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Statement of Geert Wilders during His Interrogation by the State Police

December 9, 2014

Statement of Geert Wilders during His Interrogation by the State Police, Gatestone Institute, December 9, 2014

(Increasingly, multiculturalism must not be challenged. — DM)

As a democratically elected politician I name the problems that I see…. That is my duty. That is why I have been elected. I rely on objective facts and figures…. Because they are the truth.

I do not intend to hurt or offend people either… Already for over 10 years, I have lost my personal freedom.

In my fight for freedom and against the Islamization of the Netherlands, I will never let anyone silence me. No matter the cost, no matter by whom, whatever the consequences may be.

To speak with the words of Martin Luther King: “I close by saying there is nothing greater in all the world than freedom. It’s worth going to jail for. It’s worth losing a job for. It’s worth dying for.”

The Hague, December 8, 2014.

Today, Dutch parliamentarian and PVV leader Geert Wilders made a statement during his interrogation by the Dutch State Police. The State Police interrogated Mr Wilders on behalf of the Dutch Public Prosecutor, who is considering to prosecute Mr Wilders because the politician had asked his voters during the election campaign whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands.

Our freedom is being threatened. Threatened by a violent totalitarian ideology – Islam – that brings with it death and devastation. Threatened by a politically correct elite that does not tolerate criticism of Islam and mass immigration, and that nurtures cultural relativism.

I rise up against this.

As a democratically elected politician I name the problems that I see. I name the dangers and disadvantages that we experience in the Netherlands as a result of cultural relativism, mass immigration and the ongoing Islamization. That is my task. That is my duty. That is why I have been elected. That is the reason why I am in politics and why I founded the Party for Freedom (PVV).

I am fighting for a better Netherlands.
To preserve our own culture.
Our own identity.
Our safety.
Our freedom.

I do not discriminate. I do not spread hatred, nor do I incite to it. I do not intend to hurt or offend people either. However, I do not mince my words when I defend our established freedoms and name the dangers to our society.

I dedicate my life to the fight against this evil ideology and the defense of our liberties. Every day, I pay the price for this fight. Already for over ten years, I have lost my personal freedom.

During the past 10 years, I have drawn attention to the Moroccan problem which we have here in the Netherlands. These include serious problems with integration, crime and welfare dependency. The majority of the jihadis travelling from the Netherlands to Syria is Moroccan. In order to see the whole context, the contents of the attachments that I deposit with you here today must be taken into consideration.

I rely on objective facts and figures. Facts that I must name. Because they are the truth. If we had had the same problem in the Netherlands with Canadians, I would have named them.

Those who do not understand that we have an enormous problem with Islam and with Moroccans in the Netherlands, though seeing, they do not see, and though hearing, they do not hear.

For the reasons above, while on campaign in The Hague, I argued that there need to be fewer Moroccans. And, at an election meeting in The Hague, I asked those present a number of questions, one of which was “Do you want more or fewer Moroccans?”

761Geert Wilders during his March 2014 speech, where he asked “Do you want more or fewer Moroccans?” (Image source: nos.nl video screenshot)

Indeed, I want fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands for the reasons and context that I have previously expressed in this statement as well as in Parliament and for which I refer you to the documents that I now deposit.

I have yet to meet the Dutchman who wants more Moroccans in the Netherlands. Asking for fewer Moroccans is something totally different than if I were to want all Moroccans to leave the Netherlands or than if I were to object to every Moroccan.

Like me, 43% of all the Dutch and 95% of my supporters want fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. I have said what millions of Dutchmen think.

I also want less Islam in the Netherlands.

And like me, 65% of all the Dutch and 100% of my supporters think that the Islamic culture does not belong to the Netherlands.
Since the establishment of the PVV, I have advocated fewer immigrants from Islamic countries.
Since the establishment of the PVV, I have identified the Moroccan problem and presented (democratic) solutions for it, such as:

  • limiting the immigration of people from Islamic countries, hence also Morocco
  • promoting the voluntary remigration of non-Western foreigners, hence also Moroccans
  • expelling criminals with dual nationality after denaturalization, hence also Moroccans. Since Moroccans living in the Netherlands are significantly overrepresented in crime statistics and often have dual citizenship, this would also lead to fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands.

I do not retract anything of what I have said.

Because I have said nothing wrong.

In my fight for freedom and against the Islamization of the Netherlands, I will never let anyone silence me. No matter the cost, no matter by whom, whatever the consequences may be.

To speak with the words of Martin Luther King: “I close by saying there is nothing greater in all the world than freedom. It’s worth going to jail for. It’s worth losing a job for. It’s worth dying for.”

For these above reasons, I assume that the Public Prosecutor will decide not to prosecute me.
Any other decision cannot be interpreted otherwise than politically motivated.

Geert Wilders

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‘Abbas In Interview: Six Million Refugees Want To Return,

December 7, 2014

‘Abbas In Interview:

via ‘Abbas In Interview: Six Million Refugees Want To Return, And I Am One Of Them; Hamas And The MB Are Liars; Hillary Clinton Phoned Me And Asked Me To Persuade President Mubarak To Step Down.

 

On November 30, 2014, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud ‘Abbas gave an interview to the Egyptian daily Akhbar Al-Yawm, in which he addressed the stalemate in the negotiations with Israel and the Palestinian alternatives to the negotiations, including appealing to the UN, stopping the PA’s security coordination with Israel and transferring responsibility for the Palestinian Authority to Israel.

In the interview, ‘Abbas reiterated that he did not recognize Israel as a Jewish state, because this contradicted the Palestinian interests by harming Israeli Arabs and preventing the return of the Palestinian refugees. He said that there were six million Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their homes, and he was one of them, and that creative solutions had to be found for the refugee problem, because “we cannot close the door to those who wish to return.”

Also in the interview, ‘Abbas harshly criticized Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood (MB), calling them “a gang of liars.” He said that Hamas was responsible for the outbreak of the fighting in Gaza in July 2014 and for the destruction of Gaza, because it had lied and refused to take responsibility for the killing of the three Israeli teens. He also condemned Hamas for rejecting the Egyptian ceasefire initiative, and said that, on the last day of the war, Hamas begged for a ceasefire with no reservations or conditions. In addition, ‘Abbas accused Hamas of not being committed to the Palestinian reconciliation and of acting against Fatah members in order to thwart the reconciliation.

‘Abbas did not spare criticism of the U.S. administration, slamming it for its policy towards Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). According to him, in a conversation with President Obama, he told the president that there was no such thing as “moderate MB members” and that the MB was the mother of all terrorist organizations, including ISIS and Al-Qaeda. He recounted that, when the January 25 revolution broke out in Egypt, then-State Secretary Hillary Clinton surprised him by asking him to convince then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down.

The following are translated excerpts from ‘Abbas’ statements in the interview:[1]


‘Abbas in the Al-Akhbar interview room (image: Al-Akhbar, Egypt, November 30, 2014)

Netanyahu Demanded Israeli Presence In The Jordan Valley For Another 40 Years, So I Left His Home

Mahmoud ‘Abbas said: “Working with Israel is very difficult, if not impossible. We are conducting mutual relations with people who don’t believe in peace. You ask for peace, and they do not want it… Netanyahu said to me: I want [Israel to be responsible for] security on the Jordanian border for 40 years. I pretended to have misheard him, and asked: How many?! He said: 40 years. I bid him farewell and said, Let’s shake hands [in farewell]. I left his home and said to him, This is occupation. I haven’t seen him since…

“In principle, I do not oppose 1:1 land swaps. Take territory of known value, and give territory of the same value, so that the West Bank remains the same [size]. I negotiated with Olmert, who said: Let us swap land, and you will receive 20 extra kilometers in addition to the West Bank… but we did not [manage] to reach an agreement and he left[office, i.e. was voted out]… There is a basic condition for land swaps – Israel must recognize the June 4, 1967 border at a 1:1 ratio. For example, it is inappropriate for them to receive land in Jerusalem and give me [land] in the Negev [in exchange].”

We Will Live Alongside Israel In Peace And Security Only After We Receive Our Rights; I Will Not Take A Single Israeli Arab Into The Palestinian State

“Netanyahu once told me that it was an ‘idea from hell,’ from his perspective, for him to give me the Triangle and everything in it. [The Triangle] was occupied in 1949 and at that time it had 38,000 residents. Today, it probably has about 400,000 residents. I said: I will not take anyone. Forget it, because honestly, I will not allow, or force, any Arab to relinquish his Israeli citizenship. You might be surprised, but this is important. As far as I’m concerned, this is sacred. For example, in the fourth round of the release of our Palestinian prisoners, 15 of the 30 are 1948 Arabs [Israeli Arabs]. They told me: Take them to the West Bank and they will relinquish their citizenship. I told them: This is impossible. They should return to their homes and retain their citizenship. As far as I’m concerned, Arabs remaining citizens of Israel is a sacred matter…

“I don’t want to destroy Israel and do not call for its destruction. We want to live with it in security and peace, but only after I receive my rights and you receive yours… In effect, we are approached by very concerned people who say: Why aren’t you talking to Israel and Netanyahu? And I respond: I am ready to do it tomorrow morning. Bring him [here], I am ready. [But] he left and never returned.”

Chances Are Small That I Will Succeed In Actualizing My Plan At The Security Council

“We want a state in the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, and we want to [set] a date to end the occupation. That is all we want. If Israel agrees to this now, we will go to negotiations. [But] they use deception and excel at media fraud. They claim that I am going to the Security Council in order to obtain a state, but all the [Security] Council does is give me a certificate; it doesn’t give me territory. I will take the certificate and then go negotiate with them in order to realize it…

“Now the General Assembly has decided that the PA territory is occupied territory, [so] now we are like any occupied country that is subject to the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Geneva Conventions. Therefore, we intend to participate in the conference of signatory countries in Geneva next month [a conference that is to take place in December 2014 and deal with the situation in the West Bank] in order to implement this resolution.

“We decided in Arab League meetings that, beginning [December] 1, we would appeal to the Security Council. Anyone who wants to join us in this plan is welcome. The U.S., Europe, and France have a plan. Anyone who has a plan is welcome. [However,] chances that I can actualize my plan are small, because of two obstacles: The first is that nine countries must agree to it in order for the proposal to be brought to a vote in the Security Council. The second is that, even if we obtain the agreement of nine countries, we expect an American veto. The U.S. will not allow it…

“The Americans have always pressured, and will continue to pressure, to prevent us [Palestinians] from addressing the Security Council. Even though we are small and simple people, and need the entire world, including the U.S., we say: No! [to dropping our UN bid]. This has happened several times. When we addressed the General Assembly, they [the U.S.] fought us for three whole months, and even when we joined 20 international institutions, they [still] fought us, but that doesn’t matter. It is more important that when we feel the need to say no, we say no.

