H/t The Jewish Press
Posted tagged ‘Israel’
Cartoons of the day
July 29, 2015John Kerry’s ugly warning to Israel
July 28, 2015John Kerry’s ugly warning to Israel, Paul Mirengoff, July 28, 2015
Issues of blame pale in comparison to issues of security — Israel’s, the wider Middle East’s, and ultimately our own. If Kerry had a strong case that his deal promotes security, he probably wouldn’t be resorting to thinly veiled threats against Israel.
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Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that if Congress rejects the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, Israel will be blamed. “I fear that what could happen is if Congress were to overturn it, our friends Israel could actually wind up being more isolated and more blamed,” Kerry told the Council of Foreign Relations.
The question is: “more blamed” by whom?
The answer, I think, is “more blamed” by the Obama administration. As Jennifer Rubin says:
Kerry does not “fear” Israel would be blamed; he is threatening to blame Israel if U.S. lawmakers decide that the deal is not in the interests of the United States. Not only is he inciting anti-Israel fervor, but he also is repeating another canard, namely that Israel controls Congress.
In doing all this, the administration echoes ancient tropes against the Jews and not-so-ancient ones against an Israeli government that won’t meekly assent to its death.
Israel will indeed be blamed if Congress rejects the Iran deal. It will be blamed by the usual suspects, among whom the Obama administration features prominently, who blame Israel for a wide range of ills, including the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and the break down of peace talks between Israel and Palestine.
As Michael Oren says, “the threat of the Secretary of State who, in the past, warned that Israel was in danger of becoming an apartheid state, cannot deter us from fulfilling our national duty to oppose this dangerous deal.” Nor should it deter Israel’s friends in Congress (and elsewhere).
The Obama administration is on its way out. The other “usual suspects” will continue to blame Israel for whatever, but their utterances have never counted for much.
Issues of blame pale in comparison to issues of security — Israel’s, the wider Middle East’s, and ultimately our own. If Kerry had a strong case that his deal promotes security, he probably wouldn’t be resorting to thinly veiled threats against Israel.
Op-Ed: Obama Knows Iran will Use its Nukes on Israel
July 28, 2015Op-Ed: Obama Knows Iran will Use its Nukes on Israel, Israel National News, Mark Langfan, July 28, 2015
(The very notion that Iran wants to send the Jews of Israel to the ovens is ridiculous. Iran just wants to send the ovens to the Jews of Israel. Since they won’t even have to be transported and shoved in, why make a big deal of it? Hmmmm. — DM)
At first, Obama said we couldn’t talk about his Iranian Nuke Deal unless it was finalized. Then, Obama said we couldn’t talk about his Iranian Nuke Deal unless we read it all – and simply didn’t disclose all of his side-deals. Now, he says Mike Huckabee’s comparison of shipping the Jews of Israel to the new ovens of the Iranian Auschwitz-Nuke is “ridiculous.”
Perhaps Obama wants to wait until Iran nukes Israel for it to be politically correct to call Iran’s wiping Israel off the map a “Holocaust.” But, make no mistake, Obama knows full well that Iran intends to wipe Israel off the map with its Obama-blessed Nukes.
Come on, does anyone (except the American left-wing cool-aid drinking Jews) really believe that Iran will abide by their “voluntary” protocols under the Vienna announcement? Of course not! Are Obama or any of the European Unionleaders so rank stupid and naïve that they think Iran won’t build a bomb just like North Korea? Does anyone not know that one of Iran’s first targets will be to annihilate Israel?
Of course Obama knows Iran will seek to annihilate Israel, so that must be what Obama wants.
