Posted tagged ‘Islam’

When Will Obama and the West Listen to Hamas?

November 11, 2015

When Will Obama and the West Listen to Hamas?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

November 10, 2015 at 5:00 am

Source: When Will Obama and the West Listen to Hamas?

  • What senior Hamas figure Musa Abu Marzouk and other Hamas leaders are saying is very clear: Even if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, Hamas and other Palestinians will continue to fight until Israel is completely destroyed.
  • Hamas is openly stating that it will use any future Palestinian state as a launching pad to attack and eliminate Israel.
  • Hamas is not a small opposition party in the Palestinian territories that can be dismissed as a minor player. Hamas is a large Islamist movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls the entire Gaza Strip with its population of 1.8 million Palestinians. Hamas, not much different from Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, has its own security forces, militias, weapons and government institutions.
  • The Obama Administration and Western governments can talk as much as they like about the two-state solution. Even if President Abbas agrees to a Palestinian state, he will never be able to persuade Hamas, Islamic Jihad and many other Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
  • Under the current circumstances, where Hamas and other Palestinians continue to dream about the destruction of Israel, any talk about a two-state solution is nothing but a joke.

As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were talking about the two-state solution during their meeting in the White House yesterday, the Palestinian Hamas movement reiterated its intention to destroy Israel.

Hamas’s announcement shows that the two-state solution is not a recipe for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The announcement also shows that all those who have been talking about a change in Hamas’s position towards Israel continue to live in an illusion.

As the Obama-Netanyahu meeting was underway, senior Hamas figure Musa Abu Marzouk issued a statement in which he declared: “We will never negotiate with the Zionist entity and we will never recognize its right to exist. We will continue to resist the Zionist entity until it vanishes, whether they like it or not. The soldiers of the Qassam [Hamas’s armed wing] were founded to liberate Palestine, even if some have recognized Israel. We want a state from the (Jordan) river to the [Mediterranean] sea.”

As U.S. President Barack Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday (left), senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk (at far right, holding rifle) reiterated his organization’s commitment to eliminate Israel.

Abu Marzouk’s remarks came in response to statements made by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting with Egyptian journalists in Cairo on Sunday night.

Abbas was quoted as telling the Egyptian journalists that Hamas and Israel were conducting “direct negotiations” to establish a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and parts of the Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Abbas claimed that ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi had offered to annex 1000 square kilometers of Sinai to the Gaza Strip – an offer he (Abbas) had categorically rejected.

Abu Marzouk’s latest threats to eliminate Israel are not only directed against Abbas, but also towards President Obama and those in the international community who continue to support the idea of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. What he and other Hamas leaders are saying is very clear: Even if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, Hamas and other Palestinians will continue to fight until Israel is completely destroyed.

In other words, Hamas is openly stating that it will use any future Palestinian state as a launching pad to attack and eliminate Israel. But Hamas’s message has obviously not reached the White House and other Western governments, where decision-makers continue to bury their heads in the sand, refusing to see or hear what some Palestinians are saying.

Hamas and many other Palestinians are completely opposed to a two-state solution: they believe that Israel has no right to exist — period — in this part of the world. The only solution they are prepared to accept is one that sees Israel wiped off the face of the earth.

Hamas is not a small opposition party in the Palestinian territories that could be dismissed as a minor player. Hamas is a large Islamist movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls the entire Gaza Strip with its population of 1.8 million Palestinians. Hamas has its own security forces, militias, weapons and government institutions.

Since its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas and its political allies have turned the coastal area into a semi-independent Islamist emirate.

Since then, Hamas has used the Gaza Strip as a launching pad to attack Israel with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. And Hamas leaders have repeatedly stated that their chief goal is to “liberate” not only the West Bank and east Jerusalem, but “all of Palestine.” In short, Hamas wants to replace Israel with an Islamist empire where non-Muslims would be permitted to live as a minority.

Hamas considers all Jews as “settlers” and “colonialists” who live in “settlements” such as Beersheba, Rishon Lezion, Ashdod and Bat Yam. Hamas does not differentiate between a Jew living in Ma’aleh Adumim or Gush Etzion (on the West Bank) and Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ramat Gan. That is why the Hamas media and leaders refer to Beersheba and Ra’anana, well within the “pre-1967 borders,” as “occupied” cities.

The Obama Administration and Western governments can talk as much as they like about the two-state solution. But so long as they refuse to listen to what Hamas and other Palestinians are saying, they will continue to engage in self-deception and hallucination. Even if President Abbas agrees to a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines, he will never be able to persuade Hamas, Islamic Jihad and many other Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Under the current circumstances, where Hamas and other Palestinians continue to dream about the destruction of Israel, any talk about a two-state solution is nothing but a joke.

