Posted tagged ‘Israel’

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Report: France May Send Force to Fight ISIS on the Ground

November 15, 2015

A global intelligence service says that sending an expeditionary force is one of France’s options to try to defeat ISIS.

By: JNi.Media Published:

November 15th, 2015

Source: The Jewish Press » » Report: France May Send Force to Fight ISIS on the Ground

The picture shows the kepi blanc. the French Foreign Legion

French army soldiers soon may find themselves fighting ISIS terrorists.

French army soldiers soon may find themselves fighting ISIS terrorists.
Photo Credit: Archangel12 / https://www.flickr.com/photos/archangel12/

Stratfor, a global intelligence analysis service, issued a report Saturday contending France may send its “expeditionary force” to Syria to retaliate against ISIS.

The report, titled “After Paris, France Contemplates a Reckoning,” suggests the French response to the Paris attacks is markedly different from that of the Spanish Government following the March 2004 Madrid train bombings. Instead of pulling back from the global coalition working against radical Islamists, “it appears that the French will renew and perhaps expand their efforts to pursue revenge for the most recent assault.”

According to Stratfor, “France has numerous options for retaliation at its disposal.”

First, France has to establish that the attackers were, in fact, members of ISIS. Then:

France will likely ramp up its Syrian air operations. The skies over Syria, however, are already congested with coalition and Russian aircraft. With this in mind, the French may choose to retaliate by focusing instead on the Islamic State in Iraq, or perhaps even other Islamic State provinces in places such as Libya.

Another option would be to increase French programs to train and support anti-Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, or even to conduct commando strikes against key leadership nodes.

Finally, says the report, “France also has the option of deploying an expeditionary force like it did in the Sahel, although that would probably require outside airlift capacity from NATO allies, especially the United States.”

One area that is already undergoing a radical change is passage through Europe’s borders, which this weekend are being sealed by many EU members. Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer said the Paris attack showed border controls are more necessary than ever.

Seehofer, who is critical of the German government’s handling of the refugee crisis, demands permanent border controls and swift repatriation of asylum seekers. It doesn’t appear that Chancellor Angela Merkel will find many allies supporting her soft, pro-refugee stance in light of the Paris bombings.

The anti-Schengen camp, seeking to revoke the agreement making it possible for virtually every European citizen to go anywhere in Europe unheeded, received yet another vindication last week, according to Stratfor, when a Montenegro citizen was arrested on his way to Paris with a stack of weapons.

It isn’t clear whether he was on his way to joining the Friday attacks in Paris, but it’s possible—and frightening. And so the Paris attacks will raise the clout of anti-immigration parties across Europe, chipping away at the Schengen agreement. As of this weekend, France, Germany, Sweden, Slovenia and Hungary have already re-established strict border controls. It is expected that the remaining EU governments will follow suit this week.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 5 Comments

If we don’t IMMEDIATELY do this after the Paris attacks, we deserve the consequences

November 14, 2015

If we don’t IMMEDIATELY do this after the Paris attacks, we deserve the consequences, Family Security Matters, LTC Allen West, U.S. Army, Retired, November 14, 2015

20151114_parisattacknovember2015dead

[O]f all the coverage I watched Friday evening, we couldn’t even bring ourselves to say Islamic terrorists, jihadists. Once again we choose the PC language of “extremists.” We cannot win if we refuse to clearly define this clear and present evil in our time. Instead, we foolishly hope for “peace in our time” as Chamberlain did when confronting the very face of evil. Who will rally together a coalition of the brave, the courageous, the willing to seek out evil and eradicate it? Who will stand up and declare to Islamo-fascism that you will not win?

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

As we were driving to the Dallas airport yesterday, we were following the reports coming out of Paris. We sat there awaiting our flight and watched the death toll continue to tick upwards as news came about another attack site. When we landed in Knoxville, Angela, Aubrey, and I learned that the death toll was at 158 with some 200 wounded. My condolences go out to the victims, the families, and those who were once again exposed to this carnage on a Friday night in Paris, France.

