Posted tagged ‘UN’

War Crimes In GAZA

June 4, 2015

New documentary from Pierre Rehov, this is the trailer , soon the full version.

Russia Demands American Capitulation To Help Eradicate Islamic State

June 4, 2015

Russia Demands American Capitulation To Help Eradicate Islamic State

Author

By David Singer — Bio and Archives June 4, 2015

via Russia Demands American Capitulation To Help Eradicate Islamic State.

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on America to end its attempt to remove Syria’s President Assad from power in return for Russia’s co-operation to militarily confront Islamic State.

Lavrov reportedly told Bloomberg on 2 June 2015 :

“The U.S.’s “obsession” with [Syria’s President] Assad isn’t helping in the common fight against the threat from Islamic State…

“People put the fate of one person whom they hate above the fight against terrorism. Islamic State can go “very far” unless stopped, and air strikes alone “are not going to do the trick”

“If people continue to acquiesce with what is going on and continue to acquiesce with those who categorically refuse to start the political process until Bashar Assad disappears, then I’m not very optimistic for the future of this region…”

America is part of the Friends of Syria core group known as the London Eleven that has been assisting rebel forces in Syria attempting to overthrow Assad.

Assad – backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah – has rebuffed such attempts during four years of horrendous conflict that has so far seen over 220000 Syrians die, four million citizens made refugees and another 7.6 million internally displaced.

A report published by the UN in March 2015 estimated the total economic loss since the start of the conflict was $202bn and that four in every five Syrians were now living in poverty – 30% of them in abject poverty. Syria’s education, health and social welfare systems are also in a state of collapse.

America apparently intends to ignore Lavrov’s sage advice and continue to pursue its Syrian policy to oust Assad.

Marie Harf – a U.S. State Department spokeswoman told reporters in Washington that:

“we’re certainly not going to coordinate with a brutal dictator who’s massacred so many of his own citizens.”

“That’s just an absurd proposition. That’s certainly not going to happen.”

Lavrov’s comments come at a time when Islamic State – already controlling a large part of Syria and Iraq covering an area greater than the United Kingdom – continues to make further advances – recently seizing the city of Ramadi 110 kilometers west of the Iraqi capital –Baghdad – and capturing the strategic northern Syrian city of Palmyra – a World Heritage listed site containing the monumental ruins of one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world.

Islamic State reportedly controls up to 80 per cent of oil fields in Syria and has destroyed and also sold looted antiquities in Hatra, Nimrod and Mosul to acquire a major source of its funding – sometimes for seven figure sums.

The American led coalition of some 62 States – meeting in Paris this week – has proved totally unable to stem the advance of Islamic State in its stated objective of restoring the Islamic Caliphate and Sharia law wherever it seizes territory.

Graeme Wood – a contributing editor at The Atlantic – sums up Islamic State’s vulnerability:

If it loses its grip on its territory in Syria and Iraq, it will cease to be a caliphate. Caliphates cannot exist as underground movements, because territorial authority is a requirement: take away its command of territory, and all those oaths of allegiance are no longer binding.”

Only a UN sanctioned military force can hope to achieve this objective.

Obama and Putin need to urgently do a deal that sees:

  1. A UN led process on the political future of Syria being undertaken without first removing Assad
  2. A UN Security Council Chapter VII Resolution passed under Article 42 of the UN Charter authorising military action against Islamic State.

Senseless head-butting needs to give way to sensible brain-storming.

Iran is Smuggling Precision Missiles to Hezbollah

April 1, 2015

Iran is Smuggling Precision Missiles to Hezbollah

Top colonel in missile defense system says Iran upgrading warheads to give Hezbollah pinpoint accuracy in striking Israel.

By Ari Yashar

First Publish: 4/1/2015, 2:26 PM
Smuggled Iranian missiles (illustration)

Smuggled Iranian missiles (illustration)
Yehuda Ben Itach/Flash 90

A senior Israeli security source revealed on Tuesday that Iran is smuggling rockets souped-up with advanced guided warheads to its terror proxy of Hezbollah in Lebanon, posing a direct threat to the Jewish state of Israel from right over its northern border.

Col. Aviram Hasson, a leader in the IDF’s top-level missile defenses, brought up the threat at the Israel Air and Missile Defense Conference held in Herzliya, an event hosted by the iHLS (Israel’s homeland security) defense website and the Israel Missile Defense Association.