The Obama Administration and the rest of the international community also need to understand that that the two-state solution has already been realized. In the end, the Palestinians got two states of their own: one in the Gaza Strip and another in the West Bank. The one in the Gaza Strip is run by folks are not much different from Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, while that in the West Bank is controlled by a president who has entered the 11th year of his four-year-term in office and as such is not even seen by his people as a “rightful” leader. This is a reality that the world, including Israel, will have to live with for many years to come.

It is time for the world to stop listening only to President Abbas and Saeb Erekat, and start paying attention to what many other Palestinians such as Hamas are saying, day and night, regarding their commitment to destroy Israel.

Iran has stopped dismantling nuclear centrifuges: senior official

November 11, 2015

Iran has stopped dismantling nuclear centrifuges: senior official

DUBAI

Tue Nov 10, 2015 2:37pm EST

Source: Iran has stopped dismantling nuclear centrifuges: senior official | Reuters

Iran has stopped dismantling centrifuges in two uranium enrichment plants, state media reported on Tuesday, days after conservative lawmakers complained to President Hassan Rouhani that the process was too rushed.

Last week, Iran announced it had begun shutting down inactive centrifuges at the Natanz and Fordow plants under the terms of a deal struck with world powers in July that limits its nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions.

Iran’s hardliners continue to resist and undermine the nuclear deal, which was forged by moderates they oppose and which they see as a capitulation to the West.

“The (dismantling) process stopped with a warning,” Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the National Security Council, was quoted as saying by the ISNA student news agency.

Only decommissioned centrifuges were being dismantled to begin with, of which there were about 10,000 at Natanz and Fordow, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran has said.

Shamkhani did not specify what he meant by “warning”, but the head of parliament’s nuclear deal commission, Alireza Zakani, told Mehr news agency that the dismantling had stopped in Fordow because of the lawmakers’ letter to Rouhani.

Zakani, who was not one of the signatories of the letter, did not mention activities at Natanz.

A group of 20 hardline parliamentarians wrote to the president last week complaining that the deactivation of centrifuges contradicted the directives of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei has said that the deal should only be implemented once allegations of past military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s nuclear program had been settled.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to announce its conclusions on PMD by Dec. 15.

Centrifuges spin at supersonic speed to increase the ratio of the fissile isotope in uranium. Low-enriched uranium is used to fuel nuclear power plants, Iran’s stated goal, but can also provide material for bombs if refined much further.

Iran denied Western suspicions it was aiming to build a nuclear bomb.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Raissa Kasolowsky)

 

 

Turkey: Syria land operation possible but not alone

November 11, 2015

Turkey: Syria land operation possible but not alone

Uğur Ergan – ANKARA

Source: Turkey: Syria land operation possible but not alone – MIDEAST

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu (R) sitting across CNN International's Christiane Amanpour (L) in an interview on Nov. 9, 2015. AA Photo

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu (R) sitting across CNN International’s Christiane Amanpour (L) in an interview on Nov. 9, 2015. AA Photo

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said a ground forces operation in Syria could be possible but Turkey would not conduct such an operation alone, speaking in an interview with CNN International’s Christiane Amanpour on Nov. 9.

“[A] ground forces [campaign] is something which we have to talk [about] together and share. As I told you in our last interview, there’s a need of an integrated strategy, including an air campaign and ground troops,” Davutoğlu told Amanpour on Nov. 9.

“But Turkey alone cannot take on this burden. If there’s a coalition and a very well designed integrated strategy, Turkey is ready to take part in all senses,” he added.

Davutoğlu confirmed once again that he was talking about a possible ground forces operation after Amanpour asked if the strategy also included “the ground.”

“Yes, of course,” Davutoğlu answered.

He said that without an integrated strategy for Syria, which was needed, another terrorist group could emerge apart from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

“We have to solve the Syrian crisis in a comprehensive manner,” Davutoğlu said.

According to Turkish security sources who spoke to daily Hürriyet on condition of anonymity, it was not considered a warm option for the Turkish Armed Forces to enter Syrian territory for a land operation against ISIL without a decision taken in the international arena, either with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) or the NATO Council. The inclusion of coalition forces in these international decisions is also being sought for Turkey to take part in a ground forces campaign, the sources said.

Since civil war erupted in Syria, sources said, Turkey has been making plans on various scenarios, which included launching a land operation, and were making the necessary changes to them according to new developments. The sources said it was “normal” for Turkey to conduct such plans.