And I want to explain how it is that this happens to us in Western civilization. Here in the United States we are witnessing the theater of absurd, where kids on college campuses are demanding free tuition. We have these insidious marches about $15 minimum wage. We actually have individuals screaming that they have a right to not be offended. We have people who castigate those of us as racists and intolerant when we describe the exact enemy who executed these savage and barbaric Islamic terror attacks. And let’s be very honest, it wasn’t even two weeks after the Charlie Hebdo attack before there were Western journalists who stated the cartoonists got what they deserved.

We continue to not take this enemy seriously and the inane talk about people being “war weary” – well, simply put, they are not. How compassionate does it now seem to allow hundreds of thousands of military-aged males from the Middle East to just walk right into Europe?

Sure, call us who advised against that racist, but look at the worst case scenario, which is becoming a regular scenario. Imagine what could have happened in Garland, Texas if the two Islamic jihadists were successful?

So what will be our response? More rhetoric. What will happen at the presidential primary debate? More talk about free education, free healthcare, and free housing? We’re stuck on this “rights” thing and have gotten to the point where too many believe they have a right to everything.

Let us remember that the first unalienable right is life – funny, you don’t hear too many screeching about that right. And what happened in Paris is yet another reminder that there is a group of individuals who have no regard for life – the life of those who they deem as infidels. But this is nothing new! Consider it rather ironic that it was in Paris where John Adams and Thomas Jefferson met with the Dey of Algiers who explained why they were attacking American shipping and pressing our citizens into slavery – they were commanded to do so by their belief.

Here we are all these many years later in 2015, and the same folks are still killing based upon their belief. And the Islamapologists will make the moral equivalency statement, as John Kerry and John Kirby did towards Israel regarding the incessant Fatah and Hamas stabbing attacks. Just as President Obama did by equating the Crusades with the horrific burning to death of the Jordanian fighter pilot. We in the West have reached such a low in self-esteem that we do the job of defeating ourselves even better than the enemy. Trust me, by Christmas we will not remember what happened Friday evening, 13 November 2015. We will fail to do the one thing this enemy will understand: crush them.

In the coming days you will hear the cowardly voices of “we cannot put boots on the ground.” Where are the voices of leadership that will say as Winston Churchill said,

 “We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.”

Heck, of all the coverage I watched Friday evening, we couldn’t even bring ourselves to say Islamic terrorists, jihadists. Once again we choose the PC language of “extremists.” We cannot win if we refuse to clearly define this clear and present evil in our time. Instead, we foolishly hope for “peace in our time” as Chamberlain did when confronting the very face of evil. Who will rally together a coalition of the brave, the courageous, the willing to seek out evil and eradicate it? Who will stand up and declare to Islamo-fascism that you will not win?

You tell me right now that shutting down GITMO is a swell idea? As long as these jihadists pursue this course of action we shall fight them, kill them, and remove them from the battlefield. They have no rights, they are unlawful enemy combatants, terrorists and who cares if they’re held until they die? I’m tired of this misguided view of justice to make this enemy “like” us. GITMO did not instigate this horrific attack that claimed the lives of 158 people – and possibly others will perish due to their injuries.

We don’t need to sit at a table with Iran and Russia. We need to pull together a strike force coalition that will put their boots not on the ground, but on the necks of these savages.

If we do not squash this, we only allow it to proliferate and continue, and I will not allow my daughters to grow up in this world in fear. I listened to Geraldo Rivera talk to his daughter on air, and now it appears he wants them crushed as well. But how many more lives must be lost before everyone else comes to their senses? Does it take this conflagration to become more personal to pop culture and media elites?

Today I will be with my University of Tennessee Army ROTC alumni brothers and sisters. We have all been on the battlefield – and would not hesitate to return in service of liberty and freedom. We will be attending our Tennessee Vols homecoming football game – just as folks were watching a European football game Friday evening in Paris. You ask, could this happen in the United States?

Well, they could try – the difference here is we have the Second Amendment. And the only way they could be successful is because we also have those who wish to disarm us and create “gun free zones” – such as what happened at Ft. Hood and the U.S. Navy Reserve Facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Time to fight back and beat the living dog crap out of these jackasses and make them fear us. I pray this will not just fade away, that we have candlelight vigils, James Taylor sings “You got a friend” and we blame ourselves – again.

May God bless the souls of those who were so brutally murdered by this planned operation. May God rise up the fighters, that France will find a new Charles “The Hammer” Martel and we as Western civilization will find the spirit of Churchill.

