing to really really embarrassing and possibly criminal, were exposed by WikiLeaks, and after that Clinton lost the election.
This isn’t the first time documents have been released — whether by “hacking” or old-fashioned leaking. Think back to the Pentagon Papers, which were leaked to the New York Times, and published. I don’t recall anyone at the time suggesting this was a threat to democracy, and even if it was, we seem to have survived. Certainly, repeated leakings of FBI investigations during Watergate were noble moments of journalistic perfection, not threats to democracy.
Now, we have leaked files that exposed real corruption in the DNC and real conspiracies against private citizens. We’re told this is an attack on our democracy. At the same time, there was an ongoing effort to lobby, coerce, even threaten electors to get them to change their votes in the Electoral College.
So you tell me what the bigger threat to democracy is: Revealing actual facts about the DNC and the Clinton campaign? Or trying to suborn the electors and change the election results?
Germany Begins Closing Down New Year’s Celebrations
Posted December 31, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Civilization jihad, Clash of civilizations, Germany, Islamisation, Islamist objectives, Sharia law
Tags: Civilization jihad, Clash of civilizations, Germany, Islamisation, Islamist objectives, Sharia law
Germany Begins Closing Down New Year’s Celebrations, Gates of Vienna,
This is the way the implementation of Shariah law begins.
Don’t expect a conquering Islamic army to sweep into town, stage mass executions in front of city hall, and then post a proclamation declaring that Islamic Law will henceforward be the law of the land. That’s not how it works.
Shariah is instituted as a gradual, piecemeal process. First there is a hijra — a migration of Muslims into non-Muslim lands. Then, when Muslims are present in large enough numbers, they begin assaulting, raping, terrorizing, and killing anyone in their environs who does not follow the tenets of Shariah law — that is, all the kuffar. By these means the infidels are terrorized and “feel themselves subdued”. In order to be safe, they give up their blasphemous kafir celebrations of their own initiative, thereby bringing their behavior into line with Islamic Law. Eventually they conclude a dhimma or “pact” with Islam, and pay the jizya poll tax in order to be allowed to continue living. This makes them dhimmi, people who are inferior and subordinate to Muslims. If they want to live normally, they may decide to say the shahada (La illaha ila Allah, wa Muhammadun rasul Allah) and become Muslims themselves.
On New Year’s Eve last year in Cologne and other German cities, gangs of feral young immigrant men — mostly Muslims — went wild on the streets, groping, molesting, and raping native German women. In recent weeks authorities have been watching with apprehension the approach of December 31, especially since the truck jihad in Berlin on December 19.
And now some of the New Year’s Eve events are being cancelled. What you’ll notice about the following two reports is that the police would prefer that localities and organizations not give reasons for cancelling any events. They feel it’s better for “security” if traditions that go back decades, or even centuries, just disappear without any public explanation.
In the first report, Nash Montana summarizes an article from Der Bürgerblick Passau about the cancellation of the annual New Year’s Eve party on the bridge in Passau:
The city of Passau has cancelled its traditional Silvester (New Year’s Eve) “bridge party”. Up to 1,000 people annually celebrate on the bridge, which was named after King Ludwig I, then was renamed to “Marienbrücke” in WW2, and now is known as the Innbrücke.
A reporter accidentally overheard the mayor talking about the Silvester cancellation, and immediately published it on the Internet, prompting the mayor to make an official statement in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. The mayor cited a “broad public discussion about the security of large events” as the reason, a so-called abstract terror threat.
For his presser the Mayor Jürgen Dupper included this: “The cancellation of the Silvester celebration for 2016 is an uncomfortable but responsible decision. Of course nobody made the decision lightly — we all know how popular this party is, and how especially many citizens of Passau, especially young people, have waited all year for it. But circumstances being what they are, we see it as our duty not to provoke situations in which control could be lost. I appeal to all who are out on Silvester night to not make it harder for security personnel to do their job.”