We Have Not Benefitted From The Security Coordination With Israel, And I Want To End It

“If we cannot get what we want, there are other steps [we can take]. The first step is joining many international organizations, such as the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice. There are 520 international organizations, and [joining them] will surely bother everyone. If there is an appeal to the ICC, and a Palestinian files a lawsuit against an Israeli, they [the Israelis] get scared, because they are wanted and cannot travel.”

“This step won’t do much good, but we have two other steps: The first is ending all security coordination between us and them [i.e. Israel]. Currently, there is security coordination, and the comrades in Hamas see this as something they can accuse us about, but they themselves coordinated [with Israel] in 2012 during the era of [Egyptian president Mohammad] Mursi. We have been committed to this security coordination since the Oslo Accords. Now, when there is nothing between us, there is no problem to end the coordination, and there will be no ties, no security, and no talks with anyone.

“The last step, which bothers many of us since it is not understood – and which also bothers the Arabs but bothers the U.S. and Israel even more – is saying to Netanyahu: You are an occupation state, please take responsibility for the occupation. Many comrades tell me: Authority is an achievement. But I am not giving away authority. I am merely saying that I have no authority and that I have nothing. My job is just to pay [salaries]. I panhandle in order to pay clerks, and the health and education sectors, while the occupier has it all. I cannot continue like this. Take all this authority, and if you don’t, let us talk of the peace that the world has approved – that is, a border between two countries and Jerusalem as our capital. The other details, such as refugees, security, and more, can be discussed later…

“We have not benefited from the security coordination, and I want to end it. I am working to defend my people and spare them from harm. In the past, Netanyahu backed down when I spoke of ending the security coordination.

“Even [General Security Services director] Yoram Cohen told Netanyahu that I am the partner and that I do not incite against Israel, either explicitly or implicitly. This is because we sat down with members of Israel’s security forces and spoke honestly with them, and they felt that we were reliable in our demeanor and words and that we aspire to peace. They were convinced by our ideas, presented them to the prime minister, and told him we were honest…”

We Will Not Recognize A Jewish State So As Not To Damage The Right Of Return Or Harm Israeli Arabs

“We cannot recognize a Jewish state. We will stand against this enterprise, not out of obstinacy, but because it contradicts our interests. The first to suffer from this law would be the 1.5 million Arabs who would be no longer belong to Israel, due to their religion. The first to protest this law were the Druze…

“There is another reason. [Israel] will not allow the return of refugees. There are six million refugees who wish to return, and by the way, I am one of them. We need to find creative solutions because we cannot close the door to those who wish to return. Israel aspires to a Jewish state, and ISIS aspires to an Islamic state, and here we are, suspended between Jewish extremism and Islamic extremism. [ISIS leader]Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi will have an excuse to establish an Islamic state after the Jewish state law is approved. This is another matter from which we and everyone else suffer…”

I Explained To Obama That There Was No Such Thing As Moderate MB Members; Clinton Asked Me To Persuade Mubarak To Step Down

“In my recent visits to the U.S. and South Africa, I clarified to everyone that Egypt had saved us and the entire region from the terrorism in the region… In my recent meeting with Obama, he asked me about the situation in Egypt, and I explained to him that the process of democratization [there] was about to be completed. He asked me about the Brothers [i.e., the MB], and I explained to him that there was no such thing as Brothers there. Obama clarified, ‘The moderate Brothers,’ and I explained to him that the moderate Brothers are only in the U.S., but that they [i.e., the MB] were the ones who had created all the extremist organizations in the region, including ISIS, Jabhat Al-Nusra, and Al-Qaeda. All these terror organizations emerged from the belly of the MB. They will not return to [power in] Egypt again.”

“From the outset, I never believed in the Arab Spring. One day, before the January 25 revolution, I was with then-president Hosni Mubarak, and when the events of January 25 began,[then-]U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton phoned me and asked me to phone president Mubarak and persuade him to step down. I asked, What do I have to do with the Egyptian matter?… We are facing chaos, the rise of the MB, or both.

“Mursi did not understand the Palestinian problem. His understanding of the subject was like my understanding of Japanese. He wanted to exploit it to actualize the interests of the MB. If you remember the Giora Eiland plan, he wanted to turn the Sinai territories into the Palestinian state, [and Mursi agreed to this plan].[2] [But] we will not agree to accept an inch of land from Egypt and will not agree that a Palestinian should leave his land…[Moreover,] Mursi wanted to establish a Gaza consulate in Egypt to deepen the internal Palestinian schism…”

‘Abbas also warned, “If the current situation continues as it is now, ISIS will also emerge in the West Bank. As for the Gaza Strip – the entire MB is ISIS.”

The Tunnels Must Be Completely Destroyed; 1,800 Men In Gaza Have Gotten Rich From Them

‘Abbas added: “I cannot ask Egypt to stop its military operation in the region [i.e., in Sinai], and we are aware of the nature of Egypt’s national activity. We have no problem with the transfer of aid to Gaza via the [Rafah border] crossing, but I emphasize the need to destroy the tunnels once and for all. This has been my view for nine years, and I have asked Egypt many times to close the tunnels. In Gaza, 1,800 residents have become millionaires by utilizing the tunnels for their own interests. Likewise, they utilize the tunnels to act against Egypt by smuggling weapons and drugs, and [they also harm Egypt] by operating an industry of counterfeiting money and forging documents. The destruction of the tunnels is the answer that will put an end to these phenomena. I have many times proposed ideas for destroying the tunnels, for example, to flood them with water 30 meters deep – as deep as the tunnels. This should be done after destroying the homes with tunnel openings in them, and punishing the owners of those homes. No country in the world tolerates the problem of the tunnels except for Egypt and Palestine…”

The MB And Hamas Are Liars; Hamas Begged For A Ceasefire In Gaza

“We must recognize that the Hamas movement is part of the MB. This is explicitly declared by all, and Hamas receives instructions from the office of the MB’s global general guide… We agreed [with Hamas] that we would establish the National Accord government, but that it would not include a single member of the Hamas movement. This government was sworn in on June 2,.[2014], and exactly ten days later, on June 12, they kidnapped the three settlers [near] Hebron. I tried to avoid creating a crisis. I spoke with [Hamas political bureau head] Khaled Mash’al and asked him whether Hamas had anything to do with the kidnapping of the settlers, and he said: We have nothing to do with it. I wanted him to confirm it again, and he swore by Allah that they had nothing to do with it. I told him: I believe you. That was in Doha.

“Then the war in Gaza broke out, and I visited Qatar and Turkey to consult [with them] about the Egyptian initiative. I had a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, and I asked him [to hold a meeting] attended by the Hamas leadership and by members of the movement who were in Qatar. Before this meeting [was held], Hamas member Salah Al-‘Arouri officially declared from Istanbul that it was Hamas that had kidnapped the three settlers and killed them, in order to promote Hamas’s attempt to mobilize the Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Then I asked Mash’al again about those involved in the affair, and he said that Al-‘Arouri had spoken for himself, not for Hamas.

“I want to say here that no one lies more than them [Hamas] and the MB. I am not against Islam, but I am against the MB. I am a good Muslim – I fast, I pray, and I read the Koran – while they are a bunch of liars…

“Because of Hamas’s lie, this regrettable Gaza war broke out. I phoned the Egyptian president and asked him to submit a proposal to stop the war. I clarified that [such] an initiative would save the Palestinian people, and that it was the entire Palestinian people that was asking him to do this, not Hamas. [I explained this because] I sensed from his words that he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Hamas. President Al-Sisi met my request, and the Egyptian initiative was proposed. They [had to] propose it for 51 days, because of Hamas’s obstinacy, and during this time the land [Gaza] was completely destroyed. On the last day [f the war], Hamas members begged me to declare a ceasefire with no reservations or conditions, after many had already been killed and wounded and Gaza was in ruins.”

“During the 50-day war, everyone spoke out against me, first of all Fatah. I told them that I am not willing to destroy the West Bank and Ramallah. Hamas, for example, killed three [Israelis], and it wanted an intifada, and I did not respond… At the end of the war, my men told me: You were right. Had we acted like them [i.e., like Hamas], the [entire] land would have been ruined…”

Hamas Is Always Thwarting The Palestinian Reconciliation; New Elections Must Be Held

“I wondered why Hamas did not accept the reconciliation from the outset, instead of [allowing]the destruction that was caused in the Strip. The same thing happened when they blew up the homes of the Fatah leaders in Gaza recently [on November 7], but claimed that they were not involved in this and that they were investigating the incident. They are liars. All the extremist factions declared that they were not responsible for this; even ISIS released an official announcement denying any connection to these bombings in Gaza. There is no one else[who could have done it]but them [Hamas]. Despite this, we diligently implement the reconciliation because we pursue unity of the land and the holding of elections. If they win, I will welcome them as I did in 2006 [when they won the elections]…

“Despite everything we do to bring our positions closer to their positions, they do things that thwart the reconciliation efforts. The latest of these was the cancellation of the rally commemorating the 10th anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s death, because they feared that a million Palestinians in Gaza who support us would  go out [into the streets] – like they did two years ago when 1.2 million turned out to commemorate the founding of Fatah…

“They [Hamas] concluded with Robert Serry, the UN  emissary for rebuilding Gaza, that we [the Palestinian Authority] as a state would be at the border and the crossings in order to receive aid and construction materials, under UN oversight, so that we could transfer them to whoever needs them. But they backed out of the agreement, and again difficulties were created for rebuilding Gaza. Despite this, we are transferring aid in a variety of ways…

“I ask Hamas: Go to the polls again. The results will be[either] your continued control of Gaza, or the people not reelecting you. But they [Hamas] believe in one-off elections…”

 

Endnotes:

 

 

[1] Akhbar Al-Yawm (Egypt), November 30, 2014.

[2] In the preface to the interview, it was stated that, according to ‘Abbas, Mursi had promised him in 2012 to meet Israel’s demand to give Gaza 1,600 square kilometers of Sinai’s territory, in return for Israel stopping the fighting in Gaza, and that the idea of giving the Palestinians territory in Sinai was part of a plan known in Israel as the Giora  Eiland plan.

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Abbas Shuts the Door to Negotiations with Israel

December 7, 2014

Abbas Shuts the Door to Negotiations with Israel

Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi,

December 4, 2014

via Abbas Shuts the Door to Negotiations with Israel.

