Posted tagged ‘Israel’

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.

No good news in the Mid East for Obama or Netanyahu when they meet Monday

November 8, 2015

No good news in the Mid East for Obama or Netanyahu when they meet Monday, DEBKAfile, November 8, 2015

Obama_Bibi2480

After more than a year, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu meets President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday, Nov. 9, with the deck heavily stacked against him – and not just because of the Islamic State, which is a universal bane, or Obama’s Iran policy – or even the evaporation of the peace process with the Palestinians. This time, Netanyahu is not getting a dressing-down over the disappearance of the two-state solution, because even the US president has decided to shelve it for the remainder of his presidency which ends in January 2017.

This is not because the Netanyahu government has missed any chances for talks with the Palestinians, as the Israeli opposition loudly claims, but because it is unrealistic.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmud Abbas), who lost all credibility on the Palestinian street long ago, has been quietly but continuously encouraging the continuous Palestinian wave of terror by knives, guns and cars.

The Israeli prime minister had his most promising card snatched from him just ten days before he traveled to Washington. He had intended presenting the US president with the quiet alliance he had formed with key moderate Arab governments as a viable alternative for the deadlocked Palestinian peace process, with the promise of a measure of stability for its members in the turbulence around them.

However, the linchpin Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi’s position was suddenly shaken up badly by the downing of the Russian passenger plane over Sinai on Oct. 31, presenting him with his most dangerous crisis since he took power in 2013.

In addition, the security situation in Syria, including along Israel’s northern border, especially the Golan, has gone from bad to worse – especially since Russia built up its military presence in Syria.

Israel has been forced to forego most of its red lines for defending its security as no longer relevant. Although no Israeli official says so openly, Israel’s military options in Syria have shrunk, and even the overflights by its air force flights for keeping threats at bay are seriously restricted..

Iran and Hizballah, under Russian air cover, have been slowly but surely making gains in their attempt to retake southern Syria from the rebels and hand it over to the army of Syrian President Assad.

Israel is still insisting that it will not allow the deployment of Iranian or Hizballah forces on the Syrian side of the Golan, but these statements are losing their impact. If the coalition of Russia, Iran, Syria and Hizballah defeats the rebels in southern Syria and moves in up to its border, Israel will find it extremely difficult to prevent this happening.

It would also mark the end of more than three years of investment and building of ties with various elements in southern Syria as part of a strategic decision to transform those groups into a buffer between Israel and Iran in the Golan area.

Netanyahu’s struggle against the nuclear deal with Iran was not just aimed at Washington’s recognition of Iran’s nuclear program, but ever more at Obama’s acknowledgement of Iran as America’s strategic partner and leading Middle East power. But in this respect, the US president is most likely chafing over the setbacks to his own cherished plan, as a result of four developments:

1. Iran has plunged more deeply than ever predicted into the Syrian conflict. For the first time since the 19th century, Iran has not only sent its military to fight beyond its borders, but it is coordinating its moves with Moscow, not Washington.

Even if Israel needed to turn to the US administration for a helping hand against Iran, it would have no address because Washington too has been displaced as a power with any say in the Syrian picture.

2. Although the alliance by Israel and moderate Arab countries was designed by Netanyahu to serve as a counterweight to the US-Iranian partnership,  that alliance too is far from united on Syria:  Egyptian President El-Sisi, for example, supports President Bashar Assad, and is in favor of keeping him in power in Damascus.

3. The Islamic State continues to go from strength to strength in Syria and the Sinai Peninsula which share borders with Israel as well as in Iraq.

4. Israel’s political, defense and intelligence elite have badly misread or missed altogether four major events in the region:

  • Assad’s persistent grip on power
  • The deep Russian and Iranian military intervention in Syria
  • The strengthening of ISIS
  • The eruption of a new, deadly Palestinian campaign of terror which strikes unexpectedly in every town, highway and street.

These errors are taking their toll on Israel’s security, wellbeing and prestige.

Even if Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Obama, like Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, do reach an agreement on Israel’s security needs for the coming years and US military assistance, such an agreement may not withstand the test of Middle East volatility. The rapidly changing conditions are for now all to the detriment of the US and Israel.