Look back one week before the attack in Berlin:
“The concept has generally done well in past years, and therefore we don’t expect any changes for this year,” said the town council spokesperson Herbert Zillinger concerning the Silvester celebration on the bridge. The spokesperson for the police, Alexandra Lachhammer, added that “Passau is safe,” and explained that in any case, the number of security personnel could be increased.
Therefore it is clear that if Berlin hadn’t happened, the Passau Silvester party would not have been cancelled.
It’s also interesting to note that thousands of refugees who today live in Germany or in neighboring European countries passed over this bridge after Passau became “Germany’s Lampedusa” in the fall of 2015.
The second report is a direct translation by Nash Montana of an article in the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung about the cancellation of a Silvester event in Walsum:
For Security Reasons — Walsum Silvester Ball cancelled
Duisburg-Walsum. The Aldenrade-Fahrn 1837 Gun Club has cancelled this year’s Silvester Ball on Saturday, December 31st in the city hall in Walsum. Reason: It’s “impossible to provide security”. The traditional party has always been seen as a social highlight of the year in the city; it was sold out (550 seats).
North Africans asked for exits and security personnel
The Gun Club learned last Friday that two days before, during the sale of the tickets, “seven unknowns” had appeared who were interested in the Ball event. The nationality of the men is not known, but an informant from the police confirmed to the newspaper that the unknowns were North Africans.
However, the discussion only concerns four men. Apparently only one of the men spoke German, according to Gudrun Henne, the chief executive of the BSV Aldenrade-Fahrn [the Gun Club]. The one who spoke German tried to find out information about exits, and he asked if there would be security personnel on location. This, says Gudrun Henne, set off the alarm in her head, especially after the Berlin Christmas market attack. She has traditionally sold the tickets herself for decades.
Henne immediately reported it to the police, and they gave her a chart with “350 pictures of suspects” to look through. One man she could identify clearly. He lives in Düsseldorf and is a known criminal. The police did not make any statements, but have confirmed that State Security has been activated. Conclusive results are not available, however. [I guess by “conclusive results” they mean raped women and massacred people everywhere? — translator] The police spokesman Ramon von der Maat said: “From our point of view there is no reason to cancel this event.”
Gun Club didn’t want to take the chance, and cancelled the Ball
By Friday the members of the Gun Club “unanimously decided” to cancel the festivities, says And Heddenhausen, the depute chairman of the BSV. Even though it would have been an anniversary ball — forty years ago the first Ball took place. “We just couldn’t take the risk,” said Gudrun Henne on Tuesday, looking visibly concerned and distraught.
“We discussed this for a long time, and have given a lot of thought to security provisions,” she explains. But in the end the conclusion was reached: “We would have lost control.” The beginning of the festivities might have gone fine, but after the fireworks when hundreds of people would be coming back into the hall, things might have happened. The caterer and the artists reacted with great understanding. Rumors were spread, and that’s why the Gun Club decided to publish the reasoning for the cancellation, against the advice of the police, says Henne.
Obama’s ‘Pro-Israel’ Presidency Is Fake News
Posted December 31, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: "Fake news", Israel, Israeli security, Media and Obama, Obama and fake news, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Obama and peace, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's lies, Palestinian terrorists, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Tags: Israel, Israeli security, Obama and fake news, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Obama and peace, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's lies, Palestinian terrorists, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Obama’s ‘Pro-Israel’ Presidency Is Fake News, CIJ News, Harry Khachatrian, December 30, 2016
Fake news isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, for the mainstream news media, it’s practically a business model. The media’s propagation of fake news vis-à-vis the notion that Barack Obama and his administration are remotely pro-Israel dates back to his initial run for office.
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The most asinine, demonstrable falsehoods of the 2016 presidential election is the idea that anti-Semitism is a prevailing concern in the left’s moral universe. Coming in at a close second is the notion that widespread “fake news” is what bludgeoned Hillary Clinton, leading to her electoral demise.