Categories: Allen West, Asylum seekers, Europe, European Union, Foreign policy, Islamic invasion, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Obama and Islam, Paris Muslim attack
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

‘Zionists Out of CUNY!’ ‘Long Live the Intifada!’ Chanted at CUNY Student Protest at Hunter, Administration Looks Other Way (VIDEO)

November 14, 2015

‘Zionists Out of CUNY!’ ‘Long Live the Intifada!’ Chanted at CUNY Student Protest at Hunter, Administration Looks Other Way (VIDEO), Algemeiner, Ruthie Blum, November 13, 2015

(No “safe spaces” for the wicked Zionists! Is this just a passing fad or will it grow? — DM)

Hunter-demonstration-300x147The Million Student March protest at Hunter College on Thursday. Photo: StandWithUs/Screenshot.

Vicious implicitly antisemitic slogans were chanted at a protest at Hunter College in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon after organizers on Facebook called for participants to oppose the school’s “Zionist administration.”

But despite footage of the rally circulating online, a spokesperson for Hunter denied the hateful nature of the demonstration.

“Zionists out of CUNY! Zionists out of CUNY,” shouted protesters, who had ostensibly gathered to fight for free tuition and other benefits.

“Intifada! Intifada! Long live the Intifada,” they chanted, as a group of Jewish students waved Israeli flags nearby.

A Hunter College representative, who had not been made aware of the demonstration — or the blatantly antisemitic social media announcements — responded Thursday evening: “The rally just took place. There were less than 50 students and it was totally focused on tuition. There was no claim of antisemitism.”

The video below, shot by the pro-Israel organization StandWithUs, indicates otherwise.

 

 

The protest, part of the nation-wide Million Student March set for November 12, was advertised on Facebook by “NYC Students for Justice in Palestine” and other affiliate groups, using antisemitic slurs to attribute the financial plight of students in the City University of New York system to its “Zionist administration [that] invests in Israeli companies, companies that support the Israeli occupation, hosts birthright programs and study abroad programs in occupied Palestine, and reproduces settler-colonial ideology … through Zionist content of education… [aiming] to produce the next generation of professional Zionists.”

StandWithUs Northeast Region Director Shahar Azani told The Algemeiner on Friday morning that the Hunter event “is another example of the hijacking of various social causes by the anti-Israel movement. It contaminates the atmosphere on campus; poisons relationships between different groups; and keeps people further apart, thus distancing any hope for change. No student should feel marginalized or threatened while attending school. It is up to us to instill those values to the younger generation and to stand up to those who refuse to adhere to them. If we are unable to do so at our schools, one wonders what the point is of school at all.”

Responding to a query by The Algemeiner on Thursday morning, prior to the rally, CUNY vice chancellor for student affairs Frank Sanchez responded:

At the City University of New York, we cherish the freedom of students to express their views, consistent with the protections provided by the First Amendment. Student freedom in this regard is an essential attribute of a great University where the independent search for truth is held in the highest esteem. With such freedom, however, comes an abiding responsibility. This responsibility includes respect for the rights of others inside and out of CUNY and for the University’s obligation to maintain a safe environment for all members of its community. Students should also be cognizant of the efforts of a few to distract attention from important issues in higher education such as learning, access and quality by invoking discriminatory language reeking of thinly veiled bigotry, prejudice, antisemitism or other behavior inconsistent with our educational mission. We can help assure such recognition by the high premium we place on dialogue and discussion at CUNY and by the expression of our own views while respecting the rights of those with whom we may disagree. At the end of the day, CUNY will retain its status as a great institution of higher education where valuable knowledge is both transmitted and created and our sense of community is affirmed and strengthened.

Jewish organizations and CUNY alumni are concerned by the university’s lack of reaction to the use on the part of its students of classical antisemitic messages and modern anti-Zionist libels, both on social media and on the premises on one of its colleges.

Calling the event and the university’s response to it “an outrage,” Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, a graduate of the CUNY system who served as a trustee for 15 years, forwarded The Algemeiner a copy of an email he sent to CUNY Executive Vice Chancellor Jay Hershenson to complain:

I am cautioning you and strongly urging that you have [CUNY Chancellor James B.] Milliken make a statement of condemnation of this virulent anti-Semitism. The blanket, meaningless omnibus statement about “free speech” is itself abhorrent, as we would not tolerate these activities against any other ethnic or minority group.