If an attack is launched directly towards Turkey from the Syrian side, then Turkey would respond to this attack without seeking a decision from the UNSC or NATO, according to the sources.

Turkey could launch a special forces unit operation into the area in Syria where a attack on Turkey was launched from, but this would be a limited campaign and it could not be regarded as an extensive operation, the security sources said.

Sources added Turkey would be more involved in airstrikes under a coalition led by the U.S.

Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu’s words last week in Iraq’s Arbil on the possibility of Turkey having “plans to militarily take action against ISIL” could be regarded in this perception, the sources said.

Turkey also needed to take into consideration Russia when making plans on a ground operation in Syria, they said.

November/11/2015

Five Child-Incitement Hot Spots

November 10, 2015

Five Child-Incitement Hot Spots, The Clarion Project, Meira Svirsky, November 9, 2015

Child-Incitement-2-HP

 

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority

A television show for pre-schoolers, a theater contest at a school, hit songs that encourage the use of “cleavers and knives” – all are mediums used by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to teach Palestinian children to hate Jews and incite them to punch, stab shoot and otherwise kill the “enemy.”

Palestinian textbooks teach their children that Israel has no right to exist; the Palestinian Authority uses sports events to glorify terrorists, naming tournaments and festivals after the most gruesome killers; Hitler is held up as the ultimate role model in PA schools and on their Facebook pages; and the PA media teaches children the pleasure and rewards of martyrdom.

In addition to all the above methods, Hamas provides military training and indoctrination for kids through their summer camps in which Palestinian children receive paramilitary training, including how [to] make a homemade rocket and how to fire guns (training uses live ammunition).

Islamic State (ISIS)

One of the stated strategies of the Islamic State is to assure the continuation of the “caliphate” and its mission by training the next generation in their methodology and dogma. The following video report (see below) by Irmi, a media outlet based in the UAE, shows the indoctrination of the “Caliphate Cubs,” the Islamic State’s children’s division.

Children are brainwashed to join the Islamic State in a number of ways. After targeting a community for takeover, the Islamic State will typically kill the men, enslave the women and girl and take the young boys to be trained killers for the caliphate.

In addition, Islamic State supporters from Arab countries as well as Europe have been encouraged to bring their young boys to Islamic State territory (a call which they have heeded) to receive training.

Boys as young as five learn how to shoot and slaughter through a variety of methods — lynching, beheading and suicide bombings.

Somalia

Al-Shabaab, the brutal Islamist terror organization responsible for the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, recruits children for use as soldiers. Children are lured to join the group through the use of extremist propaganda and material rewards. Religious events in mosques provide fertile ground for recruitment as well. Mosques in the United States, in areas with a heavy Somali immigrant population, such as Minnesota, have also played roles in recruiting older boys, even those born and raised in the U.S. Al-Shabaab has also proven remarkably sophisticated in its use of the Internet to post recruitment appeals aimed directly at young Somali-Americans that feature glorified battle scenes and personal testimonials from Somali-Americans already among its ranks.

Pakistan

Although Pakistan was conceived as a homeland for Muslims whose founder envisioned equal rights for all citizens (including minorities), a study of the country’s text books shows children in Pakistani schools are being taught prejudice and intolerance of all religions except Islam. In addition, the study found that most teachers were found to view non-Muslims as “enemies of Islam.”

The finding of the study, conducted by the U.S. government, “indicate how deeply ingrained hard-line Islam is in Pakistan and help explain why militancy is often supported, tolerated or excused in the country.”

A 2011 Pew Reseach Center study found Pakistan to be the third most intolerant country in the world.

”Teaching discrimination increases the likelihood that violent religious extremism in Pakistan will continue to grow, weakening religious freedom, national and regional stability, and global security,” said Leonard Leo, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

A separate study by the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church of Pakistan also surveyed found that Pakistani textbooks for children “inculcated hatred.” The organization has called for their removal.

“Teaching hatred or harm to students is illegal,” said Peter Jacob, executive director of the Centre for Social Justice. Yet, “There are no checks on independent publishers and the material they publish. Either the government carefully monitors these publishers or it bans some of the textbooks they publish.”

UK

Britain has been rocked by the “Trojan Horse” scandal in Birmingham and other locations where Islamist extremists have managed to take control of a number of publicly-funded schools and use them as a platform to disseminate their discriminatory views.

A report by the former head of the Metropolitan police force’s counter-terrorism division found there was a “co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained action to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos” into a few schools in Birmingham.”

“This has been achieved in a number of schools through gaining influence on the governing bodies, installing sympathetic head teachers or senior members of staff, appointing like-minded people to key positions, and seeking to remove head teachers who they do not feel to be sufficiently compliant with their agenda,” the report said.