This earnestness to investigate, report on, and speak out against anti-Semitism from the mainstream media is oddly confined to headlines consisting solely of the words “Donald Trump” – or his occasional cabinet nominees.
Take for instance this gem from the Huffington Post. Actual headline: “How It’s ‘Absolutely’ Possible For Steve Bannon To Be Pro-Israel And Anti-Semitic”. Never mind the fact that the Huffington Post has no evidence.
Self-satire news outlet Salon chimed in with, “Jewish Americans are worried about the rise in anti-Semitism after this election cycle.”
Fake news isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, for the mainstream news media, it’s practically a business model. The media’s propagation of fake news vis-à-vis the notion that Barack Obama and his administration are remotely pro-Israel dates back to his initial run for office.
Obama’s close ties to former Jimmy Carter adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski – who in an interview with Salon, accused Israeli Jews of “buying Congress’s influence” – were effectively ignored. Obama is on record (in 2007) praising Brzezinski as “someone I have learned an immense amount from.”
The Los Angeles Times to this day refuses to release a 2003 tape of Barack Obama praising Rashid Khalidi – whom the LA Times referred to as “a harsh critic of Israel”, and the New York Times dubs, “a passionate defender of Palestinian rights.” In a speech given to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Khalidi justified the Palestinian “resistance”: “[k]illing civilians is a war crime. It’s a violation of international law. They are not soldiers. They’re civilians, they’re unarmed. The ones who are armed, the ones who are soldiers, the ones who are in occupation, that’s different. That’s resistance.”
When Jeremiah Wright – whose church Obama attended for two decades – said in an interview, “them Jews ain’t going to let him [Obama] talk to me,” CNN’s Jake Tapper simply tweeted, “Rev Wright clarifies – meant to say ZIONISTS are keeping him fr talking to POTUS, not ‘Jews.’”
In the summer of 2014, when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped three Israeli teenagers, the State Department issued a statement calling “on all sides to exercise restraint.” Nowhere to be found was the mainstream media probing the Obama Administration’s unspeakable gall to treat genocidal zealots and a free society as moral equals.
More recently, Barack Obama and John Kerry unveiled their diplomatic climax, the Iran Deal. When it was revealed that the terror-sponsoring regime of Tehran would receive 150 billion dollars a year in sanctions relief, lifting of arms and missile embargoes (and more) all while the Mullah’s chanted “death to Israel,” the media was again on the job, acting as Obama’s personal PR firm. Abnegating any responsibility to report on the deal’s bleak implications, CNN instead focused their ire on Republican reaction to Obama’s diplomatic debacle with headlines like: “Huckabee Invokes Holocaust when Talking Iran Deal.”
Most recently, New York Times’ Thomas Friedman wrote a column in response to John Kerry’s late-December speech on his proposed plan for peace between Israelis and Arabs.
Friedman opens by “simplifying” for readers, the current tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the soon-to-be Former-President of the United States.
“Barack Obama and John Kerry admire and want to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel.”
If you’ve read this far, you understand why if there ever was one exemplar of fake news being propagated by the media, this is it.
He continues,
“…He [Benjamin Netanyahu] is unwilling to make any big, hard decision to advance or preserve a two-state solution if that decision in any way risks his leadership of Israel’s right-wing coalition or forces him to confront the Jewish settlers, who relentlessly push Israel deeper and deeper into the West Bank.”
This is the biggest falsehood about the Israeli/Arab conflict perpetuated by the left, ad nauseum. For all their preening over fake news, the left does an admirable job of spreading it themselves. Friedman suggests that Netanyahu’s steadfast persistence to put up condos in Israel’s capital, East Jerusalem, or claim to ownership of the Western Wall – which Barack Obama himself visited, shamefully wearing a yarmulke – is a greater roadblock in the peace process to the waves of rocket fire, stabbings, shootings and terror both incited and carried out by the Palestinian Arabs.