Palestinians: A World of Lies, Deception and Fabrications

November 7, 2015

Palestinians: A World of Lies, Deception and Fabrications, The Gatestone InstituteBassam Tawil, November 7, 2015

  • The only astonishing thing is that Abbas and the Palestinian leaders continue to refer to their wave of terrorism and bloodbath as a “peaceful, popular uprising.”
  • The terrorists were doubtless inspired by their president’s words. It is this kind of officially-sanctioned rhetoric that encourages young Palestinians to stab the first Jew they see.
  • This is not only a mountainous lie; it is an attempt on the part of the Palestinian Authority leadership to deceive the world into believing that Israeli security forces killed these poor innocent terrorists who were merely part of a peaceful protest. These “innocent” Palestinian men and women were “merely” in the process of trying to stab people to death.
  • The world in which Abbas and the Palestinian leadership live is a world of lies, fabrications and deception aimed at demonizing Israel and murdering Jews. The goal is not only to murder as many Jews as possible, but also to force Israel to its knees so that it will vanish as soon as possible.
  • Welcome to the world of the Palestinians, where we lie and then believe our own lies. And then want the rest of the world to believe them, too.

Sadly, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders are continuing to bury their heads in the sand and lying to everyone — from their people to the international community.

The current wave of Palestinian terrorism has entered its fourth week, but our leaders, above all the PA President Mahmoud Abbas, are continuing to talk about a “peaceful, popular uprising” against Israel. This wave of Palestinian stabbings, shootings and vehicular ramming has been anything but either “popular” or “peaceful.”

President Abbas and his top PLO and Fatah leaders have yet to explain to us what is peaceful and popular about stabbing an 80-year-old lady named Ruti Malka in Rishon Lezion, and a 70-year-old Jewish woman Jerusalem.

Instead of denouncing the terror attacks perpetrated by his people, Abbas continues to attack Israel for shooting the knife-wielding assailants to stop them. He has not missed one opportunity in the past four weeks to make false and libelous accusations against Israel. These include claims that Israelis are carrying out “summary executions” of “innocent” Palestinian men and women. In reality, these “innocent” Palestinian men and women were “merely” in the process of trying to stab people to death.

At two separate meetings of the PLO and Fatah leaderships in Ramallah this week, Abbas repeated his bogus charge that Israel is “committing war crimes” and working to “alter” the status quo on the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount. He has also made these charges during meetingswith Western leaders and government officials in Ramallah and abroad.

Instead of appealing to his people to refrain from carrying out terrorist attacks, Abbas and the PLO and Fatah leaders “voiced appreciation for the heroic steadfastness” of the Palestinians who, he said, are “defending their holy sites and the national project.” The Palestinian leaders consider the terrorists who murdered and wounded scores of Israelis as “defenders” of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

It was Abbas who said just a few days before the eruption of current wave of terrorism, that Palestinians “won’t allow Jews to contaminate, with their filthy feet, our holy sites.” He also stated that “every drop of blood that is spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood” and that the terrorists would go to Paradise.

The terrorists who took to the streets to commit murder were doubtless inspired by their president’s words. It is this kind of rhetoric, officially-sanctioned, that encourages young men and women to carry a knife and stab the first Jew they see. Abbas went so far as to tell the terrorists that it is their duty to “defend” the Islamic holy sites. He assured them that if they are killed by Israeli security forces, they will end up in Paradise.

Abbas’s firing up his people to murder is happening at a time as his Palestinian Authority-controlled media continues its massive campaign of firing up the same people to murder, while hailing terrorists as “martyrs” and “heroes.” At the same time, this media is promoting fraudulent conspiracy theories, such as the lie that Israeli soldiers and policemen have been “planting” knives next to the bodies of the terrorists.

1280 (2)Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) ignited competition among radical groups as to which faction could incite the most violence. Left: official PA media incite Palestinians, from a young age, to murder Jews.

This week, Abbas’s envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, repeated the old-new blood lie that Israel is harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians.