The colonel said Iran is taking unguided Zilzal rockets and upgrading them into guided M-600 missiles by swapping out their warheads with more advanced components.

The Islamic regime is a “train engine that is not stopping for a moment. It is manufacturing new and advanced ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. It is turning unguided rockets that had an accuracy range of kilometers into weapons that are accurate to within meters,” he revealed.

Hasson stated that Hezbollah “is getting a lot of accurate weapons from Iran. It is in a very different place compared to the Second Lebanon War in 2006.”

The statements come the same day reports revealed the IDF had updated its worst case scenarios for a war against Lebanon for the first time since 2007. The assessment posited that Hezbollah would hit Israel with 1,000-1,500 rockets every day, and the number of Israelis killed daily will be in double or even triple digits.

As far as what Israel can do against the major threat, Hasson said the “ultimate defense is a combination of counter-attack, active defenses, and passive defense,” with the later consisting of civilians following orders to stay secure.

American backing?

Also addressing the missile threat at the conference was Riki Ellison, founder and chairman of the US Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

Ellison remarked that the US has a policy of always leaving a warship with an Aegis naval missile defense system in the Mediterranean to provide Israel with defense from Iranian long-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting the Jewish state from Iran.

He described how the warship “can stand off the coast and shoot long-shots coming in from Iran.”

However, Ellison noted how the US wants Israel to complete developing its missile defenses for all ranges of missiles, through such systems as Arrow 3 and David’s Sling, which would free up the Aegis ships.

If needed the US could take its defense of Israel a step further, revealed Elisson, noting that Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries could be deployed to secure the Jewish state.

Even as nuclear talks reached a deadline on Tuesday that was extended by the US, Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) Force, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, said “wiping Israel off the map is not up for negotiation,” illustrating the dangers posed by the state’s nuclear program coupled with its missile capabilities.

IAEA Report Proves Iran Was Researching Nuclear Missiles

March 30, 2015

IAEA Report Proves Iran Was Researching Nuclear Missiles

via IAEA Report Proves Iran Was Researching Nuclear Missiles – Breitbart.

 

Iran was heavily involved in nuclear weapons research, according to documents given to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2005. To date, Iran has refused to acknowledge this past work on nuclear weapons, but IAEA reports leave no doubt the documents are credible and described research only suitable for a nuclear arms.

With the self-imposed deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran coming this week, now is probably a good time to recall that Iran has been lying about its nuclear ambitions for a very long time. In 2005, an IAEA member state turned over more than 1,000 pages of documents outlining a substantial nuclear research program in Iran. Known collectively as the “alleged studies documentation,” a 2011 IAEA report describes the cache as containing “correspondence, reports, view graphs from presentations, videos and engineering drawings.” The documents also contained “working level correspondence consistent with the day to day implementation of a formal programme.” In short, proof Iran had a sustained nuclear weapons program.

After carefully examining the documents and gathering additional information, the IAEA confronted Iran with the documents in 2008. Iran sent the Agency a 117-page response that confirmed some of the fine details, such as names and places, but denied all the evidence showing a nuclear weapons research project had been underway. Iran claimed the documents were “forged” and “fabricated.”

One of the details contained in the IAEA document cache was evidence that Iran had been studying how it could integrate its planned nuclear weapon with its own Shahab 3 missile (which has a range of 800 miles). Specifically, it wanted to create a firing mechanism that could detonate the nuclear payload in mid-air or upon impact. When confronted with this specific information (which may have included video), Iran claimed it was part of an “animation game.”

The IAEA decided to show the missile plans to experts from other member states (not including the nation that originally gave them the documents). They asked these experts to look at the designs and assess if there was any other military or peaceful application for them other than launching a nuclear weapon. The results of this investigation appear as Attachment 2 in the IAEA’s November 2011 report:

 

 

Clearly, the experts concluded there was no peaceful application for the designs (such as a satellite). And while some elements of the design could have been useful for other types of weapons, the overall combination of elements pointed to only one likely possibility: a nuclear payload.

In addition to the missile payload designs, the “alleged studies documents” indicated Iran was also researching detonators, neutron initiators, firing equipment for an underground test, and many other aspects of nuclear weapons research.