Failure to do so will have economic consequences for several of our schools’ foundations. I have received many angry e-mails, which I would be pleased to share with you. If these “pareve” responses from CUNY central continue, we must all remember that by far and away – that Zionists pay the bills in the donor category – and they’ll take a hike.

The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement condemning “Students for Justice in Palestine’s anti-Semitic exploitation of the Million Student March in the strongest terms.”

ADL New York Regional Director Evan R. Bernstein said, “By implicitly linking to the very real financial challenges that students face, SJP has invoked a classic anti-Semitic stereotype which blames Jews for the financial woes of others. Rhetoric like this is thinly veiled anti-Semitism and fosters an environment of hostility.”

ADL noted that other anti-Israel student groups around the country have been using the march to condemn Israel and call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), citing similar messages at Temple University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of leading Jewish human rights organization the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner that he considers it “a good thing that CUNY has a stated policy that includes antisemitism as being inconsistent with its educational mission.”

However, he added, “Such inflammatory rhetoric that demeans and demonizes Zionism and Zionists and that attempts to link a vile extremist anti-Israel agenda to real-time economic and social issues relating to CUNY and the city of New York demands a more explicit condemnation from CUNY and from the political leadership of the city. Our community should join with fair-minded union leaders and other people of faith to see to it that this new lexicon of anti-Israel/Jewish hate is rejected by all New Yorkers.”

Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor research institute, released a statement slamming the “continued abuse of US academic platforms and student activity by anti-Israel groups and NGOs should trouble all those interested in liberal values and quality education.”

“This is yet another example of antisemitic speech aimed at American Jewish students, delivered under the guise of criticizing Israel and its supporters,” Steinberg said.

Categories: Academia, Antisemitism, Israel, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Palestinians and Jews, Peace process
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Terrorist Kills Two Israelis as Palestinian Incitement Continues to Spread

November 13, 2015

Terrorist Kills Two Israelis as Palestinian Incitement Continues to Spread, Investigative Project on Terrorism, November 13, 2015

A Palestinian terrorist shot and killed a father and son, wounding another youth in the south Mount Hebron region on Friday after firing at their vehicle, the Jerusalem Post reports.

The Israeli military is searching for the gunmen.

Hamas glorified the “heroic” murders without claiming responsibility. Moreover, Palestinian sources told the Jerusalem Post that people are handing out candy in the streets in Gaza to celebrate the terrorist attack.

In the past few months, Fatah-run TV has regularly broadcast a famous Palestinian song that encourages violence against Jews, reports Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Other popular incitement songs are being played in Ramallah’s streets, specifically calling for Palestinians to riot, throw rocks, and attack innocent Israelis with “cleavers and knives.”

“The owner of the stall selling discs on Al-Irsal Street [in Ramallah] said that the discs of national songs make up 90% of his sales at the moment because the prevailing national sentiment causes people to buy them… From another stall near the El-Bireh cultural center the song ‘I come out to you, my enemy, from every home, neighborhood and street’ is heard,” according to a Nov. 2 article in the Palestine National Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida and translated by PMW.

That song was posted on Fatah’s official Facebook page last November, shortly after terrorists killed five Israelis in a Jerusalem synagogue, using butchers’ knives and firearms. Last month, Rabbi Yehiel Rothman succumbed to wounds inflicted almost a year after the attack.

These latest examples demonstrate that Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party and official Palestinian Authority institutions continue to fuel violent incitement against Jews and Israelis, which in turn is promoted broadly by Palestinian society.