 

Institute for Contemporary Affairs
Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

Vol. 14, No. 39       December 4, 2014

  • On Nov. 29, the Arab League approved a political action plan by PA President Mahmoud Abbas aimed at imposing the establishment of a Palestinian state without any political compromise on the Palestinians’ part. Jordan, currently the only Arab member of the UN Security Council, will submit a resolution to the Council along the lines of Abbas’ plan in the coming days.
  • The plan involves internationalizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by having the Security Council fix a date for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with east Jerusalem as its capital.
  • Abbas, who claimed there was no longer an Israeli partner for a political settlement, said his plan includes having the “state of Palestine” join international conventions and organizations, particularly the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and requesting the UN to provide protection to the Palestinian people.
  • Abbas’ political plan shuts the door to any possibility of reaching a political settlement through negotiations with Israel. The conditions he has presented for resuming negotiations impose terms on Israel with no reciprocity from the Palestinians in the context of a political compromise.
  • Abbas is trying to exert pressure on the U.S., the international community, and Israel simultaneously. Abbas hopes to goad the international community into forcing Israel to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines without a peace agreement being signed.
  • The Palestinian Authority is determined, even at the price of a run-in with the U.S. and Israel, to advance a unilateral political process that is aimed against Israel. The rioting and terror in Jerusalem and the West Bank, which are being encouraged by the Palestinian Authority, serve as a form of pressure on Israel and are also aimed at spurring the international community’s intervention.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas - The Palestinian Authority Presses Its Unilateral Process against Israel

On November 29, 2014, the Arab Peace Initiative Committee of the Arab League Council approved a political-action plan submitted by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), “president of the state of Palestine,” which aims to “bring an end to the Israeli occupation of lands of the state of Palestine.”1 An announcement published at the end of the meeting held in Cairo said the issue had been transferred to the Arab League Council appropriate action.2  A diplomatic official told the Al Arabiya network that Jordan, currently the only Arab member of the UN Security Council, will submit in the coming days a proposal for a resolution along the lines of Abbas’ plan.3

The political plan Abbas presented was detailed in a speech he gave to the Arab League Council.4 The plan involves internationalizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by submitting a proposal for a resolution to the Security Council, whereby the Security Council would fix a date for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with east Jerusalem as its capital.

In his speech Abbas, who claimed there was no longer an Israeli partner for a political settlement, set forth the other components of his plan. They include: the “state of Palestine” joining international conventions and organizations, particularly the International Criminal Court in The Hague and a conference of states parties to the Geneva conventions, where one of the resolutions would be to declare the conventions applicable to the state of Palestine;” requesting the United Nations to provide protection to the Palestinian people; and a diplomatic effort to convince additional states to recognize the “state of Palestine.”

Abbas’ political plan shuts the door to any possibility of reaching a political settlement through negotiations with Israel. Whereas Abbas conveys to the world at large that he remains committed to the path of negotiations, the conditions he has presented for resuming them entail imposing terms on Israel with no reciprocity from the Palestinians in the context of a political compromise.

Abbas says Palestinian conditions for renewing the talks include: ending construction in the settlements, freeing the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners (terrorists who are Israeli citizens and are serving prison sentences), withdrawing IDF forces from parts of Area A in the West Bank that are supposed to be under the Palestinian Authority’s full security control, and Israeli agreement to negotiate with the Palestinians on making the 1967 lines the border between the state of Israel and the state of Palestine.

Abbas’ Pressure Tactics Include Violence

Abbas is trying to exert pressure on the United States, the international community, and Israel simultaneously. He told the Arab League Council that he sees no need to wait for the results of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to bridge the Israeli and Palestinian positions, and that, if the United States vetoes the resolution in the Security Council, he would then reassess relations with Israel, end security cooperation with it (which is aimed at preventing terror), and transfer control of the “state of Palestine” to Israel, which he called “the occupying state.” By means of that scenario – which could foster political and security chaos leading to an Israeli-Palestinian confrontation (a third intifada) that would have a regional and international impact – Abbas hopes to goad the international community into forcing Israel to fulfill the Palestinian condition of recognizing a sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines, without a peace agreement being signed.

Thus the Palestinian Authority is determined, even at the price of a run-in with the United States and Israel, to advance a unilateral political process that is aimed against Israel and has the full support of the Arab League. The rioting and terror in Jerusalem and the West Bank, which are being encouraged by the Palestinian Authority, serve this political process as a form of pressure on Israel and also are aimed at spurring the international community’s intervention. Abbas not only has not condemned the wave of Palestinian anti-Israeli terror but, in traditional fashion, his speeches have reiterated the formula of “praise to the pure martyrs, freedom to the heroic prisoners, and rapid recovery to the heroic wounded.” What this adds up to is backing for every Palestinian who takes part in the struggle against Israel, including terrorist murderers.

The unilateral Palestinian political process marks the launching of an all-out political campaign against Israel accompanied by terror that could develop into an armed intifada. In relation to the international community Abbas has a supreme interest in maintaining the tenuous unity agreement with Hamas, since it indicates that the Palestinian Authority exercises rule (actually only apparent) over Gaza as well. Hamas, the real and unquestioned ruler of Gaza, is extending a rope to Abbas because it sees him as a means, in the international sphere, of attaining the “liberation” of the West Bank, which Hamas wants to take over in a similar way that it drove Fatah from Gaza in the summer of 2007. Hence, for the time being, Hamas is not likely to initiate hostilities with Israel from Gaza, and most of the terror effort will be directed at the West Bank and, from it, at Israel, while continuing to rehabilitate and build up terror infrastructures and military capabilities in Gaza.

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10 Ways the Mafia and Islam Are Similar

December 5, 2014

10 Ways the Mafia and Islam Are Similar

And an explanation for the reason why.

December 5, 2014 – 9:00 am

by Raymond Ibrahi

via PJ Lifestyle » 10 Ways the Mafia and Islam Are Similar.

Earlier this year on HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher declared that Islam is “the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will f***ing kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book.”

Maher was likely referring to Islam’s “blasphemy” laws, which ban on pain of death any “insult” — as found in a statement, a picture, a book — to Islam and especially to its prophet Muhammad.

While Maher has been criticized for his “Islamophobic” assertion, he and others may be surprised to learn that the similarities between Islam and an organized crime syndicate such as the mafia far exceed punishing those who say, draw, or write “the wrong thing.” In what follows, we will examine a number of these similarities.

We will begin by looking at the relationship between Allah, his messenger Muhammad, and the Muslims, and note several parallels with the relationship between the godfather, his underboss, and the mafia.

Next, we will examine the clannish nature of the mafia and compare it to Islam’s tribalism, especially in the context of the Islamic doctrine of “Loyalty and Enmity.” For example, in both Islam and the mafia, members who wish to break away, to “apostatize,” are killed.

We will consider how the mafia and Islam have both historically profited from the “protection” racket: Islam has demanded jizya from non-Muslims under its authority/territory, and the mafia has demanded pizzo from people that fall under its jurisdiction.

Finally, we will consider what accounts for these many similarities between Islam and the mafia, including from a historical perspective.

1. Allah and Muhammad/Godfather and Underboss

The padrino of larger mafia organizations and families — literally the “godfather” or “boss of bosses” — has absolute control over his subordinates and is often greatly feared by them for his ruthlessness. He has an “underboss,” a right-hand man who issues his orders and enforces his will. The godfather himself is often inaccessible; mafia members need to go through the underboss or other high-ranking associates.

Compare this with the relationship between Allah and his “messenger” Muhammad (in Arabic, Muhammad is most commonly referred to as al-rasul, “the messenger”). Unlike the Judeo-Christian God — a personal God, a Father, that according to Christ is to be communed with directly (Matt 6:9) — Islam’s god Allah is unreachable, unknowable, untouchable. His orders are revealed by his messenger, Muhammad. The Judeo-Christian God calls on the faithful to “come now, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18); Allah says “Do not ask questions about things that, if made known to you, would only pain you” (Koran 5:101). Just follow orders.

2. A “Piece of the Action”

The godfather and his underboss always get a percentage of all spoils acquired by their subordinates. Allah and Muhammad do as well: Koran 8:41 informs Muslims that “one-fifth of all war-booty you acquire goes to Allah and the messenger,” followed by Muhammad’s family, and finally the needy.

3. Assassinations

The godfather, through his underboss, regularly sends men to assassinate those deemed enemies of the family. So did Allah and his messenger.

One example: A non-Muslim poet, Ka‘b ibn Ashraf, insulted Muhammad, prompting the latter to exclaim, “Who will kill this man who has hurt Allah and his messenger?” A young Muslim named Ibn Maslama volunteered — on condition that to get close enough to assassinate Ka‘b he be allowed to lie to the poet.

Muhammad agreed. Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka‘b and began to denigrate Islam and Muhammad until his disaffection became so convincing that the poet took him into his confidence. Soon thereafter, Ibn Maslama appeared with another Muslim, and when Ka‘b’s guard was down they slaughtered the poet. The poet’s head was brought to Muhammad, accompanied by triumphant cries of “Allahu Akbar.”

4. Circumstance is Everything

While the mafia adheres to a general code of conduct, the godfather issues more fluid orders according to circumstances. This is reminiscent of the entire “revelation” of the Koran, where later verses/commands contradict earlier verses/commands depending on circumstances. This is known in Islamic jurisprudence as al-nāsikh wal-mansūkh, or the doctrine of abrogation.

Whereas Allah supposedly told the prophet that “there is no compulsion in religion” (Koran 2:256), once the messenger grew strong enough, Allah issued new revelations calling for all-out war/jihad until Islam became supreme (Koran 8:39, 9:5, 9:29, etc.). While other religions and scriptures may have contradictions, only Islam rationalizes them through “abrogation.” Islam gives prominence to later verses, which are seen as the “latest” decision of the deity.

5. Clan Loyalty

Loyalty is fundamental in the mafia. Following elaborate rituals of blood oaths, mafia members are expected to maintain absolute loyalty to the family on pain of death. Similarly, mafia members are expected always to be available for the family — “even if your wife is about to give birth,” as one of the mafia’s “ten commandments” puts it — and to defend the godfather and his honor even if it costs their lives.

Compare this to the widespread violence and upheavals that occur when Allah or his prophet is offended by non-Muslim “infidels” blaspheming them, as Bill Maher referenced. Islam’s “Loyalty and Enmity” doctrine (al-wala’ wa’l bara’) — which calls on Muslims to be loyal to one another even if they dislike each other — is especially illustrative. Koran 9:71 declares that “the believing [Muslim] men and believing [Muslim] women are allies of one another” (see also 8:72-75). According to Muhammad, “A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim. He neither oppresses him nor humiliates him nor looks down upon him. … All things of a Muslim are inviolable for his brother in faith: his blood, his wealth, and his honor,” precisely the three things mafia members respect among each other.