Obviously, Obama doesn’t care if he enables the murder of another 6 million Jews through a Palestinian State’s chemical Sarin-tipped Katyusha rockets, or an Iranian Nuke. It’s simple: Obama wants Israel and its Jews offed. What is so difficult to understand about that? Every move Obama has made from the very first moment of his presidency has been to irreparably harm Israel and Saudi Arabia, and irrevocably empower Iran. It doesn’t matter what Obama’s specific motivation is. Obama may believe in Farrakhan’s and Rev. Wright’s virulent Chicago anti-Semitism; Obama may be merely steeped in anti-British anti-Colonialism; or both. All that matters is Obama is acting in ways that will allow others to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. If Obama walks like a Jew-hater, arms Iran like a Jew-hater, and creates a PA “West Bank” State like a Jew-hater, he’s a Jew-hater.
But, now here come the American Leftist Jewish “Holocaust” speech-police like Debbie Wasserman-Schulz who say one isn’t allowed to invoke the “Holocaust” or “Auschwitz” into a political debate when it is Iran’s highest leaders who have repeatedly, openly, and notoriously injected into the political debate that they intend to wipe Israel off the map. And, in plain sight, Obama is crowning Iran, the greatest openly Holocaust-threatening, terror-state in the world, the nuclear hegemon-state of the Middle East because Iran is “stable.” I guess Obama forgot he helped quash a popular uprising there as his first foreign policy debacle.
And, let’s also not forget that Iran’s “stability” in Syria has murdered over 250,000 Syrian Sunnis. The Hiroshima “Little Boy” Uranium Gun-type Nuke killed about 150,000 Japanese, and the Nagasaki “Fat Man” Plutonium Implosion Nuke killed about 40,000 Japanese. So, Iran has already killed 2 Hiroshima’s worth of Syrian Sunnis or 6 Nagasaki’s worth of Syrian Sunnis. So, the 150 Billion Dollars Obama is giving Iran is actually a weapon of mass destruction in itself. All of the additional hundreds of thousands of dead Sunnis spilt by Iran’s malign use of the 150 Billion dollars is on the hands of Obama, Susan Rice, John Kerry and Samantha Power.
What Is so loathsome, is that every word, every sentence Obama says is a lie tainted with a patina of truth, Take for example Obama’s statement that Iran had enough enriched Uranium for 10 nukes, but it will be cut down under the supposed deal. When exactly did Iran enrich 10 nukes worth of Uranium? Iran enriched the uranium solely in the last 6 years because the CIA’s published declassified number had virtually zero enriched Uranium when Obama became President. And, Iran’s method to cut down its enrichment is a chemical process that can easily be reversed by a chemical process.
And you have to love Obama’s “If Iran’s ‘stable’ give them nukes” foreign policy. Under Obama’s “Stability” theory, Obama would have also armed Hitler with an arsenal of nukes because Hitler’s Nazi Germany was very stable.
In short, Obama knows full well that Iran is building an Auschwitz-Nuke that it wants to use to annihilate Israel; and, Obama is doing everything he can to ensure that it can do so.
Don’t let Jew-haters like Obama and Wasserman-Schultz turn “Never again,” into “Too Late.
Obama’s Gamble with Iran’s Theocratic Regime
July 28, 2015Obama’s Gamble with Iran’s Theocratic Regime, The Gatestone Institute, Robert D. Onley, July 28, 2015
[T]he gravest consequence of Obama’s Iran deal, and the most damning of its continued defense, is that the world bestowed ideological legitimacy on the Islamic Republic’s radical theocracy, and in so doing has consigned the people of Iran to near permanent rule under the iron fist of Twelver Shi’a Islamism.
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- Obama’s Iran deal is a direct manifestation of the President’s fundamentally misguided worldview, one that wishes away danger and then believes in the wishes.
- Even more concerning is that the Iran deal may directly conflict with U.S. obligations as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Iran deal may be unconstitutional, violate international law and feature commitments that President Obama could not otherwise lawfully make. By seeking approval of the deal under the UN Security Council, Obama has bound the U.S. under international law without Senate consent.
