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Israel’s Christian Minority

March 20, 2016

Israel’s Christian Minority, Gatestone Institute, Shadi Khalloul, March 20, 2016

♦ Christians in Israel, as well as all other minorities, understand today that serving in the Israeli military is essential. Many Christians and other minorities in Israel share the same fears: they understand that in this region, Israel is the only island of safety that allows them freedom and democratic rights.

♦ Christians and other minorities in Israel prosper and grow, while in other countries in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Authority, they suffer heavily from the Islamic movement and persecution — until forced to disappear.

♦ Contrary to propaganda, there is no “Apartheid” of any kind in Israel, and no roads on which only Jews may travel.

♦ In Israel, members of the Christian and Muslim minorities fill all types of high positions — just as any Jewish Israeli who wishes to have a successful career. There is the Maronite Christian Supreme Court Judge, Salim Jubran.

♦ Widely discussed in the region is how the Europeans secretly want Israel wiped out, too, and are hoping that their new laws, combined with old Arab violence, will do the trick.

Last year, Israel recognized the existence of a group of Christians — “Arameans” — within its borders; an act that no Arab or Muslim nation from the Middle East has ever done or would ever do. Israel recognized a distinct religious and ethnic group: the indigenous people of the ancient Fertile Crescent.

Their language, Aramaic, was the language spoken by Jesus centuries before Islam came to the region.

Israel not only supports and gives Christians and other minorities — Druze, Muslims, Baha’i, everyone — full civil rights, freedom and legal rights to exist peacefully and practice their faith as they wish, but also to develop themselves as a minority with all the implications of differences in culture. Arabs, for instance, are welcomed into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but are not, as opposed to Jews, required to serve. Israel’s founding Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, humanely did not want Arabs to feel as if they were obliged fight their “brothers.”

In Israel, members of the Christian and Muslim minorities fill all types of high positions — just as any Jewish Israeli who wishes to have a successful career. There is the Maronite Christian Supreme Court Judge, Salim Jubran.

Contrary to propaganda, there is no “Apartheid” of any kind, and no roads on which only Jews may travel. Those roads are in Saudi Arabia, which has real Apartheid roads, since only Muslims may travel to Mecca.

Israel does this, moreover, in a neighborhood where most of its neighbors — often the most brutal enemies of humanity — wish Israel were wiped out and often do their utmost to make this wish come true. Sadly, many Europeans join in. Everyone has seen the recent vicious attempts by the European Union to snuff out Israel economically by labeling goods made in disputed territories. This requirement, made of no other country with a disputed border actually hinders any prospects for peace that working together is meant to bring about.

These Europeans are not fooling anyone. Their slyly sadistic, self-righteous “punishments” meant for Israel will only throw thousands of Palestinians out of well-paying, badly-needed work; these diktats also drive many newly out-of-work Palestinians to the employment bureau of last resort: Islamic extremism and terrorism. Ironically, these Europeans, to satisfy their wish to hurt Jews by pretending to help Palestinians, are actually seeding a new crop of terrorists who will later come to Europe and show them what they think of such hypocrites.

Widely discussed in the region is how the Europeans secretly want Israel wiped out, too, and are hoping that their new laws, combined with old Arab violence, will do the trick. That way, the Europeans can pretend to themselves that they had “nothing to do with it.” These Europeans need to know they are not fooling anyone.

Israel, meanwhile, despite having to deal with the European and American fronts as well as often genocidal Muslim threats, continues actively to strengthen its minority communities through a variety of state-sponsored programs. Among them is a five-year plan to develop Israeli Arab and other minority communities adopted by the government on December 30, 2015, at cost of 15 billion shekels [roughly $4 billion]. Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel, of the Likud Party is in charge of implementing the plan. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is unjustly demonized, has for the last several years operated the “Authority for the Economic Development of the Arab, Druze and Circassian Sectors.” It is headed by an Arab Muslim, Aiman Saif, who controls a sizeable budget of 7 billion shekels [roughly $1.8 billion], which has mostly gone to different Arab cities and villages to develop modern infrastructure, industrial zones, employment opportunities, education and other elements. The rest was allocated to helping Christian villages in the Galilee.

Arabs have their own section in the Ministry of Education, headed by an Arab Muslim, Abdalla Khateeb, who is also in charge of a sizeable budget of 900 million shekels [$230 million].

Christians, as well as all other minorities, understand today that serving in the Israeli military is essential for their integration in Israel. Many Christians and other minorities in Israel share the same fears: they increasingly understand that in this region, Israel is the only island of safety that allows them freedom and democratic rights. The Muslim Arab community in Israel, as well as the Christian and other Arabic-speaking communities, see the tragic destiny of their brothers in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and other Arab countries. Muslims killing Muslims; fanatical Muslim groups killing Christians, uprooting them, slitting their throats, burning them alive, drowning them in cages and of course crucifying them, even little children. Israel’s minorities are very aware of this. They also cannot understand why no one is demonizing those villains. They fear that this devastation will spread, first to the holy land of Israel, and then to Europe.

This fear is one of the reasons there have been increasing numbers of Christians applying to serve in the IDF: 30% recruitment on a voluntary basis; while in general Jewish society, the number stands for 57% on an obligatory basis. Today there are even more than 1000 Muslim Arabs serving in the IDF.

We all know the danger of these fanatic Islamic jihadist groups such as Hamas groups, and feel ever more committed to protect this lone pluralistic state.

The community to which this author belongs, Aramean Christians, is of Aramean-Phoenician ethnic roots and language, and was originally based in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Over the 1400 years following the Islamic conquest, Aramean Christians were forced to switch to speaking Arabic, and more recently to flee their homes in Syria and Iraq. They have no status in Arab and Islamic states, most ruled according to Islamic sharia law. Aramean Christians also have no status in the Palestinian Authority, which now rules Judea and Samaria.

We are aware of some Christian groups, such as Sabeel, Kairos Palestine and others under the thumb of the Palestinian Authority, who still feel the need to pay lip-service to the Muslim Arabian lords who have conquered them.

Jerusalem is open to everyone. But it has not always been, especially under the jurisdiction of Jordan, until 1967. Not only were Jews not allowed in, but 38,000 Jewish gravestones were taken from the Mount of Olives cemetery and used as building materials and flooring for Jordan’s latrines.

Muslim Arab members of Israel’s Knesset [parliament] reject the right of Christians to preserve their unique heritage. On February 5, 2014, Knesset member Haneen Zoabi of the United Arab List party threatened the Israeli Christian representatives who lobbied in the Knesset Employment Committee in favor of a law that would add Christian representatives to a committee on employment equality in the Economy Ministry. Zoabi rejected their declaration that they were a separate Aramean Christian ethnicity. She insisted on forcing upon them an Arab and Palestinian identity. This identification was of course, as false as if we Christians had insisted that Muslim Arabs call themselves Native Americans. The law passed despite the efforts of Zoabi and her colleagues, due to a coalition of Knesset members — with vast majority of Jewish MKs voting in favor of it.

This incident illustrates how some of Israel’s Muslim Arabs, while asking their Jewish neighbors for help in preserve their own Muslim-Arab heritage, prohibit other ethnic minorities these same rights.

Instead, they try to impose Arabization and Palestinization by threats and by force. In September 2014, for instance, an Aramean Christian woman, IDF Captain Areen Shaabi, was stalked by Arab Muslim activists in Nazareth. She was threatened with shouts of “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is Greater!”], and at night her car tires were slashed.

IDF Major Ehab Shlayan, an Aramean Christian in Nazareth and the founder of the Christian Recruitment Forum, awoke on the morning of August 2015 to find that a Palestinian flag had been put in front of his door during the night. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 2014, thirty Muslims throwing stones and glass bottles attacked a Christian soldier, 19-year-old Majd Rawashdi, and his home.

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IDF Major Ehab Shlayan (far left), is an Aramean Christian from Nazareth and founder of the Christian Recruitment Forum, which encourages Israeli Aramean Christians to serve in the military. Muslim Arab Knesset member Haneen Zoabi (right) recently threatened Israeli Christian representatives, rejecting their declaration that they were a separate Aramean Christian ethnicity and insisting on forcing upon them an Arab and Palestinian identity.

All this is hypocrisy at the highest levels, mixed with racism.

In an official Christmas greeting to Israel’s Christians on December 24, 2012, Prime Minister Netanyahu said:

“Israel’s minorities, including over one million citizens who are Arabs, always have full civil rights. Israel’s government will never tolerate discrimination against women. Israel’s Christian population will always be free to practice their faith. This is the only place in the Middle East where Christians are fully free to practice their faith. They don’t have to fear; they don’t have to flee. At a time when Christians are under siege in so many places, in so many lands in the Middle East, I am proud that in Israel Christians are free to practice their faith, and that there is a thriving Christian community in Israel.”

Christians and other minorities in Israel prosper and grow, while in other countries in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Authority, they suffer heavily from the Islamic movement and persecution — until forced to disappear.