U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan’s “worst nightmare” was to be deployed to fight fellow Muslims.

6. Death to Traitors

Once a fledging mafia member takes the oath of loyalty, including the Omertà code of silence and secrecy, trying to leave the “family” is seen as a betrayal and punishable by death. Any family member, great or small, is given authority to kill the traitor, the “turncoat.”

To be born to a Muslim father immediately makes the newborn a Muslim — there are no oaths to be taken, much less any choice in the matter. And, according to Islamic law, if born Muslims at any point in their lives choose to leave Islam, they are deemed “apostates” – traitors — and punished, including by death. Any zealous Muslim, not just the authorities, is justified in killing the apostate. Muslim families that kill apostate children are rarely, if ever, prosecuted.

In the words of Muhammad: “Whoever leaves his Islamic faith, kill him.”

7. Distrust and Dislike of “Outsiders”

Aside from loyalty to the family, mafia members are also expected not to befriend or freely associate with “outsiders,” who by nature are not to be trusted, as they are not of the “family,” unless such a “friendship” helps advance the family’s position.

Similarly, the second half of the doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity — the enmity (al-bara’) — calls on Muslims to maintain distance from and bear enmity for all non-Muslims, or “infidels.”

Koran 5:51 warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies … whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one of them.” According to the mainstream Islamic exegesis of al-Tabari, Koran 5:51 means that the Muslim who “allies with them [non-Muslims] and enables them against the believers, that same one is a member of their faith and community.” That is, an apostate, an enemy.

Similar scriptures include Koran 4:89, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, and 58:22. The latter simply states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims: “Even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin.” Koran 60:1 declares: “O you who believe! Do not take my enemy and your enemy [non-believers] for friends: would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of the truth [i.e., while they deny Islam]?” And Koran 4:144 declares: “O you who believe! Do not take the infidels as allies instead of the believers. Do you wish to give Allah [“godfather”] a clear case against yourselves?”

8. Deception and Dissimulation

As mentioned, close relations to non-mafia individuals that prove advantageous to the family (for example, collaboration with a “crooked cop”) are permissible — as long as the mafia keeps a safe distance, keeping the outsider at arm’s length.

Compare this to Koran 3:28, which commands “believers not to take infidels for friends and allies instead of believers … unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.” According to the standard Koran commentary of Tabari, “taking precautions” means: ”If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims’] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [but know that] Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers — except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.”

After interpreting Koran 3:28 as meaning that Muslims may “protect” themselves “through outward show” when under non-Muslim authority, Ibn Kathir, perhaps Islam’s most celebrated exegete, quotes Islam’s prophet as saying: “Truly, we smile to the faces of some people, while our hearts curse them.”

Similarly, a few years ago, Sheikh Muhammad Hassan — a leading Salafi cleric in Egypt –asserted on live television that while Muslims should never smile to the faces of non-Muslims, they should smile, however insincerely, if so doing helps empower Islam.

The idea of hating “outsiders” is apparently so ingrained in Islam that another leading Salafi cleric, Dr. Yasser al-Burhami, insists that while Muslim men may marry Christian and Jewish women, they must hate them in their heart — and show them that they hate them in the hopes that they convert to the “family” of Islam.

(For more on the doctrine of “Loyalty and Enmity,” including references to the exegetical sources quoted above, see al-Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman Zawahiri’s comprehensive treatise by that name in The Al Qaeda Reader, pgs. 63-115.)

9. “An Offer You Can’t Refuse”

Although the novel-turned-movie The Godfather is fictitious, it captures much of the mafia’s modus operandi. Consider, for example, that most famous of lines — “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” — spoken by the Godfather to one of his “godsons,” an aspiring actor and singer. After being turned down by a studio director for a role that he desperately wanted, the godson turned to his Godfather for aid.

As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that the offer that can’t be refused consists of nothing less than violence and death threats: after the Godfather’s messenger to the director asking that the actor be given the role is again rejected, the director awakens the next morning to find the bloodied and decapitated head of his favorite stallion in bed with him. The godson subsequently gets the movie role.

Throughout the context of the entire Godfather trilogy (which captures well the mafia’s approach to business) making someone “an offer they can’t refuse” means “do as I say or suffer the consequences,” possibly death.

Compare this to Islam’s threefold choice. On Muhammad’s orders, whenever Muslims conquer a territory in the name of Islam, its non-Muslim inhabitants are given three choices: 1) convert to Islam, 2) keep your religious identity but pay tribute (jizya, see below) and live as an “outsider,” a subjugated dhimmi, or 3) execution.

Throughout history, converting to Islam has been an “offer” that countless non-Muslims could not refuse. In fact, this “offer” is responsible for transforming much of the Middle East and North Africa, which were Christian-majority in the 7th century when the jihad burst forth from Arabia into the “Muslim world.”

This offer is still alive and well today. For example, several older and disabled Christians who were not able to join the exodus out of Islamic State-controlled territories opted to convert to Islam rather than die. Like the mafia, Islam’s offer to conquered non-Muslims (“outsiders”) is basically “join our ‘family,’ help us and we will help you; refuse and we hurt you.”

10. The “Protection” Racket

Once the mafia takes over a territory, one of the primary ways it profits is by collecting “protection money” from its inhabitants. While the protection racket has several aspects, one in particular is akin to an Islamic practice: coercing people in the mafia’s territory to pay money for “protection,” ostensibly against outside elements. In fact, the protection bought is from the mafia itself — that is, extortion money, or “pizzo.” Potential “clients” who refuse to pay for the mafia’s “protection” often have their property vandalized and are routinely threatened and harassed.

Compare the collection of pizzo with the Islamic concept of jizya: The word jizya appears in Koran 9:29: “Fight those among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (emphasis added).”

In the hadith, Muhammad regularly calls on Muslims to demand jizya from non-Muslims: “If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay jizya, seek Allah’s help and fight them.”

The root meaning of the Arabic word “jizya” is simply to “repay” or “recompense,” basically to “compensate” for something. According to the Hans Wehr Dictionary, the standard Arabic-English dictionary, jizya is something that “takes the place” of something else, or “serves instead.”

Simply put, conquered non-Muslims were to purchase their lives, which were otherwise forfeit to their Muslim conquerors, with money. As one medieval jurist succinctly puts it, “their lives and their possessions are only protected by reason of payment of jizya” (Crucified Again, p. 22).

Just as the mafia rationalizes its collection of “protection money” by portraying it as money that buys mafia protection against “outsiders” when the money/tribute serves only to protect the client from the mafia itself, so too do Islam’s apologists portray the collection of jizya as money meant to buy Muslim protection from outsiders. In fact, the money/jizya buys protection from Muslims themselves.

“Mafia”: What’s In a Word?

What accounts for the similarities between Islam and the mafia? One clue is found in the word “mafia,” which means “hostility to the law, boldness.” It is derived from the Arabic word mahya, which means “bragging, boasting, bravado, and swaggering.”

This etymology is a reminder that Sicily, birthplace of the mafia, was under Arab/Islamic domination for over 200 years. Aside from a borrowed etymology, could some of the mafia’s modus operandi also have been borrowed from Islam? Isolated on their island, could native Sicilians have co-opted the techniques of social controls that they had lived under and learned from their former overlords, albeit without an Islamic veneer?

The mafia is not the only historical example of a non-Muslim criminal organization to be influenced by Islam. The Thuggees — whence we get the word “thug” — were a brotherhood of allied bandits and assassins who waylaid and savagely murdered travelers in India, often by first feigning friendship. Along with assassinating his opponents, including through treachery, Muhammad also personally engaged in banditry, ransacking the caravans of enemy tribes.  Although the Thuggees were later associated with the Hindu cult of Kali, the original Thuggees were all Muslim. As late as the 19th century, a large number of Thuggees captured and convicted by the British were Muslim.

When Bill Maher recently proclaimed that Islam is “the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will f***ing kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book,” he was just scratching the surface of the similarities between the mafia and Islam.

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ISIS in Gaza

December 5, 2014

ISIS in Gaza, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, December 5, 2014

When One Radical Group Believes Another Is Not Radical Enough

Now almost everyone is talking about the Islamic State threats in Gaza against poets, writers and women. The leaflets mention the poets and writers by name — a move that has created panic. The leaflets also include an ultimatum to Palestinian women to abide by Islamic attire or face the Islamic State style of punishment — presumably being stoned to death.

Of course, all this is taking place while Hamas continues to insist that that the Islamic State is not operating in Gaza. Those who are taking the threats seriously are the writers and women whose names appeared in the leaflets.

Islamic State flags can already be seen at football stadiums, on windshields of vehicles, mosques, educational centers and wedding invitations.

It is also clear that if and when the Hamas regime collapses, the Gaza Strip will not fall into the lands of the less-radical Palestinians.

It is important to keep in mind that the counties in Europe now voting for a Palestinian state may effectively be paving the way for a takeover by Islamic State.

It is always dreamlike to see one Islamist terror group accuse the other of being too “lenient” when it comes to enforcing sharia laws. But it is not dreamlike when a terrorist group starts threatening writers and women.

That is what is happening these days in the Gaza Strip, where supporters of the Islamic State are accusing Hamas of failing to impose strict Islamic laws on the Palestinian population — as if Hamas has thus far endorsed a liberal and open-minded approach toward those who violate sharia laws.

825Members of Islamic State, in Gaza. (Image source: Islamic State YouTube video)

Until this week, the only topic Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were talking about was how to rebuild homes and buildings that were destroyed during the last war between Hamas and Israel.

Now, however, almost everyone is talking about the Islamic State threats against poets, writers and women.

It is no secret that the Islamic State has a presence in the Gaza Strip. According to sources there, many disgruntled members of Hamas and other radical salafi-jihadi groups have already joined the Islamic State, with some fighting together with ISIS groups in Syria and Iraq.

Earlier this year, it was revealed here that Islamic State has already begun operating inside the Gaza Strip — much to the dismay of Hamas.

Hamas, nevertheless, continues to deny any presence of Islamic State inside the Gaza Strip. “There are no members of Islamic State in the Gaza Strip,” said Eyad al-Bazam, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

Many Palestinians, however, do not seem to take Hamas’s denials seriously, and remain unconvinced.

Over the past few days, two separate leaflets signed by Islamic State threatened to target Palestinian poets and writers for their “wantonness” and “atheism.” The leaflets mention the poets and writers by name — a move that created panic among many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The leaflets also included an ultimatum to Palestinian women to abide by Islamic attire or face the Islamic State style of punishment — presumably being stoned to death. The threat leaves one with the false impression that, under Hamas, women can wear swimming suits at the beach and walk around the streets of Gaza City in mini-skirts.