The 2011 IAEA report was an attempt to get Iran to come clean about its past work on nuclear weapons, but thus far, Iran has refused to acknowledge it. As recently as last week, IAEA Director Yukiya Amano has said that Iran still needs to come clean. In an interview with Judy Woodruff of PBS, Amano said, “Our information indicates that Iran engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices. We do not draw conclusions. But we are requesting Iran to clarify these issues. …So far, there has been some clarification, but the progress has been very limited.”

U.S. Generals: Israeli Military Restraint Bolstered Hamas

March 9, 2015

U.S. Generals: Israeli Military Restraint Bolstered Hamas

Report rejects American adoption of Israeli level of restraint

BY:
March 9, 2015 5:00 am

via U.S. Generals: Israeli Military Restraint Bolstered Hamas | Washington Free Beacon.

 

Israel’s military restraint during the conflict in Gaza last summer “unintentionally empowered Hamas” by allowing the terror group to distort international law and secure a public relations victory by exploiting the media, according a task force of retired U.S. generals.

The task force also warned that Hamas’ disinformation strategy could be replicated against the U.S. military and advised the U.S. government to institute a plan to combat similar media campaigns in the future.

“Hamas supported false claims against the [Israel Defense Forces] by distorting stories and images to serve the organization’s narrative, and by manipulating stories in the international media,” said the Gaza Conflict Task Force in a report commissioned by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and released on Monday.

The report, titled “The 2014 Gaza War: Observations and Implications for U.S. Military Operations,” concluded that Hamas was not aiming for a military victory but instead put Gaza’s civilians at risk in order to increase casualties and damage the global standing of the Israel Defense Forces.

The main goal, according to the report, was to build international pressure on Israel.

“Hamas proved very effective at exploiting images of civilian deaths, particularly children, to gain international sympathy to their cause and a high degree of international opposition to the Israeli cause,” said the report. “Further, Hamas was effective at not allowing access to their more brutal and illegal actions, beyond what they published themselves as part of their internal intimidation efforts.”

According to the task force, the techniques used by Hamas “represent an evolution in unconventional warfare, and will probably be imitated and improved upon by America’s enemies.”

The report recommended that the United States should institute a “whole-of government approach” to countering such efforts.

“The U.S. government and military must come to grips with the increased importance and use of the information domain in war,” said the task force. “They must develop effective countermeasures to this enemy advantage, as it threatens to exploit a strategic vulnerability for the United States and its allies.”

One issue that Hamas exploited in Gaza, according to the report, was the lack of clarity between international laws of war and military policy.

The task force argued that the IDF exceeded the Laws of Armed Conflict by using restraint during times when it was legally unnecessary. This created a precedent that could open Israeli civilians up to increased risk, according to the report.

“Unless there is a clear demarcation between law and policy-based restraints on the use of combat power, raising standards in one instance—even if done as a matter of national policy and not as the result of legal obligation—risks creating a precedent to which military forces will likely be expected to adhere in the future,” said the report.

“We do not believe the Israeli level of restraint should be considered the standard for U.S. armed forces in future conflicts,” the report concluded

The task force, which traveled to Israel while conducting the assessment, included General Charles Wald, Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV, Lieutenant General Richard Natonski, Major General Rick Devereaux, and Major General Mike Jones.

Iran prepares to attack Northern Israel

February 22, 2015

February 21, 2015

Iran prepares to attack Northern Israel

By James Lewis

via Articles: Iran prepares to attack Northern Israel.

 

Take an old-fashioned iron bar magnet and a flat piece of white paper with hundreds of scattered iron filings. As soon as the paper is placed on the magnet, all the particles align around the two separate poles of the bar’s magnetic field. Every iron particle becomes polarized around one of the two extremes.

This is what Obama and Jarrett have managed to achieve in the Middle East. It is not an accident. We know that the two-person cult of Obama-Jarrett have been secretly “negotiating” with the mullahs since the beginning of the Obama years. But time is running out, and everybody over there is planning for the post-O years.

For the Iranians that means moving as fast as possible to capitalize on a historic moment of Western weakness, collusion, and accommodation. The mullahs remember what happened when Ronald Reagan won over Jimmy Carter. They have less than two years to grab whatever they can.