Categories: Christians, Foreign policy, Freedom, Human rights, IDF, Israel, Israeli Arabs, Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians
Tags: Christians, Foreign Policy, Freedom, human rights, IDF, Israel, Israeli Arabs, Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians

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Op-Ed: Obama’s public face – a political theater of distraction and deception

March 20, 2016

Op-Ed: Obama’s public face – a political theater of distraction and deception, Israel National News, Jeffrey Ludwig, March 20, 2016

In his article “Iran’s Diplomacy for Dummies,” Jonathan Tobin, a totally reasonable individual, again misses the perfidy of Obama’s policies, towards Iran. We brought to the UN our concerns about Iran testing ballistic missiles being a violation of the Iran deal. Russia stated flatly that they “would not permit sanctions to be [re-] imposed because Iran’s actions did not violate UN Security Council resolutions.” Samantha Powers expressed frustration and dismay at the Russian reaction to our concerns.

However, Amb. Powers’ comments against the Russians in the UN were nothing more than a charade. Her comments were a pretense of being offended by Russia. The Obama administration was just playing politics with the issue, and using Samantha as the actress to give voice to our “concern” in this one-act political theater. We pretend to be standing up for real-time enforcement of the Iran deal, and then blame the Russians when enforcement is prevented. Whereas the truth is there was no real expectation or desire for enforcement by Obama and his lady advisors from day one of the negotiations or our sign-off. Powers and Obama are merely trying to appear earnest in their implementation of the treaty (which they falsely called an agreement).

The charade (i.e., playacting) can be seen at work over a variety of political scenarios. These bits of play acting are the modus operandi of the Obama administration. They seek to reverse the idea found in Shakespeare’s drama “Hamlet.” There we find the line, “The play’s the thing. Wherein [to] catch the conscience of the king.” For the Obama inner clique, the principle is “the play’s the thing” to deflect our understanding of the king’s dereliction of duty for God and country.

We see this playacting during a recent interview. During the course of the interview, Obama tried to appear measured and sincere in his thinking. For example, he says to the interviewer, “Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.” He presented himself as a wise Solon who prefers negotiation to force. Here he may not be completely duplicitous but simply be in denial.

Many so-called peaceniks on the left fail to see the cowardly and traitorous underpinnings (motives) of their pseudo-pacifism. Thus, seen in a more honest light, we need to understand that preference for negotiation over force is, in reality, a preference for capitulation and a policy of fear. Capitulation is then interpreted as being wise and detached, whereas it is actually a flight from reality and the unpleasant experiences that accompany any of life’s confrontations.

He also pretended to be detached in the Shiite-Sunni conflict. According to Obama, the two sides “need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood.” Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal tags this remark as sounding more “like Mr. Rogers.” However, this writer finds it to be more duplicitous and sinister than Mr. Stephens thinks. In reality Obama has taken the side of the Shiites and of the Muslim Brotherhood wing of the Sunnis. He has decided to reject Sunni leadership that is not rooted in Muslim Brotherhood ideology — in Libya (overthrew Qaddafi), Egypt (overthrew Hosni Mubarak and is not working cooperatively with General Abdel el-Sisi, but did send F-16s to el-Sisi’s predecessor Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi), and Yemen (allowed a pro-Iranian Shiite faction to overthrow the pro-Saudi government).

Further, the U.S. has not lifted a finger to prevent Iranian-backed Hezbollah from taking over Lebanon.

Lastly, and most important from a Jewish perspective, he has justified U.S. funding of Hamas via their alliance with the PLO in 2014. And we know that Hamas is a Shiite (Iranian-backed) organization with Muslim Brotherhood backing as well. Thus by saying to Goldberg that Shiites and Sunnis will just have to learn to get along, Obama was feigning a neutrality that in practice he totally rejects. His remarks are pure political theater, totally divorced from the policies and practices of his administration.

Although Bret Stephens characterizes Obama’s thinking as shallow, it seems to this writer that Obama’s playacting is not rooted in shallowness, but simply in his being wrong. His underlying principles are ultimately harmful. He is identified with left-wing pseudo pacifism (“pseudo” because violence is justified, but only for leftist ideals), a Marxist-derived anti-American bias that would portray the U.S. as an exploitative society, a bitter anti-Israel bias derived from his Muslim roots, and a false universalism (“false” because it is not God-centered).

His playacting is thus an attempt to distract from his deep ideological commitments. In Hamlet, the play was intended to reveal the hidden murderous action of the King of Denmark. With the present U.S. executive branch, the intent of the playacting is to hide the murderous intent.

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama and Iran, Obama and Islam, Obama and Israel, Obama and Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Russia, Obama's America, Shiite vs Sunni
Tags: Foreign Policy, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama and Iran, Obama and Islam, Obama and Israel, Obama and Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Russia, Obama's America, Shiite vs Sunni

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Obama Backed Muslim Brotherhool Egypt Coup Against National Security Team Advice

March 18, 2016

Obama Backed Muslim Brotherhool Egypt Coup Against National Security Team Advice, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 18, 2016

mubarak_miss_me_yet

Obama usually defends his bad decisions on foreign policy by blaming someone else. He tried to blame General Austinfor his ISIS JayVee team line. He blames Netanyahu for his failed outreach to Islamic terrorists in Israel. Benghazi was caused by a video. The Libyan War was caused by bad advice, especially from Hillary Clinton. Also by the Europeans.

We don’t discuss Egypt much. But, perhaps to get ahead of the blame game, it turns out that Obama rejected the advice of his national security team to back a Brotherhood coup of Mubarak in Egypt. (Yes, I know, the official media narrative is that the overthrow of Morsi was a “coup” but the overthrow of Mubarak was a popular protest, even though both involved the army stepping in. Because the narrative is based on lies and word games.)

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates revealed that President Barack Obama disregarded the near unanimous advice of the national security team and decided to depose then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak because he wanted to be on the “the right side of history.”

“The entire national security team recommended unanimously handling Mubarak differently than we did,” Gates said in a Fox News interview. “And the president took the advice of three junior backbenchers in terms of how to treat Mubarak — one of them saying, ‘Mr. President, you have to be on the right side of history.’”

This isn’t much of a surprise since Obama has always picked his White House juniors and his pet radicals over his official national security team. He’ll blame military people and cabinet members, but not his toadies who got upgraded from speechwriting to unofficially running foreign policy.

How has the “right side of history” worked out. The Muslim Brotherhood has been crushed in most places where it launched its takeovers. (Not counting the United States.) It’s still in the game in Libya though. Maybe Obama can start a second war on its behalf.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Morsi, Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Muslim Brotherhood
Tags: Egypt, Foreign Policy, Morsi, Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Muslim Brotherhood

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Satire | Make Trump Shut Up. It’s Patriotic!

March 18, 2016

Make Trump Shut Up. It’s Patriotic! Dan Miller’s Blog, March 18, 2016

(The views expressed in this article (aside from those espoused by my imaginary guest author, with whom no rational person agrees) are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by my (imaginary) guest author, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of ~~Confusion~~ Utopia. He is a founding member of Climate Change Causes Everything Bad, a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. He is also justly proud of his expertise in the care and breeding of green unicorns, for which his Save the Unicorns Foundation has received substantial Federal grants. We are honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. Without further delay, here is the Senator’s article, followed by my own observations.

As any fool knows, saying things that upset folks is destructive to our peace and tranquility. No patriot would do that. As the Boston Globe observed on March 17th, true patriots can not and should not permit it.

Donald Trump slams protesters at his rallies as “thugs” but, as usual, the unhinged GOP presidential front-runner is dead wrong:

They’re patriots.

. . . .

With Trump nearly sweeping this week’s primaries, those rallies will become more hostile toward anyone pushing against his hideous rhetoric. Yet those patriots will still come, not just because they oppose Trump but for the love of their country which is being shoved toward the abyss. As poet Adrienne Rich wrote in “An Atlas of the Difficult World”:

A patriot is one who wrestles/ for the soul of her country/ as she wrestles for her own being.

Trump has been endorsed by Will Quigg, 48, a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. So has Hillary Clinton, but that’s as different as night is from day; we all know that she is not a racist. The KKK endorsement of Trump shows, beyond dispute, that he is a vile racist. That’s why he despises our President and everything for which we stand.

Trump reminds me of the hateful Britainophobes who mocked Native Americans by wearing their quaint native garb to throw precious tea, violently, into Boston Harbor. For shame!

Trump hatefully complains that Islam is not the religion of peace and that since it is a violent religion Muslims should not be permitted even to visit the United States until it can be determined which are peaceful and which are not. Hogwash! Muslims are just as peaceful as Methodists. They love little children more than Methodists, particularly little girls, and marry them at what Trump probably thinks is too early an age — often at the age of ten. It’s their culture, so there’s nothing wrong with it and we should respect it. Isn’t this a pretty little bride? She looks so happy!

Muslims don’t occupy a country that isn’t theirs like filthy Jews do in Palestine. They don’t try to take over mosques sacred to Islam.

Palestine, unlike Israel, does not practice apartheid. Although Israel has nukes, Iran recently promised not to develop nuclear weapons. Trump, despite his claims to be a master negotiator, would never have got that deal; Obama, a very modest person, did despite obstructions put in his path by Israel and some Republicans.