- The gravest consequence of Obama’s Iran deal is that the world bestowed ideological legitimacy on the Islamic Republic’s radical theocracy, and in so doing has consigned the people of Iran to near permanent rule under the iron fist of Shi’a Islamism.
- A total reversal of the Iranian regime’s behavior should have been, and still can be, a precondition for the removal of any sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program. An end to Iran’s financial and material support for terrorist forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas must be demanded, along with the return of the four American hostages Iran is holding.
- There is still time for a better deal that can be had.
As President Obama and Secretary Kerry dominated the airwaves with rounds of media interviews to defend the Iran deal last week, German Vice Chancellor and Economic Minister Sigmar Gabriel flew straight to Tehran for the first of what are certain to be countless meetings by P5+1 leaders to capitalize on new business opportunities in Iran.
In Europe, it seems, there is no debate to be had over the Iran deal; rather, it is a fait accompli.
But in the United States, the domestic debate is heating up, fueled by a Presidential primary campaign and increasingly justified bipartisan anxiety over the bill.
Independent of these political realities, however, the immediacy and tenacity of the White House’s defense of the Iran deal (which now has its own @TheIranDeal Twitter account, no less), betrays an acute unspoken discomfort by many Democrats with the practical flaws and global security dangers that the deal presents.
Obama’s Iran deal is a direct manifestation of the President’s fundamentally misguided worldview, one that wishes away danger and then believes in the wishes.
Haunted by his electorally-motivated premature withdrawal from Iraq in 2011; his refusal in 2013 to confront Syria’s Bashar Assad when he used chemical weapons on his own people; his betrayal by Russia’s Vladimir Putin to whom he had offered a reset button, and his impotence in failing to respond to the aggressive expansionist moves of Russia, ISIS, Iran and China, the President and Democrat Party, in signing the Iran deal, seem to be trying to absolve the United States of its role at the forefront of the global fight against Islamic radicalism and other threats.
Citing the failed EU-led negotiations with Iran in 2005, which resulted in Iran’s massive expansion of centrifuge production, defenders of the deal, such as Fareed Zakaria, have painted a bleak and zero-sum counterfactual argument. It is claimed that the result of Congress’s opposition will be an international community that forges ahead on renewed trade relations with Iran, while leaving the United States outside the prevailing global reconciliation and supposed love-in with the Islamic Republic.
There are several serious problems with this defense, and similarly with the White House’s blitzkrieg public relations campaign to fend off detractors of the Iran deal, with Secretary of State John Kerry commanding the preemptive, and often totally inaccurate, strikes against Congress. In consideration of the colossal failure represented by the North Korea nuclear precedent, let us consider the issues unique to Iran.
Foremost, opponents of the Iran deal are not universally suggesting the Iran deal be killed outright or immediately resort to “war.” This is simply disingenuous. Instead, the opponents’ fundamental premise is that a better deal was left on the table, and thus remains available. The very fact that the Iranian regime was at the negotiating table was indeed a sign of Iran’s weakness; any timelines for the P5+1 to “close” the deal were artificial constraints that surely erased further achievable concessions.
Second, much ink has already been spilled about the technical weaknesses of the Iran deal. Namely: that Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure remains in place; that the most important restrictions expire in 10 years (a mere blip for humanity); that Iran’s uncivilized domestic and regional behavior was a naughty unmentionable; and finally, that the deal undoubtedly initiated a regional nuclear arms race while supercharging the Iranian regime’s finances.
Third, the gravest consequence of Obama’s Iran deal, and the most damning of its continued defense, is that the world bestowed ideological legitimacy on the Islamic Republic’s radical theocracy, and in so doing has consigned the people of Iran to near permanent rule under the iron fist of Twelver Shi’a Islamism.
This capitulation occurred precisely at a time when the West and the broader Middle East are facing off against the Islamic State — a terrorist force which, when stripped of its social media allure, is ultimately a Sunni-branded spin-off of the extremist Shi’a Islamism that has ruled in Iran since 1979.