That is why Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops are now moving through Syria into high mountain positions to attack the Golan Heights, the northeastern tip of Israel. Syrian Army forces and Shi’ites recruited in Pakistan and Afghanistan are working under the command of Iran’s Guards.

DEBKAfile has a detailed article on this. (Debka is linked to Israeli intelligence, but this kind of stuff they don’t kid about).

DEBKAfile February 18, 2015, 9:04 AM (IDT)

“Even in stormy winter conditions, the Syrian army continued Wednesday to press forward with Iranian, Hizballah and imported Afghani and Pakistani Shiite forces towards the Golan and Israeli lines. Their immediate objective appears to be the lofty Tel al-Hara mountain fortress, which the Syrian army lost to rebel forces. … Our military sources report that the fall of Tel al-Hara would lay Quneitra (on the Goland Heights) open to attack. …(In) Quneitra… Tehran plans to establish a major military outpost and forward command center up against Israel’s Golan deployment. This is the first instance of Syria’s Bashar Assad agreeing to pass a warfront to Iranian command.”

In response, Israel has conducted a successful decapitation strike across the border, killing half a dozen top Guard officers and half a dozen Hizb’allah planners. Syrian artillery has reportedly killed 200 Guards in a “friendly fire” accident -– but Israel probably knows how to penetrate Syrian battlefield electronics.

Of all the extremely dangerous events that are now gathering momentum in the region, the Iranian-Syrian drive against northern Israel is the most dangerous. The reason is simple. Israel has a sophisticated nuclear, WMD, and missile deterrent, to be used under military doctrines similar to our own. For rational nations, WMDs are a last resort, only usable when a threat is direct and existential. Iran has always played the crazy card, a big show of irrational fanaticism and rage. Maybe they really are crazy — nobody knows for sure.

The mullahs are now trying to push Israel to the wall –- which is when a Western-style deterrent doctrine comes into force. Ayatollah Khamenei, the “Supreme Guide,” has obviously decided this is the moment when America will not defend its former allies. Maybe Obama and Jarrett have actually told him so; maybe Iran has penetrated this supremely foolish and malignant administration. Whatever the case may be, Iran is moving military forces through Syria toward Israel. Iran is also winning power in Yemen (which controls the narrow entrance to the Red Sea). All these moves directly threaten Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as Israel and U.S. naval and air force assets in the region.

This is an enormous Iranian gamble, maybe a martyrdom gamble, following Khomeinist war theology.

This is therefore the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It is a moment of unpredictable confrontation, with nuclear weapons in the offing.

Obama and the Iranians are gambling everything on the toss of a coin.

Israel does not have the manpower to match Iran, Syria, and Hizb’allah at the Golan border. If the Iranians stage a blitzkrieg against the Golan, using a force of fifty or more tanks now located in Syria, Israel may resort to unconventional weapons. These can range from massive electronic warfare to arming the Syrian Sunni rebels, to a wide range of WMD’s.

If the Golan becomes the flashpoint, a likely outcome is a huge regional war, pitting Shi’ite Iran against Sunni Arabs. Israel has long had contacts with the Saudis and Egyptians on how to respond to Iranian aggression. If Israel is drawn into regional chaos, it is likely to support the Sunni powers, who will need all the help they can get.

Iran has a Shi’ite martyrdom creed, which suggests it is trying to provoke an Israeli strike that will predictably enrage Obama and Western liberals, so that Iran can play the aggrieved victim. The Muslim world, which is 80% Sunni, may then back Shi’ite Iran.

The most intelligent form of preemption on the Golan is therefore the most invisible one. Big nuclear bangs are self-defeating. Silent strikes may work. There is now a range of unconventional weapons available to technically advanced nations. However, any local war can spread unpredictably around the Middle East.

Obama has brought us to the nuclear brink. It is vital to understand that this is not an accident. It is purposeful. It is a continuation of the Carter-Brzezinski strategy that put Ayatollah Khomeini into power forty years ago — the first Islamic Caliphate. The Obama-Carter strategy makes no rational sense at all, except perhaps in some drunken faculty lounge. The risks are enormous, and the potential for a major violent backlash against the United States and Europe is very great. Iran now has ICBMs that can reach Europe and soon, the United States.