Not all Jews are bad, of course: a major Jewish group warned that Trump is dangerous. As noted in the immediately linked article, the warning

came amid an impassioned debate in the American Jewish community around Trump’s plans to address an audience of over 18,000 next Monday at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference.

Who knows what might happen if Trump were to address that group. Might he claim, as he often does, that the peaceful Palestinians, not Jews, are to blame for Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine? Perhaps some of his antisemitic bullies might assault members of the audience. They might bring not only knives but guns as well! Remember, President Obama warned against bringing even knives to a gun fight!

Trump complains that our borders are not “secure.” He is stupid, ignorant and just plays on the fear of other racists. Hillary Clinton knows that the borders are secure.

PHOENIX — The United States has done a “really good job” of securing the border between Arizona and Mexico, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said in an exclusive interview Thursday.

“I think we’ve done a really good job securing the border,” she said. “I think that those who say we haven’t are not paying attention to what was done the last 15 years under President (George W.) Bush and President (Barack) Obama.”

Clinton said the federal government has added both border officers and obstructions, while the number of people attempting to cross the border has dropped.

“Immigration from Mexico has dropped considerably,” she said. ”It’s just not happening anymore.”

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, was speaking just days before a campaign event in Phoenix.

Lies, lies, lies. It’s lies all the way down for Trump

The protestors at Trump rallies do not want to silence him, as some far-right nuts have complained. They only want to make him stop saying things that offend them; there’s a big difference, as any fool knows. Like everyone else with two brain cells, we need our safe spaces and he violates our constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by refusing to let us have them. Even the music played at Trump rallies is authoritarian and disgusting. That’s why we attend and protest at Trump rallies.

Trump is Hitler. All Republican candidates for president have been Hitlers for many, many years. Hitlerism is the foul soup in which they are conceived, born and raised. It’s high time to throw out the soup and Republicans along with it. Hillary will do that, and more.

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

Editor’s comments

As a courtesy to Senator Librul, I inserted all of the links in his article. The presence of supporting links is about the only difference between his screed and those of Democrats and the Republican elite (but I repeat myself) disparaging Trump for stuff he has not done and does not do; for what they claim he is and not for what he is.

It’s high time for us to take America back from those who have been trying to destroy her. She belongs to We the People, not to the Democrat or Publican party bosses. Never forget.

Obama did not build our nation. Our ancestors did and it’s our inheritance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArgMK2kAjzw

For whom would the pioneers in the video vote were they alive now? Our “leaders” who sit in Washington, D.C., break their promises and take our money to finance their reelection campaigns so they can continue the process? Those who have weakened our nation and made her a second class world power? Those who elevate political correctness and multiculturalism above reality? Those who rewrite our history so that they can condemn it? I don’t think so. Which candidates do you think they would support?

Categories: Abbas, Democrats, Donald Trump, Foreign policy, Freedom of speech, Hillary Clinton, History, Immigration, Iran scam, Islam and child brides, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Israel, Israeli nukes, Leftists, Obama, Obama's America, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Racism, Republicans, Satire, Trump rallies
Tags: Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, freedom of speech, History, Immigration, Iran Scam, Islam and child brides, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Israel, Israeli nukes, Leftists, Obama, Obama's America, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Racism, Republicans, Satire, Trump rallies

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Islamist Activist Asks Obama to Support Libyan AQ Group

March 18, 2016

Islamist Activist Asks Obama to Support Libyan AQ Group, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, March 18, 2016

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The revelation of his praise for Palestinians who chose “the jihad way” to liberation forced northern Virginia surgeon Esam Omeish to resign from a statewide immigration commission in 2007. But it hasn’t stopped him from enjoying red carpet treatment from Obama administration officials.

Omeish briefly drew national attention in 2007 when he was forced to resign from the Virginia immigration panel. The move resulted from Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) video showing him praising for Palestinians who chose the “jihad way” during a rally in 2000.

This was no slip of the tongue. At a different event two months earlier, Omeishcongratulated Palestinians who gave “up their lives for the sake of Allah and for the sake of Al-Aqsa. They have spearheaded the effort to bring victory upon the believers in Filastin, insha’allah [God willing]. They are spearing the effort to free the land of Filastin, all of Palestine, for the Muslims and for all the believing people in Allah.”

Nonetheless, high-ranking Obama administration officials engaged with him despite this and his praise for Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. They consulted with him on Libya and included him in other events aimed at engagement with the Muslim community and countering violent extremism.

Now, Omeish is hoping those contacts will help him persuade U.S. officials to change gears in Libya, shifting support from a secular political figure to one with links to al-Qaida. He spelled out those ambitions in a Feb. 29 letter addressed to President Obama posted on Omeish’s Facebook page.

It is co-signed by Emadeddin Z. Muntasser, secretary general of the Libyan American Public Affairs Council (LAPAC). Omeish is identified as the LAPAC president.

Before he was affiliated with the LAPAC, Muntasser was convicted in 2008 of failing to disclose connections between a charity he worked with and jihadist fundraising when he sought tax-exempt status for the charity.

Muntasser ran the Boston branch of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, which is considered a precursor to al-Qaida, federal prosecutors have said. It was founded by Osama bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam. Under Muntasser’s leadership, Al-Kifah’s Boston office published a pro-jihad newsletter called Al-Hussam and distributed flyers indicating its support for jihadists fighting on the front lines in places such as Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Algeria.

Muntasser’s charity, Care International, was “an outgrowth of and successor” to Al-Kifah, prosecutors say.

Omeish and Muntasser note in their letter that the U.S. has backed the “Libyan National Army,” led by Khalifa Hifter, a former general under dictator Muammar Gaddafi. That’s a bad idea, Omeish and Muntasser wrote, because “many in Libya believe [Hifter] has dictatorial aspirations …”

“He sounds like the Ahmed Chalabi of Libya,” said former Pentagon spokesman J.D. Gordon, a fellow at the Center for a Secure Free Society. “He wants America to fight his battles for him in order to gain the upper hand over his countrymen.”

However, the letter makes no mention of ties between the group Omeish endorses, the Revolutionary Council of Derna, and al-Qaida. Instead, he and Muntasser casts the group as an effective counter to ISIS because the council has “stripped [ISIS] from its social support. [ISIS]’s foreign presence and violent ways made them an evil that local Libyans themselves rejected and defeated” in Derna.

The council’s leaders included two men – Nasir Atiyah al-Akar and Salim Derbi –known to have had ties to al-Qaida.

After ISIS killed al-Akar, the Derna council eulogized him last June for his close ties to Abu Qatada, al-Qaida operative currently in Jordan. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reports from 2012 connect Akar to Abdulbasit Azzouz, who was al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s man in Libya at the time. Azzouz allegedly was involved with the attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans dead.

Derbi, also killed fighting ISIS, previously belonged to the al-Qaida linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and commanded the Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade, which also has al-Qaida ties.

Egypt’s Al-Alam Al-Youm refers to the Revolutionary Shura Council as “a branch of al-Qaida.”

Despite his ongoing connections to key White House decision-makers, Omeish appears headed for disappointment this time.

His letter is not likely to be read by the president’s national security team, a White House source told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). The U.S. is prepared to support a “Government of National Accord” that is being developed, the White House said in a statement.

However, the Obama administration repeatedly has involved Omeish in policy deliberations about Libya.

White House logs show that Omeish visited nine times since 2011, including a Dec. 13, 2013 visit in which he was photographed with President Obama.

Omeish’s encounter with the president came during the White House’s annual Christmas party, a White House spokesperson said. President Obama never conducts policy discussions at such public meetings, the source said.

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Two photos appear on Omeish’s Facebook page showing him with U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, widely considered an architect of the president’s Libya policy, where she advocated for military intervention. She notably helped draft PSD-11, a secret presidential directive that led to the U.S. supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya among other places.

One photo shows Omeish meeting with Power in February 2012, when she worked as special assistant to the president and senior director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council. The other photo posted the day Obama announced Power’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. shows her standing next to Omeish.

White House officials thought enough of Omeish that they invited him to attend an April 2011 speech on Libya by President Obama at the White House. Omeish also attended the installation of Christopher Stevens, the late U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack, and that of his successor, Deborah Jones, in 2013.

Omeish told The Washington Times following the Benghazi attack that he briefed Stevens before the ambassador began his duties in Tripoli.

Omeish and the Muslim Brotherhood

In addition to his comments about Palestinians and jihad, Omeish admits to prior personal involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. and served as president of the Muslim American Society, which has been described as the “overt arm” of the Brotherhood in America. His association with the Brotherhood likely dates back to his involvement in the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in the 1990s when he became the national organization’s president, which was founded by Brotherhood members in 1963.

Omeish endorsed Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood in a 2012 IRIN News article, stating that although it came in a distant second in Libya’s 2012 elections, it “may be able to provide a better platform and a more coherent agenda of national action.”

Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood subsequently failed to implement a coherent agenda and became deadlocked with its liberal rival, the National Forces Alliance, over establishing a working constitution.