Children at these schools are being encouraged to accept unquestioningly a hardline version of Sunni Islamism, leaving them vulnerable to radicalization later on, according to the report.

British Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said, “Teachers have said they fear children are learning to be intolerant of difference and diversity. Instead of enjoying a broadening and enriching experience in school, young people are having their horizons narrowed and are being denied the opportunity to flourish in a modern multicultural Britain.”

Iran ‘Rocket Kitten’ cyber group hit in European raids after targeting Israeli scientists

November 9, 2015

Iran ‘Rocket Kitten’ cyber group hit in European raids after targeting Israeli scientists

Source: Iran ‘Rocket Kitten’ cyber group hit in European raids after targeting Israeli scientists – Middle East – Jerusalem Post

FRANKFURT – European authorities have taken action to shut down a cyber espionage operation linked to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard in the first operation of its kind since Tehran signed a nuclear treaty, according to security researchers who located computers used to launch attacks.

The hacker group – dubbed “Rocket Kitten” by security experts who have been hunting the hacker group since early 2014 – has mounted cyber attacks on high-profile political and defense figures globally since that time.

The action is likely to hamper Tehran’s efforts to gather sensitive intelligence from rivals including Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, the United States and Venezuela, which were among the nations targeted.

Researchers from US-Israeli security firm Check Point Software said the 1,600 high-profile targets include members of the Saudi royal family, Israeli nuclear scientists, NATO officials and Iranian dissidents and even the wives of high-ranking generals from unnamed countries.

The company said it had informed national computer security response teams in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, who in turn alerted police in those countries to the locations of “command and control” servers used to mount attacks controlled from Iran.

Europol, the FBI and Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet declined immediate comment.

The actions come as US President Barack Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepare to meet on Monday for the first time since the Israeli leader lost his battle against the Iran nuclear deal and security issues top the agenda.

Check Point plans to issue a report later on Monday. According to an advance copy obtained by Reuters, the report details how its experts burrowed inside the hacker group’s database, giving them a map of malicious software tools and remote-controlled computers used by the group.

Palestinian Authority: It’s Really About Israel’s Existence, Stupid

November 8, 2015

In a blunt statement on its semi-official Internet site, the Palestinian Authority admits it really wants to push Israelis out of Israel. Completely.

By: Hana Levi Julian

Published: November 8th, 2015

Source: The Jewish Press » » Palestinian Authority: It’s Really About Israel’s Existence, Stupid

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas
Photo Credit: PMW

A semi-official news outlet that carries statements for Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas proclaimed on Sunday his oft-repeated wild incitement that Israel is out to destroy the central Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And of far more international interest, the site added, “the current Palestinian uprising has its roots in 67 years” of Arab rage over the rebirth of the State of Israel.

The “Palestine Solidarity Network (PSN)” mouthpiece was quoted by the Palestine News Network (PNN) in the accusation against the Netanyahu administration on Sunday of ordering the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

Moreover, the PA government confirmed publicly that the issue of “new settlements” is not behind the latest round of Arab violence — nor has the issue of “settlements” been the issue igniting Arab violence over the past 20 years. It is the issue of Israel’s entire existence — as the more direct Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization explains in its forthright founding charter, which proclaims its determination to annihilate the State of Israel at all costs — that the Palestinian Authority finds so upsetting.

“The current Palestinian uprising has its roots in 67 years of being forcibly and brutally pushed out of their lands and homes,” stated the PSN on the homepage of the PNN website.

PNN, the official Internet mouthpiece for the Palestinian Authority, posted the piece at around the same time a flight bearing Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was arriving in the United States for a meeting with President Barack Obama.

“Three months ago, Israeli illegal settlers burned down a Palestinian home in Duma (occupied West Bank), killing an infant and his parents,” the statement went on, promoting a theory that has yet to be substantiated. Jewish terrorists who in the past carried out “price tag” attacks and atrocities against Arab neighbors were caught by Israeli security personnel and jailed within days of the crime.

The Palestinian Authority instead glorifies Arab murderers, naming public squares, streets and children’s summer camp programs after terrorists who carry out attacks against Israelis and Jews. In the case of the Duma incident, it is still not clear who carried out the despicable arson murder of the two parents and baby.

“The incident was followed by an increased Israeli military and settler presence around the Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem,” PSN continued, adding, “Under orders from the far-right Israeli administration, parts of the mosque were burned and destroyed. Moreover, Israeli claims of access to worshipping sites are often a first step for more colonization of land and are inevitably met by a wave of rejection and anger.