The single biggest factor in this crisis is the vacuum of American power. For decades the United States was trusted to keep the peace in the Persian Gulf, where Persians and Arabs have been staring at each with implacable hatred for a thousand years, across fifty miles of water.

Obama has destroyed any trust in America. We have “community disorganized” the Middle East.

When Netanyahu comes to Washington in defiance of Obama, the Iranians and ISIS will cheer for Obama.

But maybe the American people will come to their own conclusions.

The Only Strategy to Defeat Jihad

February 11, 2015

The Only Strategy to Defeat Jihad

By Jonathan David Carson

February 11, 2015

via Articles: The Only Strategy to Defeat Jihad.

 

An imam on British television taught me more in a few minutes than any of the books I have read on Islam, some of them quite instructive.  After railing at Israel and America, the imam smiled knowingly and said that if God did not want those skyscrapers to fall, he wouldn’t have let airplanes fly into them.  I almost shouted, “Then I guess God wants Palestinians to suffer, or else he wouldn’t let Israelis do all those awful things you say they do!”

I hear endless lamentations about our not having a strategy to defeat “Islamic extremism” or whatever the day’s euphemism is.  The cynic in me says that what we really need is to get rid of our strategy of helping the Muslim Brotherhood and the mullahs in Iran.  But if we have to have a strategy, here it is.

We blow some ISIS bastard to smithereens and shout, “Allahu Akbar!”  We take out Iran’s nuclear reactors and say, “If Allah wanted Iran to have a nuclear bomb, he wouldn’t have dropped those bunker-busters.”

Islam holds that there are no “secondary causes,” that is, that God never acts indirectly, by means of natural law, but always directly, willing everything that happens.  Fine, then, let secondary causes, cruise missiles, for instance, or rifle bullets, kill as many of our enemies as it takes for them to have to come to their senses.  Make them believe that Allah is killing them.  Make them believe it for so long that they stop believing the absurd promise that heaven is full of beautiful virgins waiting lustfully for their smelly carcasses.  Tell them over and over again that Allah is killing them, and doing it directly, without intermediaries, such as drone pilots or Marine snipers, and they will just want a drink.

Franklin Roosevelt said that the Doolittle Raid was launched from Shangri-La.  That’s the idea.  We won that war.

People frequently make the mistake of thinking that Islam is like Christianity, only different.  They are opposites.

Christianity thrives under adversity.  What’s killing Christianity is comfort and ease.  Christianity is for people in trouble.  Judaism too.

Islam thrives on success.  Muslims won one battle, and Mohammed said it was God’s will.  That seemed to make sense.  They won another battle, and they were convinced.  They won another battle, and Mohammed’s boast began to make sense to their enemies.  They won another battle, and their enemies were convinced.  Enemies fled and fled until they had a mighty empire.

Then they ran into men who knew to fight the long defeat, as the elves in The Lord of the Rings put it, and, lo, the defeat was not so long anymore.

We must fight whether we expect to win or not.  We are not cowards who won’t fight without a guarantee of victory from God.

I don’t want to hear any “moderate Muslim” crap.  Who are these mythical beasts?  The Saudis, who in the name of sexual morality won’t let girls escape from burning buildings improperly dressed and who then buy sex slaves from India and Pakistan?  Selling us oil makes them moderate?   They won’t even drill for it themselves.  We have to do it, just as we have to defend them from Saddam Hussein.  What makes them moderate is that we are fools.

I also don’t want to hear that most victims of Islamic extremism are Muslims.

For a while the hobbits sat in silence. At length Sam stirred. ‘Well, I call that neat as neat,’ he said. ‘If this nice friendliness would spread about in Mordor, half our trouble would be over.’

‘Quietly, Sam,’ Frodo whispered. ‘There may be others about. We have evidently had a very narrow escape, and the hunt was hotter on our tracks than we guessed. But that is the spirit of Mordor, Sam; and it has spread to every corner of it. Orcs have always behaved like that, or so all tales say, when they are on their own. But you can’t get much hope out of it. They hate us far more, altogether and all the time. If those two had seen us, they would have dropped all their quarrel until we were dead.

Colonialism has been roundly condemned as oppressive.  Maybe so.  But what the Islamic world needs is oppression.  When the West oppressed the Muslim world, we didn’t have this problem.  And the Muslims were better off.  They could gradually become sane,  as they noticed that Allah was not winning any battles for them.

