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The New Racists: David Miller, Hilary Aked, Kevin MacDonald

October 12, 2015

The New Racists: David Miller, Hilary Aked, Kevin MacDonald. Gatestone Institute, Samuel Westrop, October 12, 2015

  • It seems as if in the minds of David Miller, Kevin MacDonald and Hilary Aked, a mysterious Jewish cabal is responsible for all the world’s ills.
  • Even Tony Blair, Miller argues, is in league with a sinister “international network” of Israeli settlers and American “Islamophobes.”
  • “A liberal Muslim is their trussed-up version of the enemy, the alien, the ‘other’.” — Nick Cohen, journalist.
  • Hilary Aked describes moderate Muslims as “native informants.” She also believes that a hidden Jewish network is responsible for the “Islamophobia industry.” She has frequently written for a Qatari-funded media group that is accused by Egyptian newspapers of being a Muslim Brotherhood front group.
  • Electronic Intifada is a prominent pro-Hamas publication, whose founder, Ali Abunimah, describes Palestinian leaders who talk with Israel as “collaborators.”
  • To fund his obsession with the “propaganda” ostensibly spread by Jews and anti-Islamist Muslims, Miller has received grants from the Economic and Social Research Council, a body funded by the British government. In 2012, Miller received £400,000 from the Council, as well as grants from groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

From his office at the University of Bath, David Miller, an academic and writer, researches organizations and activists that he believes, in his words, work to “distort public debate and undermine democracy.”

The results of this research, done with the help of his students and assembled into detailed profiles of the shadowy figures behind this lobbying, are published across a number of websites run by Miller, including PowerBase and SpinWatch.

A visitor to these websites will quickly note one particular constant: a vast number of Miller’s profiles focus on Jews and Muslims who are working to fight extremism and terrorism.

Counter-terrorism groups, “neocons” and various political organizations are all accused of belonging to a “covert propaganda operation” for various Jewish organizations. Even Tony Blair, Miller argues, is in league with a sinister “international network” of Israeli settlers and American “Islamophobes.”

As one blogger notes, any of Miller’s “fellow academics” who do not present strong convictions against Israel, are “smeared… as neocons.”

Shiraz Maher, a counter-terrorism expert, has written: “Despite the ‘close to ten thousand’ entries on SpinProfiles [another Miller project] you will find nothing on [Islamist pressure] groups. … The problem is with SpinProfile’s apparent obsession with ‘Jewish power’ or, if you will, ‘the Jewish lobby’.”

At a recent conference organized by Miller, American academic Deepa Kumar denounced Muslims working to combat extremism and terrorism within their communities as “native informants.” And as the journalist Nick Cohen observed: “For the religious [Islamic] right and the political and academic left, a liberal Muslim is their trussed-up version of the enemy, the alien, the ‘other’.”

Another David Miller site, Neocon Europe (now defunct), published the works of Kevin MacDonald, a prominent white supremacist who claims that Jews control the media and politicians to “transform the country to serve their interests.” In a list entitled, “characteristics of Jewish intellectual movements,” MacDonald has claimed that Jews “form a cohesive, mutually reinforcing core” that has “access to prestigious and mainstream media sources, partly as a result of Jewish influence on the media.”

Other conspiracy theories promoted on Miller’s websites include those of Miller’s colleague, Idrees Ahmed, who claims that the Darfur crisis has been prolonged by a powerful Jewish lobby.

In 2009, David Miller provided accommodation for Joel Kovel, an anti-Jewish American academic who has written that, “The Holocaust has been repressed from history and converted into moral capital to cover and justify whatever the Jewish people would do in the way of domination themselves, whether this be the pell-mell immersion in American bourgeois life or the policies of Israel.”

David Miller and his network also work with Muslim Brotherhood operatives. In 2009, Miller secured taxpayer funding to run a project examining British Islam in collaboration with Osama Saeed, a Muslim Brotherhood activist. Saeed was previously the spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain, the main organization for the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain. In 2005, Saeed called for the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate; and in 2006, Saeed expressed praise for the late Al Qaeda leader Anwar Al-Awlaki.

Miller’s protégés include Hilary Aked, a blogger with a strong interest in British Jewish groups. Aked apparently believes that a hidden Jewish network is responsible for the “Islamophobia industry,” and that there is a distinct “overlap between Islamophobia and Zionism.” She also describes moderate Muslims as “native informants.”

1284Deepa Kumar (left) and Hilary Aked (right) condemn moderate Muslims as “native informants.”

Aked is published at the online publication, Electronic Intifada, where she writes about “pro-Israel” infiltration of the media, and that pro-Israel conferences are part of a secretive “transnational Islamophobia industry.”

Electronic Intifada is a prominent pro-Hamas publication, whose founder, Ali Abunimah, hasdescribed Palestinian leaders who talk with Israel as “collaborators,” and claims that, “supporting Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.”

Aked has also frequently written for Al Araby Al Jadeed, a Qatari-funded media group that is accused by Egyptian newspapers of being a Muslim Brotherhood front group. Al Araby‘s editor-in-chief, Wael Qandil, is described by the Arab newspaper Al Arabiya as a prominent supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

To fund his obsession with the “propaganda” ostensibly spread by Jews and anti-Islamist Muslims, Miller has received grants from the Economic and Social Research Council, a body funded by the British government. In 2012, Miller received £400,000 ($614,000 USD) from the Council.

Miller’s projects have also received funding from a number of Islamist groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and the terror group, Hamas, including:

    • £2000 from Interpal, a British charity closely linked to Hamas. Interpal’s leaders regularly attend Hamas rallies and ceremonies in the Gaza strip. Interpal trustee Essam Yusuf evenparticipated in a song that praised Hamas’s terrorist activities and its “martyrs.” Another Interpal trustee, Ibrahim Hewitt, has written of a “so-called Holocaust,” and claims: “The Jews cannot be entrusted with the sanctity and security of this Holy Land.”
    • £10,000 from Friends of Al Aqsa, an organization founded by Ismail Patel, who told a crowd in 2009 that, “Hamas is no terrorist organization. The reason they hate Hamas is because they refuse to be subjugated, occupied by the Israeli state, and we salute Hamas for standing up to Israel.”

Friends of Al Aqsa has published writings of prominent anti-Semites, including the Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh, whose submission claimed that Jews control America, and that the Iraq war “was conceived in and planned by Israel through the mostly Jewish neocons in Washington.”

  • A total of £15,000 from the Cordoba Foundation, a lobbying group led by senior Muslim Brotherhood official, Anas Al-Tikriti. Prime Minister David Cameron has described the Cordoba Foundation as a “political front for the Muslim Brotherhood.”
  • £5000 from Middle East Monitor, a Muslim Brotherhood online publication. Its editor, Daud Abdullah, was a signatory to the Istanbul Declaration, a document that called for attacks on British troops and Jewish communities.In 2011, Middle East Monitor brought the Hamas activist Raed Saleh to speak in Britain. Saleh has claimed (falsely) that 4000 Jews skipped work at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and that those who killed the “Martyr, Sheikh Osama Bin Laden” had “sold their consciences to Satan.” David Miller is, in fact, a vocal supporter of Raed Saleh, and spoke in defence of Saleh at a court deportation hearing.

It seems as if in the minds of David Miller, Kevin MacDonald and Hilary Aked, a mysterious Jewish cabal is responsible for all the world’s ills. Jewish money is supposedly the nexus between “Islamophobia,” Western colonialism, terrorism and violent foreign policy.

That such views find a platform in academia — and any funding by governments — is, and probably should be, seriously troubling.

Anti-Jewish tropes have been the foundation of conspiracy theories for centuries. The ideas of Miller, MacDonald and Aked are not new, but they remain racist, xenophobic and false.

Categories: Hamas, Islam, Islamophobia, Israel, Jews, Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Racism
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Terror in Israel — why’s the world media yawning?

October 12, 2015

Terror in Israel — why’s the world media yawning? Front Page Magazine, P. David Hornik, October 12, 2015

knife-stabbing

 

That fear of making Israel look “good.”