Such libels, lies and vilifications are intended to radicalize Palestinians still further and drive them towards pursuing their terrorist attacks against Israelis. Such defamation is also aimed at spreading hated against Jews around the world, thus endangering lives in the U.S., France, Britain and elsewhere.

Abbas and his PA and Fatah leaders and officials are working hard not only to demonize and delegitimize Israelis, but also, through lies and blood-libels, Jews everywhere.

The only astonishing thing is that Abbas and the Palestinian leaders continue to refer to their wave of terrorism and bloodbath as a “peaceful, popular uprising.” Not only is this a mountainous lie; it is an attempt on the part of the Palestinian Authority leadership to deceive the world into believing that Israel’s mighty security forces killed these poor innocent terrorists who were merely part of a peaceful protest against those awful Israeli “occupiers.”

Abbas knows very well that the terrorists were not participating in any “peaceful” demonstration in the West Bank or Jerusalem. He knows very well that the terrorists are “lone wolves” whom he himself has whipped up to murder Jews for no other reason than that they are Jews. Yet this knowledge has not stopped Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian leadership from continuing to lie to the world and their own people about the nature of these terrorist attacks.

In this regard, Abbas and the Palestinian leadership are following with the famous Arab Proverb, “He hit me and cried, and then came to complain.” The Palestinians involved in the current wave of terrorism against Israelis are the same ones complaining to the world about Israel. It is no surprise that many in the international community are rushing to endorse the false narrative of the Palestinian leadership.

In the twisted world of Abbas, there is no wave of stabbings and vehicular attacks against Jews. In the twisted world of Abbas, there are no terrorists. Stabbing elderly Jewish women and a 13-year-old Jewish boy, according to Abbas, is part of a “peaceful, popular” protest. In the eyes of Palestinian leaders, most of the terrorists who have been encouraged by Palestinian leaders to murder Jews are “innocent victims” who have had knives placed next to them by Israeli policemen and soldiers in order to frame them.

This is the world in which Abbas and the Palestinian leadership live. It is a world of lies, fabrications and deception aimed at demonizing Israel and murdering Jews. The ultimate goal is not only to murder as many Jews as possible, but also to force Israel to its knees in the hope that it will vanish as soon as possible.

Welcome to the world of the Palestinians, where we lie and believe our own lies. And then want the rest of the world to believe them, too.

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.

Keeping up warm relations

November 6, 2015

Keeping up warm relations, Israel Hayom, Shlomo Cesanam, November 6, 2015

(Please see also, Obama rules out Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before leaving office. — DM)

Two state is deadScience and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis, seen with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in the Knesset, says the two-state solution is “dead.” | Photo credit: Noam Revkin-Fenton

The imminent meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama won’t repair their soured ties, but it’s clear that their face-offs are on hold as Israel and the U.S. prepare to deal with Middle East instability.

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

Two weeks ago, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon met with his American counterpart Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The defense secretary accompanied Ya’alon everywhere: to a memorial service at the Israeli Embassy marking 20 years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on a visit to the American Cyber Command at Fort Meade, in a dialogue with students and to a laid-back meal at the Pentagon, at which a military choir performed “Jerusalem of Gold” accompanied by a violinist. The Americans promise that the warm welcome Ya’alon received will continue — even if not with the same intensity — for another two days, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to land in Washington, ahead of a Monday meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House.

The meeting will not obliterate the soured relations between the two leaders. They “did not have a chance to meet” this year, but they did manage to publicly face off on important issues and policies. The main bone of contention is of course the understandings reached between six world powers on Iran’s nuclear program. Nevertheless, it is clear to everyone that the confrontations are over as is the discussion of whether the tension between the two leaders harmed the relations between their respective nations. Both sides agree that the threats, challenges and mutual interests supersede the various disagreements, and that new arrangements must be made for the future.

The agenda of the meeting will address coordination on a strategic outlook for the region. Two specific issues are up for discussion: Preserving Israel’s qualitative advantage over the rest of the countries in the region, and American aid to strengthen Israel during the next 10 years. The aforementioned edge was created as a result of the nuclear deal with Iran and the “compensation packages” the U.S. handed out to its allies in the Persian Gulf — first and foremost Saudi Arabia, but also countries like Jordan and Egypt. The aid comes in the form of information, technology, financial aid, weapons and ammunition.