The reason so many of us are complacent about the threat from Islam is that the colonial era, which ended only recently in historical terms, made us feel safe.  It made Muslims feel impotent and made us feel invincible.  We got swelled heads and saw too many movies and decided that Muslims were peaceful when they were simply afraid.  Now the Establishment reassures them of our peaceful intentions and destroys our best defense: their fear.

Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but Islam is a terrorist religion.  Mohammed was a mass murderer and child molester, and devout Muslims have been following his example ever since.  As long as there is Islam, there will be “Islamic extremists.”

The only way to get rid of Islamic extremism is to get rid of Islam, and it can be done.  Several times Islam has been near collapse, only to be rescued by infidels.  The Great Powers of the West, more fearful of each other than of Islam, rescued it in hopes of using it against their European enemies.  During the Cold War, Russians and Americans tried to turn the Islamic world against each other.  Now both live in fear of it.

Islam will collapse in reverse order.  One victory led to another and another and another.  One defeat will lead to another and another until either some Obama rescues it or it collapses.  The no secondary causes doctrine works only on the way up.

The reason we lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that we don’t know our enemies — or anybody else for that matter.  We think that we have to “win the hearts and minds” of Muslims.  That is insane.  No Iraqi or Afghan is going to fight for us.  They will fight for themselves, some of them.  Afghans will not fight for America; they might fight to protect themselves from the Taliban.

We don’t have to be liked or even respected.  Afghans have to be brave enough to fight for freedom.  We can help them be brave by killing some of their enemies.  The Muslim god is an illusion, American military might real.

Do not in your arrogance think that Afghan villagers are so much less intelligent than we are that it is impossible for them to grasp the obvious: Allah cannot protect the Taliban from determined Americans.  Afghans are like anyone else: they want to be on the winning side.  So don’t lose.

Squeamishness means death all around, even death for our enemies.  Wait until a nuclear weapon goes off in an American city, or the anti-Semites have their way and Israel is on the brink of destruction.  That is when you will see real death of Muslims, deaths of millions or tens of millions.

The issue is how many Muslims we will have to kill.  The liberals would have us kill more, far more, than is necessary.  We could kill a billion Muslims on a lazy afternoon.  We don’t do it because we are not killers, not because we can’t.  They, on the other hand, would kill a billion of us if they could.  They just can’t.

The more we wring our hands and say we are weary, the more we praise Islam without any real knowledge of it or any intention to obey its cruel rules, the more we temporize, the more we pride ourselves on our compassion and understanding, the more Muslims will die.

Obama is presenting a false American face to the Islamic world, which is getting the idea that Americans are just a bunch of European weenies, just when Europeans giving up on being weenies.  We are not “war weary”; we are weary of wars we lose.  Even if we win, we lose, as when we put in place a regime in Iraq more beholden to Iran than to us or a regime in Afghanistan no one should have to live under.

Obama is not America, as Muslims are going to find out.  The sooner, the better

 

 

Israel News – Hamas test-fired 10 rockets from Gaza into the sea

January 26, 2015

Hamas test-fired 10 rockets from Gaza into the sea

Hamas fired 10 rockets into the Mediterranean Sea today, testing its rocket range limit.

Jan 26, 2015, 01:30PM | Yael Klein

via Israel News – Hamas test-fired 10 rockets from Gaza into the sea – JerusalemOnline.

 

Archive photo

Archive photo Photo Credit: Reuters/Channel 2 News

Today (Sun), the Palestinians completed a series of rocket testing. They fired 10 rockets toward the Mediterranean Sea.

Hamas has been conducting many tests over the past several months.  However, a barrage of 10 rockets is considered rare. 70 rockets have been fired by Hamas in tests conducted since Operation Protective Edge. The Palestinians are attempting to improve the rockets’ range limit. However, they are facing difficulties in doing so due to the lack of supplies delivered to them from outside the Gaza Strip. Therefore, they manufacture the explosives themselves, which is another reason for conducting the many tests.

One month ago, a siren alarm went off in a number of communities in the Eshkol Regional Council, after a rocket fired from Gaza exploded in Southern Israel, without causing injuries or damage.