There’s been a terror onslaught here in Israel for the last week and a half. Those of us who bother checking foreign media outlets have noticed that there’s relatively little coverage. This is mainly good, since, of course, coverage of Israel’s conflicts with Palestinians and neighbors tends to be quite hostile to Israel.

Still, it raises the question of why interest isn’t greater this time. Those hallowed principles of “If it bleeds, it leads” and “Jews are news” would seem to apply.

True, they don’t apply on the scale of last year’s Gaza war, which drew huge coverage. But that may give a clue as to the explanation.

In that war much larger numbers died than in the current terror onslaught—and given Israel’s superior military capabilities and Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields, they were predominantly on the Palestinian side. A lot of scenes were broadcast from Gaza hospitals. The “text” was: see what the Israelis have done now!

In this current campaign so far, four Israelis have been killed and many more wounded. The number of Palestinians killed is, again, larger—but they were primarily killed by security forces fending off attacks, with few cases of collateral killing of civilians.

Still, a lot of what is happening would seem to be “newsworthy.” Even in Israel, with its long history of aggressions by surrounding populations, terror organizations, and countries, what’s happening has been almost unique.

Along with the usual rock-throwing and gun ambushes, they’ve been lunging at us—on streets and sidewalks, in malls and bus stations—with knives and screwdrivers. These “lone-wolf” attackers aren’t terrorists per se. Many have been teenage boys—or teenage girls, or young women.

They mostly come from the territories—but some also from within Israel—looking for Jews, any Jews, to kill. They’re crazed with hate and not seeking a “two-state” solution and definitely not “peace.” The hate largely takes the form of a religious frenzy—after months of the Islamist organizations and the Palestinian Authority drumming the libelous message into their heads that Israel is scheming to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Even for the media with its anti-Israeli bias, it may hard to finagle these hate-crazed, religiously motivated attacks into its “Israel victimizes Palestinians” frame. It gets even harder when one looks at individual cases.

On October 3, for instance, Aharon Banita, his wife Adele, and their two young children were attacked by a Palestinian stabber in the Old City of Jerusalem. Seeing her husband fatally wounded and having been stabbed herself, The Times of Israel reported that Adele

“…yelled ‘please help me!’ and [the surrounding Palestinian shopkeepers] just spat at me.…”

Banita said Palestinian youths who saw the attack laughed and cursed at her as she yelled for help.

She said that one of them slapped her and another laughed in her face and told her to “drop dead” when she told him she’d give him a million shekels if he helped her get away with her two babies.

“They saw that we were with two baby carriages,” she said.

Are there some Palestinians whom even the “elite” media can’t love?

And on October 7, in the town of Kiryat Gat in southern Israel, there was this incident:

A Palestinian man stabbed an IDF soldier and grabbed his gun…. He then fled to a fourth floor apartment….

The soldier was lightly injured in the attack, with wounds to his head, apparently inflicted with a pair of scissors….

Liat Ohana said she encountered the terrorist in the kitchen of her apartment, and that “he had murder in his eyes.” She said she pushed him into her kitchen, where she heard him rooting around in the cutlery, apparently looking for a knife. The gun he had seized had no magazine.

She and her mother fled, screaming, she said, and later heard gunfire. “I didn’t think I’d get out alive, but I was determined to fight,” Ohana said later. The security forces “shot him in my kitchen,” she told Army Radio.

Liat Ohana, in other words, is a heroine. And there have been other cases of heroism by Israeli civilians, like the ones whopinned down a stabber in a shopping mall on October 7, and the female soldier in Tel Aviv on October 8 who, though stabbed with a screwdriver, fell on her gun and stopped the attacker from getting it.

Heroic Israelis fending off Palestinian killers? Seems “dramatic” and—with Israelis not the only ones under Islamic attack—even inspirational. But it’s not the stuff mainstream-media stories are made of, and only those following Israeli outlets are likely to know about these cases at all.

Of course, to the extent that the media has covered the events, it’s been up to its usual antics. The BBC’s headline for the abovementioned attack involving the Banitas, in which Aharon Banita and another man were killed before security forces killed the attacker, was: “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two.” HonestReporting gives a spate of similar examples gleaned from a single day.

At this point it’s not yet clear if this terror wave will die down or intensify. If the latter, it can be safely assumed that the Western media will increase its coverage on the side of the assault.

We know that the Palestinian attackers are driven by a systematically inculcated religious and nationalistic rage. What drives the Western media’s dehumanization of Israelis and identification with their killers?

Categories: Al-Aqsa Mosque, Defense of Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Jews, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Two state solution, Western media
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The left’s war on Jewish self-defense

October 12, 2015

The left’s war on Jewish self-defense, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 12, 2015

ghetto_vilinus

Ben Carson’s comments that armed Jews might have saved lives in the Holocaust by resisting Nazi terror have been met with condescending mockery from the left. The Jewish establishment, a network of wealthy non-profit organizations that claim to represent Jews without ever being chosen by them and while working against their interests, has reacted in the same way as their liberal brethren.

But this establishment has forgotten that it was built on providing guns to Jews.

Historical revisionism is what the left does best. American Jewish history in the last century is a revisionist history in which the heroes are the “establishment”. The truth lies buried in old papers and lost documents. And it’s a deeply compelling truth of how the left suppressed Jewish self-defense.

The Jewish Defense Association was the first time that uptown establishment German Jews and downtown Eastern Jewish immigrants came together. The JDA’s goal had little in common with the empty rubber chicken dinner agendas of what the establishment that grew out of it would become.

Instead the Jewish Defense Association’s mission was simple. Buy guns for Jews.

Its agenda, as reported by the New York Times was, “New massacres are preparing. Our people must be possessed of arms to defend themselves and their honor.”

The year was 1905. The slow bloody beginning of the Russian Revolution was underway. Much like the Syrian Civil War, brutal militias aligned with different factions from the left to the right would arise out of the violence. Like the Christians in Syria, the Jews were an isolated minority. Xenophobia allowed both Communists and Czarists to score populist points by massacring the Jews in violent pogroms.

The Jewish Defense Association responded with a call to arms. Its motto took a part of Hillel’s credo, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me.” Its membership encompassed the left and the right, Zionists and anti-Zionists, religious and secular Jews.

A march of 200,000 Jews to Union Square included 5,000 former Russian soldiers, the volunteer Zion Guards in blue uniforms carrying rifles and the young men of the Manhattan Rifles, begun in the Lower East Side’s Educational Alliance as the Alliance Cadets, which had been formed in imitation of the Jewish Lads Brigade, a group that had put thousands of Jewish boys in the UK through military training.

The final resolutions declared that, “Eternal vigilance is the price of the Jew’s life, and that we urge our people to take up arms against their assailants, and if need be to sell their lives most dearly.”

It concluded with the ringing challenge, “We call Jews everywhere toward the defense of the Jewish people.”

In the words of the New York Times, “A ripple went through the crowd like wind rising to a hurricane which roared “Aye!”

It was undoubtedly the most heavily armed Jewish rally in American history. The sight of all those guns, not to mention early versions of the Israeli flag, would give any modern establishment leader a fit.

And yet the JDA included key establishment figures like Judah Magnes and Louis Marshall. Branches of the organization quickly emerged around the country from Los Angeles to Cincinnati showing how popular the message of Jewish self-defense was.

“In underlining the word ‘Self’ it expresses its conviction of the futility of all kinds of Jewish demonstration which appeal to others,” Rabbi Israel Friedlander, a co-founder of Young Israel who would later be murdered by Communist thugs, wrote.

“The modern Jew, who is otherwise ready to boast of his liberalism… anxiously watches every nod of a king and every smile of a prime minister. The old ‘Shtadlan’ still exists in the form of the ‘influential Hebrew’ who on the backstairs often begs what as a representative of a free nation he ought openly to demand. In times of danger the modern Jews…  appeal to the Spirit of Humanity, Modern Civilization or Brotherhood of Mankind, without themselves moving a finger in their defense.”

“Attacks of bloodthirsty beasts cannot be beaten back by appeals to Humanity and Civilization,” he wrote.”Surely the Self-Defense of the Jews will not at once stop all further bloodshed. Some Jews may still be slain, be destroyed and be beaten. But they will certainly not be put to shame. They will meet violence with violence and teach their enemies the value of a Jewish life.”