Brotherhood members opposed building a strong Libyan military that could have helped rein in the militias that have since created havoc. Numerous militias tied to the Brotherhood have contributed to Libya’s instability. U.S. State Department officials contracted with the Brotherhood-linked February 17 Martyrs Brigade – a group that also had Al-Qaida ties – to provide security for the ill-fated U.S. consulate in Benghazi. A BBC report described the brigade as the best armed militia in eastern Libya. It additionally held al-Qaida sympathies, according to posts on its Facebook page. A State Department report called reliance on the February 17 militia in the case of an attack such as happened on Sept. 11, 2012 “misplaced.”

LAPAC is but one of an alphabet soup of groups that Omeish helped found as a result of the Arab Spring, aimed at affecting U.S. policy toward Libya.

This includes Libyan Emergency Task Force,(LETF), Libyan Americans for Human Rights, Libyan Council of North America (LCNA), Libyan American Organization, American Libyan Council, American Libyan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ALCCI), Center for Libyan American Strategic Studies. Former Libyan Ambassador to the U.S. Ali Aujali appointed Omeish the official representative of the Libyan-American community, according to ALCCI’s old website.

LETF lobbied for the U.S. and the international community to establish a no-fly zone to keep Gaddafi from bombing rebellious cities in early 2011. Omeish’s LCNA worked to facilitate meetings between U.S. officials and Libyan rebels, including a meeting with John Kerry while he still was a U.S. senator. ALCCI works with the Libyan embassy in Washington to “certify and support trade relations between Libya and the United States.”

It remains to be seen whether the advice from Omeish and Muntasser will be ignored. But their gambit, publicly posting their letter urging the president to support Islamists, indicates a confidence generated by years of access and consultation. That raises a host of troubling questions.

Categories: Al Qaeda, Benghazi, Foreign policy, Hamas, Israel, Libya, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama - Middle East, Obama and Islam, Obama and Israel, Obama and Libya, Palestinian terrorists
Tags: Al Qaeda, Benghazi, Foreign Policy, Hamas, Israel, Libya, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Islam, Obama and Israel, Obama and Libya, Palestinian terrorists

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Allen West on the state of the Republican Party

March 17, 2016

Allen West on Kilmeade and Friends (3/16/2016)

(West for Secretary of State? — DM)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xiJZwrNnm0

Categories: Allen West, Democrats, Donald Trump, Foreign policy, Hillary Clinton, Republicans
Tags: Allen West, Democrats, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Republicans

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ISIS Massacre of Christians Not “Genocide,” Obama Administration Insists

March 17, 2016

ISIS Massacre of Christians Not “Genocide,” Obama Administration Insists

by Raymond Ibrahim March 17, 2016 at 4:30 am

Source: ISIS Massacre of Christians Not “Genocide,” Obama Administration Insists

According to the Obama administration, the Islamic State is committing genocide against certain religious minority groups — excluding Christian minorities. But ISIS is on record saying that its eradication of Christians is due to their religious identity.
The Obama administration’s rejection of the word “genocide” fits a familiar pattern.
When asked about the plight of Christians under ISIS, Colonel Steve Warren said “We’ve seen no specific evidence of a specific targeting toward Christians.”
Although Christians number 10% of Syria’s population, only 2% of refugees accepted into the U.S. from there are Christian. (The majority — almost 98% — are Sunni Muslims, the same sect to which ISIS belongs and thus are not persecuted.)

According to the Obama administration, the Islamic State is committing genocide against certain religious minority groups — excluding Christian minorities. During a February 29 press briefing, White House spokesman Josh Earnest was asked: “Is the Islamic State carrying out a campaign of genocide against Syria’s Christians?” He replied:

Well, we have long expressed our concerns with the tendency of — well, not a tendency — a tactic employed by ISIL to slaughter religious minorities in Iraq and in Syria. You’ll recall at the very beginning of the military campaign against ISIL that some of the first actions that were ordered by President Obama, by the United States military, were to protect Yazidi religious minorities that were essentially cornered on Mt. Sinjar by ISIL fighters. We took those strikes to clear a path so that those religious minorities could be rescued.

Due to the obvious equivocation — it is unclear how Obama’s efforts “to protect Yazidi religious minorities” answers a question about persecuted Christians — the question was repeated: “But you’re not prepared to use the word ‘genocide’ yet in the situation [regarding Christians]?”

Earnest’s response:

My understanding is the use of that word involves a very specific legal determination that has at this point not been reached.

What is this “very specific legal determination” that encompasses Yazidis but excludes Christians? The Islamic State’s treatment of Christians would seem to fit under the UN’s definition of “genocide“:

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;…

ISIS is guilty of “killing members of the [Christian] group” and causing them “serious bodily or mental harm.” Although two separate videotaped mass executions (one of 21 Egyptian Christians and another of 30 Ethiopian Christians) were reported by the mainstream media, accounts of torture, rape, mutilation, crucifixion, and massacres of Christians are regularly reported on Arabic and alternate media.

The Islamic State has also been responsible for “deliberately inflicting on the group [Christians] conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” ISIS has placed these “conditions of life” — more literally known in Islamic doctrine as the “Conditions of Omar” — on Christians. They included a number of humiliations and debilitations — from the suppression of Christian worship to the extortion of money (jizya) — a “protection” tax designed to “encourage” Christians to convert to Islam or flee.

ISIS seems further committed to expunging all physical traces of Christianity in the areas it conquers. It has demolished dozens of ancient churches; at least 400 churches in Syria have been destroyed since the war, as well as countless statues and crucifixes. ISIS has also desecrated Christian cemeteries and ordered the University of Mosul to burn all books written by Christians and decreed that all schools in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain that bore Christian names (some since the 1700s) be changed.

Then there are the numbers. In Iraq, Christians, who totaled 1.4 million in 2003, are now down to about 300,000. In Syria, Christians, who totaled 1.25 million in 2011, are now down to about 500,000.

The Syriac Orthodox Church of St. Ephrem in Mosul, Iraq, before it was captured by the Islamic State (left), and after.

Finally, ISIS is on record saying that its eradication of Christians is due to their religious identity.

Due to all these indicators, many groups and rights activists believe that ISIS’s treatment of Christians “fits the definition of ethnic cleansing,” in the words of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial. A European Parliament resolution adopted in April 2015 stated that “Christians are the most persecuted religious group. … according to data the number of Christians killed every year is more than 150,000.”

Even so, the Obama administration’s rejection of the word “genocide” fits a familiar pattern:

When asked about the plight of Christians under ISIS, Colonel Steve Warren said “We’ve seen no specific evidence of a specific targeting toward Christians.”
Although Christians number 10% of Syria’s population, only 2% of refugees accepted into the U.S. from there are Christian. (The majority of refugees — almost 98% — are Sunni Muslims, the same sect to which ISIS belongs and thus are not persecuted.)
When inviting scores of Muslim representatives, the State Department has repeatedly denied visas to solitary Christian representatives.
When a few persecuted Iraqi Christians crossed the border into the U.S., they were thrown in prison for several months and then sent back to the war zone.
When persecuted Coptic Christians planned on joining Egypt’s anti-Muslim Brotherhood revolution of 2013, the Obama administration, in the person of Ambassador Anne Patterson, counseled them not to.
When persecuted Iraqi and Syrian Christians asked for arms to join the opposition fighting ISIS, D.C. refused.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War in Christians (a Gatestone Publication, published by Regnery, April 2013), is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Foreign Policy, Genocide, Isis, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Middle East, Middle East War, Obama, Terrorism, USA

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The Israel-Bashing Industry’s “Intellectuals”

March 16, 2016

The Israel-Bashing Industry’s “Intellectuals” Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, March 16, 2016

♦ These novelists hold a deep, uninformed, irrational hatred. Instead of backing the only country that gives full rights to all its citizens, they are instrumental in attacking not only Israel but the Jewish people.

♦ What is notable is that every single time, these most illustrious writers “forget” to say why Israel built those fences, checkpoints and roadblocks in the first place.

♦ Saramago, while he was visiting Ramallah, chose not to see and talk about the Israeli restaurants, malls and hotels turned into carpets of human bodies. The wholesale slaughter of Jews was the only reason Israel had to send tanks and soldiers back into the Palestinian cities after the Oslo Accords. Saramago did not mention the context; he preferred to give credence to a distorted, demonizing vision.

What is the only country about which can be said that its very existence is disputed? Clue: Not Zimbabwe, not Tuvalu, not even overrun Tibet. Which country’s boundaries, bought with blood in wars initiated by others, are challenged by all nations, who now seem determined to destroy it through boycotts, unjust defamation and purported “laws” that are applied to no other nation?

Which country fully respects the rights of women and every kind of ethnic, religious and sexual minorities, notwithstanding that it is condemned at the United Nations for being “the worst violator of women’s rights” — worse than Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan?

Which country provides its own enemy with water, electricity, food and medical treatment? Its military, to avoid enemy civilian casualties, warns its enemy to evacuate buildings before attacking them, and — instead of simply carpet bombing the enemy as all other nations do, including most democracies — sends its own soldiers possibly to die in ground operations?

The country is Israel — the only country that even famous writers, intellectuals and Nobel laureates target, demonize and criminalize.