But this is what happens when one fundamentalist group believes that the other is not radical enough.

“We warn the writers and poets of their wanton sayings and atheist deeds,” one of the leafletsread. “We give the apostates three days to retract their apostasy and wantonness and enter the religion of Islam anew.”

The threats issued by Islamic State have drawn strong condemnations from many Palestinians. This is the first time that such threats have been made against poets and writers or women.

Although Hamas has denied any connection to the threats, Fatah officials in the West Bank were quick to accuse the Islamist movement — which has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007 — of being behind the leaflets.

Palestinian political analyst Naji Sharab explained that any attempt to deny the presence of Islamic State terrorists in the Gaza Strip was “unrealistic.”

“There’s no denying that Islamic State exists [in the Gaza Strip] as a small group or as individuals,” he said. “The leaflets that were distributed this week could not have come from any Palestinian organization.”

Palestinians point out that the two leaflets were not the only sign of the presence of Islamic State inside the Gaza Strip. They say that Islamic State flags can be seen in many parts of the Gaza Strip, especially at football stadiums and public buildings. In addition, Islamic State stickers can be seen on the windshields of many vehicles.

More recently, Palestinians say, families have begun attaching the Islamic State emblem to wedding invitations sent out to friends and relatives. Photos of Palestinians who were killed while fighting with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria appear in many places, especially mosques and educational centers.

Of course, all of this is taking place while Hamas continues to insist that the Islamic State is not operating in Gaza.

Those who are taking the threats seriously are the women and writers whose names appeared in the leaflets.

Amal Hamad, a member of the Palestinian Women’s Union, expressed deep concern about the threats made by Islamic State. “We are headed toward the worst in the Gaza Strip,” she complained. “We hold the Hamas security forces responsible for the leaflets of intimidation and terror.” She and a large group of women in the Gaza Strip held an emergency meeting to discuss the repercussions of the threats.

Judging from reactions, it is clear that many Palestinians — including Hamas — are extremely worried about Islamic State’s presence in the Gaza Strip. Even if the terror group still does not have many fighters in the Gaza Strip, it already has countless followers and admirers.

It is also clear that if and when the Hamas regime collapses, the Gaza Strip will not fall into the hands of less-radical Palestinians.

The Gaza Strip has already been turned into an “Islamist Emirate” that is run by Hamas and other radical groups such as Islamic Jihad.

While Islamic State may have succeeded in infiltrating the Gaza Strip, its chances of entering the West Bank are zero. This is thanks to the presence of the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas are well aware that without the Israeli security presence in the West Bank, the area would easily fall into the hands of Hamas or Islamic State.

It is important to keep in mind that the countries in Europe now voting for a Palestinian state may effectively be paving the way for a takeover by Islamic State

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Op-Ed: Obama Empowers Enemies and Imperils Friends

December 4, 2014

Op-Ed: Obama Empowers Enemies and Imperils Friends, Israel National News, Matthew M. Hausman, December 2, 2014

The panel concluded that the United States and Israel have similar security concerns and identical interests in preserving cultural and political values common to both their societies.  Accordingly, they find the administration’s policies in the region counterproductive and dangerous.

Clearly, Israel cannot place her trust in the Obama administration, but she can still draw strength and inspiration from Yehoshua, whose words have resonated for thousands of years and will continue to do so long after this president leaves office.

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Even after the recent war in Gaza – and in spite of the dangers posed by ISIS and other Islamist forces – many American Jews still do not fully comprehend the risk to Israel and the West of a rejectionist ideology that promotes jihad and genocide.  But the threat is real and arises from a doctrine that demands total submission from the vanquished.  In failing to recognize the scope of the threat, western progressives – Jews and Gentiles alike – view the world as they believe it should be, not the way it actually is.  The reality, however, is that liberal ideals are irrelevant in regions where politics have no existence independent of religion and religion is unforgivingly totalitarian.

This failure is as much political as intellectual.  Moreover, it engenders complacency with the foreign policy of an administration that has not only failed to respond adequately to the Islamist threat, but whose actions have bolstered fundamentalism across the Mideast and undercut the interests of Israel – America’s only stable and dependable ally in the region.

These points were articulated at a security panel conference entitled, “Israel and the US: The Fight to Save Western Civilization from Global Jihad,” which took place in Massachusetts recently.  The program featured retired Generals Jerry Boykin and Tom McInerney, former CIA Station Chief Gary Berntsen, and retired Lt. Colonel (and former congressman) Allen West.  The program focused on the need to recognize the threat of jihadist extremism, as well as the myriad foreign policy failures that have helped destabilize the Mideast.

Secular progressives have become unwitting foils for Islamist radicalism by their failure to acknowledge its supremacist aspirations and their perception of Muslims as a vulnerable minority despite a global population of approximately 1.6 billion.  This view is a little ironic considering the progressive tendency to disparage Jewish national claims and values and to condemn any perceived Christian intrusion into American politics, but nevertheless to discourage speech that criticizes Islam or mentions any Muslim involvement in terrorism.

Secular progressives often support anti-blasphemy laws and are quick to label as racists those who criticize Muslims on political grounds, although Islam is a religion and is not defined by race or ethnicity.  Moreover, while they often rationalize Islamist extremism as an indigenous voice of protest against western chauvinism, its ubiquity is the result of conquest,colonialism, and the subjugation of “infidel” minorities.  It is the height of cognitive dissonance when feminists, gay rights activists and other social progressives express support for religious extremists who persecute and kill based on gender, sexuality, and dissenting religious belief or political opinion, but condemn Israel – the only country in the Mideast where minorities have equal rights and protections under the law.

Over the last six years, the administration has sought rapprochement with the Islamic world through a series of questionable policies.  Domestically, it has discouraged official use of terms such as “Islamic terrorism,” instead referring to terror incidents involving Muslims as criminal acts, workplace violence or violent extremism.  On the foreign stage, it enabled the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, provided funding in areas governed by Hamas despite that organization’s stated goals of jihad and genocide, and failed to honor strategic commitments to Israel during the Gaza war.

Perhaps most troubling, the administration has used the pretense of negotiations to allow Iran to continue its quest for nuclear weapons – to the consternation not only of Israel, but of Saudi Arabia and all Sunni states in the region.  Though it rationalizes that Iran should be permitted to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, critics point out that 55 percent of Iran’s domestic energy comes from natural gas, 42 percent from oil and two percent from hydroelectricity, such that it has no apparent consumer need for nuclear power. Its true intentions are reflected in the statements of its leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who recently tweeted that Israel “… has no cure but to be annihilated.”

Whether promoting Islamists, enabling Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or chastising the way Israel defended herself in Gaza, the administration has pursued policies that have empowered America’s enemies and imperiled its allies.  Furthermore, by drawing meaningless redlines that it refuses to enforce and unilaterally disarming in Europe, it has signaled to the world that it is no longer willing to defend its own interests or those of its allies, but instead will stand aside while Russia, China and other geopolitical rivals assert themselves within traditional U.S. spheres of influence.

Speaking to a packed house at Ahavath Torah Congregation in Stoughton, Massachusetts, Generals Boykin and McInerney, Colonel West, and Agent Berntsen discussed the weakening of American strength and prestige under the current administration, and how this has enhanced Islamist resolve, endangered the safety of Israel, and compromised American interests around the globe.

They spoke with inside knowledge of the U.S. military and intelligence establishments and with a deep and abiding respect for Israel.  General Boykin, a 36-year veteran and the first commander of Delta Force, related how he was in Jerusalem last summer when Hamas kidnapped and murdered three yeshiva boys, and how the outrage it spawned illustrated the inevitability of a military response.  According to Boykin, who has spent considerable time in Israel and lived with the Golani Brigade, the kidnapping was the tipping point in a string of events, including rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and the construction of terror tunnels, which necessitated decisive counteraction.

In the panel’s view, Operation Protective Edge was essential, not only to stop rocket attacks and destroy terror tunnels, but because of the existential implications of radical Islam.  These implications are reinforced by various charters calling for the destruction of Israel and Hamas’s explicit goal of exterminating the Jews, by ISIS’s goal of establishing a caliphate throughout the Mideast, and by Iran’s repeated pledges to blow Israel off the map. Despite political differences between the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, and doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shiite terror states, they all represent the same threat to Israel and the West.

Boykin sees a clear thread connecting past actions against the United States, such as the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, with the kidnappings and beheadings of westerners today.  Unfortunately, Americans often have a limited frame of reference, particularly in a political climate that shuts down any critical discussion of these issues as “Islamophobic.”  The problem is exacerbated by an administration that appeases enemies and alienates allies and by political elements in the military that lack the resolve to implement appropriate corrective strategies.  In Boykin’s view, the latter problem is related to the exodus of young officers from all service branches in response to cuts in military spending and concomitant reductions in personnel.

The military is being cut back at a time when Islamist extremism is ascending, as demonstrated by the gruesome success of ISIS.  Political and military leaders willfully ignore the ramifications of jihadi radicalism and the need to confront it from a position of strength.  Despite recent acts of terror committed on North American soil, including beheadings and murders by lone-wolf perpetrators and the attack on Canada’s Parliament, the administration refuses to concede any terrorist links.  Indeed, while Canadian Prime Minister Harper proclaimed that the Parliament attack was an act of terror, President Obama would not draw the same conclusion.

In contrast, Israel knows how high the stakes are because they challenge her very existence.  “Israel has nowhere to go,” Boykin said, and thus cannot afford to be ignorant about the nature of an existential threat grounded in ideology, not geography.

General McInerney, a former U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff and Vice Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe, agrees that the battle against Islamists is ideological.  “We have to understand the threat we face [and that] Radical Islam is as dangerous an ideology as Nazism and Communism.”  According to McInerney, Islamism is not a response to western provocations, but derives from Muslim scriptural sources.  Likewise, the jihadist impulse does not arise from economic privation, class struggle or geographic dispossession as western progressives often preach.  Rather, it comes from deeply held religious convictions that must be understood if they are to be confronted effectively.

In order for this to happen, though, control of the dialogue has to be taken back from those who censor the use of language deemed offensive to extremists and who employ moral equivalency to justify radicalism.  In addition, the dialogue should be purged of intentionally misleading buzzwords that have become commonplace, including such terms as: “occupation,” which refers to the entire State of Israel; “historical Palestine,” which legitimizes a country that never existed; and “proportionality,” which is used to criticize defensive actions taken by Israel, but not the acts of those who attack her citizens and use civilians as shields.