But of course it was not to be.

The “Shtadlans,” the institutional establishment figures who had taken over the JDA, would abandon and dismantle it, recreating its corpse as the American Jewish Committee. The AJC would default to exactly the kind of aimless political begging that Rabbi Friedlander had condemned because that made power brokers like Marshall and Magnes feel important. Their goal was not to empower Jews, but to disempower them. The establishment robbed Jews of their power and offered them a chance to donate to a corrupt network of organizations whose only real purpose was making their leaders feel important.

Meanwhile the leftists tore apart the JDA by refusing to work with the Jewish “religious and capitalist elements” of the JDA.

Leading the charge against the JDA were the Bund, an anti-Jewish Marxist organization, and the Forward, a radical left-wing paper that continues to spread hate against Jews and Judaism today.

While the Bund and the Forward’s mendacious Abe Cahan had initially supported the JDA in order to take advantage of Jewish outrage over the pogroms, the Bund’s position firmly opposed self-defense along “national lines” as a distraction from class consciousness and class warfare. And armed Jews, especially Zionists, might end up shooting some of the Bund’s favorite “workers mobs” at a pogrom.

Jewish self-defense threatened the Marxist agenda. The Marxists were willing to exploit Jews through front groups, but were determined to deny them any ability to defend themselves. For its Communist collaboration, the Bund earned the dubious honor of being the last non-Bolshevik Jewish organization allowed to operate on Soviet soil. Eventually it was purged and its members were shot. Others found their way into the Yevsektsiya, the Communist Party’s Jewish Section, tasked with wiping out Judaism by shutting down synagogues and Jewish institutions, and organizing the murder of Rabbis and Zionists.

Despite the interference of the Marxists, Jewish self-defense groups in Russia, such as the Giborei Zion (Heroes of Zion), assembled their own weapons or smuggled them in to resist attacks.

The Communist takeover led to the end of Jewish self-defense groups in Russia. Those who stayed behind were shot or sent to gulags. Many others made their way to Israel where they helped defend Jews against Muslim terror and fought for the independence of the Jewish State. Others played a key role in the resistance to Nazi occupation during WW2 in the Warsaw Ghetto and elsewhere.

The self-defense organizations that had failed in Russia, succeeded in Israel. They did it even though the establishment continued to undermine them by entering into a shameful collaboration with the USSR.

The JDC and the establishment spent most of its money on Soviet agricultural colonies in which Russian Jews were supposed to find a “new life” and a “happy future”. Newspapers were filled with glowing accounts of how happy the resettled Jews were. The scam eventually collapsed when the Communists had gotten enough money out of their useful anti-Zionist idiots. Those Jews who had been resettled, were murdered by the Nazis. Local JDC employees were shot or imprisoned.

At a crucial period, the establishment had starved Jewish settlers of funds that could have been used to dramatically transform Israel. But the pro-Communist left had its own agenda. The eagerness of the JDC to collaborate with the Communists could be found in their cover-up of the murder of Rabbi Friedlander.

Rabbi Friedlander, who advocated Jewish self-defense, had been in the Ukraine as a JDC emissary. He and two other Jews were murdered by the Red Army. The Forward feverishly engaged in a cover-up while the JDC stayed silent to avoid offending the Bolsheviks and their fellow travelers at the Forward.

Jewish self-defense was popular with Jews, but unpopular with the establishment and the far left. The establishment wanted Jews to be dependent on their political access, but refused to use that access to protect Jews by challenging the left, whether that meant standing up to the USSR over its persecution of Jews or to FDR over the Holocaust.

The far left had done everything in its power to suppress a “national solution” to the Jewish question. That is still what it is doing today. Its fight against Israel has nothing to do with the fake nationhood of the “Palestinian” terror groups, but is part of a longstanding campaign to shut down any independent Jewish consciousness because that might interfere with its class consciousness and class warfare.

American Jews are blamed for their apathy to the Holocaust or to Israel. But the good intentions of ordinary Jews were hijacked and continue to be hijacked by a corrupt establishment for its own political agendas. The establishment put FDR first and the left put Stalin first. Today it puts Obama first. It is a parasitic entity that hijacked Jewish self-defense and concerns while costing countless Jewish lives.

Armed Jews alone would not have stopped the Holocaust, but the awareness rising in Jewish circles in 1905 could have led to a movement that would have built a secure Israel and evacuated Jews from danger zones long before the Holocaust. Guns are only the final element of self-defense. Self-defense begins with awareness and mobilization. It’s what you do to prepare for the worst that really counts.

Very little has changed today. The establishment continues to undermine Israel, pursuing left-wing causes at Jewish expense, while pretending that it cares about the Jewish State, even as it undermines its efforts at self-defense. The left wants to destroy Israel. And the establishment helps make it happen.

The establishment ridicules the idea for which those 200,000 Jews gathered, armed and unarmed, over a century ago. Such contempt is fashionable in liberal circles. And yet that old message continues to resound today. “Our people must be possessed of arms to defend themselves and their honor.”

Categories: Dr. Ben Carson, Guns, Holocaust, Israel, Jews, Leftists, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians
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Putin’s “Endgame” in Syria

October 12, 2015

Putin’s “Endgame” in Syria

By Mike Whitney

October 9, 2015

Source: Putin’s “Endgame” in Syria

Russia doesn’t want to fight a war with Turkey, so Russian generals devised a simple, but effective plan to discourage Turkey from taking any action that could lead to a clash between the two nations.

Last week, Russian warplanes intruded into Turkish airspace twice. Both incidents caused consternation in Ankara and send Turkish leaders into a furor.  On both occasions, officials in Moscow politely apologized for the incursions claiming they were unintentional (“navigational errors”) and that they would try to avoid similar intrusions in the future.

Then there was a third incident, a more serious incident, that was not a mistake. It was clearly intended to send a message to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Here’s a short summary of what happened from an article at the World Socialist Web Site:

“Turkish officials claimed a third incident on Monday, when an unidentified MiG-29 fighter jet locked its radar for four and a half minutes on eight Turkish F-16 jets that were on patrol on their side of the border, in apparent preparation to open fire.” (“US, NATO step up threats to Russia over Syria“, World Socialist Web Site)

This was no mistake. The only time a fighter pilot adopts these protocols is when he plans to take down an enemy plane. This was a message, and while it might have been over-the-heads of the politicians and the media but, I assure you, every general in the Turkish High-Command knows what’s it means. This is a wake-up call.  Moscow is indicating that there’s a new sheriff in town and that Turkey had better behave itself or there’s going to be trouble. There’s not going to be any US-Turkey no-fly zone over North Syria, there’s not going to be any aerial attacks on Syrian sites from the Turkish side of the border, and there certainly is not going to be any ground invasion of Turkish troops into Syria.  The Russian Aerospace Defence Forces now control the skies over Syria and they are determined to defend Syria’s sovereign borders. That’s the message. Period.

This is a good example of how “preemption” can actually prevent conflicts rather than starting them. By firing a shot over Turkey’s bow, Moscow has dampened Erdogan’s plan to annex part of N. Syria and declare it a “safe zone”. Turkey will have to scrap that plan now realizing that any attempt to seize-and-hold Syrian territory will trigger a swift and powerful Russian retaliation. Seen in this light,  Russia’s incursion looks like an extremely effective way to prevent a broader war by simply telegraphing to potential adversaries what they can and can’t do. Simply put: Putin has rewritten the rules of the game in Syria and Erdogan had better comply or else. Here’s more on Turkey from Patrick Cockburn in The Independent:

“A Turkish ground invasion into Syria, though still a possibility, would now be riskier with Russian aircraft operating in areas where Turkey would be most likely to launch an incursion.

The danger for the Turks is that they now have two Kurdish quasi-states, one in Syria and one in Iraq, immediately to the south. Worse, the Syrian-Kurdish one…is run by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which is effectively the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has been fighting the Turkish state since 1984. Any insurgency by the PKK in Kurdish areas in south-east Turkey in future will be strengthened by the fact that the PKK has a de facto state of its own.