The American aid will be provided under a 10-year plan. Former President George W. Bush signed the last aid deal, which expires at the end of 2017. Israel expects to fill up a “shopping cart” with items that already appear on a long list of requests, including a bump in the amount of defense assistance from $3.1 billion to $4 billion.

Since the deal will only take effect two years from now, diplomatic officials are discussing two separate lists: one for the long term, and a second that will give Israel the help it needs to preserve its advantage. The goals of the meeting between Netanyahu and Obama are based on the assumption that the Middle East is unstable, and will remain so for the next decade. That assumption is backed up by reports from teams of professionals in both the U.S. and Israel.

The bottom line, a member of Israel’s Diplomatic-Security Cabinet said this week, is that “the U.S. and Israel are in sync. They see eye to eye on the existing situation and have identical assessments of the changing situation in the region.”

Both Israel and the U.S., for example, agree that even after the Iran nuclear deal, the Tehran regime is no less dangerous. They both know that the Iranian money that was unfrozen when the sanctions were lifted, is already going to fund terrorism.

Netanyahu and Obama are going to talk about strategy, as the proposals for aid to bolster Israel are already known. But because in our region it is hard to know what the day will bring, both sides have built a model according to which “a variety of measures to provide a variety of solutions to a variety of threats” must be offered. The discussion in the White House will deal with all of the security ties between the two countries: Long-term financial aid; cooperation on cybersecurity; air, land, sea, and satellite power; intelligence; technological and defense development, including more Iron Dome batteries and similar defense systems, and the promotion of solutions that are still being developed. On everything relating to the immediate and broad-scale answer, Israel is asking for a way of defending itself against long-range and precision-guided missiles.

Netanyahu and Obama will also have to decide whether the time has come to strike a reciprocity deal — a defense pact between the two nations — that does not include a requirement to inform each other of certain covert actions, such as an attack on Iran. A deal like that would provide an answer for any scenario in which Iran breaks through to a nuclear bomb before the deal on its nuclear program is up.

“We left Gaza — and what did we get?”

But the headaches do not end there. When Netanyahu returns from the U.S., he will be facing two other important events: passing the state budget, which will among other things determine the defense budget, and the scheduled release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard from a U.S. prison, which will mark the end of a long dispute with the Americans on the Pollard matter.

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama is seen with utmost importance. Many officials at the diplomatic echelon argue that the meeting explains Netanyahu’s conduct these past few weeks: his measured responses to events in the field, the ban on MKs visiting the Temple Mount, the delay on committee discussions about construction in Jerusalem, and his remark that comparatively speaking, he is the prime minister who has allowed the least amount of building in Judea and Samaria.

On the other hand, Netanyahu is not hiding his official policy that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is not a partner with whom a peace deal can be made and that for now, Israel’s security and defense prowess in Judea and Samaria must be solidified without any visible changes.

The opposition and some media outlets have voiced criticism of Ya’alon, who is being accused of wanting to “manage” the conflict with the Palestinians and of directing “a policy of carrots” rather than finding a solution to it. Netanyahu, on the other hand, is accused of marking time and cultivating a vision in which we will “always live by the sword.”

The criticism is local, but it echoes throughout the world. That is why it was important to Netanyahu to issue a reply this week: “I’m not deceiving the public. We are living in the heart of radical Islam, and no policy we adopt will turn our neighbors into Norwegians or Swedes. We withdrew from every last [inch] of the Gaza Strip and didn’t get peace, [we got] rockets and terrorism. Therefore — with an arrangement or without one — we will always need the IDF to protect ourselves.”

Netanyahu is arriving in Washington as the head of a narrow right-wing government, most of whose members oppose a two-state solution. A member of his own Likud party, Science, Technology and Space Minister Ofir Akunis, said twice this week — at a weekend cultural event in Beersheba and at a Likud conference in Kfar Saba — that “the two-state solution is dead.”

According to Akunis, “the idea is irrelevant and is no longer at all possible.”