Recall that in 2009, after persistent pressures from the Obama administration, Netanyahu complied, announcing a settlement freeze. After Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas still refused to enter negotiations with Israel, Obama actually scolded Israel! Friedman somehow fails to acknowledge any of this.
Moreover, Friedman makes no mention of the fact that Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas has explicitly stated, “We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel.”
Earlier this December, Friedman wrote, “The standing ovation he [Benjamin Netanyahu] got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”
If any Republican – let alone Donald Trump – had suggested Congress is controlled by the “Israel lobby,” CNN would’ve shoved aside their “Canonizing Obama’s Flawless Legacy of Flawlessness” programming in a heartbeat for the chyron, “Donald Trump: The Jews Run America.”
In fact, CNN’s Brian Stetler did just that amid the election. Taking comments from Donald Trump in which he accused Hillary Clinton of placing the interests of herself and her donors ahead of the country’s (which she does), he reported it as having “echoes of anti-Semitic rhetoric.” Is Stetler’s show named “Reliable Sources” purely out of irony?
There is a reason that liberal news media’s deep concerns for anti-Semitism are scarcer than Rabbis in the Gaza Strip when it comes to covering Barrack Obama and other Democrats. The left doesn’t actually care about anti-Semitism. They care about attacking conservatives. To the left, Jews are a privileged class of colonialists oppressing Palestinians. Israeli Jews don’t have the luxury of victim-status in the left’s worldview. Their safe spaces are bomb shelters in Haifa; not the pages of the New York Times.
Turkish ‘Ministry of Religion’ promotes martyrdom to children in colorful comic strips
Posted December 31, 2016 by Peter HofmanCategories: Uncategorized
Tags: Islam, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Islamism, Terrorism, Turkey, USA
Turkish ‘Ministry of Religion’ promotes martyrdom to children in colorful comic strips
Published time: 3 Apr, 2016 22:32 Edited time: 4 Apr, 2016 10:22
Source: Turkish ‘Ministry of Religion’ promotes martyrdom to children in colorful comic strips — RT News
The latest issue of a children’s magazine published by Diyanet, the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs, which is a government agency and the highest national religious body, contains a series of cartoons glorifying Islamic martyrdom.
A colorful cartoon titled “may god bless our martyrs, may their graves be full with holy light” features dialogues between parents and children that promotes an idea of religious martyrdom. In one box of the comics, a father says to his son: “How good it is to be a martyr…” He also adds that martyrdom gives a person an opportunity “to gain the right to go to heaven.”
In another box from the comics, a girl can be seen saying “I wish I could be a martyr.” “If you desire enough, Allah will give you that opportunity,” the mother in the box replies to the girl.
A statement near the last picture reads: “Our prophet says: a martyr feels the pain of dying as much as you feel pain when being pinched.”
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Another statement attributed to Prophet Mohammed says: “A martyr would love to go back to the real world and be martyr 10 times more after the honoring and prestige they receive in the heaven.”
Psychologist and professor Dr. Serdar Degirmencioglu harshly criticized the latest issue of the Diyanet’s “Child Magazine” featuring the controversial comics, but said that introducing children into the ideas of radical Islam has long been part of the Turkish government’s policy.
“They want to use the drawings to transfer the message of martyrdom to children because they think it will be more attractive,” he said in an interview with the Turkish Evrensel newspaper adding that the idea of martyrdom promoted by the government describes it as a “painless death and a promise of heaven.”
“Religiosity has, in recent years, turned into a literal political tool. They do not even hide it. The Ministry of Religion was provided more money than several other ministries combined and continues intensive work for religious children,” he added.
The professor also equated the mentality promoted by such comics with the mentality of those who committed deadly terrorist attacks in Turkish Ankara and Suruc, as well as Brussels and Paris.
“Turkey is overwhelmed with the pain of these massacres and with those pursuing the mentality of religiosity. All this has led to the death of people. Exactly the same mentality that blinds people to the horrors is what the Presidency of Religious Affairs is trying to spread among the children in Turkey. The children will grow up and they will run toward death when those in power tell them to,” he told Evrensel.