It appears that Turkey’s four-year attempt to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad has failed. It is unclear what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can do about this since support from Nato is at this stage purely rhetorical. As for Turkey’s relations with Russia, Mr Erdogan says that any attack on Turkey is an attack on Nato and that “if Russia loses a friend like Turkey with whom it has co-operated on many issues, it will lose a lot.” But in Syria, at least, it appears that it is Turkey that is the loser.” (“Russia in Syria: Russian Radar Locks on to Turkish Fighter Jets“, The Unz Review)

Poor Erdogan. He rolled the dice and came up snake-eyes. He figured he could expand his would-be Ottoman Empire into Northern Syria, and now his dream is in a shambles. Should he deploy his warplanes to N Syria and openly challenge the Russian airforce?  No, he’s not that foolish. He’s going to stay on his side of the border, stomp his feet, and lash out at “evil Putin”, but at the end of the day, he’ll do nothing.

And Washington’s not going to do anything either. Yes, Hillary and McCain have been calling for a no-fly zone over Syria, but that’s not going to happen. Putin won’t allow it and neither will the Security Council. And, on what pretext anyway? Is Obama really going to request a no-fly zone on the basis that Putin is killing “moderate” terrorists along with the “extreme” terrorists? That’s not a very compelling argument, in fact, even the American people are having a hard time swallowing that one. If Obama wants something from Putin, he’s going to have sit-down at a bargaining table and hash out a deal. So far, he has refused to do that, because he still thinks regime change is within his grasp. There are signs of this everywhere like this article in Turkey’s Today’s Zaman titled “İncirlik base to increase capacity by 2,250 to accommodate new personnel”:

“A tent city within İncirlik has been undergoing reconstruction for modern prefabricated houses, which will host 2,250 US military personnel, the Doğan news agency reported on Friday. During the Gulf War of 1991, a tent city was established to accommodate military personnel serving with Operation Provide Comfort (OPC) and was shut down with the end of the OPC.

On Aug. 20, work began to transform the site of the tent city into a new area named “Patriot Town.” After construction is completed, the İncirlik base will have the largest capacity among the US bases in Europe…

The expansion of the İncirlik base’s capacity comes at a time when Russia has launched the biggest intervention in the Middle East in decades….Moscow’s intervention means the conflict in Syria has been transformed from a proxy war.. into an international conflict in which the world’s main military powers… are directly involved in fighting.” (“İncirlik base to increase capacity by 2,250 to accommodate new personnel“, Today’s Zaman)

This article smacks of US ambitions in the Middle East. As readers can plainly see,  Washington is gearing up for another war just like it did in 1991.  And the US air war is going to be launched from “Patriot Town” at Incirlik just like we’ve been predicting since July when the deal was finalized. Here’s more background from an article at Hurriyet:

“U.S. Air Force Central Command has started deploying search and rescue helicopters and airmen at Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır Air Base in order to help with recovery operations in neighboring Iraq and Syria, it has announced….

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and the commander of U.S. European Command, Gen. Phillip Breedlove, has said the mission will be temporary.

“We will be guests of the government of Turkey at Diyarbakir Air Base. There are no plans for a permanent U.S. presence at this location … This marks yet another successful cooperative effort between the Turkish and U.S. militaries,” Breedlove said.” (“US deploys recovery aircraft in Turkey’s southeast“, Hurriyet)

 

“US Search and rescue helicopters” just a couple miles from Turkey’s southeastern border?

Yep.  In other words,  if an F-16 is shot down somewhere over Syria while trying to impose an illegal no-fly zone, then– Presto– the search and rescue helicopters are just 20 minutes away.

How convenient.

So you can see that– even though Putin has thrown a wrench in the works–  the Obama team is still moving ahead with its “Topple Assad” plan.  Nothing has changed, the Russian intervention just makes the future much more uncertain which is why frustrated geopolitical strategists, like Zbigniew Brzezinski, have begun to pop-up in the op-ed pages of leading newspapers blasting Putin for sabotaging their plans for regional hegemony. It’s worth noting that Brzezinski is the spiritual godfather of Islamic extremism, the man who figured out how religious nutcases could be used to foment hysteria and advance US geopolitical objectives around the world. Thus, it’s only natural that Brzezinski would want to offer his advice now in a desperate effort to avoid a legacy of failure and disgrace. Check out this clip from Politico:

“The United States should threaten to retaliate if Russia does not stop attacking U.S. assets in Syria, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in a Financial Times op-ed published Sunday, urging “strategic boldness,” with American credibility in the Middle East and the region itself at stake….And if Russia continues to pursue non-ISIL targets, the U.S. should retaliate, he added.

“In these rapidly unfolding circumstances the U.S. has only one real option if it is to protect its wider stakes in the region: to convey to Moscow the demand that it cease and desist from military actions that directly affect American assets,” he said.” (“Brzezinski: Obama should retaliate if Russia doesn’t stop attacking U.S. assets“, Politico)

The people who Brzezinski breezily refers to as “American assets” in Syria are terrorists. It’s that simple. Putin doesn’t distinguish between the “moderate” terrorists and the “radical” terrorists, the good terrorists and the bad terrorists. It’s a joke. They’re all in the same pool and they’re all going to meet the same fate. They all have to be rooted out, apprehended or killed. End of story.

By tweaking the war on terror narrative in a way that supports some, but condemns others, the Obama administration has backed themselves into an ideological cul de sac from which there is no way out. What they are doing is wrong and they know it is wrong. And that’s why it’s going to be so difficult to make the case for war. In a recent “must see” interview, Putin called out Obama on this very point. Here’s what he said:

“President Obama frequently mentions the threat of ISIS. Well, who on earth armed them? And who created the political climate that facilitated the current situation?  Who delivered arms to the area? Do you really not know who is fighting in Syria? They’re mercenaries mostly. They are paid money. Mercenaries work for whatever side pays more. We even know how much they are paid. We know they fight for awhile and then see that someone else pays a little more, so they go there…..

The US says “We must support the civilized, democratic opposition in Syria”. So they support them, arm them, and then they join ISIS. Is it impossible for the US to think one step ahead?  We do not support this kind of policy at all. We think it’s wrong.” (Putin explains who started ISIS, you tube, 1:38 to 4:03)

See? Everyone knows what’s going on. Barack Obama is not going to initiate a confrontation with Russia to defend a fundamentally immoral CIA program that has gone south.  He will, however, do what the US always does when dealing with an adversary that can actually defend itself.  He’s going to hector, harass, threaten, demean, demonize, ridicule, and bully. He might launch another attack on the ruble, or fiddle with oil prices or impose more economic sanctions. But he’s not going to start a war with Russia,  that’s just not going to happen.

But don’t give up hope just yet, after all, there is a silver lining to this fiasco, and all of the main players know exactly what it is.

It’s called Geneva. Geneva is the endgame.

Geneva is the UN-backed road map for ending the war in Syria. Its provisions allow for the “establishment of a transitional governing body”, the  “participation of all groups… in a meaningful national dialogue,” and “free and fair multi-party elections.”

The treaty is straightforward and uncontroversial. The one sticking point, is whether Assad will be allowed to participate in the transitional government or not.

Putin says “Yes”.  Obama says “No”.

Putin is going to win this battle. Eventually, the administration will cave in and withdraw their demand that Assad step down. Their plans for regime change through the use of jihadi-proxies will have failed, and Putin will have moved the Middle East one step closer to a lasting peace and genuine security.

That’s the silver lining and that’s how the war in Syria will end.

Bravo, Putin.

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Lowdown: Making Sense of Russia’s Syria Strategy

October 12, 2015

Lowdown: Making Sense of Russia’s Syria Strategy

Andrey Sushentsov

October 11, 2015

Source: Lowdown: Making Sense of Russia’s Syria Strategy | The National Interest

A view from Moscow on Russia’s strategy behind its Syrian move.

Russians are once again proving to be cold-blooded strategists. The Kremlin’s recent move in Syria has caught off guard not only ISIS, but also most Western intelligence services and analysts. Russia’s ability to alter the strategic situation on the ground with minimum efforts and maximum maskirovka deserves appreciation. However, Moscow fights ISIS not out of noble consideration. It is a practical issue of Russian national security.