Since the beginning of October, Palestinians have waged a violent uprising targeting innocent Israelis and security personnel in a wave of stabbing, vehicular, rock throwing, and Molotov cocktail attacks. The violence has killed 11 Israelis and injured numerous others. Nearly 80 Palestinians also have been killed as a result – many of whom were alleged attackers killed at the scene, while others died during confrontations with Israeli soldiers.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians and Jews, Peace process
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

An American Fascism

November 13, 2015

An American Fascism, Front Page Magazine, David Horowitz, November 12, 2015

(Many of those who oppose freedom of speech also oppose Israel and maintain that “Palestinians” must be helped to eliminate her. Please see also, Selective Outrage on Campus. Their momentum appears to be increasing and the ability of those who oppose them appears to be diminishing. When will it be too late to oppose them effectively?– DM)

click

The racist, McCarthyite, totalitarian movement rearing its ugly head on college campuses as diverse as Missouri, Yale and Vanderbilt is being treated by conservatives as a case of kids too fragile to handle views with which they disagree. This may work as a debating tactic but it misunderstands both the malignancy of the politics behind the campaign and the ferocity of its radical leaders. Now they are calling for the heads of liberals (and getting them). But quaint American prejudices like the First Amendment still stand in their way. But for how long? If this movement, which includes large contingents of the Democratic Party – including the president, achieves critical mass and succeeds in its agendas and acquires the necessary power, who can doubt that they will be putting dissenters in prison and worse? These are people intoxicated with their own virtue, and determined to purge non-believers in their path. They are a perfect analogue to the Islamic fanatics who want to purify the planet. While the Islamic fanatics behead, the American fanatics suppress and burn. At bottom, they see the world in parallel terms: Slay the infidels wherever you find them.

The current eruptions on college campuses, which will be escalating through this year, are the product of four decades of capitulations to leftwing racism and political correctness, which is a totalitarian party line whose inventor Mao Zedong murdered 70 million Chinese in its name. America still has strong traditions of intellectual pluralism and individual rights, which are obstacles in the way of the progressive storm troopers, but for how long? How many capitulations by so-called liberals, how many unconstitutional executive orders, how many coercions by Democrat-controlled government agencies before there are no obstacles left?

We saw these lynch mobs first hand in Ferguson, but only an inaudible few were willing to name them for what they were. In Ferguson, the president of the United States supported the lynchers, along with the Democratic Party and the leftwing chorus. And so it spread to New York and Baltimore and now Missouri and Yale. The time has come to call this for what it is, an American fascism.  But the time is also getting late to reverse the tide.

Categories: Academia, Antisemitism, Freedom of speech, Israel, Jewish occupation of Israel, Jewish state, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians and Jews
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

ISIS launches its winter terror offensive with first 274 deaths

November 13, 2015

ISIS launches its winter terror offensive with first 274 deaths, DEBKAfile, November 13, 2015

Borj_al-Barajneh12.11.15Suicide bombers strike Hizballah in Beirut
Execution of Steven Sotloff (1983 – 2014) by Jihadi John of ISIS. In August 2013, Sotloff was kidnapped in Aleppo, Syria, and held captive by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Jihadi John (Mohammed Emwazi, born August 1988) a British man who is thought to be the person seen in several videos produced by the Islamic extremist group ISIL showing the beheadings of a number of captives in 2014 and 2015. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Execution of Steven Sotloff (1983 – 2014) by Jihadi John of ISIS. In August 2013, Sotloff was kidnapped in Aleppo, Syria, and held captive by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Jihadi John (Mohammed Emwazi, born August 1988) a British man who is thought to be the person seen in several videos produced by the Islamic extremist group ISIL showing the beheadings of a number of captives in 2014 and 2015. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

The US drone strike Thursday night, Nov. 11, targeting the Islamic State’s infamous executioner known as “Jihad John” in the northern Syrian town of Raqqa may or may not have hit the mark – the Pentagon says it is too soon to say. The hooded, masked terrorist with the British accent has been identified as a British Muslim born in Kuwait called Mohamed Emwazi. He appeared on videos worldwide showing the cold-blooded murders of US, British, Japanese and other hostages.

The drone attack occurred shortly after the latest ISIS atrocity: Thursday night, two or three suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing 43 people and injuring at least 240 in the Hizballah stronghold of southern Beirut opposite Burj Barajneh.

Ten days earlier, the Islamic State brought down the Russian Metrojet airliner over Sinai killing all 224 people aboard. This spectacular act of terror was apparently the first strike of the jihadist group’s winter offensive. It achieved its objectives of multiple murder; mortal damage to Egypt’s tourism industry and a blow to the prestige of its president Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi.

The attack also punished President Vladimir Putin for bringing the Russian military into the center of the Syrian conflict.