The Iranians may be convenient allies as enemies of our enemies today, but not for one second have Iran’s rulers suggested their ultimate intent is anything other than the all too familiar “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” propaganda seen for the past 36 years. In what is objectively and wholly a strange deadly obsession, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, has been rousing crowds with calls for the destruction of two nation-states both during and after nuclear negotiations.
In spite of this public malice, defenders of the deal suggest that “the [Obama] administration is making a calculated bet that Iran will be constrained by international pressure.” Why exactly then is Khamenei making clear the opposite?
President Obama’s willingness to concede Iran’s new-found normalized membership in the community of nations on the basis of this nuclear deal is an affront to the liberal, free, democratic principles that have stood against the forces of tyranny throughout American history.
It is also an affront the American political system and to the members of both parties who are now being cornered by the President into supporting, or not supporting, such an intrinsically dangerous and needlessly flawed bargain with an avowed enemy.
Even more concerning is that the Iran deal may directly conflict with U.S. obligations as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As a number of critics have pointed out, the Iran deal may be unconstitutional, violate international law and feature commitments that President Obama could not otherwise lawfully make.
By seeking approval of the deal under the UN Security Council, President Obama has bound the United States under international law without Senate consent.
If the United States is to remain the vanguard of human liberty, President Obama must distinguish between the vain pursuit of his legacy, and the civilized world’s deepest need at this consequential hour for the American President to defend comprehensively the fundamental principles that underpin the modern order. Unless his desired legacy is actually to destroy it.
As opponents of the Iran deal have noted, there is still time for a better deal that can be had.
To start, a total reversal of the Iranian regime’s behavior should have been, and still can be, a precondition for the removal of any sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program. Congress can lobby for this change, and should maintain American sanctions and applicable provisions in the U.S. Treasury Department’s SWIFT terrorist tracking finance program.
Next, while Iran’s regional malignancy may run deep in the regime’s veins (through the many twisted arms of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps), an end to Iran’s financial and material support for terrorist forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas must be demanded, along with the return of the four American hostages Iran is holding.
Third, those who argue that Iran’s human rights record was not “on the table” in Geneva have needlessly abdicated the West’s moral and intellectual high ground to the forces of barbarism and hate that are now waging war across the region. Respect for international humanitarian norms should never be discarded in such negotiations.
At the end of the day, the deeper questions for Obama and the entire P5+1 are this: By whose standards were negotiations conducted? And whose worldview will rule the 21st century?
In defense of Obama’s approach, the deal’s supporters point out that the Iranians are a “proud, nationalistic people,” which is undoubtedly true, but irrelevant, just as it was for the leadership of Germany’s Third Reich.
The Iranian regime, by virtue of its radical religious nature, weak economy and political experiment with theocracy, should have borne the burden of coming to the negotiating table with the most to lose. Instead, President Obama, on behalf of the free world, is allowing this pariah state to guarantee its place among the nations, lavishly rewarded for having violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in all its about-to-be-well-funded lethality.
Cartoon of the day
July 28, 2015
Iran: Nuke Deal Permits Cheating on Arms, Missiles
July 27, 2015Iran: Nuke Deal Permits Cheating on Arms, Missiles
Deal puts ‘Zionist regime in irrecoverable danger’
BY: Follow @Kredo0
July 27, 2015 3:16 pm
via Iran: Nuke Deal Permits Cheating on Arms, Missiles | Washington Free Beacon.
Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator in nuclear talks said that under the terms of the recently inked accord, the Islamic Republic is permitted to violate current embargoes on the shipment of arms and construction of missiles, according to recent comments made before Iran’s parliament.
Zarif, who spoke to the country’s parliament about the terms of the nuclear deal, also bragged that the finalization of the accord “puts the Zionist Regime in an irrecoverable danger,” according to an independent translation of his Persian language remarks provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
Zarif insisted that “violating the arms and missiles embargo” placed on Iran by the United Nations “does not violate the nuclear agreement.”