Russian security connection with Syria

Russia was weighing its involvement at least since 2013 when it first proposed to replace outgoing Austrian peacekeepers with Russians at the Golan Heights. Since 2013, Moscow took a major role in disarming Syria of chemical weapons – and the first serious contacts with Damascus on battling Islamists started then. Parallel to this Russia engaged in a strategic military dialogue with Iraq, reaching a 4,2 billion USD weapon deal with Baghdad in 2012 and supplying much needed Su-25 fighters in 2014. In July 2015 Russia reach agreement with Iran to joint efforts in securing victory for Syria in the battle against ISIS. From that time question of assaulting ISIS was not “if”, but “when” and “how.” The Ukraine crisis did not change the calculus, but postponed the move.

Security interests at stake motivated Russian agitation. Allowing ISIS to consolidate its control in Syria and Iraq would mean that in 5 years a new spurt of well-prepared terrorists would return to the North Caucasus and Central Asia. By Russian estimates, out of 70,000 ISIS fighters up to 5000 are Russian and CIS natives. Thinking strategically, the effort of battling them in the Middle East will deliver bigger long-term gains at a relatively low-cost then facing them off at home.

Limited involvement strategy

Russian strategy in Syria has two scenarios. The first one is limited in scope and posture. Its advantage is that by applying minimum resources and keeping the bar low, Moscow still gets a lot.

First, Russia can disrupt the terrorist infrastructure and prevent it from holding ground without the necessity of defeating it completely. North Caucasian terrorists are eliminated at home, but in Syria’s “no man’s land” they can rebuild training facilities and launch the export of terror to Russia – as they did in Afghanistan under Taliban.

Second, Moscow seeks to sustain a friendly regime in Syria.  Russia can invest in its first major military naval facility in Mediterranean and secure primacy in gas extraction projects on the Syrian, Cyprus and Israel shelf.

Third, Russia is asserting itself as a leading Middle East power capable of effective expeditionary military operations. Before that, no one else besides the U.S. could have projected power so far from its borders. In Syria Russia has displayed its renewed ability to affect events in far-away regions and thus significantly changed calculus in the Middle Eastern capitals. By hitting ISIS in Syria with cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea, Russia also cemented its presence in that region.

Lastly, Syrian operation is an exhibition of Russian armament, satellite communication and geolocation system GLONASS – its deadly effectiveness, high-preciousness and reliability. This show is staged primarily for the customers of the biggest and growing weapon market in the world – Middle Eastern countries. However, it also certifies that Russia maintains full sovereignty in matters of the 21-st century war.

Shifting attention from Ukraine to Syria was not among the Moscow’s top aims, but since it is happening as a consequence of recent events, we can also consider this as Russia’s gain.

Extensive involvement possibility

The above-mentioned goals are the minimum achievements Russia can accomplish, provided its bombing campaign go smoothly. The high bar of the second strategy is bigger – and riskier – than this. And it promises less.

With assistance from Syria, Iraq and Iran, Russia can aspire to defeat and eliminate ISIS in the region including its CIS fighters. If attained, this monumental achievement would pave the way for a restoration of the traditional borders of Syria and Iraq and secure their allegiance to Russia for the future. Bringing stability to Syria and Iraq will mean fostering conditions to normalize life there. This will relieve the refugee Syrian crisis in the region and the European Union.

However, these challenges can be realistically tackled only by applying much more formidable resources and in coordination with a broader coalition, which should include Western powers and Arab states of the Persian Gulf. In the absence of the latter, the second scenario benchmarks are bigger than Moscow’s current plan.

Resource management for the war with ISIS

Does Russia have sufficient resources to go its way in Syria?

Moscow secured full support of Syria, Iraq and Iran and can now act independently from the West. Russian allies are vitally interested in battling ISIS and were doing so prior to Moscow’s engagement. It seems that by numbers Russia is the least involved partner in this coalition, yet its participation is decisive.

Russia’s military resources are sufficient to maintain an effective long-term commitment in Syria. Critics forget, that Russia has been deeply involved in conflict management in Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan in the 1990s when Russian economy was particularly weak.

Most importantly, at home, the Russian Sunni community (approx. 14 million people) leaders support Kremlin’s move and defy ISIS ideology. In September, Russia opened the biggest European Sunni Mosque in Moscow, strengthening support from Muslim clergy. Attending the opening ceremony Vladimir Putin expressed confidence that the mosque would help disseminate the “humanistic ideas and true values ​​of Islam” in Russia and accused “so-called Islamic State” of “compromising a great world religion of Islam”.

The risks of the involvement

The gains from the Syrian move seem to be solid for Russia. So are the risks. The path into Syria was marvelous, but the way out can be more difficult.

First, Russia risks deteriorating ties with an important regional partner – Turkey. Ankara is interested in having Assad go, and using the fight against ISIS to suppress Kurds militia on the Syrian part of the border. Despite claims that politics does not interfere with economic relations between the countries, that start of an ambitious “Turkish stream” gas pipeline was rescheduled for 2017. This is not the first time Russia and Turkey have differences on regional issues, but they managed to avoid confrontation in the past.

Second, Russia can get stuck in Syria, as did the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. That is why Moscow acting after careful considerations, with viable local allies and a clear exit strategy. Having had both the Afghanistan and Chechnya experience, Russia is well prepared for a low-intensity war dynamic.

Most important risk, though, is that Russia can be dragged into a regional Sunni-Shia conflict on the Shia side. Having a Sunni majority inside Russia, Moscow should be particularly careful. Critics say that fighting in ISIS Russia is bound to confront all Sunnis in the region. This would essentially mean that all Sunnis support ISIS – and that is not true.

This issue is taking us to the point that is currently lacking in Russia’s Syrian strategy – viable Sunni opposition to ISIS. Well-aware of its Chechen conflict experience, Russia would search for a resolution to the Syrian civil war by allying with a potent local Sunni leaders who would join the battle against terrorists. If such a Sunni potentate emerges triumphant, he would eventually fill the power vacuum left by ISIS much as did Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya.

Applying the Chechen scenario in Syria is very tricky, but it the only way to reach a deep and comprehensive settlement in that war-torn country. That is the reason why Russia thinks that a French proposal – uniting Syrian government efforts with a “healthy opposition” in the Free Syrian Army – is an “interesting idea that is worth a try”.

Andrey Sushentsov – associate professor at Moscow State Institute of International Affairs, director of programs at the Valdai club.

 

 

 

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UK MoD denies tabloid reports RAF ‘ready to shoot down’ Russian planes over Iraq

October 12, 2015

UK MoD denies tabloid reports RAF ‘ready to shoot down’ Russian planes over Iraq

Published time: 12 Oct, 2015 07:27

Edited time: 12 Oct, 2015 08:38

Source: UK MoD denies tabloid reports RAF ‘ready to shoot down’ Russian planes over Iraq — RT News

© Daily Star / The Sunday Times
© Daily Star / The Sunday Times
UK media allegations that RAF pilots in Iraq had been authorized to shoot down Russian fighters in case of imminent threat have prompted a response from Moscow. Britain’s military says there is “no truth” in the reports.

The initial report was published by The Daily Star and The Sunday Times. It claimed that an “unidentified source” in the British military told the media that Royal Air Force’s Tornado GR4 involved in Operation Shader in Iraq against Islamic State from now on are going to be armed with ASRAAM (AIM-132) short range air-to-air heat-seeking missiles to be prepared to “to shoot down Vladimir Putin’s jets,” The Sunday Times reports.

So far, the RAF jets took off armed with “500lb satellite-guided bombs only,” but as the source in British Defense Ministry put it, “in the last week the situation has changed. We need to respond accordingly.”

British pilots have been allegedly instructed to avoid contact with Russian aircraft.

“The first thing a British pilot will do is to try to avoid a situation where an air-to-air attack is likely to occur — you avoid an area if there is Russian activity,” an unnamed source from the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) told the Sunday Times. “But if a pilot is fired on or believes he is about to be fired on, he can defend himself. We now have a situation where a single pilot, irrespective of nationality, can have a strategic impact on future events.”

“No one knows what the Russians will do next. We don’t know how they will respond if they come into contact with a Western jet,” the source said.

The Russian Air Force is not executing any operations in Iraqi airspace, so in theory any interaction between Russian and British warplanes is out of the question. Yet the very raising of the issue provoked a hardline response from both the Russian Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry.