The next Islamic State assault was aimed to undermine the credibility of Jordan’s King Abdullah and his security services: On Nov. 8,  a Jordanian police captain opened fire at a high-security US training facility outside Amman, killing two American trainers, a South African and two Jordanians. The number of US personnel injured in the attack was not released. This attack was timed to coincide with the 10thanniversary of the massive al Qaeda assault on Amman’s leading hotels, all American owned, which left 61 dead.

In northern Sinai, the murder of a family of 9 Egyptians at El Arish Thursday morning raised the total of ISIS murders in less than a month to 274.

DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources discern three objectives in the attack Thursday night in Beirut

1. A lesson for Tehran and Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah to show them that the Islamic State is able to reach them on their home ground, no matter how many troops they deploy to fight the jihadis in Syria (Iran and Hizballah together field an estimated 13,000 soldiers in Syria). ISIS was capable of inflicting terrible casualties both on the battlefield and in their homeland, first in Beirut and eventually in Tehran.

2.  The day before, Wednesday, Nov. 11, in a speech marking the “Day of the Shahid,” Nasrallah gloated over Hizballah’s triumph in a battle outside Aleppo. He also boasted that his domestic security shield in Lebanon presented an impenetrable barrier against ISIS or Nusra Front terrorist intrusions.

The Islamic State’s tacticians determined to blow up both claims in Nasrallah’s face. He and Iran were to be shown that they could not stop ISIS or prevent the Syrian war’s spillover into Lebanon.

3.  By blowing up the Russian airliner over Sinai, the Islamists sought to underscore this point for Moscow too. Russia might send a powerful military force to Syria, but the Islamists would hit Putin from the rear at a location of its choosing anywhere in the Middle East. Moscow may have opted to defend Bashar Assad, but what can it do to protect Hizballah and its other allies?.

DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources note that US and Russia have taken lead roles in the broad military effort to defeat ISIS – often by means of pinpointed operations. At the same time, under their noses, the Islamist terrorists have launched their winter campaign, striking with extreme ferocity and agility in unexpected places that are outside the regular battle fronts in which the big powers are engaged.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Hezbollah, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Nasrallah, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war, Russian aircraft down, Syria war
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Selective Outrage on Campus

November 13, 2015

Selective Outrage on Campus, The Gatestone Institute, Alan M. Dershowitz, November 12, 2015

(“Safe spaces,” in which infantile narcissists are shielded from ideas inconsistent with their own perceptions and which they therefore deem offensive are becoming an unfortunate part of the college experience. Freedom from ideas they find offensive trumps freedom of speech. Here’s a link to an article I posted at my blog yesterday titled Infants in University Land. It deals with the recent mess at my alma mater, Yale College. — DM)

Following the forced resignations of the President and Provost of the University of Missouri, demonstrations against campus administrators has spread across the country. Students — many of whom are Black, gay, transgender and Muslim — claim that they feel “unsafe” as the result of what they call “white privilege” or sometimes simply privilege. “Check your privilege” has become the put-down du jour. Students insist on being protected by campus administrators from “micro-aggressions,” meaning unintended statements inside and outside the classroom that demonstrate subtle insensitivities towards minority students. They insist on being safe from hostile or politically incorrect ideas. They demand “trigger warnings” before sensitive issues are discussed or assigned. They want to own the narrative and keep other points of view from upsetting them or making them feel unsafe.

These current manifestations of a widespread culture of victimization and grievance are only the most recent iterations of a dangerous long-term trend on campuses both in the United States and in Europe. The ultimate victims are freedom of expression, academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. Many faculty members, administrators and students are fearful of the consequences if they express politically incorrect or dissident views that may upset some students. So they engage in self-censorship. They have seen what had happened to those who have expressed unpopular views, and it is not a pretty picture.