“More than 70 Palestinians have been killed in the last month by the Israeli military and armed settlers, many of them civilians who were not involved in violent attacks,” the Palestinian Authority website claimed.

Actually, since October 1, there have been dozens of Arab terrorists — many of them teenagers inspired by the endless incitement broadcast over PA government-run media and taught in PA-approved classrooms — who have carried out more than 60 stabbings, six vehicle ramming attacks and five shooting attacks against Israelis and Jews. At least 10 Israelis died and well over a hundred have been wounded. There were four such attacks within a six-hour period just prior to the posting of the PSN article, in fact.

Most of the attacks have been carried out in and around Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem, and the ancient holy city Hebron. Both cities are sacred to Jews and contain sites holy to Muslims as well.

The blood spilled in our cities is a stupid, useless tragedy for everyone. It serves no one except the evil, corrupted Arab leaders who have destroyed nearly every bit of progress their people manage to achieve, and have succeeded in brainwashing the last three of those generations. They sadly managed to produce an ample supply of young expendables who grew up inspired to give birth, raise “martyrs” and give birth again. And now they are bringing up a whole generation of those silly enough and impulsive enough to rush into death without giving thought to the value of life, the value of true honor, as opposed to the travesty of “honor” sold to them by the fakers in their TV screens.

Without learning to question their own cause, they cannot even truly endorse it. Like zombies, they can only live or die. How stupid, how wasteful, and how sad.

Islam, social justice warriors and the cry-bully

November 7, 2015

Islam, social justice warriors and the cry-bully, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 7, 2015

sjw2

This phenomenon of the abuser-victim is ridiculously widespread these days. Every Social Justice Warrior that organizes a hate campaign quickly rushes to friendly media outlets to whine about harassment and their heroic stand against people doing to them what they do to others. I’m not sure if Cry-Bully is the best name for it, but I haven’t come up with anything better for it.

That’s Julie Burchill’s label at the Spectator. I’ve stripped out most of the UK pop culture references to focus on the point.

This is the age of the Cry-Bully, a hideous hybrid of victim and victor, weeper and walloper. They are everywhere, these duplicit Pushmi-Pullyus of the personal and the political…

In the 1970s, there was a big difference between bullies and cry-babies.

Islamism is the ultimate Cry-Bully cause; on one hand stamping around murdering anyone who doesn’ t agree with you, on the other hand yelling ‘ISLAMOPHOBIA’ in lieu of having a real adult debate about the merits of your case. Their ‘helpline’ is even called Tell Mama – bless. The British-born Islamist recently sentenced to twelve years had no problem posing with severed heads (‘Heads, kaffirs, disgusting’) and asking friends back home to send him condoms which he planned to use raping women captured as ‘war booty’ but then claimed to be having nightmares and suffering from depression in order to escape jail.

I would argue that the same brand of selfishness and dehumanization that leads to abusive behavior also leads to victimhood.

We’ve known this about criminals for some time now. They’re all victims. No matter what horrible things they did, someone else always drove them to it. They’re self-centered enough not to care about anyone else while being exquisitely attuned to their own feelings. As I wrote a few weeks ago

The one thing that Muslim murderers excel at is playing the victim. Someone always “made” Mohammed do it. Someone got him so frustrated and upset that he had no choice but to rape and kill.

There’s a term for the kind of people who think like this; criminals. There’s a term for the kind of people who defend them; leftists.

The Muslim case for justice can be found in the books of a million police departments where all the stories begin with the criminal feeling sorry for himself and end in hospitals and morgues. The story always begins with, “I wanted what was coming to me” or “She shouldn’t have made me angry.”

But this isn’t limited to Muslims. You can see it in the Black Lives Matter tantrums. Or the anti-Gamergate crowd. They’re the victims and it’s always someone else’s fault.

The entire passive aggressive narrative of safe spaces (if you don’t censor people who disagree with us, we’re the victims) turns abusers into victims, censors into heroes defending their mental health from dissenting views and the victim-victor paradigm is constantly flipping from one to the other.

One moment the SJW hero is doing an end zone dance over having defeated the latest cultural enemy. The next moment they’re crying over mean stuff said to them on Twitter. They’re narcissistic and insecure. They want to be treated as helpless heroes, victims of some terrible social disease (not that kind) that leaves them always out of power and yet always winning. Their sensitivities have to be accommodated and censorship is their trophy. They’re all about inclusiveness for special people like them, while driving out and shutting up anyone who disagrees with them.

I don’t know if Cry-Bullies is the perfect word, but it captures the dynamic perfectly.