Sergey Lavrov’s office issued an official request to the British Foreign Office, demanding explanations. The diplomatic note was delivered by Russian Ambassador to the UK Aleksandr Yakovenko.

“We are concerned by media reports as far as they refer to senior members of the Cabinet. We urgently requested the UK Foreign Office’s clarifications. At the same time, the hypothesis itself of a potential conflict between British and Russian aircraft in the skies over Iraq is incomprehensible. As is known, the Russian jets are not involved in attacks on ISIL targets on [Iraqi] territory,” the Russian ambassador told RIA Novosti.

The British military attaché in Moscow has also been summoned to the Russian Defense Ministry, where he was handed a note demanding that he explain whether it is true that British pilots have been given a “shoot to kill” order regarding Russian aircraft.

Although the MoD’s spokesperson said in their official news blog: “There is no truth in this story,” answers to both requests are pending.

British Tornado GR4 fighter jets operating in Iraq were manufactured more than a quarter of a century ago, whereas the Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter jets ensuring air escort for the assault groups in Syria entered service in the 21st century and are a step ahead of their British counterparts in every way, including inventory and radar range.

“All operational flights [in Syria] are being performed with activated defensive onboard [radioelectronic combat] gear,” Igor Konashenkov, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman, said on October 3. This means that locking on to a missile on Russian 4++ generation fighter jet would be a tough assignment for a veteran British aircraft.

 

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Terrorist Killed After Stabbing Guard in Old City [video]

October 12, 2015

A protective vest saved the Border Policeman guard’s life. A policeman killed the terrorist.

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Published: October 12th, 2015

Source: The Jewish Press » » Update: Terrorist Killed After Stabbing Guard in Old City

This morning's terror attack was a carbon copy of Saturday's, in which the photo above shows policemen shooting a Jerusalem Arab terrorist after he tried to stab and murder one of them. (Photo blurred by order of police.)

This morning’s terror attack was a carbon copy of Saturday’s, in which the photo above shows policemen shooting a Jerusalem Arab terrorist after he tried to stab and murder one of them. (Photo blurred by order of police.)
Photo Credit: Screenshot

A policeman killed an Arab terrorist who tried to murder a Border Police guard at the Lion’s gate in the Old City of Jerusalem shortly after 9 a.m. Monday.

The terrorist was approaching Border Police with his hand in his pocket. The guards told him to stop and show his hands, and the terrorist then stabbed one of the Border Policeman.

The guard’s protective vest saved him from injuries or death.

Police closed the Temple Mount following the attack.

The video below shows the same scenario that occurred on Saturday. Around 00:25, officers are seen asking the terrorist for his identification card before he stabbed one of them and then was shot dead.

 

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Putin and Saudi defense minister meet in Russia, agree on common goals in Syria

October 11, 2015

Putin and Saudi defense minister meet in Russia, agree on common goals in Syria

Published time: 11 Oct, 2015 23:08

Source: Putin and Saudi defense minister meet in Russia, agree on common goals in Syria — RT News

Russian President Vladimir Putin, 3rd right, and Deputy Crown Prince, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, 4th left, at their meeting in Sochi, October 11, 2015. © Aleksey Nikolskyi
Russian President Vladimir Putin, 3rd right, and Deputy Crown Prince, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, 4th left, at their meeting in Sochi, October 11, 2015. © Aleksey Nikolskyi / RIA Novosti
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia’s defense minister have agreed that Moscow and Riyadh should pursue common goals in Syria, including national reconciliation and combating terrorists, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said.

Putin met with Sheikh Mohammed bin Salman for talks on the sidelines of a Formula 1 race in Sochi on Sunday. The meeting was also attended by the foreign ministers of both states.

“The sides confirmed that Saudi Arabia and Russia have similar goals concerning Syria,” said Russian FM Sergey Lavrov following the talks. “First of all, they are to prevent a terrorist caliphate from getting the upper hand in Syria.”

The second goal that we share with Riyadh is “ensuring the triumph of national reconciliation in Syria so that all Syrians, regardless of their nationality or religion, will feel masters of their land,” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s FM, Adel al-Jubeir, expressed Riyadh’s concerns about the targets of Russia’s military operations in Syria. In turn, Putin said Moscow understands the Saudi’s concern and expressed readiness to cooperate and share intelligence, according to Lavrov.

READ MORE:Putin: Russia has no intention of mounting Syria ground operation, wants to see political compromise

“On our part, we expressed readiness, which was met with a positive response from the successor to the Crown Prince, to begin close cooperation between our militaries, and security services in order to eliminate any doubts that the targets of the Russian Air Force are ISIS militants, al-Nusra Front, and other terrorist organizations,” he said.

During the talks, Saudi Arabia expressed readiness to intensify its efforts to cooperate with Russia with regard to anti-terrorist operations, al-Jubeir said.
Though sharing views on reaching a speedy political resolution in Syria, Russia and Saudi Arabia have different stances with regard to President Bashar Assad’s future as president. Russia has reiterated that Assad should remain in power, Lavrov said, adding that this does not prevent launching a process for resolving political differences. Riyadh believes that Assad must step down for there to be a political transition in Syria, al-Jubeir said.

Lavrov said that Russia calls on “all external players who can influence political processes in Syria to promote the soonest launch of a nationwide dialogue in Syria.”

He added that, after the talks between the two sides in Sochi, “we have a much clearer vision of how to move along the path of political settlement.”

Moscow and Riyadh also confirmed that there were a number of opportunities for bilateral cooperation in different areas, including the military-technical sphere, Lavrov said. “The parties stated the existence of very good opportunities in various fields, including economic investment, and military-technical cooperation. Corresponding plans will be implemented.”

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Reacting to the terror wave: action or inaction?

October 11, 2015

Reacting to the terror wave: action or inaction? | Anne’s Opinions, 11th October 2015


The Palestinian terror wave (the authorities are not calling it a 3rd intifada – yet) continues to sweep Israel. There were more stabbings in Jerusalem on Shabbat, rock throwing, and violent Arab protests in many towns. After Shabbat there were Israeli protests across Israel against the Arab violence.

Attempted car bombing outside Maale Adumim

This morning we saw an escalation as a female bomber blew up her car at a checkpoint outside Maale Adumim. Miraculously the only casualty was the bomber herself. severely injured. The circumstances of how the bomber was stopped sound almost like a spoof – but a diligent traffic cop stopped what could have been a massive terror attack in Jerusalem:

Police said officers noticed a “suspicious vehicle” driven by a woman toward a checkpoint en route to Jerusalem and signaled to her to stop. The woman then yelled “Allahu Akbar” and detonated a bomb in her car, a police statement said.

Army Radio reported the wounded officer is a traffic policeman who pulled over the bomber in her car for driving in a lane specified for public transport and carpooling.

…

Initial reports pointed to a possible suicide bombing, saying that the woman had died in the attack. Police later said the woman exited her car just before the bomb went off, indicating that it may not have been a suicide bombing attempt.

I wonder if the bomber was coerced into the attack to save herself from a “family honour” punishment. We’ll probably never know.

Hamas is obviously feeling neglected so they organized huge demonstrations at the border with Israel. After several protestors breached the border, the IDF opened fire, killing up to 7. In retaliation Hamas launched rockets at Israel last night, and in return the IAF bombed some Hamas targets.

Same old same old.

The question at the moment is how should the government, and Israeli citizens, react to this new uprising? Should we be taking a harsher stance with the Arabs or try to defuse the situation? Should Netanyahu be building more settlements davka now or is he right to placate and appease Obama and the Europeans?

I bring you some differing viewpoints here, and I find myself agreeing with them all, depending on the time of day and what’s on the news. I offer no solutions myself. I’m glad I’m not in the position to have to offer such and I don’t envy the government. On the other hand, that is what they were elected for, and the situation cannot be permitted to drift.

First I’ll quote from a few of Arlene Kushner‘s latest posts. She is well-worth following and reading on a regular basis. She always talks sense and her clarity is refreshing:

Boy, this is tough:

… I read what Kerry said yesterday in Valpariso, Chile, where he was giving a talk:

John Kerry

“Regarding Jerusalem, it absolutely is unacceptable on either side to have to have violence resorted to as a solution.