U.S. officials and analysts have become increasingly concerned about portions of the deal that will unilaterally lift current restrictions on Iran’s importation and exportation of weapons, as well as its missile construction programs.
While these restrictions still apply, they would be completely lifted in five to eight years under the agreement.
Zarif also took aim at Israel in his remarks, claiming that the deal has isolated Israel as it never has been before.
“Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to kill himself if it helps to stop this nuclear agreement because this agreement puts the Zionist regime in an irrecoverable danger,” Zarif was reported as saying. “The abominable Zionist Regime has never been so isolated among its allies.”
The recent approval of the deal by the United Nations Security Council has solidified Iran’s right to enrich and operate a nuclear program, Zarif went on to say.
“Our biggest accomplishment is that the U.N. Security Council has endorsed our enrichment, this has never happened in the last 70 years,” Zarif said.
“Permit me not to mention the names, but many countries close to the U.S. have agreed to relinquish their enrichment rights, they all envy us today,” he added.
Nuclear Iran: Is the U.S. Really Suicidal?
July 27, 2015Nuclear Iran: Is the U.S. Really Suicidal? The Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, July 27, 2015
- No wonder Iran’s Supreme Leader sent around a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head. Iran’s forcing itself on the rest of the world is a central part of Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution.
- The Ayatollahs’ wish has long been finally to defeat the divided Arabs, and then to move on to defeat Israel, and then the grandest prize of all — the “Great Satan,” the United States.
- Worse, apparently a “side deal” — classified for the Americans but not for Iran — enables Iran to provide its own soil samples to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to which it has been lying for decades. Even still worse, the parties to the agreement are required to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities should anyone try to attack them or sabotage them — including, presumably, any disenchanted signatories.
- Iran will have been rewarded for having violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and been given a red carpeted fast track to complete its nuclear bomb.
If Obama and the others who signed the catastrophic nuclear agreement with Iran on the eve of Laylat al-Qadr, the Eve of Destiny, a few days before the end of the Ramadan fast, had studied a little history, they would know that the Battle of Qadisiyyah in 636, in which the Persians suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Arabs, has not yet ended. They would know that Islam had, in fact, been imposed on the Sassanid Empire by force, and that, in protest, the Persians adopted Shi’a Islam, a form of the religion that deviated from and changed the Islam of the Arabs, as a way of rebelling and continuing the fight.
If the West had studied that important event in Islamic history, they would understand they were enabling Iran to achieve a nuclear bomb and accelerate the national religious war between us, the Arabs, and the Shi’ite Iranians. For Iran’s mullahs, the showdown is meant to be apocalyptic.
In that respect, the agreement signed by the American-led powers with Iran’s rulers is a milestone along the path they have been praying for. The Ayatollahs’ wish has long been finally to defeat the divided Arabs, currently at their weakest point since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring, and then to move on to defeat Israel, and then grandest prize of all: the “Great Satan,” the United States.
The Shi’ite regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran and their proxies are united. And, since the fall of the Shah, they are, sadly, also radical. Between their terrorist wings and influence in the Middle East and abroad, the Ayatollahs are refreshingly open about their determination to defeat the Arabs and achieve religious and national hegemony. Iran’s forcing itself on the rest of the world is a central part of Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution.
U.S. President Barack Obama has harmed us Arabs by abandoning his own red lines — against the emphatic advice of his own military advisors — to accept an agreement that in reality gives the Shi’ites open permission to build nuclear weapons at our expense and, more insanely, to allow Iran intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could reach America.
Worse, apparently a “side deal” — classified for Americans but not for Iran — allows Iran to provide its own soil samples to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to which it has been lying for decades. In other words, having the cat guard the milk.
Still worse, the parties to the agreement are required to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities should anyone try to attack them or sabotage them — including, presumably, any disenchanted signatories. No wonder Iran’s Supreme Leader sent a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head.