The understandings and agreements between Israel and the U.S. are also tied into the American and European demand to “end the occupation” at any price and “prevent apartheid.” While the security and defense factor is in place, Israel has no solution when it comes to the world’s demands on the Palestinian issue.

Syria Will be the Next Vietnam-Style War if Obama Doesn’t Learn from History

November 6, 2015

Syria Will be the Next Vietnam-Style War if Obama Doesn’t Learn from History

By A. Trevor Thrall and Erik Goepner

Source: Syria Will be the Next Vietnam-Style War if Obama Doesn’t Learn from History | Cato Institute

yria has the potential to become America’s new Vietnam — so, as Barack Obama sends the first 50 special operations troops to Syria to engage the Islamic State, we must be wary of history repeating itself.

The original mistake with Syria, as with Vietnam, was for leaders in Washington to believe that civil wars and insurgencies taking place halfway around the world represent a critical national security interest. Back then, the illusory “domino theory” — the idea that if one nation went communist it would start a chain reaction leading all the other nations in the region to do the same — justified the decision to engage in a tiny nation that itself represented zero threat to the United States. A version of that logic is at work again.

We’ve been told that it matters a great deal to US security interests whether Assad rules in Syria — but it does not. At last check an Assad has run Syria since 1970 without requiring US intervention. And any successor regime inheriting a destroyed Syria could hardly be a threat. Nonetheless, this assumption creates a powerful bias toward intervention that is difficult to check regardless of the strategic reality.

Before that original “forever war”, President John F Kennedy also told Americans that the United States was only training the South Vietnamese army. But US engagement eventually metastasized into a full-blown military intervention.

Today, after unnecessarily intervening in Syria, the US made things worse by embracing ineffectual and costly relationships with local partners on the ground. After years of arguing that there were no Syrian rebels worth supporting, the Obama administration then decided to try anyway and proceeded to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on perhaps the least successful training effort in US history. As the Centcom commander testified, only “four or five” trained rebels are in the fight.

It’s mystifying why Obama would commit such a colossal mistake when Vietnam provided so many painful lessons in avoiding precisely this kind of situation.

After the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the Eisenhower administration decided to begin supporting South Vietnam directly. The first casualties of US advisers in Vietnam occurred in 1959. The following year, nearly 700 advisors were operating in Vietnam, with Kennedy tripling the numbers the following year. By 1968, more than 500,000 US service members were in Vietnam.

Vietnam showed that the failure of an initial limited intervention creates political pressures for more aggressive action. In theory, a president should be willing to pull the plug if the initial failure makes clear that intervention is a bad idea. Most often, however, once a president has intervened, his political status is now yoked to the policy; pulling out risks almost certain censure for “losing”.

Regardless of whether things are going poorly, therefore, presidents face tremendous pressure to throw good money after bad. As declassified records later revealed, Lyndon Johnson realized early on that he would not achieve victory in Vietnam. He continued the war, however, in order to preserve the political capital he needed to push ahead with his Great Society programs.

And both the 2007 and 2010 surges in Afghanistan and Iraq are powerful examples of exactly this same kind of reasoning. Neither Bush nor Obama wanted to face the political fallout of withdrawal and perceived failure.

Having promised the world that he would “degrade and ultimately destroy” Isis, Obama now finds himself continually pressed to take more aggressive actions in the Middle East, despite his own doubts about their effectiveness. Most recently, for example, Obama admitted that he had approved the training program for the Syrian rebels even though he never thought it was likely to work.

US military power cannot compel democracy in foreign lands; neither can it force change amongst foreign populations. Only those governments and their people can effect political change if they themselves want it. That is just one of the many lessons that Vietnam can teach the current administration — if, that is, they are willing to learn.

Russia to suspend flights to Egypt until causes of Sinai crash are clear

November 6, 2015

Russia to suspend flights to Egypt until causes of Sinai crash are clear

Published time: 6 Nov, 2015 13:32 Edited time: 6 Nov, 2015 15:04

Source: Russia to suspend flights to Egypt until causes of Sinai crash are clear — RT News

© Maksim Blinov
President Vladimir Putin has agreed with the Federal Security Service to halt all Russian flights to Egypt following an October 31 passenger plane crash in Sinai that killed all 224 people on board.