“And I would caution everybody to be calm, not to escalate the situation…it is very important to maintain a sense of calm that will minimize the instinct for escalation.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-urges-rapid-end-to-unacceptable-violence-in-jerusalem/

~~~~~~~~~~

Let me get this straight: Arabs are killing Jews, but our government should not ratchet up the response to the terrorists? And whatever we do, we should not use violence in persuading those terrorists to stop what they are doing? We should, maybe, reason with them? Offer them perks if they stop?

This is moral equivalency run amuck. Politically correct thoughts from an empty head.

What it illustrates is the breath-taking international bias against Israel that we must contend with. No calling out the Arabs for their execrable behavior. No recognition of Israel’s right to defend her Jewish citizens. It helps us to understand (though not excuse) some of Netanyahu’s reluctance (until now) to take a strong stand against Arab terrorists.

In “Navigating choppy waters” she writes:

It has been revealed by media sources that during the Security Cabinet meeting Prime Minister Netanyahu held Monday night, after the close of Simchat Torah, the issue of threats by Obama was raised. Some of the right wing/nationalist members of the Cabinet (some within the Likud itself) were urging that part of the response to terrorism be increased building in Judea and Samaria.

This is not going to happen, Netanyahu informed them. For Obama has said that if there is building in Judea and Samaria, he will not veto a French resolution that is to be brought to the UN Security Council, a resolution that reportedly would declare “Palestine” a state and would declare the settlements “illegal.”

“We will not jeopardize international support for a declaration of building,” a senior source in the Netanyahu administration reportedly said, While the prime minister himself called for “a sober political maneuver.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/201499#.VhUukJuhfIX

…

The question I want to explore, then, is whether Netanyahu simply “caved” to the US, as Arutz Sheva suggests, and as is his pattern, or whether he has valid reason to be cautious here.

My gut impulse is to say, damn them all, go ahead and build. Now is the time for us to stand up for what is ours by right. But I know that my gut impulse is not necessarily the wisest course of action.

In exploring precisely what IS the wisest course, I contacted two highly respected and knowledgeable international lawyers, and here share their responses. Please, walk this through with me:

One lawyer, deeply involved in legal issues in Judea and Samaria, was interested in looking at the repercussions in terms of international law.

…

His opinion (this is not a legal opinion) is that a resolution would be tempered, and would

“call for an immediate return to negotiations, with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state and recommending a freeze in settlements.” All this, he says would not “really dramatically change the present situation.”

“But the settlement issue as well as that of Jerusalem have regrettably reached panic proportions thanks to very clever Palestinian manipulation of Obama and the EU and their evidently existing predisposition to harm Netanyahu and hence harm Israel.” (My emphasis added here)

…

The other lawyer, a man with sterling international credentials, chose to look at other, non-legal aspects of the issue (my emphasis added):

”The SC resolution would be very very damaging. Not because of any particular legal point, but because it would lock in a fundamental delegitimization of Israel, trigger a wave of EU sanctions, and make it harder for future US presidents to support Israel.

…

“Unless Bibi has concrete assurances on this, it makes sense to assume there will be no veto and build anyway…His (Obama’s) promise may be worth something if made publicly or with some other additional indicia of reliability.”

…

What we see then is that this is not a simple matter and should be taken seriously, but received without panic. It is not easy, being the head of a state that is isolated internationally and against which much venom is directed.

In the end it may well be that now is the time to stand up and claim our rights. But I would not make light of Netanyahu’s hesitancy to move forward.

And here is Arlene in a more belligerent mood after detailing the active incitement promoted by Mahmoud Abbas and his PA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all the rest of those “peace-loving Palestinians”: War. Whatever they call it:

One way or another we must vanquish them, make them afraid of us. But how?

The war that should happen will not happen, because no one wants to call it a war.

I’ve read a lot of suggestions both on the Internet, and from readers’ emails. What I will say here is that some of the suggestions that seem appealing – from the gut – will not work. We cannot banish all the Arabs to Gaza. We cannot take down whole Arab villages. We cannot.

…

Abbas speaks with forked tongue

But please be assured, I am not suggesting that Abbas has us cornered and that there is nothing we can do. This is only the case if we allow ourselves to be cornered. I believe attitude has a great deal to do with it. We must convey a self-confidence – a belief that we are in the right – which we are, and IN CONTROL.

No expressions of gratitude to Abbas for his cooperation on security matters. How ludicrous. Rather, a very quiet message to Abbas that if he doesn’t let his people know that they should cool it, it will go very badly with them and he will pay the price.

David Rubin, former mayor of Shilo, makes a host of suggestions in a blog on Arutz Sheva.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/7584#.VhaFlJuhfIW

…

Rubin makes other suggestions, including:

“Declare the Levy Report, which in 2012 proved the legal basis for Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, to be the basis for government policy in ‘the territories.’”

That last suggestion, to implement the Levy Report – a campaign for which. called We have Legal Grounds, is being run by Arlene and others – is probably the best suggestion anyone has made for a long time. Don’t expect it to be implemented any time soon.

The blogger Abu Yehuda is also an excellent read and I would highly recommend you follow him and read his insights. His two latest posts contain interesting advice for our leaders (which of course won’t be followed):

In “Learning from Putin” he writes:

The Prime Minister’s reaction to the escalating terrorism of the last few months is an example. On the one hand, he wants to get tough with the stone- and firebomb-throwers. But on the other, he rejects the idea of changing the status quo with the PA, either by increased building or cutting off subsides. This is an attempt to treat the symptoms while feeding and stimulating the disease.

In all of these situations Israel is being forced to give up its sovereignty bit by bit. In each case, the government chooses to give in to blackmail. Our ‘strategy’, if you can call it that, is to walk between the raindrops. Unfortunately, as time goes on it rains harder and there is less and less room. We may have reached the point in all three of these cases that the old non-strategy no longer works.

We have allowed our fear of international reactions to keep us from exercising our rights in Judea and Samaria, and our fear of terrorism to limit actions against the PA. But at the same time, the US and EU keep increasing the pressure, and the PA keeps inciting and financing terror. So what have we gained?

…

I’m not going to try to provide a detailed prescription for solving these difficult problems. But in all of them we are moving in the wrong direction, from strength to weakness, from more to less independence and sovereignty.

There is a reason for this: it is because we haven’t articulated a clear picture of the desired end result. Lacking clear objectives, we are passive. Everything we do is a reaction to our enemies’ actions. No wonder we get boxed in – they are writing the screenplay, and we are performing our role in it.

…

Do we think that all faiths should be able to worship on the Temple Mount, including Jews? If so, we should insist on it. Rav Shlomo Goren wanted to build a synagogue on the Mount (not a third Temple, a synagogue). Why should this be an impossible goal?

And isn’t it past time that the PLO, the organization that has murdered more Jews because they are Jews than any other since the Nazis, joined their Nazi role models in oblivion?

I am not a fan of Vladimir Putin, but we could learn from him. The chaos of recent times is also an opportunity.

I find myself nodding my head in support at these suggestions.

On a similar theme, in “Sovereign or satellite?” Abu Yehuda addresses the American threat not to veto anti-Israel UN resolution, and writes:

Israel ought to have a close relationship with the US, because we share many of the same ideals. We certainly have the potential to be a valuable ally in a dangerous part of the world. But the present administration in Washington does not behave like an ally. … the president and his appointees like to talk about how much they care about Israel’s security. But they continue to act in ways that directly damage it.

I propose that we do implement a freeze, not on construction, but on our relationship with the Obama Administration.

The Prime Minister should publicly announce that while Israel wishes to continue its close relationship with the American people, it does not see the Obama Administration as an appropriate partner with which to do so. Therefore, until January 20, 2017, Israel will downgrade its relationship with the administration to the minimum required for diplomatic relations.

The PM should say that Israel does not see the administration as an unbiased broker in any negotiations with the PLO or anyone else.