On July 25, 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader (right) sent a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head.
If we try to look at the positive side of the agreement, it is just possible that Obama looked at the Sunni Islamic states, fractured and at each other’s throats, and at the ruthless terrorist groups and all the other battle zones gaining ground, and decided that we were too fractious for the U.S. to protect.
Now, one minute before the Iranians would have collapsed under the weight of the economic sanctions, the U.S. has given them a new lease on life, and, supported by the arrival of billions of dollars, is enabling them to return to their broad international terrorist activities and continue developing their nuclear weapons and the ICBMs on which to mount them.
Not only Iran will profit, but also the Turks, the Chinese and the Russians, who have already jumped at the chance to shore up Iran and themselves, both economically and militarily.
America will be now marginalized, as will its allies. What is in store for America is obvious to anyone listening to the hate speech of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He keeps promising that he will continue fighting against America and Israel, and that Iran will neither stop its nuclear development nor surrender.
Instead of lifting the sanctions, the United States should be increasing them.
When Iran joins the global energy market and strengthens its control of the Gulf maritime route, we, the Arabs, will quickly collapse. The recent visits of the Saudi Arabia foreign minister to American and the American Secretary of Defense to Israel did not help. As the arms embargo and sanctions are lifted, money will begin pouring into Iran. Missiles will be developed that will be capable of reaching first Israel and the Sunni Arab states, then Europe and then the United States. Global terrorism will mushroom. Iran will secretly complete its nuclear project ahead of schedule.
Since the agreement forbids agencies affiliated with America, and now apparently “foreigners,” from visiting Iran’s nuclear installations, the arms industry of Islamic Republic will flourish, and Iran will have been rewarded for having violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and will be given a red carpeted fast track to build a nuclear bomb.
Obama slams Huckabee for invoking Holocaust in his criticism of Iran deal
July 27, 2015Obama slams Huckabee for invoking Holocaust in his criticism of Iran deal
US president says such outrageous rhetoric has become commonplace among Republican politicians.
US President Barack Obama on Monday condemned rhetoric about the Iran deal from leading members of the Republican party, including GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, who has drawn criticism for comparing the accord to the Holocaust.
Huckabee called Barack Obama “feckless” and “naive” in an interview with Breitbart News on Saturday, adding that by signing the deal the President “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”
Speaking at a press conference in Ethiopia on Monday, Obama said that such “outrageous attacks” have become “all too commonplace” among Republican politicians.
The US president described Huckabee’s comments as “part of just a general pattern we have seen that would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad.”
Huckabee has come under fire from both Jewish groups and the Democratic party after making the comparison between the Holocaust and the Iran deal.
However the Republican presidential candidate refused to back down, continuing to make his case against the Iran deal on Twitter.
Tell Congress to do their constitutional duty & reject the Obama-Kerry #IranDeal –> http://t.co/SaIyuq4w01 pic.twitter.com/2rFJgdDHhV
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 26, 2015
He tweeted a series of messages Sunday with quotes from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in which they threaten Israel with a holocaust.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s Iranian Martyr Foundation rep: “We have manufactured missiles that allow us…to replace Israel…with a big holocaust”
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 27, 2015
“It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.” – Ayatollah Khamenei http://t.co/tMBfHPHZk2
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 27, 2015
“If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” – Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 27, 2015
Obama, speaking in Ethiopia during a tour of African nations, said the majority of the world’s nuclear scientists and non-proliferation experts backed the July 14 accord, indicating it was the best way to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
“There is a reason why 99 percent of the world thinks it’s a good deal — it’s because it’s a good deal,” Obama said during a joint press conference with Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn in the capital Addis Ababa.
“The good news is that I’ve not yet heard a factual argument on other side that holds up to scrutiny,” he added.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
Turkish journalist: “Turkey prefers ISIS to the Kurds”
July 27, 2015Turkish journalist: “Turkey prefers ISIS to the Kurds”
In an exclusive interview with JerusalemOnline, Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut described how the Turkish state systematically persecutes the Kurds while at the same time assisting ISIS and other jihadist terror groups.