Eshkol Mayor Haim Yalin stated following the incident: “The state had an extraordinary opportunity to agree upon a long-term arrangement with the Palestinians. Instead, we find ourselves with a ticking clock in hour hands, counting down to the next war.”

US Strongly Backs Israel over ICC Move to Probe Israel for War Crimes

January 17, 2015

The Obama administration is not in love with Israel but certainly is divorcing itself from the Palestinian Authority.

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Published: January 17th, 2015

via The Jewish Press » » US Strongly Backs Israel over ICC Move to Probe Israel for War Crimes.

 

Does Abbas really want a war crimes probe Above: Hamas fires rockets on Israel from a hotel.

Does Abbas really want a war crimes probe Above: Hamas fires rockets on Israel from a hotel.

 

The U.S. State Dept. has strongly attacked the International Criminal Court (ICC) for opening a probe of alleged Israeli war comes and left open the question whether the ICC even has the a right to conduct a probe of last year’s war with Hamas.

The State Dept. called the ICC announcement a “tragic irony,” a statement that was further bolstered by praise for the ICC decision by Hamas, which may find itself under the ICC microscope.

Jeff Rathke, director of the State Dept. press office, stated:

We strongly disagree with the ICC Prosecutor’s action today. As we have said repeatedly, we do not believe that Palestine is a state and therefore we do not believe that it is eligible to join the ICC. It is a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighborhoods, is now being scrutinized by the ICC.

He told reporters at Friday’s daily press briefing:

We don’t think that the Palestinians have established a state, and we don’t think they’re eligible to join the International Criminal Court. I would highlight that many other countries share this view.

In answer to a question whether the ICC is conducting “an illegitimate preliminary examination,” Rathke responded, ” I’m not going to characterize it.,” and he declined to say one way or the other if the United States will appeal to the ICC to drop the preliminary examination.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with Sec. of State John Kerry Friday and asked him to intervene against the ICC on behalf of Israel

Hamas was thrilled by the ICC decision and declared on Saturday, “We are ready to provide (the court) with thousands of reports and documents that confirm the Zionist enemy has committed horrible crimes against Gaza and against our people.”

“Tragic irony” is an excellent definition of the ICC decision, which is even more astonishing since it apparently follows a complaint by the Palestinian Authority, which will not be a member of the ICC until April 1.

Technically, the ICC is off the hook of overreaching its authority.

The “Rome Statute” concerning war crimes states that non-members cannot ask for an investigation of war crimes.

The ICC got around this restriction by stating it is “examining” whether an investigation should be conducted, and it obviously cannot make a decision until April 1.

But how can the ICC examine alleged war crimes dating back to last year, when the Palestinian Authority did not even apply for ICC membership.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas presented documents to the ICC giving it authority to act retroactively.

The ICC stated it will open its examination on alleged Israeli war crimes in last summers’ war with “full independence and impartiality.”

If so, it will have a hard time ignoring Hamas war crimes, which Israel documented day by day in the war, having learned to do so after the United Nations’ scathing Goldstone Report that barely mentioned Hamas’ war crimes in the three-week Operation Cast Lead counter-terrorist campaign in late December 2008 and early January 2009.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the ICC announcement of a preliminary examination as based on an “outrageous request” by the Palestinian Authority.

Top 10 Worst U.N. Decisions Of 2014

January 14, 2015

Top 10 Worst U.N. Decisions Of 2014

The most immoral, corrupt and unjust U.N. resolutions of the year.

posted on Dec. 21, 2014, at 9:25 a.m.

via Top 10 Worst U.N. Decisions Of 2014.

10. U.N. Elects Iran to Women’s Rights Commission

U.N. Elects Iran to Women's Rights Commission

ATTA KENARE AFP / Getty Images

NEW YORK, April 24, 2014 – The U.N. Economic and Social Council in New York elected Iran to a four-year term on its 45-nation Commission on the Status of Women, the top world body dedicated to protecting women’s rights.

9. U.N. Elects Elects New Human Rights Council Members: China, Russia, Cuba and Saudi Arabia

UN Watch / Via unwatch.org

On January 1, 2014, several of world’s worst dictatorships were elected to judge the rest of the world on human rights.