There was a time when Nobel laureates for Literature, such as the German Heinrich Böll, the French Jean-Paul Sartre and the Italian Eugenio Montale, rushed to denounce injustice. Earlier, in the name of best Europe’s values — justice, freedom and solidarity — they condemned the threats to the State of Israel’s existence.

But today, these novelists hold a deep, uninformed, irrational hatred towards the same place. Instead of backing the only country that gives full rights to all its citizens, they are instrumental in attacking not only Israel but the Jewish people. In Germany, Hitler’s Mein Kampf is the new best-seller. In Europe today, you can even find a great number of books that wipe Israel off the map. And a provincial council near Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, banned Israeli books from local libraries.

In the chorus of those who speak from journals, poems and novels, there have been a few noble exceptions. The Albanian writer Ismail Kadaré, a Muslim candidate positioned every year to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, turned down a request to boycott the tiny Jewish State. Israel, he says, faces “the threat of disappearance,” and he compared Israel to Albania under Nazi occupation. Also the author of the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling, refused to add her name to the list of Israel’s boycotters.

Their brave, solitary gestures highlight the sluggish, uninquiring conformity of the “intelligentsia’s” campaign to pile unmerited calumnies on Israel.

Worse, supposed “intellectuals” often spout raw anti-Semitism while giving a pass to the truly barbarous people among us. If the Nobel Committee had any decency, it would revoke the prizes it awarded for “Peace” to such “humanitarians” as Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat. It is painful to watch the Nobel Committee make a fool of itself year after year, and it is painful to watch these so-called intellectuals be so unaware and filled with prejudice against the people who least deserve it.

An Italian writer, Dario Fo, a laureate of the Nobel Prize for Literature, just gave an interview to the newspaper, La Repubblica. Fo, talking about the Jewish patriarch, Moses, said: “Moses was killing women and children because they worshiped idols.” Mr. Fo went on blaming “the Jews’ brutality against those who follow other religions, as it happens today.” Excuse me? Is it the Jews who are burning people alive, drowning them in cages, slitting throats or crucifying anyone for following a different religion?

Mr. Fo’s comparison is as wrong as it is ghastly. It is not the Jews who suicide-bomb Palestinian buses, cafes, wedding halls and discotheques. It is not the Jews who now try to mow down Palestinians with cars or stab them in the street. It is the reverse — and has been for years.

The daily newspaper La Stampa charged Dario Fo with “recycling anti-Semitic stereotypes.” Fo is not new at this. In the 1970s, in one of his theatrical operas, “Resistance: Italian and Palestinian people speak,” the future Nobel Prize laureate compared Nazism to Zionism and the Palestinian fedayeen terrorists to the anti-Fascist partisans.

A few days after the 9/11 attacks, Fo also said that,

“the great speculators wallow in an economy that every year kills tens of millions of people with poverty — so what is 20,000 dead in New York? Regardless of who carried out the massacre, this violence is the legitimate daughter of the culture of violence, hunger and inhumane exploitation.”

Who gave this famous writer the right to defame, earlier, not only Israel’s name but also 9/11’s victims?

Another Nobel prize-winning novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, as well as the Pulitzer Prize winner Dave Eggers, are among a group of international novelists who will contribute to a book of essays next year about “50 years of Israeli occupation” that will be published by Harper Collins, one of the publishers that wiped Israel off the map.

The book is part of an initiative by Breaking the Silence, a non-governmental organization (NGO) which makes sweeping charges against the Israeli army “based on anonymous and unverifiable hearsay ‘testimonies.'” while refusing to disclose the names of the Israeli soldiers who “testified.” Worse, it is being funded specifically “to incriminate the IDF” (Israel Defense Forces) and, was explicitly directed by European charities to prove that Israel acted improperly. In an article entitled, “Europe to Breaking the Silence: Bring Us As Many Incriminating Testimonies As Possible,” the watchdog group NGO Monitor disclosed that:

Contrary to BtS’ claim that “the contents and opinions in this booklet do not express the position of the funders,” NGO Monitor research reveals that a number of funders made their grants conditional on the NGO obtaining a minimum number of negative “testimonies.” This contradicts BtS’ declarations and thus turns it into an organization that represents its foreign donors’ interest, severely damaging the NGO’s reliability and its ability to analyze complicated combat situations.

Are these “prestigious” writers aware of the organization’s predetermined bias which is going to fund their new book?

There is also, of course, the problem of double standards and hypocrisy. These writers did not decide to put their pen at the service of the Syria’s civil war victims or the Christians and Yazidi who are suffering a genocide in Iraq. No, these writers targeted Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, and its supposed “occupation” — which they fail to disclose was backed by the Palestinians themselves in the Oslo II Accord of 1995, Chapter 3, Article XVII Jurisdiction [1], which in fact turned the Palestinian people into the most protected Arab population in the entire Middle East. Go to Ramallah and Jenin and you will see the difference between how they live compared to the people living in Aleppo, Sana’a and Mosul.

The most prolific novelists in the Israel-Bashing Industry are, sadly, the British. “Sadly,” especially as Iran has within the last month raised the bounty offered on the head of a British citizen, Salman Rushdie, by another $600,000, in addition to the $3 million issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. That brings the incentive for murdering a novelist to roughly $4 million. About that, the British government has been shamefully silent. The only condemnation so far seems to have come from the Iranian journalist, Amir Taheri, the British journalist, Douglas Murray and from PEN.

Another “intellectual,” John Berger, a Booker Prize winner, called for artists to decline being published by Israeli publishers and to undertake a boycott of the Jewish State. Harold Pinter, the late Nobel Laureate playwright, has gone so far as to declare Israel “the central factor in world unrest,” presumably forgetting about Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Sudan. Showing how thin is the line separating criticism and anti-Semitism, Tom Paulin, poet, essayist and academic at Oxford, said Jewish “settlers” in Israel “should be shot dead.” A Scottish National Poet, Liz Lochhead, also joined a group calling for the boycott of Israel.

Dozens of the world’s literary stars, including Nobel laureates in literature such as J. M. Coetzee, Herta Mueller, Orhan Pamuk and the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney, added their names to a petition against Israel’s “occupation’s giant, cruel hand.” What is notable is that every single time, these most illustrious writers “forget” to say why Israel built those fences, checkpoints and roadblocks in the first place.

Donald Trump wants to build a wall with Mexico, the Arab sheikhdoms are closing the border with Oman, Spain built fences to keep out Moroccans, India is walling off Bangladesh, South and North Korea share a fortified border, Cyprus is divided by walls and Belfast is a fenced city of barriers.

But only Israel’s fence — built for defensive, humanitarian reasons, merely not to get blown up — is condemned by the International Court of Justice and receives round-the-clock coverage on CNN and front page stories in the New York Times. Why? Because the security barrier that saves lives was perverted by unjust people into an unjust barrier, with no mention of what happened to Israelis before that fence was put up. To paraphrase attorney Alan Dershowitz: If you made a fair and objective list of all the countries in the world that comply with human rights, from best to worst, Israel would have to be near the top, among the best.

One of the most chilling accusations against Israel has come from a northern European writer, Jostein Gaarder, an ostensible humanitarian, whose book, “Sophie’s World,” was translated into 53 languages, and with 26 million copies sold. Penning an article in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, Gaarder wrote:

“If the entire Israeli nation should fall … and part of the population must flee to another Diaspora, then we say: may their surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. Shoot not at the fugitives! Take not aim at them! They are vulnerable now — like snails without shells! … Give the Israeli refugees shelter; give them milk and honey!”

Gaarder envisages the expulsion of the entire Jewish people from their land, and again dependent on European charity — in recent years not exactly a commodity in great supply.

Israel has been humiliated also by a German writer and Nobel Prize for Literature, Günter Grass, who published a poem in several European newspapers, in which he treated Israel as the purveyor of all ills and the instigator of every type of disorder. According to Mr. Grass, it is Israel that threatens Iran with a nuclear genocide, not the reverse.

This sanctimony should not have come from that writer: Grass, in fact, served in Nazi Germany’s armed SS force and defined East Germany’s Communism “a comfortable dictatorship.”

After a visit in the Palestinian Authority’s de facto capital, Ramallah, during the Second Intifada, after there were about 1,500 Jewish dead from terrorism, another winner of Nobel Prize for Literature, José Saramago, stated that the Israeli blockade of Ramallah was “in the spirit of Auschwitz” and “this place is being turned into a concentration camp.” A year later, Saramago commented that the Jewish people no longer deserve “the sympathy for the suffering they went through during the Holocaust.”

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Nobel laureates who demonized: German novelist Günter Grass (left), who served in Nazi Germany’s armed SS force, claimed that Israel threatens Iran with a nuclear genocide. Portuguese novelist José Saramago (right), gave credence to a distorted, demonizing vision that culminated in the perverse comparison between Hitler and Israel.

Mr. Saramago, while he was visiting Ramallah, chose not to see and talk about the Israeli restaurants, shopping malls and hotels turned into carpets of human bodies. The wholesale slaughter of Jews was the only reason Israel had to send tanks and soldiers back into the Palestinian cities after the Oslo Accords. Saramago did not mention the context; he preferred to give credence to a distorted, demonizing vision that culminated in the perverse comparison between Hitler and Israel, and the transformation of the Jewish State — the historical home of the Jews for nearly 4000 years, and lately the only sanctuary not to turn away Jews being persecuted or rounded up for death — into an “imperialist base.”