Accusations that Israel’s military responses are disproportionate are particularly galling, especially considering how she routinely sacrifices her strategic advantage by warning civilians of impending strikes ahead of time and by providing aid to those caught in the crossfire.  The unprecedented humanity displayed by Israel during wartime should debunk the ongoing critique of the proportionality of her response in Gaza and her supposed failure to protect civilians.  Such statements bespeak ignorance, bad faith or complicity in advancing anti-Israel propaganda.

According to General McInerney, the term “proportionality” is simply a euphemism for “not enough Israelis killed” and should be given no credence. Nevertheless, White House and State Department voices seem more vested in chiding Israel for civilian casualties than in blaming Hamas for starting the conflict and using noncombatants as human shields.  The treatment of Hamas as a legitimate political entity defies history, logic and common sense.

The Obama administration’s apparent affinity for Islamists has not garnered it support from the Islamic world, and military reductions on its watch have fostered an image of international weakness.  By unilaterally disarming in Europe, where the U.S. currently maintains almost no tanks or mechanized divisions, General McInerney believes the administration has eroded the deterrent effect of American military strength.

And by treating Iran, perhaps the largest state sponsor of global terrorism, as a rational partner for constructive engagement, the administration increases the risk of a regional arms race as the Sunni states may be forced to seek parity.  The threat of a nuclear Iran cannot be minimized, the panel said, noting that it would take only a few nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.  To claim that a nuclear Iran could ever be trusted is to ignore the radical ideology that has driven its quest for nuclear weapons since the Islamic revolution in 1979 and its dogmatic fixation on destroying Israel.  It also ignores an Iranian worldview in which the United States remains the “Great Satan.”

The panel’s perspective on the spread of Islamism is buttressed by the long view of many in the intelligence community, but the administration seems to ignore any observations and analyses that do not jibe with the partisan and politicized assumptions underlying its foreign policy.  This is all the more disturbing in light of reports during the ISIS fiasco claiming that President Obama does not read all intelligence memos that cross his desk.

The intelligence angle was addressed by Gary Berntsen, a career CIA officer, former station chief and former counter-terrorism director.  A fluent Farsi speaker, Berntsen directed counterterrorism deployments in response to the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in East Africa and the attacks on 9/11, and is familiar with the evolution of both Hezbollah and ISIS.  Whereas Mr. Obama claimed to have been surprised by the rise of ISIS, Berntsen said that U.S. intelligence has been tracking the faction from which it grew for years; and that despite the president’s attempt to blame the intelligence community for failing to identify the threat, the administration has been fully briefed about the capabilities and resources of ISIS on an ongoing basis.

Moreover, in evaluating the evolution of ISIS, the intelligence community had a model for comparison in Hezbollah.  According to Berntsen, there were parallels to the growth of Hezbollah, which together with Islamic Jihad serves as the operational wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Hezbollah maintains a standing army, finances its operations through unsavory enterprises and billions in funding from Iran, and serves as a conduit for Iranian-exported terrorism, Berntsen noted.  Moreover, it has insinuated itself in Lebanon, where it persecutes non-Muslims and threatens Israel.

ISIS followed a similar trajectory on its way to amassing a fighting force of some 30,000 men and a large arsenal of sophisticated weaponry.  Initially supported by a number of Sunni states, ISIS has become self-sustaining by reaping profits from banks and oil production facilities it has seized and by stockpiling weapons and hardware taken from routed opponents across Syria and Iraq.

Though ISIS is certainly a menace that must not be ignored, the United States cannot afford to lose sight of Iran’s influence throughout the region.  Without minimizing the ISIS threat, Berntsen believes that “Iran is the major confrontation state” and that American interests are ill-served by the obsession with concluding a nuclear deal.  The administration appears to believe it can encourage a shift in Iranian loyalty and seems prepared to sacrifice its relationships with Sunni allies, such as Saudi Arabia, in order to do so.  Given that Iran’s official views regarding the United States have not changed, and that it continues to call for the annihilation of Israel, the initiative to flip its allegiance seems grounded in fantasy.

The panel concluded that the United States and Israel have similar security concerns and identical interests in preserving cultural and political values common to both their societies.  Accordingly, they find the administration’s policies in the region counterproductive and dangerous.

These observations are especially poignant in light of recent events, including continuing criticisms of Israel by the administration and State Department over the Gaza war.  Official malice against Israel seemed incontrovertible after General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently lauded Israel for taking unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza and stated that the U.S. military would adopt similar strategies for fighting in civilian areas.  The State Department responded by distancing itself from Dempsey’s remarks and denying that they reflected the government’s position.

Then there were the recent comments from an unnamed White House source who used expletives to describe Benyamin Netanyahu and called him cowardly for failing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, although the Obama administration discouraged the strike and reportedly leaked sensitive information (regarding strikes on similar sites in Syria) to prevent Israel from acting.  When these comments are juxtaposed against the administration’s failure to contain ISIS and the domestic loss of confidence in Mr. Obama’s ability to protect and defend, the foreign policy landscape looks very bleak indeed.

The American Jewish community needs to wake up and acknowledge the administration’s abandonment of Israel.  Though some Jewish Democrats still contend that Obama “has Israel’s back,” his order blocking shipments of Hellfire missiles and other military equipment to Israel during the Gaza war shows the fallacy of such claims.   Furthermore, his preoccupation with reaching a nuclear deal with Iran – a rogue regime that has repeatedly vowed to obliterate the Jewish State – should give pause to all who profess support for his administration’s intentions regarding Israel.

The message delivered by the esteemed panel in Massachusetts was that American and Israeli interests are identical when it comes to dealing with global jihad, and that the failure to support Israel will only embolden those who seek to take the fight directly to the United States.  The proof on the ground becomes more apparent with each foreign policy gaffe, and seems to be denied only by those who choose to ignore it or who continue to promote the administration’s regional agenda out of blind partisan allegiance.

The opening remarks of Colonel West, who moderated the panel discussion with wit and insight, actually set the tone for its conclusion.  “America is at a critical crossroads in our global standing,” he said.  “And this is clearly apparent in the Mideast [where] we’re facing a vile existential threat in ISIS.”  The increase in Hamas’s destructive power, the evolution of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the empowerment of extremists across North Africa have coincided with the administration’s conduct in pivoting U.S. policy away from its traditional interests in the Mideast and undercutting the American-Israeli relationship.

Nevertheless, Colonel West believes the American people’s bond with Israel cannot be broken by the policies of a hostile administration.  Regarding Israel’s future, he referred to the Book of Yehoshua, which says:  “Be strong and courageous; be not afraid, nor be dismayed; for the Lord your G-d is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua, 1:9.).

Clearly, Israel cannot place her trust in the Obama administration, but she can still draw strength and inspiration from Yehoshua, whose words have resonated for thousands of years and will continue to do so long after this president leaves office.

Categories: Ideology, Iran, Islam, Israel, Jihad
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The new Ottoman emperor

December 3, 2014

The new Ottoman emperor, Israel Hayom, Clifford D. May, December 3, 2014

[T]here is mounting evidence that weapons and fighters are crossing from Turkey into Syria, where they are delivered to Islamic State fighters. Turkish officials are turning a blind eye, or maybe even facilitating the traffic. Stolen oil is moving in the other direction, sold to raise cash for Islamic State. Inside Turkey, as well, Schanzer and Tahiroglu write, Islamic State has “established cells for recruiting militants and other logistical operations.” Last weekend, Turkey’s main Kurdish party accused the Erdogan government of allowing Islamic State fighters to attack the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani from within Turkey.

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

Turkey should have been part of the solution. Instead it has become part of the problem. The problem, of course, is the spread of jihadism throughout the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

Turkish policies have been aiding and abetting the Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate; the Islamic State group, which has turned large swaths of Syria and Iraq into killing fields; the Islamic Republic of Iran, still ranked by the U.S. government as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and well on its way to becoming nuclear-armed; and the Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, the group’s Palestinian branch.

Troubling, too, is the rhetoric we’ve been hearing from Turkish leaders. Turkish Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Isık claimed last week that it was Muslim scientists who first discovered that the earth is round. Two weeks earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that Muslim sailors reached the Americas 300 years before Columbus — only to find that well-established Muslims in Cuba had built a beautiful mosque.

Such myth-making might be dismissed as nothing more than attempts to play to Islamic pride. Less easy to excuse is Erdogan’s increasing xenophobia. “Foreigners,” he recently observed, “love oil, gold, diamonds, and the cheap labor force of the Islamic world. They like the conflicts, fights and quarrels of the Middle East.” He added that Westerners “look like friends, but they want us dead, they like seeing our children die. How long will we stand that fact?”

If Turkey were just another tin-pot dictatorship, none of this would much matter. But Turkey is a Muslim-majority (98 percent) republic with a dynamic economy (not dependent on the extraction of petroleum), a member of NATO (making it, officially, an American ally), and a candidate for membership in the European Union (though that possibility now appears remote).

Just three years ago, U.S. President Barack Obama listed Erdogan as one of five world leaders with whom he had especially close personal ties. He regarded the Turkish leader as a moderate, his interpreter of — and bridge to — the tumultuous and confusing Islamic world.

Today, as detailed in a new report by Jonathan Schanzer and Merve Tahiroglu, my colleagues at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Erdogan is refusing to allow the American-led coalition formed in August to launch strikes against Islamic State from Turkish soil.

Worse, there is mounting evidence that weapons and fighters are crossing from Turkey into Syria, where they are delivered to Islamic State fighters. Turkish officials are turning a blind eye, or maybe even facilitating the traffic. Stolen oil is moving in the other direction, sold to raise cash for Islamic State. Inside Turkey, as well, Schanzer and Tahiroglu write, Islamic State has “established cells for recruiting militants and other logistical operations.” Last weekend, Turkey’s main Kurdish party accused the Erdogan government of allowing Islamic State fighters to attack the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani from within Turkey.

The FDD report cites numerous sources alleging that Turkey also has given assistance to the Nusra Front. To be fair: The Turkish government, like the Obama administration, seeks the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, satrap of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A Turkish official is quoted as saying that Nusra fighters are essential to that effort, adding: “After Assad is gone, we know how to deal with these extremist groups.”

Do they? Hamas is an extremist group and one of its top leaders, Saleh al-Arouri, has been permitted to set up his headquarters in Turkey. In August, Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said it had thwarted a Hamas-led plot to topple Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — and that Arouri was behind it. Arouri also claimed responsibility — in the presence of Turkey’s deputy prime minister — for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli boys in the West Bank early last summer, an act of terrorism that led to the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

There’s more: credible allegations that Turkey has helped Iran’s rulers evade sanctions; the fact that Turkey imprisons more journalists than any other country; Erdogan’s comparison of Israelis to Nazis (guess which he regards as more “barbaric”); and his pledge to “wipe out Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says. They will see the Turkish republic’s strength.”