Diyanet follows and promotes the orthodox Sunni Islam tradition not only in Turkey, but also abroad. On Saturday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated a new multimillion Diyanet Center of America, calling it the Turkish-American Center of Culture and Civilization.
A complex, which, according to the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper, contains “one of the largest Turkish mosques” alongside conference halls, basketball courts, a restaurant, Turkish bath and a cultural research center, was built by funds from Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs as well as some NGOs.
During the opening ceremony, Erdogan called the complex “a center of civilizations” and said that it would serve both American Muslims and people of other faiths, as well as promote Islam’s message of love and compassion.
Britain’s Little Lies
Posted December 31, 2016 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Antisemitism, Britain, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Israel, Britain and UN Security Council resolution against Israel, Islamophobia, Israel, Israeli settlements, Theresa May and Islamists, Theresa May and Israel, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Tags: Antisemitism, Britain, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Israel, Britain and UN Security Council resolution against Israel, Islamophobia, Israel, Israeli settlements, Theresa May and Islamists, Theresa May and Israel, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Britain’s Little Lies, Gatestone Institute, Douglas Murray, December 31, 2016
This is a serious category error for a Prime Minister to make. It puts critics of a religion on the same plane as people wanted for terrorism. It blurs the line between speech and action, and mixes people who call for violence with those who do not.
Only now, a fortnight later, has the true duplicity of Theresa May’s speech been exposed. For now the world has learned what diplomacy the British government was engaged in even as May was making her speech. At the same time as the Prime Minister was talking about “true friendship” in front of friends of Israel, her government was conspiring with the outgoing Obama administration to kick that friend in the back. The British government was exposed as being one of the key players intent on pushing through the anti-Israel UNSC Resolution 2334. British diplomats were revealed to have been behind the wording and rallying of allies for the resolution.
The British government, whilst saying that it remains committed to a peace deal that comes as a result of direct negotiations between the two sides, has its own preconditions for peace: a freeze on the building of what it calls “settlements.” They maintain this line despite the fact that settlements have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as “settlements.” Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, “settlements,” but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose anti-Semitism but pretend it is the same thing as “Islamophobia,” then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.
On December 12, the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, gave a fulsome speech to the annual Conservative Friends of Israel lunch. Before a roomful of 800 pro-Israel Conservative MPs and party supporters, she lavished praise on the Jewish state. She praised Israel’s achievements and castigated its enemies. She said that Britain would be marking the centenary of the Balfour declaration “with pride.” She also stressed that cooperation and friendship between Britain and Israel was not just for the good of those two countries, but “for the good of the world.”
For many of the people listening in the room, there were just two discordant notes. The first was related to the focus on anti-Semitism in May’s speech. As she used the opportunity rightly to lambaste the Labour party for its anti-Semitism problem, she extended the reach of her own claims for herself. While boasting of her success as Home Secretary in keeping out the prominent French anti-Semite Dieudonné and finally deporting the Salafist cleric Abu Qatada al-Filistini back to his native Jordan, she also used the opportunity to congratulate herself for banning Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Pastor Terry Jones from coming to the UK. “Islamophobia comes from the same wellspring of hatred” as anti-Semitism, she explained.
This is a serious category error for a Prime Minister to make. It puts critics of a religion, such as Geller and Spencer, on the same plane as people wanted for terrorism (Qatada). It blurs the line between speech and action, and mixes people who call for violence with those who do not. The comparison also fails to follow the consequences of its logic to its own illogical conclusion. The comparison fails to recognise that anyone who objects to Islamic anti-Semitism is immediately known as an “Islamophobe.” Therefore, someone hoping to come to Britain would have to accept being attacked by Muslim extremists for fear of being banned from entering the UK. These are serious and basic misunderstandings for a Prime Minister to propagate.