It is by repeating lies that Europe even accepted the big Mohammed al-Dura lie: a boy supposedly riddled to death with Israeli bullets, but there was not one drop of blood! Not only that, but after he was dead, he moved his hand to look out. Quite a feat. For a time, the lie even became the favorite table conversation for Europe’s upper classes.

This is how millions of Europeans have been persuaded to see Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinian terrorists as the victims. They read the inverted, Orwellian revision of history every day on the front pages. Look at what is happening now during this “Third Intifada”: it is filled with knives, stabbings of Jews, even charts on the internet showing where to stab a Jew to do the most damage. The many dead Israeli civilians and soldiers have totally disappeared from the television screen, but when Israeli soldiers shoot a Palestinian in the process of stabbing a Jew, they are labelled by a corrupt and racist media as “illegal executioners.”

What would these supposed intellectuals do if citizens were being stabbed in London, Rome or Berlin? The “intellectuals” and the media seem to be trying to make the Jews unable to defend themselves. The “intellectuals” and the media are preaching for Israel’s destruction.

_____________________

[1] From the Oslo II Accord — Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, September 28, 1995, CHAPTER 3 – LEGAL AFFAIRS, ARTICLE XVII  — Jurisdiction:

4. a. Israel, through its military government, has the authority over areas that are not under the territorial jurisdiction of the Council, powers and responsibilities not transferred to the Council and Israelis.

b. To this end, the Israeli military government shall retain the necessary legislative, judicial and executive powers and responsibilities, in accordance with international law. This provision shall not derogate from Israel’s applicable legislation over Israelis in personam.

Categories: Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Europe, Foreign policy, Human rights, Islam and Jews, Israel, Leftists, Media, Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Palestinians and media
Tags: Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Europe, Foreign Policy, human rights, Islam and Jews, Israel, Leftists, Middle East, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Palestinians and media

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Trump and the Left’s Accusations of Fascism

March 16, 2016

Trump and the Left’s Accusations of Fascism, Front Page Magazine, Bruce Thornton, March 16, 2016

trump

Donald Trump’s success in the primaries and his rhetoric have sparked troubled meditations about an awakening of fascist impulses among his supporters. Bret Stephens has drawn an analogy with the Thirties, “the last dark age of Western politics,” and compared Trump to Benito Mussolini. On the left, Dana Milbank, in a column titled “Trump Flirts with Fascism,” wrote about a campaign rally at which Trump was “leading supporters in what looked very much like a fascist salute,” a scene New York Times house-conservative David Brooks linked to the Nuremberg party rallies.

Much of the rhetoric that links Trump to fascism or Nazism is merely the stale ad Hitlerum fallacy used by progressives to demonize the candidate. They did the same thing when they called George W. Bush “Bushitler.” This slur reflects the hoary leftist dogma that conservatives at heart are repressed xenophobes and knuckle-dragging racists lusting for a messianic leader to restore their lost “white privilege” and punish their minority, immigrant, and feminist enemies. As such, the attack on Trump is nothing new or unexpected from a progressive ideology whose totalitarian inclinations have always had much more in common with fascism than conservatism does.

What Auden called the “low dishonest decade” of the Thirties, however, is indeed instructive for our predicament today, but not because of any danger of a fascist party taking root in modern America. Communism was (and in some ways still is) vastly more successful at infiltrating and shaping American political, cultural, and educational institutions than fascism ever was. But the same cultural pathologies that enabled both fascist and Nazi aggression still afflict us today. These pathologies and their malign effects are more important than the reasons for Trump’s popularity–– anger at elites, economic stagnation, and anti-immigrant passions–– that supposedly echo the “waves of fear and anger” of Auden’s Thirties.

The most important delusion of the Thirties still active today is the idealistic internationalism that had developed over the previous century. A world shrunk by new communication and transportation technologies and linked by global trade, internationalists argued, meant nations and peoples were becoming more alike. Thus they desired the same prosperity, political freedom, human rights, and peace that the West enjoyed. Interstate relations now should be based on this “harmony of interests,” and managed by non-lethal transnational organizations rather than by force. Covenants and treaties like the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and institutions like the League of Nations and the International Court of Arbitration, could peacefully resolve conflicts among nations through diplomatic engagement, negotiation, and appeasement.

The Preamble to the First Hague Convention (1899) captures the idealism that would compromise foreign policy in the Thirties. The Convention’s aims were “the maintenance of the general peace” and “the friendly settlement of international disputes.” This goal was based on the “solidarity which unites the member of the society of civilized nations” and their shared desire for “extending the empire of law and of strengthening the appreciation of international justice.” Two decades later, the monstrous death and destruction of World War I should have shattered the delusion of such “solidarity” existing even among the “civilized nations.” Despite that gruesome lesson, Europe doubled down and created the League of Nations, which failed to stop the serial aggression that culminated in World War II.

But the League wasn’t the only manifestation of naïve internationalism. The Locarno Treaty of 1925 welcomed Germany back into the community of nations with a seat on the League of Nations council. Nobel Peace prizes, and wish-fulfilling headlines like the New York Times’ “France and Germany Bar War Forever,” were all that resulted. The Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928 “condemn[ed] recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce[d] it as an instrument of national policy” in interstate relations. The signing powers asserted that “the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts . . . shall never be sought except by pacific means.”

All the future Axis Powers signed the treaty, and they all soon shredded these “parchment barriers.” In the next few years, Japan invaded Manchuria, Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in gross violation of the Versailles Treaty, and Italy invaded Ethiopia. By the time Germany annexed Austria, and Neville Chamberlain’s faith in negotiation and appeasement handed Czechoslovakia to Hitler, all these treaties and conventions and conferences were dead letters, and the League of Nations was exposed as a “cockpit in the tower of Babel,” as Churchill suggested after the First World War.

However, such graphic and costly evidence showing the folly of “covenants without the sword,” as Hobbes put it, did not discredit this dangerous idealism over the following decades. Indeed, it lies behind the disasters of Obama’s foreign policy. Just consider his “outreach” to our enemies, his acknowledgement of our own “imperfections,” his reliance on toothless U.N. Security Council Resolutions, his preference for non-lethal economic sanctions to pressure adversaries, and his belief that negotiated settlements and agreements can achieve peace and good relations even with our fiercest enemies. All reflect the same failure to recognize that our adversaries in fact do not sincerely want to reach an agreement, for the simple reason they are not in fact “just like us,” and so they do not want peace and prosperity and good relations with their neighbors and the “world community.”

The catalogue of Obama’s failures is long and depressing. The “reset” with Russia and promise of “flexibility,” the empty “red line” threats against Bashar al Assad, the arrogant dismissal of a metastasizing ISIS as a “jayvee” outfit, the alienation of allies like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, the cultivation of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood, the ill-conceived overthrow of Muammar Ghaddafi, and the rhetoric of guilt and self-abasement are just the most noteworthy failures. The nuclear deal with Iran, of course, is the premier monument to this folly. Yet despite the increasing evidence of its futility––Iran’s saber-rattling in the Gulf, capture of U.S. military personnel, genocidal rhetoric, and testing of missiles in blatant violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution–– Obama still clings to this internationalist delusion.

A recent article in The Atlantic on Obama’s foreign policy shows, despite his protestations of hardheaded “realism,” that he has not learned from his failures. Thus he still thinks that the vigorous use of force is usually an unnecessary and dangerous mistake, and that verbal persuasion and diplomatic engagement are more effective. He also still believes that “multilateralism regulates [U.S.] hubris” of the sort that George W. Bush showed when he recklessly invaded Iraq, and that American foreign policy has frequently displayed.

Obama’s delusional faith in rhetoric, especially his own, comes through in his rationale for the infamous 2009 Cairo speech: “I was hoping that my speech could trigger a discussion, could create space for Muslims to address the real problems they are confronting—problems of governance, and the fact that some currents of Islam have not gone through a reformation that would help people adapt their religious doctrines to modernity.” The idea that Obama’s mere words could start a “discussion” that would transform 14-century-old religious doctrines fundamentally inimical to liberal democracy, human rights, and all the other Western goods we live by, is a fantasy. Obama’s self-regard recalls Neville Chamberlain’s boast after his meeting with Hitler at Bad Godesberg that he “had established some degree of personal influence with Herr Hitler.”

Or consider Obama’s take on Vladimir Putin:

He understands that Russia’s overall position in the world is significantly diminished. And the fact that he invades Crimea or is trying to prop up Assad doesn’t suddenly make him a player. You don’t see him in any of these meetings out here helping to shape the agenda. For that matter, there’s not a G20 meeting where the Russians set the agenda around any of the issues that are important.

A “player,” in Obama’s foreign policy universe, is a leader who uses “smart power” like diplomacy and negotiated deals, and recognizes that the use of force will backfire and lead to costly “quagmires.” As Secretary of State John Kerry suggested, Putin is using outdated “19th century” instruments of foreign policy like military force in a world that presumably has evolved beyond it.