To understand what Turkey has become, it helps to know a little about what Turkey used to be. Istanbul was once Constantinople, a Christian capital of the ancient world. In 1453, it fell to the fierce armies of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic caliphate. Islam’s political and religious leaders soon established the Sublime Porte, the central government of their growing imperial realm.

Almost 500 years later, in the aftermath of World War I, the empire collapsed and the caliphate was dissolved. Modern Turkey arose from the ashes thanks to the leadership of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, a visionary general who believed that progress and prosperity could be achieved only by separating mosque and state. His goal was to make Turkey a nation, one as modern and powerful as any in Europe.

A century later, the world looks rather different. There are good reasons to believe Europe is in decline and America in retreat (these are disparate phenomena). While it may be delusional to believe that Columbus encountered Muslims in the Caribbean, it is not crazy to believe that, over the decades ahead, fierce Muslim warriors will profoundly alter the world order once more.

Viewed in this light, Erdogan looks like a neo-Ottoman, one who dreams of commanding Muslims — and those who have submitted to them — in many lands. If that’s accurate, the rift between Turkey and the West can only widen.

Categories: Caliphate, Coalition, Hamas, Iraq, Islam, Middle East, Obama, Turkey
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Humor: By Executive Action, Obama’s life and glory will be soon be presented in a ballet

December 2, 2014

By Executive Action, Obama’s life and glory will be soon be presented in a ballet, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 1, 2014

(Please see also Imagine a World Without America? Obama Can — DM)

A ballet depicting the life and glory of their hero, Hugo Chavez, is the current rage among all good Chavistas. Barack Humble Obama, who has brought us greater peace, prosperity, happiness and even laughter than Chavez ever did, deserves far better.

 

By Presidential Memorandum released on December 1st, Obama directed:

Presidential Memorandum re. public acknowledgment  of My unsurpassed greatness, December First, Year the sixth of the reign of Obama:

By virtue of the authority vested in Me as the Dear Leader of the True American Revolution, We I hereby direct all Federal entities, and request all significant stakeholders, to collaborate in the creation of a ballet to memorialize My uniquely outstanding magnificence, particularly as shown through My numerous  successes.

To that noble end, all Federal Agencies and Departments shall first consider among themselves and, with the voluntary cooperation of all significant stakeholders — including all State and local governmental entities, non-governmental organizations and other interested parties —  shall further consider the highly treasured successes I have bestowed upon them and upon My adoring people:

♥ Vastly improved health care;

♥ Unprecedented governmental transparency;

♥ A massively stimulated national economy;

♥ Uniquely clean Government with no hint of scandal or waste;

♥ Heroic advances in social justice;

♥ Tremendously improved race and multicultural relations;

♥ Greatly diminished White privilege;

♥ My historically unique approach to foreign policy, which has united many of our allies and former enemies; and

♥ Many others which We are I am far too humble to mention here.

As soon as the ballet has been written and I have approved it, it shall be featured by all mass media outlets during prime time and performed in all cities and towns throughout My domain that have suitable facilities. Places unfortunately lacking such facilities are authorized and requested to apply promptly for appropriate Federal grants. My Department of Homeland Security, as well as all other relevant Federal departments and agencies, are directed to approve them expeditiously.

The ballet shall be presented each year on the twentieth day of January, which I shall soon declare a national holiday by Executive Order.

Upon reviewing the Presidential Memorandum with their customary diligence, MSNBC, NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS offered high praise for Obama’s grand initiative. Using a ballet to remind everyone in the United States of Obama of what He has done to for them was seen not only as a true masterstroke but as His most masterful yet, sure to win the hearts and minds of even His most obstructionist opponents.

They suggested that the construction of much needed theatrical facilities throughout the entire country, in places now sadly deprived of the cultural enrichment they bring, will further stimulate our already vastly improved economy. They also suggested that necessary funding be stripped from all warmongering activities of the U.S. military, sparing only funds needed to improve gender equality and multicultural advances.

Faux News had little to say beyond suggesting that such a ballet should be produced after, rather than during, Obama’s term of office. Republican House Speaker Boehner contended that too many horror shows featuring Obama are already broadcast on national television and cable and that, for that reason, no Federal funds should be wasted on Obama’s grand initiative. However, he stated that no shutdown of the Federal Government is now contemplated in response. Some right wing activists terrorists suggested that, as an alternative to Obama’s grand initiative, the Little Abner musical, which they had enjoyed years ago when they were children, should be presented on national television, including all cable channels.

 

It would be gratifying for all to learn, through the medium of ballet, that the country is now in even better hands than ever before.

Categories: Domestic policy, Foreign policy, Humor, Ideology, International Community, Islam, Obama
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Distorted perceptions of Ferguson, Israel and Islam have similar roots

November 30, 2014

Distorted perceptions of Ferguson, Israel and Islam have similar roots, Dan Miller’s Blog, November 29, 2014

Those who find “racist” repression of Blacks in Ferguson, “racist” repression of Arabs in Israel and “racist” repression of Muslims by non-Muslims everywhere have much in common. 

Leftist and mainstream media perceptions of “repression” by Ferguson’s White minority of its Black majority, of Israeli “war crimes” against her minority Muslim residents and of the “peaceful” nature of Islam hinge on increasingly common notions: fairness requires inconvenient facts to be altered if possible to suit an ideology while others, inconsistent with the altered facts, must be ignored. We must speak and act with compassion toward and empathy with the oppressed. Only in this way, it is believed, can true fairness and empathetic compassion be achieved. Then, and only then, will we have true justice.

David Solway, in an excellent PJ Media article titled ‘Politricks’ and the English Language, summed it up:

[T]he Big Lie has been installed among us as the primary form of political and cultural address along the entire gamut of disinformation, from outright interment of fact and customizing of inconvenient truths to unmitigated calumny and virulent libel. The Western media and the “progressivist” left-liberal political class have, over the years, incrementally adopted the discursive techniques of totalitarian states and theocratic dispensations. [Emphasis added.]

Please read the whole article.

Perceptions of Ferguson, Missouri

No justice no peace

Michael Brown, a Black “gentle giant,” was shot and killed by a “racist” White police officer, Darren Wilson, on August 9th. There were eyewitnesses and many others who claimed to be eyewitnesses but were not. The latter based their accounts on what others had told them and on what they believed might have happened. Rather than select a new grand jury, an existing grand jury was kept in session, apparently to avoid claims that the members of a new jury had been chosen to exonerate Officer Wilson. On November 23rd, the grand jury determined that Officer Wilson would not be charged with a criminal offense under Missouri law. Here’s what happened next. Although the facts presented to the grand jury have been released, the facts matter but little:

The riots went forward as planned; the media steadfastly distributed its prewritten narrative of evil racist white cop murdering innocent young black man. [Emphasis added.]

 

Some Blacks defended White-owned businesses. That’s good. Others looted and burned Black as well as White-owned businesses.

Please see also this article by Rich Lowry at Politico. His analysis points to this:

This is a terrible tragedy. It isn’t a metaphor for police brutality or race repression or anything else, and never was. Aided and abetted by a compliant national media, the Ferguson protestors spun a dishonest or misinformed version of what happened—Michael Brown murdered in cold blood while trying to give up—into a chant (“hands up, don’t shoot”) and then a mini-movement. [Emphasis added.]

When the facts didn’t back their narrative, they dismissed the facts and retreated into paranoid suspicion of the legal system. [Emphasis added.]

Beyond that, I don’t consider it necessary to dwell on what happened in Ferguson last August and what happened thereafter, before and after the grand jury declined to indict Officer Wilson for the “murder” of “gentle giant” Michael Brown. Most who will read this article are already familiar with what happened; perceptions and their bases are my focus here.

Reports of “racism” and associated violence help to sell print and broadcast advertising, particularly if the reports can be made consistent with the perceptions of audiences: White people are racist and oppress Black people. Hence, most in the mass media rely, consciously or unconsciously, on confirmation bias,

a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.[Note 1][1] As a result, people gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. The biases appear in particular for emotionally significant issues and for established beliefs.

The “legitimate” media proceeded in similar fashion when George Zimmerman, a “racist” “White Hispanic,” shot and killed a “defenseless” Black “child” in April of 2012. The “legitimate” media changed or ignored facts in their quests to declare Zimmerman guilty, to encourage rioting and to vindicate their own perceptions that Blacks are “different” and that their actions need to be dealt with more leniently than those of others. Please see also this article about a well to do White kid who said that he deserved to be mugged because of his White privilege. Many in the mass media appear to share his perceptions, at least with respect to the mugging of others.

After digesting the factual evidence the Zimmerman trial jury disagreed with the mass media and the assorted race baiters upon whom the mass media feasted and found him not guilty. After digesting the factual evidence, the grand jury — which had three Black members — disagreed about Officer Wilson and declined to indict him.

It has been reported that, following the grand jury’s refusal to indict Officer Wilson, the Obama administration promoted indoctrination of students on the basis that Brown was “a victim of police violence.” Part of the “White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans,” the indoctrination apparently is to include this:

“During the first few weeks of classes, students can create a memorial to Michael Brown on a classroom bulletin board. This activity involves having students use whatever they feel skilled in to create something that would honor Michael Brown and other people who have been victims of police and other violence. Students may choose to draw, write poetry, design art pieces, paint, or collect news clippings. Students can use this opportunity to create a counter-narrative to negative stories and images about Ferguson and Michael Brown, or even to document stories and images they have seen in the media about the case. Engaging in this type of activity allows teachers to understand youth strengths and form classroom solidarity.” [Emphasis added.]

It is important for young people to learn how to make connections between the Michael Brown shooting and similar cases that have emerged in recent history. While a discussion of the Michael Brown shooting and the current events in Ferguson are powerful, conversations about Michael Brown with a consideration of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Renisha Mcbride and other cases that involve similar scenarios place the events in Ferguson in proper context… [Emphasis added.]

Assuming that the report is accurate, is the Obama administration trying to heal racial divides, or to exacerbate them as it has often done?

David Goldman, in an article at PJ Media titled How Far Down Do You Define Deviancy in Ferguson? summed up the positions of the current “civil rights” movement and the consequences were they to be adopted:

Young black men are disproportionately imprisoned. One in three black men have gone to prison at some time in their life. According to the ACLU, one in fifteen black men are incarcerated, vs. one in 106 white men. That by itself is proof of racism; the fact that these individuals were individually prosecuted for individual crimes has no bearing on the matter. All that matters is the outcome. Because the behavior of young black men is not likely to change, what must change is the way that society recognizes crime itself. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

[T]he solution is to decriminalize behavior that all civilized countries have suppressed and punished since the dawn of history.  Because felonious behavior is so widespread and the causes of it so intractable, the criminals’ rights movement insists, society “cannot afford to recognize” criminal behavior below a certain threshold. [Emphasis added.]