There was, however, a clear political sense to them. A Prime Minister in a country such as 21stCentury Britain might believe that he or she has to be exceptionally careful not to appear to be criticising any one group of people or praising another too highly. So for the time being in Britain, a moral relativism continues to stagnate. If the Jewish community complains of anti-Semitism, then you must criticise anti-Semitism. If the Muslim community complains of “Islamophobia,” then you must criticise “Islamophobia.” To make value judgements might be to commit an act of political folly. Wise leaders in increasingly “diverse” societies must therefore position themselves midway between all communities, neither castigating nor over-praising, in order to keep as many people onside as possible.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the annual Conservative Friends of Israel lunch, December 12, 2016. (Image source: Conservative Friends of Israel)
The same tactic brought the other discordant moment at the Prime Minister’s lunch — the same tactic brought to the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. For the other discordant note in May’s speech came when she mentioned Israeli settlement building. It was carefully placed in the speech, after a passage in which May congratulated her own Department for International Development (DfID) Minister, Priti Patel. In the days before the lunch, Patel had announced that DfID would carry out an investigation to determine whether British taxpayer money being sent to what May called “the Occupied Palestinian Territories” was being used to fund salaries for Palestinians convicted of terrorism offences against Israelis. Following this May said:
“When talking about global obligations, we must be honest with our friends, like Israel, because that is what true friendship is about. That is why we have been clear about building new, illegal settlements: it is wrong; it is not conducive to peace; and it must stop.”
The comment was received in silence and May moved on.
But this comment fitted in closely with the strategy of her other comment. For having lavished praise on Israel, a castigation apparently seemed necessary. It is wrong, but hardly possible for a British Prime Minister currently to do otherwise. If there are terrorists receiving funds from British taxpayers thanks to the largesse of the UK government, then this may — after many years of campaigning by anti-terrorism organisations — finally be “investigated.” However, throughout any such investigation, the British government, whilst saying that it remains committed to a peace deal that comes as a result of direct negotiations between the two sides, has for years announced its own preconditions for peace: a freeze on the building of what it calls “settlements.” They maintain this line despite the fact that settlements have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as “settlements.” Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow — in 1948, 1956, and 1967. The core problem is not, and never was, “settlements,” but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
At the time of May’s speech, these two issues seemed like minor cavils to some and gained little notice. Only now, a fortnight later, has the true duplicity of the speech been exposed. For now the world has learned what diplomacy the British government was engaged in even as May was making her speech.
At the same time as the Prime Minister was talking about “true friendship” in front of friends of Israel, her government was conspiring with the outgoing Obama administration to kick that friend in the back. In the wake of the collapse of the Egyptian-sponsored initiative at the UN, the British government was exposed as being one of the key players intent on pushing through the anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334. British diplomats were revealed to have been behind the wording and rallying of allies for the resolution.
The most obvious interpretation of this fact is simply a reflection that friends do not kick friends in the back. Especially not in the world’s foremost international forum for kicking that particular friend. But some people are putting a kinder interpretation on the facts. The kindest to date is that the May government believes that a sterner line on the issue of Israeli settlements would give the British government more leverage with the Palestinians.
If that is so, then it seems that the May government will have to learn abroad the same lesson that they must learn at home. Both will come about because of the same strategic mistake: a reliance on the short-term convenience of what must seem at first to be only convenient little lies. The problem is that such little lies, when tested on the great seas of domestic and international affairs, have a tendency to come to grief with exceptional rapidity and ease.
Politicians are keen on taking stands. But if you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose anti-Semitism but pretend it is the same thing as “Islamophobia,” then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand for Israel while simultaneously conniving at the UN to undermine Israel, then your duplicity will be exposed and admiration for this and other stands will falter. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding. They have before — at home and abroad — and they will again.
Happy New Year
Posted December 31, 2016 by Peter HofmanCategories: Uncategorized
Happy New Year
Thanks to our readers, commenters , Joe, Dan
Let 2017 be better than 2016
Amazing firework display .
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