In contrast, a genuine “player,” as Obama fancies himself, attends summits and conferences, such as the useless climate change conference in Paris, and “sets the agenda.” And like his rationale for the Cairo speech, as the leader of the world’s greatest power, his rhetoric alone can be a force for change. Thus just saying that Syria’s “Assad must go,” while doing nothing to achieve that end, is still useful, and refusing to honestly identify the traditional Islamic foundations of modern jihadism will build good will among Muslims and turn them against the “extremists.”

Meanwhile, Putin and Iran fight and bomb and kill in Syria and Iraq, and now they are the big “players” in a region that the U.S. once dominated, but that now serves the interests of Russia and Iran. I’m reminded of Demosthenes’ scolding of the Athenians for refusing to confront Phillip II of Macedon: “Where either side devotes its time and energy, there it succeeds the better––Phillip in action, but you in argument.”

In other words, for Obama as for Chamberlain, appeasing words rather than forceful deeds are the key to foreign policy––precisely the belief that led England to disastrously underestimate Hitler until it was too late. And that same belief has turned the Middle East into a Darwinian jungle of clashing tribes, sects, and nations.

Obama wraps his foreign policy of retreat in claims to “realist” calculations of America’s security and genuine interests, and buttresses his claim by citing his strategically inconsequential drone killings. But such rhetoric hides an unwillingness to risk consequential action and pay its political costs. And it reflects a commitment to the internationalist idealism that gives diplomatic verbal processes an almost magical power to transform inveterate enemies into helpful partners. Europe tried that in the Thirties, and it led to disaster. That’s a much more important lesson from that sorry decade’s history than the lurid fantasies about fascism coming to America on the wings of Trump’s rhetoric.

Categories: Donald Trump, Europe, Fascism, Foreign policy, Germany, Human rights, Iran scam, Leftists, Middle East, Moral equivalence, national security, Nazis, Obama, Obama's America, Take America back, Western media
Tags: Donald Trump, Europe, Fascism, Foreign Policy, Germany, human rights, Iran Scam, Leftists, Middle East, Moral equivalence, national security, Obama, Obama's America, Take America back, Western media

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Turkey: Normalizing Hate

March 13, 2016

Turkey: Normalizing Hate, Gatestone Institute, Uzay Bulut, March 13, 2016

(Breaking news: Obama, Cruz and Rubio have issued a joint statement blaming Trump. What? OK. Not yet. — DM)

♦ [T]hey have launched an investigation against me in accordance with article 301 because I mentioned ‘peace, brotherhood, and human rights’ in my statement to the press. Hundreds of lawsuits have been brought against lawyers and members of opposition in Turkey because they talked about peace and brotherhood.” — Ilhan Ongor, Co-President of the Adana branch of the Human Rights Association.

♦ Starving or murdering civilians does not, apparently, constitute a crime in Turkey, but speaking out about them does.

♦ Insulting non-Turkish and non-Muslim people has almost become a social tradition in Turkey. Prejudice and hate speech have become normalized.

♦ What makes this hate speech even more disturbing is that these people — Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and Jews, among others — are the indigenous peoples of Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Thrace, where they have lived for millennia. Today, as a result of Turkey’s massacres, pogroms and deportations, they have been turned into tiny communities.

According to the 2015 statistics of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), 28 lawsuits were opened by applicants against member states regarding their violations of freedom of expression. Ten of those applications (complaints) were made against Turkey’s violations of freedom of expression. Turkey ranked first in that category.

Turkish law professor Ayse Isil Karakas, both a judge and elected Deputy Head of the ECHR, said that among all member states, Turkey has ranked number one in the field of violations of free speech.

“619 lawsuits of freedom of expression were brought at the ECHR between 1959 and 2015,” she said. ” 258 of them — almost half of them — came from Turkey and most were convicted as violations of freedom of expression.”

For a country that fancies itself a candidate for EU membership, that is quite a record. Actually, when it comes to deciding what thoughts are warmly tolerated and what thoughts are severely punished, Turkey is extraordinary. If the statement involves Jew-hating for instance, it is welcomed by many.

Seyfi Sahin, a columnist in the Islamist pro-government newspaper Vahdet, wrote on January 31:

“I believe that the gorillas and chimpanzees living in the forests in northern Africa today are cursed Jews. Those are mutated, perverted people.

“Believe me, this view is stronger and more scientific than the Darwin theory. We Muslims, and those who believe that, do not have the banks, the money, the organizational power in the world of science, or the propaganda power to scream those truths.

“But we have our wisdom, our faith and our Allah. Alhamdulillah (Praise be to Allah).”

In an attempt to back up his “views,” Sahin mentioned that he is also a medical doctor, and quoted Koranic verses 2/65, 5/60 and 7/166. “Those verses are signs that monkeys descended from human beings,” he said. “Allah always tells the truth.”

Throughout his entire piece — which has been widely “liked” and shared on social media — he tried to “prove” his claim that monkeys come from Jews, and his newspaper saw no harm in publishing it. Yet, no one has yet brought him to account for his libelous insults. Who knows? He might even be given an award for this piece.

However, much of the Turkish public and the Turkish state are not so tolerant and welcoming when human rights issues — especially Kurdish issues — are discussed.

According to reports, two lawsuits were filed on January 3 against Sibel Ozbudun, an author and retired associate professor of anthropology known for her writings about minority rights. The indictment claims that through her social media posts, Ozbudun has committed the crime of “openly inciting people to commit an offense” and “making propaganda of the PKK.” The lawsuits were filed after the police received an e-mail from someone denouncing Ozbudun for her posts.

One of the pieces of “evidence” of the prosecutors is a verse, popular in Turkey, shared by Ozbudun on her Facebook page: “I want the country be divided — henchmen, sycophants and slimy ones to one side; honorable, dignified, laborious, patriotic people to the other.”

On another occasion, on December 30, a Turkish instructor and a member of the Social Rights Association, Cise Atalay, during a lecture at Amasya University mentioned human rights abuses. A student called the police; Atalay was arrested for “terrorist propaganda” on the spot. Next, her home and office were searched.

The student who called the police is not alone. Turkish state authorities also regard requests for human rights as “terrorist propaganda” or “insulting the Turkish state.” On January 7, an investigation was launched against the co-president of the Adana branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD), Ilhan Ongor, for violating Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes it illegal “to insult Turkey, the Turkish nation, or Turkish government institutions.”

On November 11, apparently, Ongor had issued a press release in which he said, “Today, in Silvan, a crime against humanity is being committed by the state. They are trying to make the massacres ordinary.” He had been criticizing the recent military attacks against Kurds during a curfew imposed on the Kurdish district of Silvan.

The military attacks had caused starvation, civilian deaths and massive destruction. After his criminal investigation, Ongor said that “People’s right to life is violated while the judiciary is trying to suppress human rights and defenders of freedom.”

“Interestingly, they have launched an investigation against me in accordance with article 301 because I mentioned ‘peace, brotherhood, and human rights’ in my statement to the press. Hundreds of lawsuits have been brought against lawyers and members of opposition in Turkey because they talked about peace and brotherhood.”

Starving or murdering civilians does not constitute a crime in Turkey, apparently, but speaking out about them does.

In Turkey, if someone utters the most vicious or threatening remarks about Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Christians, Kurds, Alevis or other members of a minority, he is never condemned by the state or held to account. But those who speak of human rights abuses, or criticize the state for its violent, repressive actions, will most probably be accused of violations.

After a group of Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK guerillas were killed in battle on September 8, the principal consultant of President Tayyip Erdogan and former Chairman of the Constitutional Commission of Turkey’s Parliament, Burhan Kuzu, wrote in his Twitter account:

“So far, thousands of terrorists have been bumped off. This will continue. The corpses of the dead terrorists should definitely have autopsies. Many of them will be found to be uncircumcised. Wake up, my Kurdish brother, wake up now!”

Kuzu seems to be trying to legitimize the killings of PKK members because being uncircumcised implies being Christian or non-Muslim. He also seems to think that the PKK members are not Muslims, and that any non-Muslim deserves to be “bumped off.”

Evidently jumping to conclusions about the possible political leanings of dead people based on their genitalia, and saying that because of their religious background they deserve to be killed, is perfectly acceptable in Turkey. What is more alarming is that Kuzu, who made these statements, is a constitutional law professor.

In 1996, at Turkey’s parliament, the interior minister at the time, Meral Aksener, and a current MP from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said that the leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), Abdullah Ocalan, was “Armenian semen.” She then clarified the remark by saying, “I did not refer to the Armenians living in Turkey. I referred to the Armenian race in general.”[1]

Humiliating statements about non-Turkish or non-Muslim people are common and popular, even among political circles, but if one makes critical statements about the state policies, one might be prosecuted, or end up in prison — due to the vagueness of Turkey’s “terrorism” laws.

Because of several articles in the Turkish penal code, many individuals face prosecution as if they were actually fighting the government as “members” of the armed Kurdish PKK, and are often sentenced accordingly.[2]

Many peaceful demonstrators have also faced prosecution for exercising their right of freedom of expression, if they shout slogans, hold up banners, or make statements to the press.