If America were to accept this logic, civil society would come to an end. The state would abandon its monopoly of violence to street rule. Large parts of America would come to resemble the gang-ruled, lawless streets of Central America, where violent pathology has overwhelmed the state’s capacity to control it, creating in turn a nightmare for America’s enforcement of its own immigration law. [Emphasis added.]

The Ferguson episode was not a civil rights movement in any traditional or otherwise legitimate sense.

The response of the African-American “civil rights” establishment and the American Left to the verdict in Ferguson came quickly and predictably.  Al Sharpton and other racial demagogues urged their followers to take to the streets if anything but a first degree murder indictment was handed down for Officer Darren Wilson. The protestors and rioters were prepared, but Missouri’s governor wasn’t. He failed to call out the National Guard on the day the verdict was released.

What is particularly galling is the argument that the events in Ferguson, and the no bill for Wilson, are a throwback to the segregationist era of the 1950s and 1960s, when the modern civil rights movement engaged in non-violent civil disobedience.  “The Movement,” as they called it then, showed the nation and the world the immoral actions of police chief Bull Connor of Birmingham, Alabama, and others of similar ilk, thereby exposing the injustice of the system of segregation — a system based on power and violence, preventing black Americans from enjoying the rights and liberties guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution. [Emphasis added.]

Civil rights movement

Israel

Just as confirmation bias caused many in Missouri — and also in distant places — to condemn a “racist” White police officer and to preach about the benign nature of his Black “victim,” so many throughout the world blame Israel for everything bad that people do.

Blame Israel1

I recently wrote an article titled Hamas, Abbas, Obama and Islamic Savagery. It includes this photo of Palestinians celebrating their brethren’s murders of Jews praying in a Jerusalem synagogue:

celebratingmurder_20141118_105338

Recently, there have been many more attacks on Jews in Israel.

Academia, where leftism now prevails, has done much to slander Israel as a wicked apartheid state, more barbaric than Nazi Germany.

This summer’s Israeli incursion, Operation Protective Edge, provided anti-Semites and loathers of the Jewish state with resurgent justifications for assigning the epithet of Nazi on the Jews yet another time, together with oft-heard accusations of “crimes against humanity, “massacres,” genocide,” and, according to recent comments by Turkey’s prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan, in their treatment of the Palestinians, Israel has demonstrated that “. . . their barbarism has surpassed even Hitler’s.”[Emphasis added.]

The Nazification of Israelis—and by extension Jews—is both breathtaking in its moral inversion and cruel in the way it makes the actual victims of the Third Reich’s horrors a modern-day reincarnation of that same barbarity. It is, in the words of Boston University’s Richard Landes, “moral sadism,” a salient example of Holocaust inversion that is at once ahistorical, disingenuous, and grotesque in its moral and factual inaccuracy. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

[They did so] by redefining Israel as the most glaring example of those human predations, what he called “the embodiment of all evil” of the Twentieth Century: apartheid and Nazism. He defined the process of grafting this opprobrium on Israel as “ideological anti-Semitism,” one which “involves the characterization of Israel not only as an apartheid state—and one that must be dismantled as part of the struggle against racism—but as a Nazi one.” [Emphasis added.]

. . . . [O]nce Israel had been tarred with the libels of racism and Nazism, the Jewish state had been made an international outlaw, a pariah, losing its moral right to even exist—exactly, of course, what its foes have consistently sought. “These very labels of Zionism and Israel as ‘racist, apartheid and Nazi’ supply the criminal indictment,” said Cotler. “No further debate is required. The conviction that this triple racism warrants the dismantling of Israel as a moral obligation has been secured. For who would deny that a ‘racist, apartheid, Nazi’ state should not have any right to exist today?” [Emphasis added.]

Such academic perceptions have spread worldwide. European nations are now rushing to recognize a Palestinian nation, without regard to reality.

Does anyone really think that granting, or recognizing, Palestinian statehood will make them more peaceful? On the contrary. From past experience, any time the Palestinians achieve a political goal without effort, they take that as a reward for their violent behaviour and only increase their terrorist activities.

In that context, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. General Assembly recently chastised much of the world, particularly Europe, for accepting such perceptions regardless of reality.

He did not likely make many friends; calling to people’s attention that they are sadly misguided rarely does.

Why are Islamic nations, where apartheid and violence against non-Muslims prevail, subjected to little anger and disdain while Israel, the only free and democratic nation in the entire region, gets nearly all of the anger and disdain? Might this double standard be useful because it caters to the notion that Israel’s freedom and democracy for all of her citizens, including Arabs — particularly along with her technological and financial successes — set her apart? Make her “the Other?” Might it be that Islamic nations, hugely represented at the U.N. and sadly deficient in freedom, democracy and technological prowess, reject Israeli freedom and democracy while envious of Israel’s technological success? They have substantial wealth, but it is largely based on oil and the technology of others. Little of the resulting wealth is shared with their masses.

Islam

That brings us to Islam, the “religion of peace.” According to Obama and other luminaries, the Islamic State is not Islamic. According to Obama no religion — least of all Islam — countenances the violence in which the Islamic State and other comparable Islamic terrorist groups engage. Remember His Eid-al-Fitr message?

While Eid marks the completion of Ramadan, it also celebrates the common values that unite us in our humanity and reinforces the obligations that people of all faiths have to each other, especially those impacted by poverty, conflict, and disease. [Emphasis added.]

In the United States, Eid also reminds us of the many achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy.  That is why we stand with people of all faiths, here at home and around the world, to protect and advance their rights to prosper, and we welcome their commitment to giving back to their communities. [Emphasis added.]

Interfaith tolerance and respect? The “very fabric of our nation?” “Strengthening the core of our democracy?”

Let's have an honest discussion about Islam

Let’s have an honest discussion about Islam

In Islam, peace can come only after all other religions have been destroyed or subjugated. That Islamic belief now plagues Israel and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Islamic Palestinians who murder Jews are seen as heroes and more are encouraged to do more of the same.

Many Muslims adhere also to the view that the Peace of Islam can come only after other Muslims who profess variant religious doctrines — Sunni vs. Shia for example — have been destroyed or subjugated and become “true” Muslims. Sect vs. sect violence was common throughout the centuries and now seems to be worse and increasing.

That is to be expected, but why do many nations which do not yet have Muslim majorities tend to ignore these Islamic actions and view Islamic slaughter as not characteristics of Islam? Are they merely ignorant about Islam? Have they been fatally infected with multiculturalism and political correctness? Might they even view adherents to Islam as subhumans, whose violence and other depredations are best ignored or tolerated?

 

Conclusions

It seems reasonable to conclude that the world is spiraling ever deeper into insanity. Until leaders of “the international community,” academia and the mass media revise their views and act on the basis of facts instead of fictions, and on logic rather than on raw emotion coupled with pandering to those blinded by confirmation bias against “the Others,” sanity will continue to be increasingly rare. Insanity will continue to be manifested through violence as it persists and worsens because perceptions drive actions.

These are not optimistic conclusions, because it seems unlikely that “the international community,” academia or the mass media — which tend to proceed in tandem — will reform anytime soon.

ADDENDUM

Is Christianity dead in the Middle East? It probably is in most of the region, but not in Israel.

Is it the end of Christianity in the Middle East?  Could be, he says, at least so far as Iraq is involved:

What is a Christian life there now? The Bishop of Mosul said recently that for the first time in 2,000 years there was no church in Nineveh [an ancient city that is now part of Mosul]. That’s the reality.

It is indeed the reality, and not just in Iraq.  And “the West” is silent, as it has been so often when it faces evil far from its own boundaries.  Meanwhile, [Anglican Canon Andrew White] has moved on, to the one country in the Middle East that provides its citizens with religious freedom and the security to practice their faith.  He’s in Jerusalem, trying to achieve reconciliation between Muslim and Jewish religious leaders.  It’s not an altogether new venture for him;  in his last days in Baghdad, he was the “rabbi” for the city’s remaining six Iraqi Jews.  And back at that conference in Copenhagen, the guest of honor at the closing banquet was the former chief rabbi of Denmark. [Emphasis added.]

Guess what?  During the week, all the Iraqi religious leaders arranged for private meetings with said rabbi.  Why?  They’d looked at the map, and they knew that if things were going to be ok for them, they’d need help from the Jews in Israel.  Andrew knew it too.  He still knows it.  That’s no doubt why he’s working in Jerusalem. [Emphasis added.]

Categories: Antisemitism, Diversity, Hamas, Ideology, International Community, Islam, Islamic State, Jewish occupation of Israel, Leftists, Multiculturalism, Obama, Peace process, Political correctness, Two state solution, United Nations
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Abbas: PA to halt security coordination with Israel if peace talks aren’t revived

November 29, 2014

Abbas: PA to halt security coordination with Israel if peace talks aren’t revived

via Abbas: PA to halt security coordination with Israel if peace talks aren’t revived.

 

All indications are that US mediation efforts to revive peace talks have failed,” says Abbas.

Talestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ( abu mazen ).. (photo credit:REUTERS) o

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday threatened to halt security coordination with Israel unless the peace talks are revived.

“We are no longer able to live with the status quo,” Abbas said in a speech before an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.

He also reiterated the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“We recognize the State of Israel, but we won’t recognize a Jewish state at all,” Abbas stressed.

The meeting was held to discuss the latest developments surrounding the Palestinian issue in light of Abbas’s plan to seek a UN Security Council resolution that sets a timeline for Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.

Abbas is hoping to win the Arab ministers’ support for his plan in wake of US pressure to refrain from presenting it to the Security Council.

Abbas has said in the past that he intends to present the plan to the Security Council by the end of this month.

“The situation in the West Bank is dangerous and can’t continue as it is,” Abbas said in his speech. “The most dangerous thing facing the Palestinian cause at this time is the continuation of the status quo.”

He said that Israel knows very well that there would be no Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip. Israel, he charged, is continuing with its policy of creating facts on the ground by building settlements on Palestinian territories.

“Israel does not know where its borders are and is refusing to define them,” Abbas said. “We will present an Arab plan to the Security Council calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. All indications are that US mediation efforts to revive the peace talks have failed.”

He said that the PA had asked US Secretary of State John Kerry to work together to draft the resolution that would be presented to the Security Council. The PA also asked Kerry to put pressure on Israel to stop settlement construction, Abbas added.

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