To avoid having the funds tracked back to the Obama administration, the arms flow to Libya was financed thru the United Arab Emirates, while Qatar served as the logistical and shipping hub, she noted.
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The Obama administration pursued a policy in Libya back in 2011 that ultimately allowed guns to walk into the hands of jihadists linked to the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda (AQ) in Syria, according to a former CIA officer who co-authored a report on behalf of the Citizen’s Commission on Benghazi (CCB), detailing the gun running scheme.
In Congress, the then-bipartisan group known as the “Gang of Eight,” at a minimum, knew of the operation to aid and abet America’s jihadist enemies by providing them with material support. So says Clare Lopez, a former CIA officer and the primary author of CCB’s interim report, titled How America Switched Sides in the War on Terror, speaking with Breitbart News.
The ripple effects of the illegal policy to arm America’s enemies continue to be felt as the U.S. military is currently leading a war against ISIS and AQ terrorists in Iraq and Syria, according to Lopez.
In late October, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that the U.S. would begin “direct action on the ground” against ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria who may have reaped the benefits from the gun-running scheme that started in Libya.
“The Obama administration effectively switched sides in what used to be called the Global War on Terror [GWOT] when it decided to overthrow the sovereign government of our Libyan ally, Muammar Qaddafi, who’d been helping in the fight against al-Qaeda, by actually teaming up with and facilitating gun-running to Libyan al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood [MB] elements there in 2011,” explained Lopez. “This U.S. gun-running policy in 2011 during the Libyan revolution was directed by [then] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and [the late Libya Ambassador] Christopher Stevens, who was her official envoy to the Libyan AQ rebels.”
To avoid having the funds tracked back to the Obama administration, the arms flow to Libya was financed thru the United Arab Emirates, while Qatar served as the logistical and shipping hub, she noted.
“In 2012, the gun-running into Libya turned around and began to flow outward, from Benghazi to the AQ-and-MB-dominated rebels in Syria,” Lopez added. “This time, it was the CIA Base of Operations that was in charge of collecting up and shipping out [surface-to-air missiles] SAMs from Libya on Libyan ships to Turkey for overland delivery to a variety of jihadist militias, some of whose members later coalesced into groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS [also known as IS].”
Jabhat al-Nusra is al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.
“The downstream consequences of Obama White House decisions in the Syrian conflict are still playing out, but certainly the U.S. – and particularly CIA – support of identifiable jihadist groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, the Islamic State and other [jihadists] has only exacerbated what was already a devastating situation,” declared Lopez.
Some of the other weapons that eventually ended up in Syria included thousands of MAN-Portable-Air-Defense-System (MANPADS) missile units, such as shoulder-launched SAMs, from late dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s extensive arms stockpiles that pose a threat to low-flying aircraft, especially helicopters.
“It’s been reported that President Obama signed an Executive Order on Syria in early 2012 [just as he had done for Libya in early 2011], that legally covered the CIA and other U.S. agencies that otherwise would have been in violation of aiding and abetting the enemy in time of war and providing material support to terrorism,” notes Lopez. “Still, such blatant disregard for U.S. national security can only be described as deeply corrosive of core American principles.”
Libya Amb. Stevens was killed by jihadists in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, along with three other Americans.
Echoing a Benghazi resident who provided a first-hand account of the incident, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Dennis Haney, a CCB member, suggested to Breitbart News that Hillary Clinton’s State Department armed some of the al-Qaeda linked jihadists who may have killed the four Americans in Benghazi.
“The reason the U.S. government was operating in Libya is absolutely critical to this debacle because it reflects where America went off the tracks and literally switched sides in the GWOT,” points out Lopez. “This is about who we are as a country, as a people — where we are going with this Republic of ours.”
“There can be no greater treason than aiding and abetting the jihadist enemy in time of war – or providing material – weapons, funding, intel, NATO bombing – support to terrorism,” she continued. “The reason Benghazi is not the burning issue it ought to be is because so many at top levels of U.S. government were implicated in wrong-doing: White House, Pentagon, Intel Community-CIA, Gang of Eight, at a minimum, in Congress, the Department of State, etc.”
The State Department and the CIA did not respond to Breitbart News’ requests for comment.
The Democratic presidential frontrunner claimed she was not aware of any U.S. government efforts to arm jihadists in Libya and Syria.
Clinton did admit to being open to the idea of using private security experts to arm the Qaddafi opposition, which included al-Qaeda elements, but added that it was “not considered seriously.”
Members of the 2011 “Gang of Eight” mentioned in this report included: then-House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), then-Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), (R-MI), Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), then-Sen. Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), then-Sen. Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA).
Secretary of State John Kerry believes that al Qaeda’s “top leadership” has been “neutralize[d]” as “an effective force.” He made the claim while discussing the administration’s strategy, or lack thereof, for combating the Islamic State, which is al Qaeda’s jihadist rival. Kerry believes that the US. and its allies can finish off the Islamic State quicker than al Qaeda. There’s just one problem: It is not true that al Qaeda or its top leaders have been “neutralize[d].”
Dozens of senior al Qaeda terrorists, including of course Osama bin Laden, have been eliminated. But al Qaeda is not a simple top-down terrorist group that can be entirely vanquished by killing or detaining select key leaders. It is a paramilitary insurgency organization that is principally built for waging guerilla warfare. Terrorism is a part of what al Qaeda does, but not nearly all. And a key reason why al Qaeda has been able to regenerate its threat against us repeatedly over the past 14 years is that it uses its guerilla armies to groom new leaders and identify recruits for terrorist plots against the West.
The summary below shows what al Qaeda looks like today – it is far from being “neutralize[d].” Instead, al Qaeda and its regional branches are fighting in more countries today than ever. They are trying to build radical Islamic states, just like ISIS, which garners more attention but hasn’t, contrary to conventional wisdom, surpassed al Qaeda in many areas.
In Afghanistan, al Qaeda remains closely allied with the Taliban and is participating in the Taliban-led insurgency’s advances throughout the country. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri has sworn allegiance to the Taliban’s new emir, Mullah Mansour, who publicly accepted Zawahiri’s oath of loyalty in August. Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters are playing a key role in the Taliban’s offensive, with the Taliban-al Qaeda axis overrunning approximately 40 of Afghanistan’s 398 districts this year alone. This is part of the reason that President Obama decided to leave a small contingent of American forces in Afghanistan past his term in office.
To give you a sense of what al Qaeda is really doing in Afghanistan, consider that U.S. forces led raids against two large training facilities in the country’s south in October. One of the camps was approximately 30 square miles in size. Gen. John F. Campbell, who oversees the war effort in Afghanistan, explained that the camp was run by al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and is “probably the largest training camp-type facility that we have seen in 14 years of war.”
Think about that: U.S. officials just discovered what is probably the largest al Qaeda camp since 2001. Al Qaeda hasn’t been neutralized in Afghanistan. In fact, numerous al Qaeda leaders have relocated into the country.
AQIS, which answers to Zawahiri, was established in September 2014 and is exporting terrorism throughout the region. The group has claimed attacks in Pakistan and Bangladesh. And al Qaeda is still allied with Pakistan’s many jihadist groups, which frequently carry out operations, especially in the northern part of the country.
In Syria, Al Nusrah Front, which is openly loyal to Zawahiri, is deeply enmeshed in the anti-Assad insurgency. It is such an effective fighting force that it disrupted the Pentagon’s $500 million train and equip program multiple times this year, leading the Obama administration to cancel it. Multiple senior al Qaeda leaders have relocated to Syria since 2011 and they are guiding Al Nusrah’s efforts. In addition, some of these leaders work for what is known as the “Khorasan Group,” which has been planning attacks against the West. In September 2014, the administration began targeting the Khorasan Group with airstrikes. Some top figures in this al Qaeda subunit have been taken out, but others have survived thus far. Even so, al Qaeda has thousands of fighters in Syria today. And Al Nusrah Front jointly leads a coalition known as Jaysh al Fath (“Army of Conquest”), which took substantial territory from Bashar al Assad’s regime earlier this year.
In Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operates a prolific insurgency and has gobbled up territory, particularly in the country’s south. The U.S. has killed several senior AQAP officials this year, but that hasn’t stopped the organization from taking advantage of the Houthis’ surge and the Gulf states’ intervention. The AQAP leaders who replaced those killed in U.S. drone strikes since January are al Qaeda veterans and answer to Zawahiri. AQAP has also threatened the U.S. on multiple occasions, including the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing and other plots.
Across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, in Somalia, Shabaab remains one of the most prolific jihadist organizations on the planet. It, too, does not hide its fealty to Zawahiri. Thousands of Shabaab fighters battle African forces regularly and still control significant territory. Shabaab is most infamous these days for its high-profile massacres in Kenya, such as at the Westgate mall in 2013 and Garissa University College earlier this year. Shabaab has a long history of exporting terrorism throughout East Africa, where it is attempting to build a radical Islamic nation on behalf of al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and affiliated groups remain a potent force in North and West Africa. Groups such Ansar al Sharia, Ansar Dine and others all operate within AQIM’s orbit and are regularly engaged in heavy fighting against their opponents.
Al Murabitoon, led by Mohkthar Belmokhtar, is another al Qaeda group that operates in North and West Africa. Belmokhtar, a former AQIM commander, is a Zawahiri loyalist. His group has reportedly claimed responsibility for a hotel siege in Mali earlier today.
To this brief sketch we can add a number of al Qaeda-affiliated organizations around the globe. But the point is that al Qaeda has a guerilla army totaling tens of thousands of fighters across a large geographic expanse.
AQIS, AQAP, AQIM, Al Nusrah Front, Shabaab – these are al Qaeda’s regional branches. Each of them is fighting to implement al Qaeda-style sharia law in its designated region. All of them are part of Zawahiri’s organization. They have not been “neutralize[d].”
Al Qaeda realized long ago that this is a generational war, and the next generation of leaders are fighting in several countries today. The US government still doesn’t get it.
Over the past several days, US officials have celebrated the capture of Baiji from the Islamic State. While doing so, they have praised the role that Iranian-supported Shiite militias have played in capturing the strategic central Iraqi city. These are the same militias that are responsible for killing hundreds of US soldiers just a few years ago, and many of these militia leaders are listed as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. Additionally, the US is continuing to provide air support to aid these groups.
Both the US military and the Obama administration’s Deputy Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (the outdated acronym for the Islamic State) issued statements that praised the role the Shiite militias played in recapturing Baiji.
Brett McGurk, the Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL [another acronym for the Islamic State], tweeted that the “US commends progress by Iraqi Security Forces and popular mobilization forces [emphasis ours] against ISIL terrorists in Baiji.” He also confirmed that the US has launched around 130 airstrikes in support of these groups since August.
1/3 The U.S. commends progress by Iraqi Security Forces & popular mobilization forces against#ISIL terrorists in #Bayji. #Beiji#بيجي
McGurk’s plaudits for the role that the “popular mobilization forces” have played in Baiji was echoed by the US military, which called these units “Shiia [sic] security forces.”
Army Major Mike Filanowski, an officer in the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), said that “The people who did the heavy lifting [in Baiji] were the Iraqi special forces.” He continued by saying, “they not only secured the [Baiji] oil refinery, but also the power plant to the north all the way up to the al-Fatah Bridge.” While the Iraqi special forces did help capture the refinery, they were not the only forces doing the “heavy lifting.”
The Department of Defense press release that quoted Filanowski admitted that the Popular Mobilization Committee (also called Popular Mobilization Units or Popular Mobilization Forces), was conducting operations.
“In the last three days, a special operations team from the elite Counterterrorism Service spearheaded the attack,” the DoD statement said. “The team worked with Iraqi army soldiers, Popular Mobilization Front forces — essentially Shiia security forces — and federal police” [emphasis ours].
So while the US commends the Iraqi Security Forces and the Popular Mobilization Committee, it is also lauding designated terrorists and a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The Popular Mobilization Committee is led by Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, a former commander in the Badr Organization who was listed by the US government as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in July 2009. The US government described Muhandis, whose real name is Jamal Jaafar Mohammed, as “an advisor to Qassem Soleimani,” the commander of the Qods Force, the external operations wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The Iranian-backed Shiite militias that played a prominent role in the assault on Baiji include: Asa’ib al Haq (League of the Righteous), whose leader Qais al Khazali is thought to be involved in the murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in 2007; Hezbollah Brigades, which is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US government; Harakat al Nujaba, which recently called for the expulsion of US troops from Iraq; Harakat al Nujaba, which is led by Akram Abbas al Kaabi, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist; Kata’ib Imam Ali, led by Shebl al Zaydi, who is close to Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani; Kata’ib Sayyid al Shuhada, which is commanded by Mustafa al Sheibani, who is also a Specially Designated Global Terrorist; and Badr Corps, another large militia supported by Iran. For more information the role these militias played in the retaking of Baiji, including photographs and video of Iraqi forces operating alongside these militias, see LWJ report, Iraqi Army, Shiite militias report success in Baiji.
Sadly, this behavior by US officials is nothing new. Earlier this year, General (retired) John Allen, the former Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, claimed that the US is only supporting so-called moderate Shiite militas, and not the “extremist elements.” Allen’s statement is below:
With regard to militias, it’s really important to understand that the militias are not just a single monolithic entity. There are the militias that you and I are used to hearing that have close alignments with Iran. Those are the extremist elements, and we don’t have anything to do with that. But there are elements of the Shia militias that volunteered last year to try to defend Iraq from the onslaught of Daesh [Islamic State] who were called to arms by Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and those elements, or the Popular Mobilization Force, as they are known, have been subordinated to the Iraqi higher military campaign or command. And they will provide maneuver capacity and additional firepower to the Iraqi Security Forces as we continue to build them out, as we continue to build the professionalization of the Iraqi forces.
So the fact that militias are involved and tribes are involved in this part of the campaign, this part of the implementation of supporting Iraq ultimately to recover the country, should not alarm us. We just need to ensure that we manage the outcome of this. Prime Minister Abadi’s been clear that these organizations within the Popular Mobilization Force, the Shia volunteers, will eventually either transition into the security forces themselves or go home. That’s the solution that he intends and I think that that’s a supportable outcome. So for now – this goes back to the point that you made about urgency – urgency is an important factor here in helping us to focus on supporting the Iraqis, the tribes, and the Popular Mobilization Force to take those actions necessary to defeat Daesh locally.
Allen said that the fact that the US is supporting the Popular Mobilization Committee “should not alarm us.” Except it should alarm us. Because as we detailed, the organization’s operational leader is a Specially Designated Terrorist, and its most effective militias are Iranian pawns that are responsible for killing hundreds of US soldiers and remain openly hostile to the US.
They will not drive us out because we have nowhere else to go | Anne’s Opinions, October 14th 2015 Professor William Jacobson, (a law professor at Cornell University, an avowed conservative, Zionist and staunch defender of Israel, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting a couple of times in Israel) who runs the law-blog Legal Insurrection kindly invited me to write a guest post on how we Israelis are feeling during this onslaught of terror. You can read my post at LI . Following is a slightly different version, taking into account the events of the past couple of days – anneinpt)
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The words in my headline express what I and most of my family, friends and acquaintances are feeling at the moment. And yet, being obedient citizens and not generally of a murderous nature even when faced with an onslaught of terror, these feelings are not expressed in anything more violent than a noisy demonstration (which was cancelled last night precisely because of the security situation) and angry talkbacks or letters to the editor.
Even so, when Professor Jacobson asked if I wanted to wrote a post describing how we Israelis are feeling under the current onslaught of terror and vicious incitement, I thought to myself “How do I expand “furious, angry, frightened and frustrated” into a few hundred words? It is rather hard to put these harsh emotions into words and explain how they affect our lives, but I shall try.
Having taken not one single survey, (so my apologies for generalizing and extrapolating from my own emotions) I think the dominant feeling amongst the Israeli populace is not fear or terror (though there is that too) but anger, accompanied by a good deal of frustration.
We are angry at the government, particularly at Binyamin Netanyahu who urges us not to let the terror affect our lives. Mr. Netanyahu, it IS affecting our lives! How could it not? And yet, we are also frustrated because we know that Bibi is right. We were more frustrated a few days ago because we felt the government wasn’t being forceful enough in confronting the wave of terror, and concentrating on defensive rather than offensive steps. But they seem to be on the right path now, with the piling on of extra security in Jerusalem, on public transport and on the roads, plus easing the rules of engagement for the police and IDF and easing the way to obtaining a gun licence.
For example, here is the (Arab) Joint List MK Zahalka screaming at Israelis;
“Why are you letting them in? It’s a disgrace, only to hurt Muslims’ feelings. This is not yours, get out of here, go home, you’re not wanted,”
Watch the video:
They are arsonists in a bone-dry forest, and they are as responsible for the terror as those miserable kids who are going around stabbing Israelis. The one piece of good news about which Israelis were very happy today (if that’s the right word) is that Bibi called for a criminal investigation against Hanin Zoabi for calling for a popular intifada. But knowing our soft-left Attorney General, I’m not holding my breath for an indictment to emerge.
It is not only the average Israeli who is angry at the Arab MKs. In a very unusual scenario, the Arab mayor of Nazareth, Ali Salam, hurled a furious tirade against MK Ayman Odeh, the head of the United Arab List, accusing him and the rest of his party of “ruining” the city.
The unrest throughout Israel, in which dozens of stabbings and rock attacks have taken place in recent weeks, has caused a dearth of traffic in public places throughout the country, and has badly hurt the economy of Israeli Arab-owned businesses in Nazareth, Jaffa, Ramle, and other areas with large Arab populations.
Salam, frustrated with the situation, spotted Odeh speaking to the Channel Two reporter – and in the midst of the interview, began screaming at the MK in Arabic, telling him how he had “ruined this city, ruined everything. We did not have even one Jew here today, not one.
“What are giving interviews for? You have done nothing! You have destroyed the world! Get Out of here!,” screamed Salam, venting his frustration.
Watch the video:
We are upset, and more than a bit mystified, at the President – Rivlin, not Obama (though him too, but that’s another story) for asserting that we are not at war with Islam. Those are pretty words meant to tamp down the fire that threatens to engulf us, especially in Jerusalem, and they may be true in theory, but in practice, Islam is at war with us. How does one square that circle? Not facing up to reality has been the cause of most of our woes.
We are both furious and frustrated with Mahmoud Abbas who incites to murder out of one side of his mouth with dreadful libels about the Jews desecrating Al-Aqsa with “their filthy feet“:
Yet calls for calm from his own chieftains, and then again pronounces his solidarity with the Temple Mount rioters from the other side of his mouth. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot be arsonist and firefighter, though the world seems to have no problem accepting him as such.
We are angry, frustrated and terrified of our own hotheads who take the law into their own hands and who could ignite a civil war with the throw of a stone or the touch of a match.
We are spitting mad at the international media who distort, lie, slander and generally lie about Israel, and in particular about our efforts at self-defence. No matter what we do or how we go about it, you can be sure that the BBC, CNN, the NYT et al will distort the news into “all the news that we see fit to print, and if it’s not to our liking, we’ll edit it or invent it accordingly”.
And I’ve been wondering, not for the first time, what it would take for the world to wake up and acknowledge — without equivocation, resort to moral equivalence, or diplomatic gobbledygook — that Israel, the lone liberal democracy in the Middle East, is facing violence that must be condemned unequivocally, and that it, like any other nation, has the obligation to defend itself.
It’s striking how, when it comes to these issues, some otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people in government, media, or think tanks, just shut down their critical faculties. Instead, they resort to a Pavlovian response mechanism that essentially rejects any possible legitimacy for the Israeli position and blindly defends whatever Palestinian narrative comes along.
In this mindset, if Israelis are being shot or stabbed, they must have done something to “deserve” it.
If Israeli authorities mobilize the army and police to stop the terrorism, then, by definition, Israel is using “excessive force.”
No matter how inflammatory President Abbas’s speeches at the UN may be, he is a man of “peace.”
No matter how many times Israeli leaders call for face-to-face negotiations with the Palestinians, Israel is always branded as the “obstacle” to peace.
Isn’t it long overdue to get real, see things as they actually are, and stop living in a world of self-imposed illusions and falsehoods?
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While they do not hesitate to push, prod, and criticize Israel when they believe, rightly or wrongly, that Israel isn’t acting in the spirit of a two-state vision, they’re too often deafeningly silent when it comes to Palestinian behavior — including right now.
This double standard is the height of condescension or, indeed, infantilization.
Regarding the causes of this Palestinian blood fetish, Western news organizations have resorted to familiar tropes. Palestinians have despaired at the results of the peace process—never mind that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas just declared the Oslo Accords null and void. Israeli politicians want to allow Jews to pray atop the Temple Mount—never mind that Benjamin Netanyahu denies it and has barred Israeli politicians from visiting the site. There’s always the hoary “cycle of violence” formula that holds nobody and everybody accountable at one and the same time.
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And would this be supplemented by the usual fake math of moral opprobrium, which is the stock-in-trade of reporters covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? In the Middle East version, a higher Palestinian death toll suggests greater Israeli culpability. (Perhaps Israeli paramedics should stop treating stabbing victims to help even the score.) In a U.S. version, should the higher incidence of black-on-white crime be cited to “balance” stories about white supremacists?
Didn’t think so.
Treatises have been written about the media’s mind-set when it comes to telling the story of Israel. We’ll leave that aside for now. The significant question is why so many Palestinians have been seized by their present blood lust—by a communal psychosis in which plunging knives into the necks of Jewish women, children, soldiers and civilians is seen as a religious and patriotic duty, a moral fulfillment. Despair at the state of the peace process, or the economy? Please. It’s time to stop furnishing Palestinians with the excuses they barely bother making for themselves.
We are angry at the Administration who “urge us to be calm” but don’t urge the Arabs to turn off the terror. And we’re both highly amused yet really furious at the inane John Kerry who appears dangerously clueless or menacingly malevolent when it comes to understanding the Middle East. Click on the links within the following tweets to read the relevant stories:
Kerry's comments linking Pal terror to isr settlements will encourage more terror and push Israel to settle more http://t.co/DPt0G6KY1g
The Elder of Ziyon has produced a great debunking of Kerry’s lies. proving that the conflict is not about the settlements at all:
The truth is that there has been next to no expansion. No land is being “gobbled up” by the supposedly voracious Jews. No Arab houses are being demolished so that Jews could move in.
The only reason these lies are so accepted is because people like John Kerry want to believe them.
More sickening is the idea that Kerry is justifying Arab violence by ascribing a bogus reason to it.
We are frustrated and depressed at the thought of this violence sparking up every few years for the smallest of reasons.
I find it profoundly depressing, almost nauseating, to realize that with the anti-Israel indoctrination by UNRWA-run schools with their extremist teachers, the anti-Jewish incitement from the rest of the Palestinian education system, and the malign influence of the Palestinian media, yet another generation of Palestinian children is brainwashed into vicious and unreasonable Jew-hatred, and there is not a chance in hell of us ever reaching any kind of workable way for the two nations to live at least in an armed truce if not peace in our little country.
It is terrifying to understand that the Palestinian masses can be “switched on” into an almost zombie-like mass hysteria by a few words – false words, vicious words, words that can, and do, light a conflagration; those words being “the Jews are attacking the Al-Aqsa Mosque!”.
Palestinian cartoons of incitement against Jews
It is even worse to bear when we all know that those words are utterly false. How many times does Bibi have to swear that Israel has no designs on the Mosque, that the Jews are not interested in entering the Mosque, that we have not changed that unholy status quo one iota; in fact it is the Muslims themselves who have changed the status quo by turning the holy site into a battlefield, complete with rocks, firecrackers and even weapons, ready to be turned on the Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below the Mosque and on the Israeli police and troops who are there to protect those worshippers.
On these two subjects, the indoctrination of Palestinian children, and the Temple Mount libels, I would recommend two excellent articles from the Times of Israel, both of which describe the profoundly depressing nature of the conflict and its insolubility:
This generation of Palestinian youth has been named the “children of Oslo” by Palestinian society. They were born after the Oslo agreements of 1993, and after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. They have heard about the old model of the Israeli occupation, but don’t really know what it means. The Palestinian Authority, from their perspective, has been the government since before they were born, yet they view it with open contempt and suspicion.
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They’re addicted to the Internet and, of course, to Facebook. The official media outlets of the Authority, such as Palestinian television and radio stations, are so 1990s. They pass around videos and messages in WhatsApp and other apps — like the video of the terrorist from Nazareth who was shot in Afula by cops after they surrounded her on all sides — and in that way create a communication and news network all their own. Even al-Jazeera seems to them “news for old people.”
Yet more incitement from the Palestinian Authority
There is an almost surreal aspect to this particular eruption of conflict: Israel has been plunged into a terror war because of a false assertion that it intends to allow Jewish prayer at the holiest place in Judaism. This rather begs the question of why Israel would not allow Jewish prayer at the holiest place in Judaism, which it captured and liberated, to a great outpouring of Jewish emotion in the 1967 war.
The answer? Utilizing the rabbinical halachic consensus that forbids Jews from setting foot on the Temple Mount for fear of desecrating the site of the Holy of Holies, Israel’s defense minister 48 years ago, Moshe Dayan, took the pragmatic decision not to fully realize renewed Jewish sovereignty at the Temple Mount, and therefore not to risk a religious confrontation with the Muslim world. Instead, Israel opted to bar Jewish prayer there and to permit the Jordanian-run Waqf authority to continue to administer the Muslim holy places. That Israeli forbearance has all too evidently been misunderstood and misrepresented among many Palestinians as evidence that the Jewish state has no genuine attachment to the Mount. That Israeli forbearance is now rewarded with violence.
As to the fear that we are experiencing, yes, we are scared of the terrorist acts that are popping up all around us, not only on the dangerous roads of Samaria, but in the middle of Jerusalem, in our major cities like Tel Aviv and Hadera (and even my quiet little hometown of Petach Tikva!), and on our major highways.
But we Israelis have known a lot worse. The deadly days of the Second Intifada are not easily forgotten, when we thought twice about going to the mall or riding a bus into town. Yet we did go to the mall and ride those buses and eat in those pizzerias; we just did it all with our eyes darting around and our ears sharpened for strange noises. My own method for dealing with the terror in those days was: no mooching in the mall if it was for no particular reason (that applied mainly to my teenage children), but if you need to go there to buy something, then go. Ditto for driving in Judea and Samaria, for eating out etc. In other words, the terror did affect our way of life, but we tried to minimize the impact as much as possible. We simply hunkered down and just got on with it.
That is the attitude that is starting to take effect now as well, at least for myself and my circle of family and friends. We are trying to carry on as normally as possible: my husband still drove on Route 443 from Jerusalem the other day although it is regularly stoned along the way because it was the quickest way home; my son drives in and out of his settlement because he has to work near Tel Aviv even though an IED was discovered on the approach road a couple of days ago. But – I admit I’m having second and third thoughts about visiting both him and our daughter in her settlement because there have been several stoning attacks and even, allegedly, a shooting the other day. For the moment I can wait a while to see my grandchildren. But for how long? At some point, if this situation continues, I will take the risk to drive out there. I can’t stay away forever. And the settlement’s residents too have to drive in and out in their daily lives.
For that is the one thing that the Arab world has not internalized about us – they will never drive us out, no matter how much terror they pour on us, no matter how much delegitimization they activate against us in the international sphere, no matter what weapons they launch at us.
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanayhu. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
As an American citizen living in Jerusalem, I recently received two notifications from the U.S. State Department warning of “potential for violence in the Old City,” restricting U.S. government employees from entering the Old City from Sunday, Oct. 4 through Tuesday, Oct. 13 “without prior approval from the U.S. Consulate,” and recommending that “private U.S. citizens take into consideration these restrictions and the additional guidance contained in the Department of State’s travel warning for Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank when making decisions regarding their travel in the Old City and in Jerusalem.”
My initial reaction was laughter. The messages were casually sent as if we don’t know there is “potential for violence in the Old City.” Dozens of Jews have been attacked in the last week, many in the Old City. The tension is obvious to anyone here — we go to sleep listening to the helicopters explore the skies and we wake up to a climbing death toll at the hands of Arab terrorists in Jerusalem.
But then, I realized how truly sad this message is that I received. We are all painfully aware of what’s happening here; but up until now, we weren’t actually sure that the U.S. government knew what was happening. There have been at best tepid public condemnations of the attacks and murders, with barely a mention of the victims being Jews. But now that the United States is indeed aware that terrorists are targeting Jews in Israel like myself, the sad fact is that there is nothing being done about it. Moreover, when we defend ourselves, media outlets and the U.S. government are touting the terrorists as the victims.
On Oct. 1, President Obama pulled John Kerry and Samantha Power from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s U.N. speech to the General Assembly. As reported by Reuters, “During Netanyahu’s speech, Washington was represented by U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power’s deputy, David Pressman, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro.” Hard to read this as not a slap in the face of the Jewish State.
In addition to signing a nuclear deal with Iran and boycotting the Israeli prime minister’s speech, the Palestinian flag was raised in New York City at the U.N. just the day before. This is the same flag being raised in the streets of Ramallah when Palestinians murdered two Jewish parents in front of their four children. Evan Cohen, in the Jerusalem Post, points out this fact: “The kind of celebration one might have expected earlier this week [was] the kind of celebration they reserve only for the happiest of events — dead Jews.”
Why is the Palestinian flag being raised in New York City at the U.N. headquarters, while on the other side of the world, Palestinians are raising the same flag in celebration of the slaughter of innocent people? The America that I know would not support this. Aren’t we supposed to stand for justice, religious freedom, and the simple right to life? As a Jewish American, I am choosing to live in the Jewish State, not in Nazi Germany where we needed to fear being attacked on the basis of our peoplehood. Even still, the U.S. government seems silent instead of supporting the Jewish people and even their own citizens in Israel.
Sadly, the media is even worse than silent, it is hilariously biased. On Oct. 3, a 19-year-old Palestinian terrorist stabbed and killed two Jewish men and wounded several others (including a toddler) in the Old City, as they were on their way to the Western Wall. Police shot the terrorist during the stabbing, and Al Jazeera reported the terrorist attack as “Palestinian shot dead after fatal stabbing in Jerusalem; 2 Israeli victims also killed.” Likewise, Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel student group on campuses across North America, said that the Palestinian was “brutally murdered while heading to work.” Little did they mention his work was killing Jews and he was killed as he murdered the so-called “Jewish colonialists”.
Unfortunately it is quite common for noise to be made only when Israel is the one to strike someone dead, even if it is a terrorist caught in the act. Such is true for the media, and perhaps now even for the U.S. government.
he Obama administration is set to overhaul the Defense Department’s $500 million program to train and equip Syrian rebels, according to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The US president is expected to speak on the matter later on Friday.
Carter said during a Friday news conference in London that Washington has been “looking for several weeks at ways to improve” the program.
He added that he “wasn’t satisfied with the early efforts” of the program, and that Washington is looking for “different ways to achieve the same kind of strategic objective.”
“I think you’ll be hearing very shortly from [President Obama] in that regard about the proposals that he has approved and that we are going to go forward with,” Carter said following a meeting with his British counterpart Michael Fallon.
Meanwhile, a Pentagon official told The New York Times that the recruitment of so-called moderate Syrian rebels to go through training programs in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will end.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added that a much smaller training center will be opened in Turkey, where a small number of “enablers” – mostly leaders of opposition groups – will be taught operational maneuvers, such as how to call in airstrikes.
A separate US defense official said on Friday that the training program is not ending, but is simply being refocused. Speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, the official said that some US training and vetting of Syrian forces would continue, Reuters reported.
Speaking to RT, political analyst Dan Glazebrook said “it was obvious that something was going to have to change…my opinion has always been that this whole business about funding moderate rebels has always been a bit of a fantasy, for a number of reasons.”
“There’s nothing moderate about what they’re being trained to do. There’s nothing moderate about forming a militia and then going and killing as many police and soldiers of a sovereign state as you can. And that’s assuming the best case scenario that they’re only attacking police and soldiers…”
He added that there’s “no great surprise that Russia has achieved more in a week of airstrikes than a 62-power coalition has achieved in a year against ISIS.”
A top US General told Congress in September that only “four or five” US-trained rebels were still fighting on the ground, with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ga.) calling the program a “total failure.”
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at the time that the small number “certainly raises legitimate questions about what kinds of changes need to be made to this program.”
Senator John McCain has been a vocal critic of Obama’s campaign against ISIS in Syria.
“One year into this campaign, it seems impossible to assert that [Islamic State] is losing and that we are winning. And if you’re not winning in this kind of warfare, you are losing,” McCain said in September.
It comes just one day after reports of a funding bill which earmarks $600 million to support “appropriately vetted” Syrian rebels fighting against both ISIS and the Assad government.
The $500 million training program has experienced multiple setbacks. The first group of trainees disbanded soon after being sent into combat, with some captured or killed and others fleeing. A second class of troops introduced only a small number of new fighters. The original plan, devised in December 2014, aimed to prepare as many as 5,400 fighters this year, and 15,000 over the next three years.
A State Department official closely involved in the Obama administration’s Iran push has been promoting publications from anti-Semitic conspiracy sites and other radical websites that demonize American Jewish groups and Israel, according to sources and documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Alan Eyre, the State Department’sPersian-language spokesman and a member of the negotiating delegation that struck a nuclear deal with Iran earlier this year, has in recent months disseminated articles that linked American-Jewish skeptics of the deal to shadowy financial networks, sought to soften the image of Iranian terrorists with American blood on their hands, and linked deal criticism to a vast “neoconservative worldview.”
Eyre described the one article, penned by the anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Stephen Walt, as having an “interesting thesis.”
Insiders who spoke to the Free Beacon about Eyre’s private postings pointed to a pattern of partisanship and called it a sign that key officials at the State Department are biased against the state of Israel. Such criticism has dogged the team Obama since the early days of the administration.
Eyre regularly briefed U.S. officials at the negotiating table and was responsible for proofreading draft texts of the recent Iranian nuclear agreement.
While Eyre has a public Facebook page officially sponsored by the State Department, screenshots taken from his private personal account obtained by the Free Beacon include content that insiders described as concerning.
In one Feb. 13 posting, when Iran talks were at a critical stage, Eyre disseminated a link to an article praising Iranian Quds Force Chief Ghassem Suleimani, who is directly responsible for the deaths of Americans abroad.
Suleimani, who is listed as a terrorist by the U.S. State Department, will have international sanctions against him waived under the parameters of the nuclear accord.
In another posting from Feb. 5, Eyre links to the website LobeBlog, which is viewed by critics as anti-Israel and regularly attacks neoconservative pundits.”
The article Eyre links to, “Who Are the Billionaires Attacking Obama’s Iran Diplomacy,” attacks opponents of the Iranian deal and insinuates that wealthy Jewish donors are behind this push.
The article puts particular emphasis on the Israel Project (TIP), a non-profit advocacy organization run by Josh Block, a longtime Democrat, and claimed that wealthy Jewish individuals were behind a stealth campaign to kill the deal. TIP is portrayed as playing a crucial role in discrediting the deal and convincing lawmakers to take a stance against it.
The article was penned by a former ThinkProgress blogger, Eli Clifton, who was forced out of the Center for American Progress-backed blog following a scandal in which several writers accused Iran deal critics of being “Israel firsters.”
In another posting, Eyre links to an article by Stephen Walt, co-author of the book The Israel Lobby, which has been branded by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an “anti-Jewish screed.”
Walt lashes out in the piece at neoconservative critics of the Iran deal, writing that “no one should listen to their advice today.”
Eyre linked to the piece with the comment, “interesting thesis.” He then quoted Walt at length, according to a screenshot:
The real problem is that the neoconservative worldview — one that still informs the thinking of many of the groups and individuals who are most vocal in opposing the Iran deal — is fundamentally flawed. Getting Iraq wrong wasn’t just an unfortunate miscalculation, it happened because their theories of world politics were dubious and their understanding of how the world works was goofy.
Eyre also appeared to express disappointment online in March, when Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 other Republican lawmakers penned an open letter to Iran opposing the nuclear talks.
Eyre links to a March 9 Washington Postarticle by Paul Pillar, an Israel critic who backs boycotts of the Jewish state, titled ‘The misguided, condescending letter from Republican senators to Iran.’ He then opined in the post, “Seriously. Can someone write them a letter telling them that the most fundamental duty of Congress is to pass a budget?”
At least one of Eyre’s Facebook friends has quibbled with his postings.
When Eyre linked to a Talking Points Memoarticle claiming that “49 percent of Republicans don’t believe in evolution,” one critic commented: “This post is total crap. Some 300 people were polled, and the polling criteria were, of course, not specified. This outfit has a deserved reputation as a left-leaning, professionally anti-Republican Flak Tank.”
Eyre dismissed that criticism, responding, “If you are going to fact check every incendiary posting I put up, it is going to detract from the sum total of my facebook-derived frivolity.”
In addition to his postings, Eyre has appeared as a keynote speaker at the National Iranian American Council’s Washington, D.C., conference.
The council, which has been accused as serving as a pro-Tehran lobbying shop, has helped the Obama administration disseminate pro-Iran talking points and champion the deal in the public sphere. Its top officials also have insinuatedthat Jewish lawmakers who oppose the deal have more loyalty to Israel than America.
One senior official at a Washington, D.C., pro-Israel organization expressed disappointment but not surprise at Eyre’s posting.
“The easiest way to explain the State Department’s behavior toward the Middle East is to assume that they don’t like the Israelis very much and they have this romantic fascination with Iran,” the source said. “That’s what you’re seeing here.”
“Of course they can’t admit that out loud, because the American people believe exactly the opposite, so they do it through passive-aggressive Facebook posts and occasional slips of the tongue about how moderate and sophisticated the Iranians are,” the source added.
A State Department spokesman declined to comment on Eyre’s personal postings when contacted by the Free Beacon.
“Alan Eyre is the Department’s Persian Language Spokesperson,” the official said. “In that capacity, he maintains his official page on Facebook here,” the spokesman continued, providing a link to the page.
The Facebook page in question, however, is separate from Eyre’s public-facing personal page referenced by the State Department, which said it had no knowledge of the second page.
“We’re not aware of any such content that you refer to posted on that account,” the official said.
The official did not respond to follow-up requests asking for comment from Eyre on the postings.
A bombshell report by the Washington Times reveals that fecklessness in the face of terror isn’t a condition exclusive to the Obama administration. “Bill Clinton’s administration gathered enough evidence to send a top-secret communique accusing Iran of facilitating the deadly 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist bombing,” the Times states, “but suppressed that information from the American public and some elements of U.S. intelligence for fear it would lead to an outcry for reprisal, according to documents and interviews.”
Nineteen American servicemen were killed in that attack and another 372 people were wounded when a tanker laden with plastic explosives was driven into the parking lot and detonated next to the eight-story dormitory used for U.S. Air Force personnel assigned to the Gulf. A U.S. indictment was issued in 2001 charging 13 Saudis and a Lebanese man with the crime for which then-Attorney General John Ashcroft blamed Iran, stating they “inspired, supported and supervised members of Saudi Hezbollah.” Yet no Iranian officials were named or charged, nor was the Iranian government accused of any legal responsibility for the atrocity.
According to memos obtain by the Times, the intelligence demonstrating Iranian involvement in the attack was characterized as extensive and credible. It included interviews by the FBI of a half-dozen Saudi co-conspirators who told the agency their passports were provided by the Iranian embassy in Damascus. They further revealed they reported to a top Iranian general, and received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), according to FBI officials.
The Times further notes the revelation about what former President Clinton knew has taken on “new significance” due to the August announcement that Ahmed al-Mughassil, described by the FBI in 2001 as both head of the military wing of Saudi Hezbollah and the alleged leader of the attack, had been captured. According to the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, al-Mughassil was arrested in Beirut and transferred to Riyadh. U.S. officials contend his capture has revealed new evidence of Iran’s and Hezbollah’s complicity in the attack—as well as Clinton administration efforts to shield both from responsibility.
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh minced no words describing what occurred. “The bottom line was they weren’t interested,” he stated during an interview. “They were not at all responsive to it. They were looking to change the relationships with the regime there, which is foreign policy. And the FBI has nothing to do with that. They didn’t like that. But I did what I thought was proper.”
Freeh insists that when he initially sought help from the Clinton White House to gain access to the Saudi suspects, he was repeatedly turned down. When he went around the Clinton and succeeded in bringing the evidence to light, it was dismissed as “hearsay,” and a request was made not to disseminate it to others because the administration was endeavoring to improve relations with the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror. Freeh was also dismissed as a partisan when he revealed the same allegations in a book he wrote a decade ago about his time with the bureau. The same Clinton defenders further insisted the evidence obtained by Freeh was inconclusive.
“But since that time, substantial new information has emerged in declassified memos, oral history interviews with retired government officials and other venues that corroborate Mr. Freeh’s account, including that the White House tried to cut off the flow of evidence about Iran’s involvement to certain elements of the intelligence community,” the Times reports.
Damning memo sent in 1999 by Clinton to newly-elected Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.
The chief piece of evidence cited by the paper is a damning memo sent in 1999 by Clinton to newly-elected Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Clinton stated the American government “has received credible evidence that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), along with members of Lebanese and Saudi Hizballah were directly involved in the planning and execution” of the bombing. Clinton insisted the United States viewed the evidence “in the gravest terms,” and though the atrocity had occurred before Khatami’s election those responsible “have yet to face justice for this crime.” Clinton further stated “the IRGC may be involved in planning for further terrorist attacks against American citizens,” and that such a possibility remains a “cause of deep concern to us.”
The 2001 indictment was issued after Clinton left office, and whatever doubt remained about Iranian involvement in the crime was shattered in 2006, when U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that Iran was responsible for the bombing, and ordered the Iranian government to pay $254 million to the families of 17 Americans who died. “The totality of the evidence at trial . . . firmly establishes that the Khobar Towers bombing was planned, funded, and sponsored by senior leadership in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Lamberth wrote.
Following the linkage of Iran to the attack, Clinton had initially ordered the military to come up with plan for a retaliatory strike, and gave the CIA the green light to pursue “Operation Sapphire” aimed at disrupting Iranian intel operations in several nations. Yet just like our current president, Clinton believed the election of the ostensibly more moderate Khatami would produce a thaw in the U.S./Iranian relationship leading to Iran aiding the investigation, and renouncing terror.
Iran pushed back with a vehement denial—and a threat to publish Clinton’s cable to Khatami. Clinton officials were scared such a revelation would force the president’s hand. “If the Iranians make good on their threats to release the text of our letter, we are going to face intense pressure to take action,” wrote top Clinton aide Kenneth Pollack in a Sept. 15, 1999 memo.
As the evidence linking Iran to the crime piled up, the administration was backing down, speculating that Saudi Arabia was fanning a Shia-Sunni confrontation and that it would be better to work with the new Iranian regime rather than dealing with the possibility of engendering a wider war against terror, according to former aides. Thus, despite the State Department and FBI getting increased cooperation from the Saudis with regard to Iranian involvement, the flow of information suddenly stopped. “We were seeing a line of traffic that led us toward Iranian involvement, and suddenly that traffic was cut off,” said career intelligence officer Wayne White, who served as deputy director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia.
When White tried to get the intel flowing again, he discovered “the stream had been cut off by Sandy Berger, and the original agency producing the intelligence was struggling to work around the roadblock,” he said. Berger was Clinton’s top security aide—and the man who was fined $50,000 following his 2008 conviction for illegally removing highly classified documents from the National Archives, some of which he intentionally destroyed.
White’s account was confirmed to the Times by several U.S. officials “with direct knowledge of the matter” including Freeh, who also revealed he tried to get around Berger by contacting former President George H.W. Bush, who had a good relationship with the Saudis. “I explained to him what my dilemma was and asked if he would contact the Saudis. And he did,” Freeh revealed. White noted that intel analysts didn’t want Iran involved in the attack because of the serious long-term ramifications it would engender for America. But when the evidence became irrefutable, he was disgusted with the administration’s politically-motivated reaction. “You cannot provide your intelligence community selective intelligence without corrupting the process, and that was an outrage,” he declared.
It is an outrage allegedly reprised by the Obama administration, which has been accused by 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military’s Central Command of doctoring their reports in an effort to downplay the danger ISIS and the Syrian branch of al Qaeda presented. The same Obama administration got equally traitorous Democrats to sustain a filibuster against the Iran deal in Congress. The GOP abetted the outrage, allowing a vote to proceed despite the law requiring all parts of that agreement, including Iran’s “side deals” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to be part of the process. Their cowardice was exemplified by Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who refused to invoke the nuclear option and force a vote on what is arguably the most important national security issue of our time.
Exactly like Bill Clinton, who also promised us the Agreed Framework of 1994 would prevent a nuclear North Korea, Obama is embracing appeasement with Iranian Islamo-fascists responsible for far more American deaths than the Khobar Towers attack. Beginning with the 1979 hostage crisis, during which Americans were beaten and placed in solitary confinement, Iran has precipitated numerous instances of aggression, including kidnapping and murder, against America. The terror timeline is highlighted by 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, killing 17 Americans and the Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines. Moreover their involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq cost at least 500 American soldiers their lives, according to Congressional testimony presented last July by current Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford. And one is left to wonder if Iran’s propensity for killing Americans was part of the equation to which our contemptible Secretary of State John Kerry referred, when he admitted the part of the Iranian deal that frees up billions of dollars for their use will be devoted to “nefarious activities.”
Like the Clinton administration before them, the Obama administration is indulging the fantasy they can improve relations with terrorist thugs whose contempt for America hasn’t diminished an iota in 37 years. And as these revelations from the Washington Times indicate, Bill Clinton and his apparatchiks were every bit as dishonest as Barack Obama and his equally duplicitous underlings when it came to pursuing an agenda utterly inimical to American interests and security. Make no mistake: both men have demonstrated a willingness to countenance the murder of their fellow countrymen in pursuit of appeasement. Times have changed. The unconscionable nature of the Democratic/progressive mindset with regard to America’s enemies remains a constant.
I think it is very likely the side-deal documents were drafted by the United States and given to the IAEA, which agreed to make them into secret agreements with Iran to finalize the main agreement.
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The pushback against George Jahn’s AP scoop on the IAEA side deal with Iran now includes the allegation that the draft of the side deal posted by the AP is a forgery — perhaps an Israeli forgery. Fred Fleitz has reported the relevant details with links and evidence here at NR’s Corner. Fleitz’s knowledgeable assessment seems reasonable to me:
First, the errors and non-IAEA prose in the AP’s transcribed document appear to indicate a first draft written by a party other than Iran or the IAEA to resolve the Parchin issue. This is consistent with my assessment that the side deal documents were drafted by the United States and handed to the IAEA to finalize after U.S. diplomats were unable to resolve the issues of the Parchin military base and possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program during the talks. The AP says it was told by two anonymous officials that this document is a draft and “does not differ from the final, confidential agreement between the IAEA and Iran.” I believe it probably is a first draft written by a political appointee at the State Department or an NSC staffer.
Second, to believe this is a forgery one has to believe George Jahn and the Associated Press were deceived by two anonymous diplomats or U.S. officials. I doubt this could happen to a reporter as experienced as Jahn. (MSNBC believes otherwise and attacked Jahn as “not a real reporter” for his article.) The AP is standing by this story and I doubt it would put its reputation on the line if it did not believe Jahn’s article was rock solid.
Third, claims by backers of the Iran deal that this is an Israeli forgery are nonsense. If the Israelis wanted to do a forgery like this it would be perfect. An Israeli foreign ministry or intelligence officer would never use the wrong terminology for Iran.
My bottom line is that the side-deal document transcribed by the AP is not a forgery but a first draft written by a third party that is essentially the same as the final version agreed to by the IAEA and Iran. The outstanding question is who wrote this initial draft. Given Secretary Kerry’s efforts in May and June to drop the issues of the Parchin base and possible military dimensions, I think it is very likely the side-deal documents were drafted by the United States and given to the IAEA, which agreed to make them into secret agreements with Iran to finalize the main agreement.
Fleitz adds in the final paragraph of his post that “what [Jahn] reported apparently is consistent with classified briefings provided to Congress on the secret side deals[.]”
I trust that all will become clear in time. The relevant self-inspection provisions of the side deal are so absurd that they should be fraudulent. Consistent with Fleitz’s conclusion, however, I believe they will prove to be an integral part of the finalized side deal. Neither the administration nor the IAEA disputes the accuracy of Jahn’s reportage. I conclude that the terms of the side deal reported by Jahn are a joke, but not a forgery.
US President Barack Obama is reportedly seeking to lower that fine – following a series of conflicts between officials from the State Department and the Justice Department over the issue, an official involved in the case told the New York Times Tuesday.
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Washington asks a judge presiding over terror victims’ compensation case to reduce money paid to Israelis injured during Second Intifada.
The Obama administration has asked a judge Monday to “carefully consider” the size of the bond demanded from the Palestinian Authority (PA) for its role orchestrating years of terror attacks against Israelis and Jews – directly interfering in a US court case.
In February, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – the terror group behind the PA – was found liable to pay $218.5 million to victims of terror, a figure that was set to be tripled to $655.5 million according to the anti-terrorism laws under which the case was brought.
Legal rights group Shurat Hadin (Israel Law Center) helped represent the 11 families who charge the PA and PLO of inciting, supporting, planning and executing the seven terror attacks which killed American citizens between 2000 and 2004.
In May, the PA admitted it cannot pay such a hefty fine, however – as it is struggling under billions of debt despite an ongoing stream of aid from Israel and other countries – and called the case “political extortion.”
Now, US President Barack Obama is reportedly seeking to lower that fine – following a series of conflicts between officials from the State Department and the Justice Department over the issue, an official involved in the case told the New York Times Tuesday.
In a document entitled “Statement of Interest of the United States of America,” the Obama administration expressed concerns over the payments hurting the PA’s basic government services.
Forcing the PLO to pay “a significant portion of its revenues would likely severely compromise the P.A.’s ability to operate as a governmental authority,” deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken wrote. “A P.A. insolvency and collapse would harm current and future U.S.-led efforts to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Blinken stressed in the document, however, that the State Department allegedly values the rights of terror victims to seek “just compensation” and was not taking a position on the case itself, only on the high bond.
“The United States strongly supports the rights of victims of terrorism to vindicate their interests in federal court and to receive just compensation for their injuries,” Blinken claimed.
Justice Department officials have maintained throughout the proceedings that any State Department interference in the case would interfere with the victims’ rights for compensation and justice.
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