Jul 27, 2015, 02:03PM | Rachel Avraham
via Israel News – Turkish journalist: “Turkey prefers ISIS to the Kurds” – JerusalemOnline.
Photo Credit: Faridan Abbas
In an exclusive interview with JerusalemOnline, Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut, who writes for the Gatestone Institute, proclaimed that Turkey prefers the ISIS terror organization to the Kurds: “In a television interview on 28 December, 2012, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the government was in negotiations with Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, in order to resolve the Kurdish issue. But at the same time, there are also several reports and witness accounts that Turkey has aided the rise of ISIS, enabling the flow of funds and fighters to support it.”
According to Bulut, the establishment of Turkey as a state was based upon the denial of the Kurds identity: “After the state was founded in 1923, the name of the Kurdish land, Kurdistan, the Kurdish language and everything else related to the Kurdish existence was denied. According to the founding ideology of the state, there were no Kurds or Kurdish language. So Kurdistan within Turkey’s borders became a sub-colony without even borders or a name. Kurds have been exposed to numerous massacres and extrajudicial murders for more than 90 years. As a result of these repressive and assimilationist policies, many Kurds have been assimilated into Turkishness but many others have resisted and still demand their national rights.”
Bulut noted that it has been more than 90 years since the establishment of the Turkish Republic but the Kurds within the country are still struggling for political recognition and the Turkish government wants to stop the spread of this desire for national rights at all costs. “The establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq was a huge step in the liberation of Kurdistan,” Bulut noted. “Now Syrian Kurdistan is on the rise; Kurdish male and female defenders there are struggling for their freedom. So Turkey wants to stop this new development. And ISIS is the name of their new plan that they apply to stop the liberation of Kurdistan and to exterminate the Kurds – as much as possible.”
In order to highlight this, Bulut stressed that on July 20th, there was a bomb attack in the Kurdish town of Suruc that killed 32 people during a meeting to discuss reconstruction efforts in Kobane and Turkish fighter jets recently bombed Qandil where the PKK was operating. She also noted that scores of Kurds have been arrested within Turkey this week: “These developments do not signal a positive change in Turkish state policy towards the Kurds.”
In an another instance, Kurds were persecuted by the Turkish state for taking a stand against ISIS: “Esra Yakar, a 5th-year Kurdish student at the Medical School of Dicle University in Diyarbakir, went to the Kurdish province of Kobani a few months ago as a volunteer doctor to help treat Kurds wounded in the fighting with ISIS terrorists. In December 2014, she suffered heavy wounds to her head and right eye during an attack by ISIS. Her referral to a hospital for advanced examination and treatment in Turkey was delayed. In the meantime, she lost her right eye. And while still under medical treatment, she was arrested and jailed in the Sincan prison in Ankara for being a terrorist.”
However, Bulut noted that ISIS terrorists face no such obstacles for receiving medical treatment in Turkey: “Emrah Cakan, a Turkish-born ISIS commander wounded in Syria, got medical treatment at the university hospital in Turkey’s Denizli province in March. As it is evident from this instance and many others, aiding ISIS terrorists while attacking or not helping Kurds has paved the way for the crimes committed by ISIS and other jihadist armies there.”
While the Kurds are being systematically oppressed within Turkey, Bulut noted that Turkey has not only economic relations with jihadist groups but also political relations with them as well: “For Islamic armies to advance and invade places today, they do need fighters as well as logistics and military support. People who believe in Islamic jihad become the fighters – or murderers and rapists – of ISIS and other Islamist armies. But the logistics and military support is mostly provided by the regional states – including Turkey.”