US boosts security at Mideast airports, Russia suspends Egypt air travel

November 7, 2015

US boosts security at Mideast airports, Russia suspends Egypt air travel White House: New measures are ‘prudent response,’ as intelligence points to bomb in Saturday’s Sinai plane crash; 50,000 Russian tourists in Egypt

By Times of Israel staff and AFP

November 7, 2015, 1:24 am

Source: US boosts security at Mideast airports, Russia suspends Egypt air travel | The Times of Israel

Tourists queue at the airport in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on November 6, 2015. (AFP/ MOHAMED EL-SHAHED)

Tourists queue at the airport in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on November 6, 2015. (AFP/ MOHAMED EL-SHAHED)

The US Department of Homeland Security announced new security measures on Friday at some foreign airports for flights into the US, and Russia suspended all air travel to Egypt, amid mounting intelligence that a bomb brought down the Russian passenger plane that crashed last Saturday in the Sinai, killing all 224 people aboard.

A day earlier, the United Kingdom suspended all flights over the restive Sinai Peninsula, following French carrier Air France and Germany’s Lufthansa, both of which banned flights to the area last week.

The Islamic State terror group in Egypt, also known as Wilayat Sinai, has claimed responsibility for bringing down the plane, claiming that it was an act of retribution for Russian air strikes against the group in Syria.

The White House said the US would ask for increased security for less than 10 airports, all in the Middle East, according to a Reuters report.

White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said the new measures were a “prudent response” to the incident.

An investigation into the crash has been ongoing, with Egypt and Russia initially dismissing the Islamic State’s claims of responsibility. But US and UK officials, including President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron have said that there were strong indications an explosive device brought down the aircraft.

Sources close to the probe said Friday that an analysis of black boxes from the plane which took off from Sharm el-Sheik en route to St.Peteresburg pointed to a “violent end” in the form of bomb attack.

The flight data and voice recorders showed “everything was normal” until both failed at 24 minutes after takeoff, pointing to “a very sudden explosive decompression,” one source said.

The data “strongly favors” the theory a bomb on board had brought down the plane, he added.

Another source said the plane had gone down suddenly and violently.

The Times newspaper reported Friday that electronic communications intercepted by British and US intelligence suggested a bomb may have been carried onto the plane.

Satellites uncovered chatter between militants in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria, it said.

“The tone and content of the messages convinced analysts that a bomb had been carried on board by a passenger or a member of the airport ground staff,” the newspaper reported, without giving a source.

Meanwhile, British airlines were scrambling to evacuate passengers in Sharm el-Sheikh after cancelling flights to the Red Sea resort from which the doomed Airbus had taken off Saturday.

One of the black boxes recovered from the crash site showed that the plane suffered “a violent, sudden” end, a source close to the case in Paris told AFP.

The flight data recorder showed that “everything was normal during the flight, absolutely normal, and suddenly there was nothing.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered flights halted on the recommendation of his security chief, the Kremlin said, although Moscow had previously downplayed reports that a bomb caused the crash.

At an emergency meeting, the head of Russia’s FSB security service, Alexander Bortnikov, said it would be prudent to halt flights for now.

“Until we have determined the true reasons for what happened, I consider it expedient to stop flights by Russian aviation to Egypt,” he said.

According to Reuters, which cites the Russian Travel Industry Union, there are an estimated 50,000 Russian tourists currently in Egypt.

Debris of the A321 Russian airliner a day after the plane crashed in Wadi al-Zolomat, a mountainous area in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, on November 1, 2015. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)

With international concerns mounting, European airlines prepared to bring home thousands of tourists from the Red Sea resort, which has been a jewel in Egypt’s tourism crown.

A first flight landed at London’s Gatwick airport Friday afternoon, after a lengthy delay to its departure. Another plane was also headed for Britain.

There were angry scenes at the airport as thousands of anxious Britons, who had also hoped to fly home, were sent back to their hotels after Egypt blocked several other repatriation flights.

British Ambassador John Casson was heckled as he announced the news.

Egyptian Aviation Minister Hossam Kamal said only eight of 29 flights would take off because the airport could not cope with all the luggage left behind.

In a sign of mounting fears about the security of baggage handling in Egypt, Dutch carrier KLM announced that it had banned check-in luggage on an early flight from Cairo, mirroring moves taken by several European airlines.

Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies

November 6, 2015

Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies

Friday, 06 November 2015

Written by 

Source: Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies

Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies

Photo of President Obama: AP Images

Outrage and criticism are growing across the political spectrum after Obama, contradicting his repeated past pledges not to put U.S. troops in Syria, decided without congressional or constitutional authority to deploy some 50 Special Forces operatives to aid Syrian jihadists. At least one U.S. soldier has already been killed, dying last month in what Obama officials claimed was a raid to free prisoners held by the Islamic State (ISIS). More deaths are likely, as are more troop deployments, according to lawmakers and analysts, potentially setting up a broader war in which the United States could become further ensnared in Syria and beyond. Thanks in large part to the administration’s deceit and machinations in recent years, the whole region is likely to end up in flames — a kind of post-Obama Libya on a much larger scale. And Obama’s Republican and Democrat enablers in Congress, despite voicing some complaints and concerns, have done practically nothing to stop it.

The official excuse for sending American forces to Syria is to help various jihadist “rebels” battle ISIS. Yet, based on the statements of Obama’s own top officials, including Vice President Joe Biden and Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, members of Obama’s “anti-ISIS” coalition have been arming, funding, and training ISIS from the start. In fact, in a public speech at Harvard, Biden said the anti-ISIS coalition had essentially created ISIS in the first place — on purpose. Official U.S. intelligence documents later confirmed that. The notion that Obama is sending U.S. troops to battle the Frankenstein creation of its own “anti-ISIS” coalition, then, sounds far-fetched at best. Far more likely is that the real agenda is not being publicly discussed, with ISIS merely serving as the excuse du jour to wage more illegal war.

The administration, of course, also claims that the U.S. military deployment will remain small, supposedly in a mostly advisory capacity along the lines of what got the U.S. government embroiled in Vietnam. Chief White House mouthpiece Josh Earnest even claimed Obama would “not allow the U.S. to be drawn into a sectarian quagmire in Syria.” As he was speaking, though, Obama was in the process of sinking America deeper into the sectarian quagmire that Obama himself helped create and fuel in Syria. “The president believes that by committing a relatively small number of forces, fewer than 50, that they can serve as a force multiplier and further enhance the efforts of these local forces on the ground,” Earnest continued. The “force” that would be “multiplied” by U.S. forces, of course, is a jihadist force, as Obama’s own top officials have already acknowledged publicly and as U.S. military documents show conclusively.

Either way, there is no reason to believe anything Earnest or anyone else in the administration has to say about the deployment, the purpose of it, or anything else, really — and there are plenty of reasons not to believe it. As The New American reported this week, Obama decided to lawlessly commit U.S. troops into Syria’s civil war after years of repeated promises to not deploy U.S. troops in Syria. Indeed, reporter C. Mitchell Shaw compiled a list of 18 separate instances in which the Obama administration publicly pledged not to deploy U.S. troops in Syria. Instead of keeping its promise and U.S. boots off the ground in Syria, though, the administration announced last week that a contingent of American Special Forces personnel were on the way to help various jihadist groups battle other jihadist groups.

It appears, however, that the administration and its war-mongering allies are having trouble keeping their lies straight on all fronts. For instance, the White House claims it has the authority to deploy U.S. forces in Syria based on an “Authorization for Use of Military Force” (AUMF) passed by Congress in 2001 authorizing military strikes on “al Qaeda and associated forces.” Yet, the Obama administration and various warmongers demanding military action in Syria also claim that al-Qaeda and ISIS are at odds with each other. Indeed, disgraced former General David Petraeus, who oversaw the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even called for a U.S. government alliance with al-Qaeda to fight ISIS. Seriously. Official U.S. documents also show that Washington, D.C., has known from the beginning that the Syrian “opposition” was being led by al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist organizations.

Meanwhile, Obama’s unconstitutional “regime-change” plot against Libya also discredits the administration’s false claim that the AUMF against al-Qaeda authorizes U.S. government support for jihad in Syria. In Libya, retired U.S. military generals and others even concluded that Obama had “switched sides” in the terror war when he backed self-declared al-Qaeda leaders against former U.S. terror-war ally Moammar Gadhafi. In that war, which turned what remains of war-torn Libya into a jihadist paradise mired in ongoing civil war, Obama did not cite the AUMF, instead pointing to an illegitimate United Nations Security Council “resolution” as the source of authority. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even promised to ignore Congress if it tried to stop the illegal war. The U.S. Constitution, of course, requires a declaration of war before the president is authorized to wage war.

Even some congressional Democrats, though, are speaking out against Obama. “It’s hard not to be concerned when the president very clearly ruled out putting troops on the ground in Syria and now they’re on their way into the battle,” explained U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), adding that he expected Obama to deploy even more U.S. troops in Syria going forward. “We’ve crossed a line here that’s hard to understand.” Another Senate Democrat, Tim Kaine of Virginia, echoed those concerns, saying lawmakers were not convinced. The White House’s efforts “to say, ‘Don’t worry, this is not ground troops,’ people don’t think that’s credible,” he said. Various Republicans have also slammed Obama’s decision. The public, too, is catching on, with a recent Associated Press poll showing that more than 6 in 10 Americans reject Obama’s “anti-ISIS” machinations in Syria.