I know, because I repeatedly experienced this backlash when I speak on campuses. Most recently, I was invited to deliver the Milton Eisenhower lecture at Johns Hopkins University. As soon as the lecture was announced, several student groups demanded that the invitation must be rescinded. The petition objected to my mere “presence” on campus, stating that my views on certain issues “are not matters of opinion, and cannot be debated” and that they are “not issues that are open to debate of any kind.” These non-debatable issues include some of the most controversial concerns that are roiling campus today: sexual assault, academic integrity and the Israel-Palestine conflict. The protesting students simply didn’t want my view on these and other issues expressed on their campus, because my lecture would make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

The groups demanding censorship of my lecture included Hopkins Feminists, Black Student Union, Diverse Sexuality and General Alliance, Sexual Assault Resource Unit and Voice for Choice. I have been told that two faculty members urged these students, who had never heard of me, to organize the protests, but the cowardly faculty members would not themselves sign the petition. The petition contained blatant lies about me and my views, but that is beside the point. I responded to the lies in my lecture and invited the protesting students to engage me during the Q and A. But instead, they walked out in the middle of my presentation, while I was discussing the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

According to the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, another petition claimed that “by denying Israel’s alleged war crimes against Palestinians,” I violated the university’s “anti-harassment policy” and its “statement of ethical standards.” In other words, by expressing my reasonable views on a controversial subject, I harassed students.

Some of the posters advertising my lecture were defaced with Hitler mustaches drawn on my face. Imagine the outcry if comparably insensitive images had been drawn on the faces of invited minority lecturers.

I must add that the Johns Hopkins administration and the student group that invited me responded admirably to the protests, fully defending my right to express my views and the right of the student group to invite me. The lecture went off without any hitches and I answered all the questions — some quite critical, but all polite — for the large audience that came to hear the presentation.

The same cannot be said of several other lectures I have given on other campuses, which were disrupted by efforts to shout me down, especially by anti-Israel groups that are committed to preventing pro-Israel speakers from expressing their views.

The point is not only that some students care less about freedom of expression in general than about protecting all students from “micro-aggressions.” It is that many of these same students are perfectly willing to make other students with whom they disagree with feel unsafe and offended by their own micro- and macro-aggressions. Consider, for example, a recent protest at the City University of New York by Students for Justice in Palestine that blamed high tuition on “the Zionist Administration [of the University that] invests in Israeli companies, companies that support the Israeli occupation, hosts birthright programs and study abroad programs in occupied Palestine [meaning Israel proper] and reproduces settler-colonial ideology throughout CUNY though Zionist content of education.”

Let’s be clear what they mean by “Zionist”: they mean “Jew”. There are many Jewish administrators at City University. Some are probably Zionists. Others are probably not. Blaming Zionists for high tuition is out and out anti-Semitism. It is not micro-aggression. It is in-your-face macro-aggression against City University Jews.

Yet those who protest micro-aggressions against other minorities are silent when it comes to Jews. This is not to engage in comparative victimization, but rather to expose the double standard, the selective outrage and the overt hypocrisy of many of those who would sacrifice free speech on the altar of political correctness, whose content they seek to dictate.

Categories: Academia, Antisemitism, Diversity, Israel, Jews, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Palestinians and Jews
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

‘Hezbollah weapons warehouses were the target of Wednesday’s Israeli airstrikes in Syria’

November 12, 2015

Hezbollah weapons warehouses were the target of Wednesday’s Israeli airstrikes in Syria’

By YASSER OKBI/ MAARIV HASHAVUA \

11/12/2015 17:20

Source: ‘Hezbollah weapons warehouses were the target of Wednesday’s Israeli airstrikes in Syria’ – Arab-Israeli Conflict – Jerusalem Post

Israeli jet fighter

Arab media reports airstrikes that were attributed to Israel damaged military outposts on the outskirts of Damascus airport.

The target of Israel’s alleged airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday evening were Hezbollah weapons warehouses, Arab media affiliated with the opposition to Syrian Preisdent Basher Assad reported Thursday.

Pro-Assad operatives on Facebook said that the strikes, adjacent to Damascus airport, struck “military outposts near the airport, and there is a high probability that it was IDF warplanes that struck.”

New portal ‘Damascus Alan,’ which is affiliated with the Assad regime, reported that heavy damage was caused to army outposts around the airport, all of which went up in flames. The site did not specify what damage was caused to the outposts, but they said that nobody was hurt.

Syrian opposition activist Ahmed Yabrudi said: “Israeli warplanes entered from south Lebanon, arrived at Qalamoun and flew above the international airport in Damascus where they struck nearby military outposts.”

He added that “the Israeli planes remained in Syria’s skies for a half hour, and there is no information about the outposts that were hit – except that they belonged to Hezbollah.”