8. U.N. Creates Biased Inquiry into Hamas-Israel War, Declares Israel Guilty in Advance

GENEVA, JULY 23, 2014 — In an emergency session, the U.N. Human Rights Council declared Israel guilty of “gross violations of international human rights,” even as it created a commission of inquiry to purportedly investigate the facts.

7. U.N. Picks Genocidal Sudan to Oversee Human Rights Activists

U.N. Picks Genocidal Sudan to Oversee Human Rights Activists

NEW YORK, April 24, 2014 — The U.N. rewarded genocidal Sudan, along with the regimes of slave-holding Mauritania, Pakistan, Turkey, and Venezuela, by making them members of the powerful 19-nation U.N. Committee on NGOs, a coveted position that allows governments to silence criticism by acting as the gatekeeper and overseer of all human rights groups that seek to work inside the world body.

6. U.N. “Sees No Objection” to Praising Qatar’s Human Rights Record

UN Watch / Via unwatch.org

After UN Watch raised objections from migrant workers, women, and terror victims to a report praising Qatar’s human rights record, the U.N. went ahead and adopted the report anyway, with the Chair of the Human Rights Council saying, “I see no objection.”

5. As 9/11 Truther Richard Falk Exits, U.N. Names His Wife and Co-Author to Top Human Rights Post

As 9/11 Truther Richard Falk Exits, U.N. Names His Wife and Co-Author to Top Human Rights Post

GENEVA, May 8, 2014 — The U.N. Human Rights Council appointed Hilal Elver, the Turkish wife of Richard Falk, to become its Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. Together with her husband and co-author, Elver is explicitly acknowledged in the world’s leading 9/11 conspiracy book, “The New Pearl Harbor,” for the help she provided the author, David Ray Griffin. Elver’s own academic work cites to Griffin’s conspiracy book, which argues that the U.S. government helped orchestrate the attacks on the World Trade Center to justify wars against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a 2012 law journal article, Elver explicitly cited to Griffin’s notorious conspiracy tract. She compared 9/11 to Pearl Harbor, saying that both incidents “gave permission to the government to unleash the war power,” “invade countries”, “create new hegemonies”, and “racially discriminate against and segregate the people inside the United States.”

4. UNRWA Hands Rockets in Gaza Schools Back to Hamas Terrorists

UNRWA Hands Rockets in Gaza Schools Back to Hamas Terrorists

UN Watch

THE DAILY BEAST, July 20, 2014 – Reached by phone in Barcelona, Spain, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness insisted that the local authorities in Gaza report to the Palestinian government in Ramallah, not to Hamas. “As far as we are concerned, the government that we are dealing with now is the government of national consensus and they have authority over the organization that we dealt with for getting rid of these rockets from our school,” said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness. “We handed them over to the relevant authorities, and that organization, as it were, the experts that came and did it, are under the government of national consensus in Ramallah.”

July 23, 2014: “The Secretary-General is alarmed to hear that rockets were placed in an UNRWA school in Gaza and that subsequently these have gone missing…” (U.N. Spokesman of Ban Ki-Moon)

3. U.N. Names Anti-Israel Judge to Head Gaza Inquiry

William Schabas, a law professor who said that Israel’s prime minister was his “favorite in the world” to see in the dock of the International Criminal Court was selected by the U.N. Human Rights Council to chair its inquiry into the Hamas-Israel war of 2014. However, top human rights activist Aryeh Neier said that “any judge who had previously called for the indictment of the defendant should recuse himself.”

2. U.N. rewards murderous Syrian regime with top post on human rights committee

U.N. rewards murderous Syrian regime with top post on human rights committee

The U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization, charged with upholding fundamental human rights and opposing the subjugation of peoples, voted by acclamation to elect the murderous Syrian regime to a senior post.

1. U.N. Adopts 20 Resolutions on Israel vs. 4 on Rest of World Combined

U.N. Adopts 20 Resolutions on Israel vs. 4 on Rest of World Combined

UN Watch / Via blog.unwatch.org

In 2014, the U.N. General Assembly adopted 20 resolutions condemning Israel, and only four on the rest of the world combined, being one on Syria, North Korea, Ukraine and Iran.

There were zero UNGA resolutions condemning gross and systematic abuses committed by China, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkey, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, nor on many other major perpetrators of grave violations of human rights.