The latest victims are the peace activists who demanded an end to the recent military siege in Turkey’s Kurdistan. On December 27, activists from western Turkey started a journey towards Diyarbakir in an attempt to oppose the military siege and civilian deaths in the region. Calling their action “We are walking towards peace,” they arrived in Diyarbakir on December 31 — to be attacked by the police. Four were injured and twenty-four were taken into custody, accused of “carrying out acts on behalf of a terrorist organization.”

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In December, peace activists walked to the city of Diyarbakir in Turkish Kurdistan in an action they called “We are walking towards peace.” When they arrived, they were attacked by the police. Four were injured and twenty-four were arrested, accused of “carrying out acts on behalf of a terrorist organization.” (Image source: JINHA)

The state tradition of violating the freedom of expression goes back to the foundation of the Turkish republic in 1923. The new regime established by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) — with its laws and “independence tribunals” — totally crushed any kind of political opposition and freedom of opinion.

The 1925 Law on the Maintenance of Order gave the government that founded the Turkish republic extraordinary authority through which it could suppress all kinds of opposition and ban any group or publication it viewed as threatening its authority.

In 1926, all major national newspapers except Cumhuriyet and the official Ankara daily, Hakimiyet-i Milliye were closed.[3]

In another autocratic policy, the “independence tribunals” were founded in 1920 — and functioned periodically until 1929 — to prosecute the dissidents of the government and hand down swift capital punishment for them.

“The members of the independence tribunals were chosen from the parliament,” wrote the historian Ayse Hur.

“But those members — except for the prosecutors — were not jurists. On the doors of the tribunals were written ‘Independence tribunals are afraid of Allah only’ and they were not responsible for their rulings but all of the civilian and military bureaucrats were responsible for the executions of punishments without delay.

“No evidence was needed to give rulings. It was very rare that the defendants had lawyers. There was neither time for that nor lawyers courageous enough. The rulings were given in accordance with the personal convictions of judges and those who were tried did not have a right of appeal. The punishments (and hangings) were carried out right away. The rulings were given and executed so swiftly that sometimes the wrong people were hanged instead of real defendants.”

“By the time the independence tribunals were disbanded two years later,” wrote professor Michael M. Gunter, “more than 7400 Kurds had been arrested, 660 had been executed, hundreds of villages had been destroyed, and thousands of other Kurds had been killed or exiled.”[4]

The tribunals were legally closed down in 1929, but the laws concerning independence tribunals remained in force until 1949. They continued functioning as the nightmare of the opponents of the regime until the end of the one-party regime of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 1950.

Sadly, the new Turkish regime founded in 1923 did not aim to foster a culture of free opinions and free debate. And the rest of Turkey’s history has mostly been about repeated violations of freedom of expression. Almost all opinions that are different from the state’s official ideology are targeted, criminalized and repressed.

Turkey has pursued discriminatory and violent policies towards minority groups, but discussing those policies often constitutes a crime.

Omer Asan, a Turkish author and publisher, was accused by Turkish courts of “spreading separatist propaganda” through “Pontus, Pontic Culture,” a book he wrote. The title means “sea” in Greek, and is a historical Greek designation for the territory located in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. The inhabitants of Pontus were some of the very first converts to Christianity. From 1914 to 1923, out of approximate 700,000 Pontic Greek Christians, as many as 350,000 were killed by Muslim Turks in a genocidal campaign. Almost all the rest were driven out of their homes during the forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

That act marked the end of one of the ancient Greek civilizations in Asia Minor. The ancient region known as Pontus has been almost totally Turkified and Islamized up until today.

The book was, among other things, the subject of a television program in which a theology professor accused Asan of “being a traitor friendly to Greece” and of “wanting to reintroduce Orthodox Christianity to a Muslim region.”

In January 2002, the National Security Court ordered the seizure of the book.[5]

In March, 2002 the State Security Court brought criminal proceedings against Asan. He was charged with disseminating separatist propaganda by asserting that there were still some communities influenced by Pontic Greek culture in the province of Asan’s hometown, Trabzon, and the surrounding area.

In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights convicted Turkey of violating Asan’s right to free speech.

Why is Turkey disturbed by critical thoughts, questions and books, but not by those who call Armenians “sperm,” Jews “monkeys” or who talk about the private parts of dead Kurds? Insulting non-Turkish and non-Muslim people has almost become a social tradition in Turkey. Prejudice and hate speech have become normalized.

What makes this hate speech even more disturbing is that these people — Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and Jews, among others — are the indigenous peoples of Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Thrace, where they have lived for millennia. Today, as a result of Turkey’s massacres, pogroms and deportations, they have been turned into tiny communities.

After committing crimes against these native people, Turkey not only denies the realities of this history, but insults and threatens the remaining members of those groups. It also represses whoever would like to discuss these issues. The only people who seem to enjoy “freedom” completely are those engaging in hate speech.

Citizens of other countries who live in Turkey are also exposed to prohibitions on free speech.

Norma Cox, an American academic who worked as a lecturer at Turkish universities during the 1980s, was deported and banned from re-entering Turkey by order of the Turkish Ministry of the Interior in 1986, 1989 and 1996. She has been unable to return to Turkey ever since.

The Ministry of the Interior claimed that Cox had been expelled and banned because of her separatist activities against national security, “namely statements she had made about Turks assimilating Kurds and Armenians, and Turks forcing Armenians out of the country and committing genocide.”

Cox’s application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said: “Expressing opinions on Kurdish and Armenian issues at a university, where freedom of expression should be unlimited, could not be used as a justification for any sanctions, such as the ban on her re-entry into Turkey.”

In 2010, the ECHR convicted Turkey of violating Cox’s freedom of expression.[6]

While hate speech and racism are warmly tolerated and even promoted by state authorities, free debate on Turkey’s social and political issues such as the Kurdish question and the PKK, Armenian genocide, history of Anatolian and Pontic Greeks, and the Christian roots of Anatolia, among others, are criminalized.

Turkey thereby systematically violates Turkish citizens’ freedom of information or right to know, a right recognized by the United Nations.

The researcher Lisa Reppell, who analyzed Turkey’s cases in the ECHR, wrote:

“The category in which Turkey stands out most significantly is freedom of expression. … Though by number of incidences, freedom of expression judgments are a smaller percentage of Turkey’s judgments, violations of this category are much more common in Turkey than in any other member state. Out of a total of 544 judgments handed down by the Court between 1959 and 2013, 41 percent of all freedom of expression violations have come from cases against Turkey.”

Turkey is a mental prison. In Turkey, knowledge of history and respect for human rights are neither valued nor popular; hatred, bans and discrimination are.

Despite Turkey’s unchanging pattern of violating freedom of expression, the country was officially recognized as a candidate for full membership of the European Union in 1999, and is a part of the “Western Europe” branch of the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) at the United Nations.[7]

For decades, Europe has treated Turkey almost as if Turkey were a part of Europe. Turkey, however, has never behaved like a modern European state or even a state that truly aspires to be one.

Perhaps Turkish authorities in charge of the country’s tourism affairs should prepare more truthful videos or posters. They might say: “Come to Turkey, where Asking for Peace is a Crime., but Asking for Uncircumcised People To Be Killed Is Normal.”

Or: “Watch your books and remarks! We Are So Sensitive That Even the Mention of Greeks and Christians Offends Us.”

Another poster could say, “In This Country, Recognizing the Armenian Genocide Is a Crime but Calling Someone “Armenian Sperm” is Just Fine. Welcome to Turkey!”

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[1] “Armenian semen” is one of the most popular swear words in Turkey, often used for Kurds, as well. Kurds, or Kurds who request national rights, are “accused” of being Armenian. Many people in Turkey, including military personnel openly refer to Kurds or Kurdish activists as “Armenians,” “dirty Armenians,” “Armenian bastards,” “Armenian sperm” or “Armenian semen.”

[2] For more details, see: “Protesting as a Terrorist Offense: The Arbitrary Use of Terrorism Laws to Prosecute and Incarcerate Demonstrators in Turkey,” by Human Rights Watch, November 1, 2010.

[3] “The History of Turkey”, by Douglas Arthur Howard, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.

[4] “The A to Z of the Kurds”, by Michael M. Gunter, Scarecrow Press, 2009.

[5] For details about Asan’s case at ECHR, please see: European Court of Human Rights, 840; 27.11.2007 Asan V. Turkey.

[6] Cox’s application to the ECHR also said:

“[T]he Ministry’s allegations against her had not been proved. Even assuming that she had said those things at the university, she had remained within the permissible limits of criticism. Furthermore, she had never been prosecuted for having expressed those opinions. The action taken against her by the Ministry had therefore been devoid of any legal basis.”

For details about Cox’s case at ECHR, see “Case of Cox v. Turkey“, Application no. 2933/03, 20 May 2010

[7] In 1987, Turkey’s application to accede to the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union (EU), was made. Since 1963, Turkey has been an associate member. Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe in 1949; the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1961; and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 1973. It was an associate member of the Western European Union from 1992 to its end in 2011. It also signed a Customs Union agreement with the EU in 1995.

Categories: Erdogan, Foreign policy, Freedom, Turkey
Tags: Erdogan, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Turkey

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