This support is used in order to oppress the Kurds: “ISIS mostly operates in all parts of Kurdistan, threatening the security of all Kurds in the region and even slaughtering or kidnapping and selling them as they did to the Yazidi Kurds in the Shengal region in August 2014. And this seems to be the only concrete outcome of the so-called resolution process in Turkey. No Kurdish rights have been recognized officially and Kurdish massacres are still happening.”
“Subjugating Kurds has been one of the primary policies of Turkey since 1920s,” Bulut emphasized. “A democratic state would choose to grant political and cultural rights to indigenous Kurds but Turkish supremacism, Kurdish-hatred and anti-Kurdish bigotry is so intense in Turkey that Turkey does not seem to aim to achieve real and sustainable peace with the Kurds. And because of that, the Turkish state seems to prefer even a genocidal group like ISIS to the Kurds.”
To gratify Tehran and Moscow, new US-Turkish anti-ISIS war campaign in Syria skirts Assad’s forces
July 26, 2015To gratify Tehran and Moscow, new US-Turkish anti-ISIS war campaign in Syria skirts Assad’s forces, DEBKAfile, July 25, 2015
Not exactly by chance, the security zone bisects Kurdish territory and holds back Kurdish forces in their assaults on ISIS.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that a glance at the map betrays an all-out US-Turkish effort not put up backs in Tehran by interfering with Syrian, Hizballah and pro-Iranian militia operations in critical northern Syrian war zones such as Aleppo or give the Syrian rebels a helping hand in the Idlib province.
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After the second successive night of Turkish cross-border bombing attacks on the Islamic State in northern Syria, Ankara and Washington agreed Saturday, July 25, to name the “security zone” covered by a “partial no fly zone” they had declared in northern Syria the “Islamic State free zone.” Click HERE for full-size map!
This name represents a significant US-Turkish concession to Iran of immunity for its allies, Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hizballah, in order to gain Tehran’s cooperation in the campaign Turkey launched against ISIS Friday. Integral to the deal is also a promise to abstain from using the campaign to grant anti-Assad rebel groups any advantages.
This immunity did not extend to the Kurdish Workers Movement (PKK), which were targeted in the course of Turkish air and ground action in and over the new “security zone.” Those warplanes also flew missions Friday night over the PKK bases and logistical facilities in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq. The PKK responded Saturday with an announcement that their armistice with Ankara was over. Turkey may consequently expect a recurrence of Kurdish terrorist violence in its cities,DEBKAfile notes.
High-placed sources in Ankara disclosed details of the US-Turkish deal with Iran. US warplanes will have the use of Turkish air bases, and not just the big Incirlik facility, for staging air strikes against ISIS, so long as Syrian targets are avoided. Washington agreed to Ankara using its air and ground operations against ISIS in Syria to drive into the new “security zone” and push toward the east to continue those attacks – eve if they run up against Kurdish forces which are also fighting ISIS.
The security zone’s area covered by a no-fly zone is 90 km wide and 40km deep, running between Mere, a small town 25 km north o Aleppo in the west, to the northwestern town of Jarabulus, which is situated on the west bank of the Euphrates.
Not exactly by chance, the security zone bisects Kurdish territory and holds back Kurdish forces in their assaults on ISIS.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that a glance at the map betrays an all-out US-Turkish effort not put up backs in Tehran by interfering with Syrian, Hizballah and pro-Iranian militia operations in critical northern Syrian war zones such as Aleppo or give the Syrian rebels a helping hand in the Idlib province.
The combined US-Turkish action moreover greatly supports the Assad-Hizballah war against ISIS gains in Syria and enhances Iranian and Russian influence in Damascus.
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, in Irbil Friday, July 24, assured leaders of the semiautonomous Kurdish Republic of Iraq. “We are trying to build a force through the territory of Iraq, and someday in Syria, that can do what the peshmerga have achieved.”
At the same time, in Syria, the Kurds and their national aspirations look like losing out dramatically in the fallout from the complex US-Turkish partnership for beating ISIS back.
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