Questionable US personnel in Israel (those suspected of working for the CIA) should be made persona non grata and asked to leave. The US-operated X-band radar station on Mt. Keren in the Negev, which serves as much to spy on Israel as to warn of an Iranian attack, should either be transferred to IDF control or shut down. Intelligence cooperation with the US should be limited.

I admit I like this suggestion the best of all that I have read, but it’s probably in the realm of a pipe-dream. I’m prepared to be proven wrong however!

Meanwhile, Israeli citizens have been reacting in their usual courageous way – in addition to the many protests last night.

Read this message of outrage from the bereaved Henkin family (click “more) at the end of the English to see the whole message) or see the whole text below this:.

I have to offer you my sincere condolences, Ambassador Shapiro. It is your duty, after all to explain on a daily basis an unexplainable and unjustifiable policy.

You have to defend a US government which on the one hand demanded that Israel should not free Palestinian terrorists with American blood on their hands, and on the other hand demanded that Israel will free Palestinian terrorists with Israeli blood on their hand. Apart from the blatant hypocrisy the US government has seemed to forget that by doing so it raised the chances that more people, among them US citizens like my brother Eitam, would be murdered at the hands of cold blooded terrorists.

You have to defend a government that appeases its enemies and pressures its friends; A government that decided that its army will “no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations”, when apparently the government itself is no longer sized to conduct prolonged operations or policy of any sort, perhaps explaining how chemical weapons continued to be used in Syria and how Russia got back into the middle east with a vengeance. You have to defend a government which focuses more on Timetables than on results, succeeding in pulling out forces but and almost nothing else.

You have defend a government that was so full of itself, that in 2009 it let Rahm Emmanuel declare that that “in the next four years there is going to be a permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians… and it doesn’t matter to us at all who is prime minister”. How unfortunate it was that the Arab-Israel conflict cannot be solved by pulling US troops out and declaring that the war has been won.

And now we have Mr. Putin and co. making fun of the US in the Crimea, sending a clear message to the whole world not to trust America’s assurances and guarantees. We have him in Syria too. In 2012, President Obama has ridiculed senator McCain when the latter said that Russia is a bigger geopolitical threat than al-Qaeda. ” The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back”, said the president. Well, now the 1980s are calling once again, to ask if we, if the US, if the current administrations needs them to lend us some leadership, since apparently they had way more than we have today, and we have less than we need.

You Ambassador Shapiro, have to defend all that and more. It is a heavy burden for any honest man. I offer you my sincere condolences.

These words, written in anger and bereavement, ring out with the truth.

And finally – a reminder to everyone that Israelis have not lost their humanity while under attack, in stark comparison to our enemies, one of whom named his new baby after a murderous terrorist:

 

At the site of the stabbing at the Petach Tikva mall last week, Shacharit (morning prayers) was held at that very site:

Let these be a reminder that we Israelis, we Jews, hold on to our humanity even in the darkest and harshest of times, especially when our enemies act in the most inhumane way possible.

Categories: Abbas, Israel, Jerusalem, Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority, Settlements, Terrorism
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It’s a POGROM not an Intifada

October 11, 2015

It’s a POGROM not an Intifada

By Diane Weber Bederman — Bio and Archives

October 11, 2015

Source: It’s a POGROM not an Intifada

Dear Mr. Netanyahu: It’s a POGROM not an Intifada

“The settlers’ presence is illegal, and therefore every measure taken against them is legitimate and legal.”

Another pogrom in the 21st century is taking place in Israel, the Jewish state. It’s based on the latest blood libel; the Jews defiling the Temple Mount with their “filthy feet.”

Here are some still shots of the video. The video has been removed because of the policy violation regarding hate speech.

Abbas and the PA leadership are sending “a message to Palestinians that it is fine to murder Jewish parents in front of their children, or Jews on their way to pray at the Western Wall.”

I fear Israel is acting as if she were held hostage by the terrorists.  For the past twenty years Israel has sustained buses blown up, suicide attacks against pizzerias, nightclubs and supermarkets, missiles shot at Israeli civilians, shootings, stabbings, kidnappings, cars rammed, stones as deadly as bullets, and harassment of Jews at religious sites.

If Jews cannot be safe in Israel, where can we be safe? If Jews are not aggressively defended in the Jewish state, who will defend us?

Why is there this policy of restraint, a fear of offending? Offending whom? The EU?  EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said Israel must conduct “a thorough investigation” on circumstances which led to “the deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli security forces.” The UN? The man in the White House? The moral relativist? White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the US “condemns in the strongest possible terms violence against Israeli and Palestinian civilians.” These are same people who pushed Israel under an Iranian bus. The ones who accuse Israel of incitement.

Do we fear offending the Arabs who have stealthily attempted to erase our history and replace it with a fairy tale that includes their belief that they own the Temple Mount, that they are the indigenous people of Judea/Samaria when all the facts say unequivocally that this is the land of the Jews?

Temple Mount: Murabitun and Murabitat; their special forces who harass the Jews and the Christians

Khaled Abou Toameh wrote:

“The campaign of incitement reached its peak recently when Abbas was quoted as accusing Jews of “defiling the Aqsa Mosque with their filthy feet.” Abbas also announced that, “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood…The Palestinian Authority’s fiery anti-Israel rhetoric has led to a wave of terrorist attacks that could easily deteriorate into a third intifada.”

A Third Intifada? This is no intifada-a shaking-off of the Jews. These people are in the mood for another feeding frenzy and they want the world to support their killing of us so they use the word intifada, to play on the emotions of the Western liberals who choose to see these Arabs as victims rather than the aggressors.

And it’s working. Main stream media, like the CBC in Canada, write:

“A new generation of angry, disillusioned Palestinians is driving the current wave of clashes with Israeli forces: too young to remember the hardships of life during Israel’s clampdown on the last major uprising, they have lost faith in statehood through negotiations, distrust their political leaders and believe Israel only understands force.”

And:

“A major Jerusalem shrine that is central to the national identities of both sides and sparked major bouts of violence in the past also looms large in the rising tensions.”

The only tension on the Temple Mount comes from the Muslims: The Murabitun and Murabitat; their special forces who harass the Jews and the Christians. And it has overflowed to a full on attack against the Jewish people.

Female Palestinian terrorist shot after stabbing Jewish man in latest Jerusalem attack. Israeli couple killed in West Bank shooting attack, 4 children escape unhurt. Terrorist kills two, wounds toddler and mother in capital’s Old City.

Assailant stabs IDF soldier in attempted weapon snatch in Kiryat Gat.

Petah Tikva stabbing attack: Terrorist a 30-year-old resident of the Hebron area.

Israeli Seriously Hurt in Terror Attack Near Hebron:IDF hunting Palestinian suspect who stabbed 25-year-old man in back outside West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba.

And, and, and…

On Wednesday in Judea/Samaria near the community of Tekoa a Palestinian mob smashed the windscreen of Rivi Ohayon’s car, surrounded the vehicle, opened the door, and tried to attack her. Six other vehicles were hit by the stone-throwing mob; Israelis in the area fired on the attackers, badly injuring a Palestinian teenager.

A Palestinian youth was subdued by security forces in Jerusalem’s Abu Tor neighborhood after pulling out a knife. There was another incident on the Jerusalem-Ma’ale Adumim highway, an apparent attempt by a Palestinian motorist to ram into soldiers at a roadblock.

A Jewish man was stabbed Thursday in his upper body in Jerusalem, in the third stabbing attack in just over 24 hours. In addition, a fourth stabbing attack and a fifth suspected terror attack were thwarted Wednesday evening.

Asraa Zidan Tawfik of Nazareth was shot by security forces in the northern city of Afula on Friday morning after trying to stab a security guard. Seven more Israelis were injured in attacks in Hebron, Kiryat Arba and Afula.

There are riots in Jaffa.

And, and, and…

This is a pogrom. One of too many in our history. And in the Middle East they began long ago. Mufti Haj Amin al Husseini of Jerusalem, a collaborator of Hitler, was “considered largely responsible from the beginning of the 20th century for organized anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Palestine” (ed. the future Jewish state) We cannot stand by and allow anyone to wantonly kill Jews; especially in the Jewish state. When we had no country we were at the mercy of the Jew-haters. We had to lie low, be quiet, and persevere with restraint. Now we have a country.

Mr. Netanyahu, stop this pogrom.

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