Official Syrian media failed to report on the air strikes attributed to Israel.

Israeli defense officials also declined to comment on the foreign media reports.

However, Israel did previously announce a strict-policy of intolerance towards threats to the state, such as weapons transfers to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The last reported Israeli strike in Syria, on October 31, targeted numerous Hezbollah targets in Syria’s south.

In the October alleged attack, Syrian media reported that up to a dozen Israeli war planes conducted the mission close to the Lebanon-Syria border in the Qalamoun Mountains region. Estimated targets included a weapons convoy destined for Hezbollah fighters traveling through Syria.

The alleged attack on Wednesday night would be the second attributed to Israel since Russia began operating in the area.

Israel has reportedly struck Hezbollah in Syria several times over the past year.

Jpost.com staff and Noam Amir contributed to this report.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Battle to break ISIS siege of Kweires airbase caught on camera (GRAPHIC VIDEO)

November 12, 2015

Battle to break ISIS siege of Kweires airbase caught on camera (GRAPHIC VIDEO)

Published time: 12 Nov, 2015 01:34

Source: Battle to break ISIS siege of Kweires airbase caught on camera (GRAPHIC VIDEO) — RT News

Intense battles raged in and around the Kweires airbase near Aleppo between government forces and Islamist militants, as the Syrian Army supported by the Russian Air Force managed to partially lift a blockade following a two-year Islamic State siege.

Gun battles as well as shelling can be seen in the incredible footage of the advance made by government forces. The dead bodies of Islamist terrorists are also visible across the battlefield.

As a result of the push by Syrian government troops, with the help of Russian airstrikes and local irregular forces, more than 900 militants were killed near the village of Telmam in Aleppo province. Intelligence regarding the locations of the terrorists’ positions around the base was partially provided by the Syrian opposition, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday.

READ MORE: Syrian opposition provided intel to target terrorists around besieged key airbase – Russia

A spokesman for the Syrian Army and Armed Forces added that new progress in the war against Islamist militants was being made in the Latakia and Aleppo provinces. The Syrian Air Force carried out 75 sorties that destroyed 150 targets across the country.

In Aleppo province where the combat footage was filmed, the spokesman said that army units, aside from establishing control over Kweires airbase after “heavy fighting,” are now also in control of more than 250 square kilometers of the surrounding area.

According to the spokesman, the Syrian Air Force targeted three Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) sites in the Aleppo countryside in addition to “fortified sites” belonging to Al-Nusra Front.

The government forces have made rapid advances against jihadist groups over the past six weeks following the start of Moscow’s air campaign. Russia has carried out over 1,600 sorties since establishing an airbase in northern Syria in September at the personal request of Syrian president Bashar Assad, who has been battling the Islamic jihadists since 2011.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Anti-ISIL coalition preparing broad air operation:

November 12, 2015

Anti-ISIL coalition preparing broad air operation:

Report ISTANBUL

Source: Anti-ISIL coalition preparing broad air operation: Report – MIDEAST

And so it begins .

AA photo

Coalition forces fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group are preparing for a wide-scale aerial operation in Syria, private broadcaster CNN Türk has reported.

A number of Turkish and American fighter jets in southern Adana’s İncirlik Air Base were preparing for a “wide-scale operation” by next month, with a “boots on the ground” option set aside by the security sources in Ankara.

The coalition’s air operation could be an intensive one which lasts for days, the report added.

The aim of the operation was also to cleanse the Jarabulus, Azaz and Mare lines in northern Syria.

The U.S. Air Force’s F-15 jets, which arrived in İncirlik on Nov. 6, meanwhile would not secure Turkish airspace as previously reported, with an objective instead of securing coalition jets from possible attacks coming from Syria and Russia.

In addition, the opposition Turkmens and Arab forces in Syria will continue to work on the ground while Turkish troops will stand by on the border. Moreover, the option of a Turkish operation would only be discussed if Democratic Union Party (PYD) forces in northern Syria pass to the western banks of the Euphrates, the report said.

Jets in İncirlik:

– 6 F-15C fighter jets

– 12 KC-135 tanker aircrafts

– 11 MQ-1 predators

– 12 A-10 bomber aircrafts

– 14 Turkish F-16 fighter jets

November/12/2015

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »