These are Obama’s “peace partners” bragging about murdering Israelis. Fatah is under the control of the “moderate” Mahmud Abbas, the man to whom Obama wants Netanyahu to make concessions.
No amount of concessions will end the Palestinian jihad. Islamic Jew-hatred: it’s in the Quran.
Fatah brags it killed 11,000 Israelis”, by Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch, August 3, 2016:
Fatah yesterday posted a list of Fatah’s achievements on behalf of Palestinians. Significantly, Fatah did not cite even one peace-seeking or peace-promoting achievement, but only listed Fatah acts of violence and terror. Fatah even boasted that its attacks have killed 11,000 Israelis. While Fatah and the PLO have been killing Israelis since 1965, this number is a gross exaggeration.
One of the acts it bragged about was being the “first Palestinian faction to reach the [Israeli] nuclear reactor.” This is a reference to Fatah’s bus hijacking and murder of three Israeli civilians on their way to work at the Dimona nuclear plant in 1988.
Throughout the recent terror wave, Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA and Fatah have promoted violence and terror against Israelis, both in Israel and in the West Bank.
The following is yesterday’s Fatah post celebrating and bragging about Fatah’s murder of Israeli civilians:
“To those who argue [with Fatah], to the boors, and to those who do not know history:
Fatah has killed 11,000 Israelis
Fatah has sacrificed 170,000 Martyrs (Shahids)…
Fatah was the first to carry out operations (i.e., terror attacks) during the first Intifada (i.e., Palestinian violence and terror against Israel, 1988-1993), and it was the first Palestinian faction to reach the nuclear reactor in Dimona (i.e., 1988 murder of 3 working mothers on way to the Dimona plant)
Fatah was the first to fight in the second Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005) (Baha Al-Sa’id, an officer in the Preventive Security Forces, infiltrated an Israeli settlement on the border with Gaza) [parenthesis in source]…
Fatah was the first to defeat the Zionist enemy (Battle of El-Karameh) [parenthesis in source]…
Fatah led the Palestinian attack on Israel in the UN.”
[Official Fatah Facebook, Aug. 2, 2016]
PMW reported that Fatah had posted a similar text on its official Facebook page in 2014…
The Russian government is working to pick off Syrian rebels armed and trained by the U.S. to fight against the Islamic State who have often been dissatisfied with Washington’s assistance.
The political leader of a prominent U.S.-backed brigade in Aleppo said he met with a Russian official nearly two weeks ago, who offered him “unlimited amounts of weaponry and close air support” to wage war with ISIS and Jabhat al Nusra, an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group in Syria, the Daily Beast reported Friday.
Mustafa Sejry said members of his Liwa al-Mu’tasim Brigade were concerned about shifting their loyalties to Russia given Moscow’s close alliance with their enemy—the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
“Honestly, I would have never ever even thought about working with the Russians after their horrific atrocities against us and their slaughtering thousands of my own people,” Sejry said. “But this change of mindset I blame on the Americans.”
Sejry said the Russians told him they wanted to “go back to 2012 when there was a government and an opposition,” which would divert resources from the fights against ISIS and other militant groups in the region.
Sejry said he hoped to use Moscow’s offer to leverage improved support from the U.S., but expressed doubt as he described a year and a half of weak American backing and “broken promises,” the Daily Beast reported.
He said he told two U.S. military officials about the Russian offer, but has yet to receive a response.
Sejry’s claims of Russians attempting to poach U.S.-backed Syrian rebels come roughly three weeks after the Obama administration reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin that instructs the two military forces to coordinate joint bombing operations against al Nusra.
The provisional deal mandates the U.S. military to share information with Russia about specific targets in Syria, in exchange for Moscow halting its bombing campaign against U.S.-supported rebels.
Opponents of the pact at the Pentagon and CIA said the Obama administration caved into “Russian bullying” and that Moscow could not be trusted to honor the agreement’s provisions.
Sejry is among the 1,000 Syrian rebels who enlisted in the Pentagon’s train and equip operation. The group threatened to leave the program after U.S. Central Command imposed stern restrictions, including a prohibition on rebels from using their U.S.-provided training or weaponry against Assad’s government.
Sejry said the U.S. pays his fighters infrequently, claiming they’ve received only a months-worth pay during the last three months.
“We feel betrayed. Now other options are on the table,” Sejry said. [The Russians] said, ‘We are more reliable and trustworthy. Just look how we stood with Assad all this time. And look at the Americans. They are not truthful, they’re not supporting you guys. We’ll be 100 percent with you.’”
Netanyahu rejects Obama’s assertion that Israel now supports Iran accord PM says Israel’s position on nuke deal unchanged; Defense Ministry compares it to Munich Agreement with the Nazis
US President Barack Obama, right, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, November 9, 2015. AFP/ SAUL LOEB)
Israel on Friday firmly rejected US President Barack Obama’s claim that its officials now support last year’s nuclear deal with Iran. Far from accepting Obama’s assertion, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s stance had not changed, while the Israeli Defense Ministry compared the accord to the Munich Agreement signed by the European powers with Nazi Germany in 1938.
Obama said Thursday that Israeli defense officials are now behind the deal signed by world powers and Iran, and that they recognize the efficacy of the accord. The “Israeli military and security community … acknowledges this has been a game changer,” Obama said. “The country that was most opposed to the deal.”
In a statement issued Friday by his office in response, Netanyahu stressed that Israel “has no greater ally than the United States” but made plain nonetheless that Israel’s position on the Iran nuclear deal “remains unchanged.”
What mattered most now, Netanyahu went on, however, was to ensure that supporters and opponents of the deal alike work together for three goals: “Keep Iran’s feet to the fire to ensure that it doesn’t violate the deal; confront Iran’s regional aggression; and dismantle Iran’s global terror network.”
Netanyahu said he “looks forward to translating those goals into a common policy, and to further strengthening the alliance between Israel and the United States, with President Obama, and with the next US administration.”
A top minister close to Netanyahu, meanwhile, directly contradicted Obama’s assertion that Israel now backs the accord. “I don’t know to which Israelis he (Obama) spoke recently. But I can promise you that the position of the prime minister, the defense minister and of most senior officials in the defense establishment has not changed,” Tzachi Hanegbi told The Times of Israel.
“The opposite is the case. The time that has elapsed since the deal was signed proved all our worries that, regrettably, we were justified before the deal was made,” said Hanegbi, a minister who works in the Prime Minister’s Office and who until recently chaired the Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
The Defense Ministry used more emotive language to contradict Obama.
“The Israeli defense establishment believes that agreements have value only if they are based on the existing reality, but they have no value if the facts on the ground are the complete opposite of those the deal is based upon,” the Ministry said in a statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) attends a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee alongside the committee’s chairman, MK Tzach Hanegbi, on Monday, October 26, 2015 (Knesset spokesman)
When the deal was signed last summer between Iran and world powers, Yisrael Beytenu party leader and current Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman compared it to the 1938 Munich Agreement, calling the deal with Tehran “total capitulation to unrestrained terrorism and violence in the international arena.”
The Defense Ministry employed similar language in Friday’s rejection of Obama’s claim.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman (Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)
“The Munich Agreement didn’t prevent the Second World War and the Holocaust precisely because its basis, according to which Nazi Germany could be a partner for some sort of agreement, was flawed, and because the leaders of the world then ignored the explicit statements of [Adolf] Hitler and the rest of Nazi Germany’s leaders,” the ministry said.
“These things are also true about Iran, which also clearly states openly that its aim is to destroy the state of Israel,” it said, pointing to a recent State Department report that determined that Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism worldwide.
The Defense Ministry further said the deal reached “only damages the uncompromising struggle we must make against terrorist states like Iran.”
US President Barack Obama speaks to the media in Arlington, Virginia, on August 4, 2016. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images/AFP)
Some high-level former and current Israeli defense figures have spoken out in sometimes conditional defense of the nuclear deal. Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said warily in January that it could present “opportunities” in the future but also raised concerns at the “challenges” it poses. But lawmakers from the ruling coalition have continued to criticize the agreement, citing continued ballistic missile tests banned under an attendant UN agreement, and pointing to Tehran’s continued anti-Israel rhetoric and support for terror groups.
Netanyahu remains openly critical of the agreement, which he says paves Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the weekly cabinet meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on July 31, 2016. (Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool/Flash90)
The nuclear agreement “removes the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program based on dates certain, rather than on changes in Iran’s aggressive behavior, including its support for terrorism around the world,” a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel two weeks ago. “The deal doesn’t solve the Iranian nuclear problem, but rather delays and intensifies it.”
The accord, which began its formal implementation in January, will expire in 15 years.
Obama also said Thursday that those who had been most critical of the deal should make mea culpas and admit they were wrong.
“What I’m interested in is if there’s some news to be made, why not have some of these folks who were predicting disaster come out and say, ‘This thing actually worked.’ Now that would be a shock,” he said.
“That would be impressive. If some of these folks who said the sky is falling suddenly said, ‘You know what? We were wrong and we are glad that Iran no longer has the capacity to break out in the short term and develop a nuclear weapon.’ But that wasn’t going to happen.”
Senior aid worker said to funnel ‘tens of millions’ to Hamas World Vision denies its Gaza chief diverted 60% of his budget to the terror group, which allegedly used the cash to finance weapons, tunnels
Over the course of several years, the Hamas terrorist organization siphoned off “tens of millions of dollars” from the US-based World Vision charity for its military wing, the Shin Bet security service said Thursday.
Muhammad Halabi, a Hamas member and manager of operations for World Vision in Gaza, was indicted in a Beersheba court on Thursday for his role in the alleged scheme. He was arrested in a joint Shin Bet-IDF-Israel Police operation at the Erez Crossing on June 15 as he tried to return to the Strip, the Shin Bet said.
Halabi, a member of Hamas from a young age, was handpicked to infiltrate the international charity in 2005 in order to steal money for the terrorist organization, according to the investigation.
“This was a meaningful and important investigation that showed — above all — the cynical and crude way in which Hamas takes advantage of funds and resources from international humanitarian aid organizations,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.
Muhammad Halabi, a member of Hamas and manager of the World Vision charity’s operations in the Gaza Strip, was indicted on August 4, 2016, for diverting the charity’s funds to the terrorist organization. (Shin Bet)
In a statement released following the indictment, World Vision defended Halabi and denied the allegations against him.
“Based on the information available to us at this time, we have no reason to believe that the allegations are true. We will carefully review any evidence presented to us and will take appropriate actions based on that evidence,” the group wrote.
After rising through the ranks of World Vision, Halabi became the manager of World Vision’s activities in the Gaza Strip. “In that capacity he controlled the budget, equipment and humanitarian aid packages worth tens of millions of dollars,” the Shin Bet said.
There he was able to funnel approximately “60 percent of World Vision’s annual budget for the Gaza Strip to Hamas,” according to his testimony, which amounted to approximately $7.2 million every year.
This was mostly commonly done by Halabi offering fake tenders for work. “The ‘winning’ company was aware that 60% of the project’s funds were bound for Hamas,” the Shin Bet said.
Approximately 40 percent of World Vision’s funds for civilian projects — $1.5 million a year — was also given to Hamas battalions in cash, according to the Shin Bet, along with approximately $4 million a year that was designated for helping the needy.
A Palestinian boy looks from his family’s destroyed house at workers rebuilding a house which was destroyed during last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas, as the long-awaited reconstruction began in the Shejaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City on Thursday, July 23, 2015. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
According to investigators, some of those “fictitious” humanitarian projects included the construction of greenhouses, rejuvenation of agricultural fields, mental and physical health projects, an initiative to assist fishermen, a center for treating the mentally and physically handicapped, and the creation of agricultural organizations.
“These were all used as a pipeline to transfer money to Hamas,” the Shin Bet said.
In those fake programs, the terrorist organization was able to inflate the budgets, claim Hamas operatives as employees and launder money through World Vision, the security service added.
For instance, Halabi would list a parcel of land as costing $1,000 when it in fact cost $700 in order to pocket the extra funds and transfer them to the terrorist group, according to his testimony.
Still from an August 2015 Hamas video purporting to show a Gaza tunnel dug under the Israeli border. (Ynet screenshot)
According to Halabi’s testimony, the funds that were transferred to Hamas were “earmarked for building up the military wing [of Hamas],” including digging tunnels, purchasing weaponry and building defensive outposts.
Some of the stolen funds were also used to pay the salaries of Hamas operatives. In some cases large sums of money were taken by senior members of the terrorist organization for their “personal needs,” the Shin Bet said.
Through such initiatives, Hamas was also able to purchase otherwise forbidden gear and take advantage of the “logistical assistance” given to the organization.
A Border Crossing Authority inspector discovers a wet suit, believed to be en route to Hamas, hidden in a shipment of sporting goods to the Gaza Strip on June 20, 2016. (screen capture: Defense Ministry)
For instance, the greenhouse construction project allowed the group to scope out suitable digging sites for tunnels, while the nonexistent fishermen assistance program was used to purchase motorboats for smuggling and wetsuits that could be used by Hamas frogmen in attacks against Israel, the Shin Bet said.
In addition to funds and opportunities, Halabi also allegedly stole equipment that had been purchased by World Vision to assist farmers. Instead, the iron, digging tools, pipes and construction materials were used by Hamas for its own purposes.
Some 2,500 cartons of food and 3,300 cartons of cleaning supplies were also stolen from World Vision and given to Hamas fighters, according to the Shin Bet.
Money designated for children injured in conflicts with Israel was instead taken by families of Hamas members who falsely registered their children in the program, the security service said.
Palestinian workers rebuilding a house as reconstruction begins in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, July 23, 2015. (AP/Khalil Hamra)
According to Halabi’s testimony, the humanitarian aid reserved by World Vision for residents of the Gaza Strip was given “almost entirely” to Hamas operatives and their families.
“This, it must be said, is against the official regulations of humanitarian aid organizations operating in the Gaza Strip,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.
Following the indictment, Israel’s Coordinator of the Government’s Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai released a statement in Arabic to the people of Gaza, telling them of Halabi’s actions.
“I’m speaking to you today about the Hamas terror organization, which is stealing your money to advance terror. Following a long investigation, we found that Hamas consistently uses funds that Western countries give to international organizations, like the World Vision organization in Gaza,” Mordechai said.
“Millions of dollars that were meant to build projects, support residents financially — even food packages for the needy — were given over to the military wing of Hamas for building bases, for salary bonuses and for digging death tunnels that will bring demolition and destruction upon you and the Gaza Strip,” he told residents of the coastal enclave.
While the general cast the blame on Hamas, Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, accused World Vision of being “negligent” in its indirect funding of terrorism.
“World vision int. financed ‘unwittingly’ Hamas terror tunnels. How negligent can you be?! Money for kids used for terror,” Nahshon tweeted after the case was revealed.
World vision int. financed “unwittingly ” Hamas terror tunnels . How negligent can you be?! Money for kids used for terror
Halabi supplied Israeli investigators with additional information about a large number of individuals in the Gaza Strip who take advantage of their work for aid organizations and the United Nations to assist Hamas, the Shin Bet said.
For example, Halabi’s father, Halil, served as head of the United Nation’s school system in the Gaza Strip for years. He too is a member of Hamas and, according to Halabi’s testimony, uses his position to help the terrorist organization.
Goods and medical supplies being transferred to the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing, July 19, 2014. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
World Vision is an Evangelical Christian charity created in 1950 that operates in nearly 100 countries worldwide. Today it is one of the largest relief organizations based in the United States, with a budget of approximately $2.6 billion and nearly 50,000 employees. It has operated in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza since the 1970s.
When Halabi was first arrested in June, before charges were brought against him, the charity defended him in a statement.
“[Halabi] is a widely respected and well regarded humanitarian, field manager and trusted colleague of over a decade. He has displayed compassionate leadership on behalf of the children and communities of Gaza through difficult and challenging times, and has always worked diligently and professionally in fulfilling his duties,” the organization said in June.
Gun license for soldiers – as soon as they’re released A new amendment will allow people of any age to get a gun license – provided that they finished military service first.
The Knesset has passed, for its second and third reading, an amendment to the Firearms Law which would allow all soldiers who finish their military service to get a gun license, even if they’re released before they turn 21, the minimum age for firearms licenses.
The amendment, initiated by MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid), would mostly affect women, as their standard draft of two years has them out of the army while they are still too young to apply for a gun license.
The previous legal situation blocked women from many professional fields that require gun licenses, such as security, where newly-released soldiers are in high demand.
After the amendment, newly released soldiers of any age will be immediately allowed to apply for a gun license.
MK Lavie commented, “We are correcting here more outdated legislation, which is appropriate only for the life-stories of men [according to their age of release]. The amendment will assist employment, answering the growing need for security workers, and will also increase equality in the workforce.
“Female employment and employment in general begins at this point: female soldiers are released from the IDF, and they must not be exposed to gender discrimination in their first steps into the world of the workforce.”
The amendment is expected to affect men soon as well, when changes are implemented which will have all soldiers in support positions serving only two years and three months.
There is no need to be tolerant to the intolerant” — European Framework National Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance, Article 4
“The supra-national surveillance that it would imply would certainly be a dark day for European democracy.” — European Dignity Watch
While European leaders are busy expressing public indignation over reports of American espionage operations in the European Union, the European Parliament is quietly considering a proposal that calls for the direct surveillance of any EU citizen suspected of being “intolerant.”
Critics say the measure — which seeks to force the national governments of all 28 EU member states to establish “special administrative units” to monitor any individual or group expressing views that the self-appointed guardians of European multiculturalism deem to be “intolerant” — represents an unparalleled threat to free speech in a Europe where citizens are already regularly punished for expressing the “wrong” opinions, especially about Islam.
The policy proposal was drafted by the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation (ECTR), a non-governmental organization established in Paris in 2008 by the former president of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski, and the president of the European Jewish Congress, Moshe Kantor.
Lars Hedegaard was acquitted by the Danish Supreme Court in 2012 on charges of “hate speech” for critical comments he made about Islam.
The ECTR — which describes itself as a “tolerance watchdog” that “prepares practical recommendations to governments and international organizations on improving interreligious and interethnic relations on the continent” — includes on its board more than a dozen prominent European politicians, including former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar.
The ECTR first presented its proposal for a Europe-wide Law on Tolerance to the European Parliament in November 2008 as part of the European Week of Tolerance that marked the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht, a night of anti-Semitic violence that began the Jewish Holocaust in Germany.
After five years of lobbying in Europe’s halls of power, the ECTR proposal appears to be making headway, as evidenced by the European Parliament’s recent decision to give the group a prominent 45-minute time slot to present its proposal to the Civil Liberties committee on September 17.
Also known as the “Model Statute for Tolerance,” the ECTR’s proposal was presented as part of the EU’s ongoing work towards a new “Equal Treatment Directive” (ETD) that would vastly expand the scope of discrimination to all sectors of life in both the public and private spheres.
Critics of the ETD, currently being negotiated within the Council of the European Union, say the directive seeks to establish an ill-conceived concept of “equal treatment” as a horizontal principle governing the relationships between all and everyone, thus interfering with the right of self-determination of all citizens.
The principles of freedom of contract and the freedom to live according to one’s personal moral views are in danger of being superseded by a newly developed concept of ‘equality.’ It would undermine freedom and self-determination for all Europeans and subject the private life of citizens to legal uncertainty and the control of bureaucrats. It is about governmental control of social behavior of citizens. These tendencies begin to give the impression of long-passed totalitarian ideas and constitute an unprecedented attack on citizens’ rights.
When viewed in the broader context of the ETD, the ECTR document is so audacious in scope, while at the same time so vague in defining its terminology, that critics say the proposal, if implemented, would open a Pandora’s Box of abuse, thereby effectively shutting down the right to free speech in Europe.
According to Section 1 (d), for example, the term “tolerance” is broadly defined as “respect for and acceptance of the expression, preservation and development of the distinct identity of a group.” Section 2 (d) states that the purpose of the statute is to “condemn all manifestations of intolerance based on bias, bigotry and prejudice.”
An explanatory note to Section 2 states: “Religious intolerance is understood to cover Islamophobia” but it provides no definition at all of “Islamophobia,” a term invented by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1990s. If taken to its logical conclusion, Section 2 would presumably ban all critical scrutiny of Islam and Islamic Sharia law, a key objective of Muslim activist groups for more than two decades.
The document also declares that “tolerance must be practiced not only by governmental bodies but equally by individuals.” Section 3 (iv) elaborates on this: “Guarantee of tolerance must be understood not only as a vertical relationship (government-to-individuals) but also as a horizontal relationship (group-to-group and person-to-person). It is the obligation of the government to ensure that intolerance is not practiced either in vertical or in horizontal relationships.”
According to Section 4 (f) (i) of the document: “There is no need to be tolerant to the intolerant. This is especially important as far as freedom of expression is concerned.” Section 5 (a) states: “Tolerance (as defined in Section 1(d)) must be guaranteed to any group, whether it has long-standing societal roots or it is recently formed, especially as a result of migration from abroad.”
Section 6 states: “It goes without saying that enactment of a Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance does not suffice by itself. There must be a mechanism in place ensuring that the Statute does not remain on paper and is actually implemented in the world of reality.”
An explanatory note to Section 6 (a) states: “Members of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups are entitled to a special protection, additional to the general protection that has to be provided by the Government to every person within the State.” Another note adds: “The special protection afforded to members of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups may imply a preferential treatment. Strictly speaking, this preferential treatment goes beyond mere respect and acceptance lying at the root of tolerance.”
Section 6 (b) demands that every one of the 28 member states of the EU “set up a special administrative unit in order to supervise the implementation of this Statute.” An explanatory note adds: “The special administrative unit should preferably operate within the Ministry of Justice (although the Ministry of the Interior is another reasonable possibility).”
Section 6 (c) calls for the establishment of a “National Tolerance Monitoring Commission as an independent body — composed of eminent persons from outside the civil service — vested with the authority to promote tolerance.” An explanatory note adds: “The independent Commission will be empowered to express its views regarding implementation of the Statute by all concerned. Implementation in this context includes (but is not limited to) the imposition of penal sanctions.”
Section 7 (a) states: “The following acts will be regarded as criminal offences punishable as aggravated crimes: Incitement to violence against a group and group libel. “Group libel” is broadly defined as: “defamatory comments made in public and aimed against a group or members thereof with a view to inciting to violence, slandering the group, holding it to ridicule or subjecting it to false charges.”
Section 7 (b) states that “Juveniles convicted of committing crimes listed in paragraph (a) will be required to undergo a rehabilitation program designed to instill in them a culture of tolerance.” Paragraph 7 (e) states that “victims of crimes listed in paragraph (a) will have a legal standing to bring a case against the perpetrators, as well as a right to redress.” Paragraph 7 (f) states that “free legal aid will be offered to victims of crimes listed in paragraph (a), irrespective of qualification in terms of impecuniosity.”
Section 8 states that “the government shall ensure that (a) Schools, from the primary level upwards, will introduce courses encouraging students to accept diversity and promoting a climate of tolerance as regards the qualities and cultures of others.” An explanatory note adds: “It is very important to start such courses as early as possible in the educational program, i.e. in elementary school. Yet, these courses must be offered also at higher levels of education, up to and including universities.”
Section 9 (a) states: “The government shall ensure that public broadcasting (television and radio) stations will devote a prescribed percentage of their program to promoting a climate of tolerance.” Section 9 (b) adds: “The government shall encourage all privately owned mass media (including the printed press) to promote a climate of tolerance.” Section 9 (c) states: “The government shall encourage all the mass media (public as well as private) to adopt an ethical code of conduct, which will prevent the spreading of intolerance and will be supervised by a mass media complaints commission.”
The document, if adopted by the European Parliament in its current form, would — among other problems — establish a right to a freedom from hurt feelings at the expense of the freedom of speech and expression. In practical terms, critics say, the highly subjective definition of terms and concepts such as “tolerance,” “discrimination,” “vulnerable,” and “disadvantaged,” amounts to a legal straitjacket that would encourage frivolous litigation aimed at silencing individuals and groups, or at finding circumlocutions that appear to avoid violating these principles.
“Faith-based groups and schools, adherents of a particular religion or even just parents who want to teach their children certain moral values would all be put under general suspicion of being intolerant,” according to European Dignity Watch.
“Even worse, if enshrined as EU policy, such language also could lead to the possibility that charges are brought on unclear or even without legal grounds. The chilling result of this would be the dramatic diminution (and possible disappearance) of the fundamental freedom of expression — individuals and groups would censor themselves, afraid that they might be prosecuted for expressing their own personal moral views,” the NGO argues in a statement.
“The authors of this proposed statute — under the aegis of an international NGO for tolerance and reconciliation — have invited the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee to endorse it as a legal project. But not only would an adoption of this statute at the national level of the European states be a significant step backward,” the statement concludes, “but the supra-national surveillance that it would imply would certainly be a dark day for European democracy.”
The Palestinian lie
The following video is truly shocking and enraging!
An Arab father sends his three year old son to confront the Israeli border police, while shouting at the solders to “shoot the child”.
In addition, the Arab father urges his little son to throw rocks at the solders, but the youngster misunderstands and throws them sideways.
Now do you understand what we are dealing with?
The whole thing is being encouraged by radical left-wing protestors (you can hear them shouting through loudspeakers).
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Monday, July 18, 2016.
Former New York City Mayor and current Donald Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani said on Wednesday that he thinks it’s an “excellent idea” to monitor Muslims on the federal watch list through electronic monitoring tags.
“I would think that’s an excellent idea,” Giuliani told reporters at a press conference, according to NJ Advance Media. “If you’re on the terror watch list, I should you know you’re on the terror watch list. You’re on there for a reason.”
Giuliani said he would suggest that Trump use the same measure of electronically monitoring people as in France. Both the attackers involved in the killing of a priest in Normandy on Tuesday were already known to French security services and on watch lists, and one was being monitored through an electronic tag.
The terrorism watch list and no-fly list are notorious for ethnic and religious profiling, and many innocent people end up on the list — but Giuliani’s comments come as no surprise given his own penchant for surveillance of the Muslim community, another ineffective practice, during his time as New York’s mayor.
“I put undercover agents in mosques for the first time in January 1994,” said Giuliani, following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing which left six dead and hundreds wounded. “I did it because the 1993 bombing was planned in a mosque in Union City, New Jersey, and a second plan was uncovered to bomb our subways, which was foiled. And I kept those police officers in those mosques until I left as mayor.”
Surveillance of the Muslim community in New York grew exponentially after the 9/11 attacks, and according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), involved the mapping of Muslim communities, heavy photo and video surveillance, police informants, and entire databases with personal information about innocent Muslims. The ACLU has deemed the surveillance “unconstitutional” and said it contributes to an “atmosphere of fear and mistrust” — but perhaps equally important, such methods are wholly ineffective. According to a 2012 report from the Associated Press, in six years of spying on Muslims, listening to their conversations, and cataloging mosques, the NYPD didn’t get a single lead or begin even one terrorism investigation.
The watch lists Giuliani wants to monitor Muslims through also don’t work. As ThinkProgress has previously reported:
Before September 11, 2001, the no-fly list, which names people who are banned from boarding flights in or out of the U.S., contained 16 people. A leak revealed that that number had grown to 47,000 as of 2013. Most of those names were added after President Obama took office. The broader terrorist watch list maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center has an even more expansive scope; the estimated number of people on the list has ranged from 700,000 to more than 1.5 million, figures which include Americans and foreigners.
The watch lists are so huge, and riddled with errors, in large part due to the low bar for evidence. The government’s March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance, for example, notes that “irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary” to put someone on a watch list.
Jean-Claude Juncker has vowed that no matter how bad terrorism or the migrant crisis gets, the European Union (EU) will never give up on open borders. The European Commission president said terrorism could be countered with better intelligence-sharing between member states.
On France 2’s Four Truths programme this morning, Mr. Juncker said “a lot of initiatives” will be required to strengthen security in the EU. After a bloody month for Europe in which the continent has seen multiple Islamic terror attacks — four in the last week in Germany alone — the EU president insisted better communication between member states would solve the problem.
Mr. Juncker told presenter Gilles Bornstein that he “expected a better response from member states regarding the exchange of information between police and intelligence services”.
The EU chief said he believes member states “are not yet used to the obvious need there is to better share information”.
Mr. Juncker insisted that however bad the “migrant crisis” and terrorism in Europe gets, the EU will never call into question the free movement of people within the bloc.
“This is one of the four fundamental freedoms of the founding Treaty of Rome. It is an inviolable principle,” he said.
In the interview on the publicly owned broadcaster, Mr. Juncker also mused on a number of other issues such as this year’s U.S. presidential race, and Turkish accession to the EU. The unelected European People’s Party figure told Mr. Bornstein that “Turkey is not in a position to join the EU in the short and medium term”.
“If Turkey reintroduced the death penalty, negotiations would stop immediately,” he added.
Mr. Juncker said he considers it illegitimate for him to “interfere in the Democratic [party] Republican [party] debate”, but the EU chief admitted he would prefer Hillary Clinton in the White House to Donald Trump.
The President of the European Commission is not just committed to open borders within Europe. Under his presidency, the European Commission lists migration as one of its priorities. As well as offering residency to the world’s “refugees”, the Commission seeks to make it much easier and more desirable for Africans and their families to move to EU countries.
Speaking after Islamic terror attacks left 130 dead in Paris last November, Mr. Juncker rejected calls to rethink the EU’s open doors policy on migration from Africa and the Middle East. Dismissing suggestions that open borders led to the attacks, Mr. Juncker said he believed “exactly the opposite” – that the attacks should be met with a stronger display of liberal values including open borders.
Around 400 German police conducted raids at a mosque and eight apartments in a “hotbed” of radical Islam near Hannover. It came as police near Stuttgart arrested a 15-year-old who they believe was planning a mass shooting.
The raids took place in Hildesheim, a town which Lower Saxony Interior Minister Boris Pistorius described as “a hotbed of radical Salafist” activity. He said that up to 400 police and special forces took part in the operations, though no figures were released regarding how many arrests were made.
“The German-speaking Islamic circle (DIK) in Hildesheim is a nationwide hot-spot of the radical Salafist scene that Lower Saxony security authorities have been monitoring for a long time,” the state official said, as quoted by Reuters.
He said he wants to ban the DIK, which he blames for radicalizing German Muslims and influencing some to want to travel to the Middle East to join up with terrorist organizations such as Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
Pistorius said the raid followed months of planning, as the DIK had established Hildesheim as their main base in Lower Saxony. He also said the radical Islamists were guilty of giving speeches calling for “hate against non-believers.”
“We will not put up with Salafist associations and their backers flouting our rules and bringing our rule of law into question and convincing young people that they want to join the so-called IS,” Pistorius said.
The special operations came as police in the south of the country confirmed on Wednesday evening that they had arrested a 15-year-old boy near Stuttgart. The teenager, who hails from Ludwigsburg, had allegedly been in contact with Ali David Sonboly, who killed nine people during a shooting spree in Munich on July 22.
Police said they found “a large number of small-caliber weapons, several knives and daggers” in the 15-year-old’s possession. Authorities initially said they believed the boy was planning to carry out a shooting spree at his school, but later retracted that statement, Deutsche Welle reported.
Law enforcement officers were given a tip off about the teenager after a private individual who had been carrying out research on the 15-year-old published photos and drawings that suggested that he could have been planning an attack.
Police say they found “extensive evidence, including a larger number of small-caliber cartridges, several knives and daggers, evacuation plans of his school, and a large amount of chemicals, materials and instructions for making explosives,” according to The Local.
The boy has been admitted to a psychiatric facility, and police have seized his computers for further analysis.
Germany has been rocked by a string of recent attacks. On Sunday, a 27-year-old Syrian refugee who was facing deportation to Bulgaria blew himself up after being refused access to a music festival. The explosion injured 15 passersby, but did not cause any deaths.
That same day, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested after killing a pregnant woman and wounding two people with a machete in the city of Reutlingen, near Stuttgart.
On Friday, an 18-year-old German-Iranian gunman killed nine people in Munich after going on a shooting spree in an attack he had planned for a year. Meanwhile, a 17-year-old who had sought asylum in Germany was shot dead by police last week after wounding five people with an ax near Wurzburg.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has cut short her holiday to address the problems, which critics say have been caused by her open-door policy which saw over a million refugees – mainly from Syria and Iraq – arrive in Germany in 2015. She has rejected calls to change the policy.
“The terrorists want to make us lose sight of what is important to us, break down our cohesion and sense of community as well as inhibiting our way of life, our openness and our willingness take in people who are in need,” she said, as quoted by Reuters.
“They see hatred and fear between cultures and they see hatred and fear between religions. We stand decisively against that,” she added.
However, Willy Wimmer, former state secretary of the German Christian Democratic Party (CDU), told RT that Merkel must take the blame for wanting to “destroy our country” by allowing unchecked mass immigration.
“She [Merkel] has an obligation to defend our borders and defend our people. That is the main obligation she has. Therefore, what was the reason last year to open our borders? There is no country worldwide that did similar things,” Wimmer said.
Lars Hedegaard was acquitted by the Danish Supreme Court in 2012 on charges of “hate speech” for critical comments he made about Islam.
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