FOLLOW RT’S LIVE UPDATES

As long as we haven’t established the causes of the incident, I consider it appropriate to suspend the flights of Russian aircraft to Egypt. This primarily applies to the tourist flow,” FSB director Aleksandr Bortnikov told a meeting of the Russian Anti-Terror Committee on Friday.

Egypt has provided Russian investigators with access to all the fragments of the crashed plane as well as the baggage, he said. There is need for “absolute objectivity” and “confirmed data” to establish the causes of the disaster, he added.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin agreed with the recommendations of the Federal Security Service (FSB). He added that Putin had instructed the government to ensure the safe return of Russian citizens from Egypt and to cooperate with the Egyptian authorities on establishing air traffic security.

Peskov said that the decision to suspend flights was “solely connected with security” reasons, and doesn’t suggest that Moscow considers the A321 crash to be a terrorist attack.

Russia’s civil aviation regulator has started drawing up plans to suspend flights between Russia and Egypt, the agency’s chief, Alexander Neradko, said Friday.

Around 45,000 Russians are currently on holiday in Egypt, TASS cited figures provided by Russia’s tourism agency.

Swabs and scrapings from all fragments of the [crashed] plane, baggage and soil have been taken by Russian experts,” said the head of the Russian Emergencies Service, Vladimir Puchkov, during the meeting.

I underline once more that the necessary samples have been taken from all the elements that can contain traces of explosives,” he added. “If there were explosives on the plane, we will be able to determine it.”

READ MORE: Cherry-picking facts may lead Sinai crash probe down MH17 lane – Russian aviation agency chief

The Airbus A321 belonging to Russian Kogalymavia, which uses the brand name Metrojet, crashed in Egypt 20 minutes after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh airport on October 31. All 217 passengers and seven crewmembers on board died in the disaster, making it the deadliest incident of this kind in Russian aviation history. There was no distress call prior to the crash.

Following the disaster, the head of Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia, Aleksandr Neradko, said that all the signs suggested that the destruction of the plane occurred “in the air and at a great altitude.” The evidence for that was the remains of the plane and the bodies, which have been scattered over an area measuring about 8 km by 4 km, he said.

The airline of the ill-fated passenger jet said on Monday that the plane must have been damaged by a force in flight and couldn’t have just broken apart.

On Tuesday, US media cited sources in the intelligence community saying that that a US infrared satellite had detected a heat flash in the same vicinity, indicating that an explosion may have occurred on board.

On Thursday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced that it was “more likely than not” that a bomb caused the crash. His comments were met with doubts from Moscow. During a telephone conversation between Cameron and Putin on Thursday, the PM was accused of “acting before he knows the facts,” according to tabloid paper the Sun.

On Wednesday, Britain halted flights from and to the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh over concerns that the Russian passenger jet was downed by a bomb on board.

Earlier in the week, a militant group associated with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) claimed to have shot down the Russian plane, but this claim has been deemed unreliable.

16-year-old seriously hurt in Hebron shooting attack

November 6, 2015

16-year-old seriously hurt in Hebron shooting attack 18-year-old also lightly hurt in attack near the Cave of the Patriarchs

November 6, 2015, 5:05 pm

Source: 16-year-old seriously hurt in Hebron shooting attack | The Times of Israel

Israeli security forces fire tear gas canisters to disperse Palestinian protesters during a demonstration in the West Bank city of Hebron, on October 27, 2015. (AFP Photo/Hazem Bader)

Israeli security forces fire tear gas canisters to disperse Palestinian protesters during a demonstration in the West Bank city of Hebron, on October 27, 2015. (AFP Photo/Hazem Bader)

Two Israeli teens were hurt Friday evening in a shooting attack at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron.

One of the two, a 16-year-old, was seriously hurt and the other, aged 18, sustained light injuries.

The two were hit by sniper fire, Maariv reported. Both of the victims were said to be conscious at the scene of the attack.