Unsurprisingly, the warmongering Republican neoconservatives in Congress who supported the disastrous U.S. government invasion, “regime change,” and occupation of Iraq were standing fully behind Obama. Some even demanded that Obama deepen his involvement in Syria’s civil war even further. “Democrats and a few Republicans have absolutely no clue as to the threat we face,” complained Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports sending even more U.S. troops to the region. “We’re going to get attacked from Syria. That is where the next 9/11 is coming from.” He may be right.

What Graham and his fellow warmongers in Congress failed to mention, though, is that creating a fundamentalist Islamist principality in Syria — known today as ISIS — was official U.S. government policy as far back as 2012, according to a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report. Top U.S. officials said they warned against such an absurd and deadly policy, but were overruled by Obama and his cohorts desperate for more war. Graham and his neocon sidekick Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), though, have been cheerleading for Obama’s military support to Middle Eastern jihadists for years. McCain even posed for pictures with them. So if it is true that the next terror attack on U.S. soil comes from Syria, the Republican neocon enablers in Congress and the Obama administration will bear a major part of the blame.

But what is the real purpose of Obama’s latest scheming in Syria? According to Kremlin-backed media voices, it is about using U.S. troops as “human shields” to protect Obama’s anti-government jihadist “rebels” from Vladimir Putin’s air power. “The troop dispatch signals that the U.S. [is] trying to forestall Russian successes in wiping out Washington’s regime-change assets in Syria,” wrote analyst Finian Cunningham in a piece published by the Moscow-controlled RT. “In short, the US Special Forces are being used as ‘human shields’ to curb Russian air strikes against anti-government mercenaries, many of whom are instrumental in Washington’s regime-change objective in Syria.”

Despite Moscow’s ostensible support for Assad, however, it appears that the globalist goals in Syria still include deposing the autocratic dictator, eventually — but not before the nation is reduced to rubble, Libya-style, and the genocide of Syria’s ancient Christian communities by Western-backed jihadist “rebels” is complete. Also apparently on the globalist agenda: exploiting the Syrian war to flood the West with millions of refugees, empowering the UN and its kangaroo “court,” and imposing a European Union-style “Middle-East Union” pushed by the global-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations.

Hundreds of thousands of innocents are now dead. More are dying every single day. Christians are  where they have lived continuously for almost 2000 years. Millions of Syrians have been forced to flee their homes. And much of the responsibility for the tragedy can be traced straight back to the deadly machinations of Obama and his allies.

Congress must take immediate action to rein in the White House, or the growing rivers of blood drenching the Middle East will be on their hands, too.

Israeli teen seriously hurt in day’s second Hebron shooting

November 6, 2015

Israeli teen seriously hurt in day’s second Hebron shooting 19-year-old suffers wounds to upper body in Friday’s fourth terror attack; large number of troops searching area

By Times of Israel staff

November 6, 2015, 6:47 pm

Source: Israeli teen seriously hurt in day’s second Hebron shooting | The Times of Israel

A wounded Jewish teen arrives at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem on November 6, 2015, after unknown assailants shot and wounded him and another teen in the West Bank city of Hebron. (AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI)

A wounded Jewish teen arrives at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem on November 6, 2015, after unknown assailants shot and wounded him and another teen in the West Bank city of Hebron. (AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI)

An Israeli youth was seriously wounded Friday evening in a shooting attack at the Beit Anun junction north of the West Bank city of Hebron.

The victim was a 19-year-old Israeli who had been shot in the upper body

Medics and emergency personnel rushed to the scene of the attack, where they administered first aid treatment before evacuating the victim to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem.

This was the fourth terror attack on Israelis in the West Bank in one day. A short time earlier, two Israeli teenagers were wounded, one seriously, in a separate shooting attack in the Hebron area.

The security forces were looking into the possibility that one cell had carried out both the Beit Anun attack and the shooting at the Tomb of the Patriarchs a short time earlier, Channel 10 said.

Large numbers of forces from the IDF and Shin Bet security service were conducting searches in the Beit Anun area, Maariv reported.

The shootings come hours after a Palestinian woman in her 70s tried to drive her car into a group of soldiers in the Hebron area. She was shot and wounded by troops.

Also Friday, an Israeli man was badly hurt when he was stabbed outside a West Bank supermarket north of Jerusalem. A Palestinian from the Jerusalem area later posted a video clip on Facebook claiming responsibility for the stabbing.