The courage to go after sacred cows is one of Donald Trump’s more appealing, if controversial, traits. He raised the issue of NATO, contending the USA pays far too much of the freight in the mutual defense pact.
Such proposals, the candidate has made clear, are not so much policies as “suggestions” or what one might call, from his business perspective, negotiating positions.
Regarding the NATO suggestion, frankly, I am of two minds. While it’s clearly arguable the American contribution is excessive, the investment might be necessary for the preservation of the alliance (weak as it is) and to maintain the necessary U.S. leadership position. “Leading from behind” has been one of the obvious fiascoes of the 21st century.
But I have another, somewhat similar, suggestion for Donald about which I have no ambivalence. It’s time for the U.S. seriously to curtail, if not end, its mammoth annual contribution to the United Nations that dwarfs those made by all the other 192 member-states.
Here’s how CNS News reported the situation in 2012:
In one of its last actions of the year, the United Nations General Assembly on Christmas Eve agreed to extend for another three years the formula that has U.S. taxpayers contributing more than one-fifth of the world body’s regular budget.No member-state called for a recorded vote, and the resolution confirming the contributions that each country will make for the 2013-2015 period was summarily adopted. The assembly also approved a two-year U.N. budget of $5.4 billion.
The U.S. has accounted for 22 percent of the total regular budget every year since 2000, and will now continue to do so for the next three years.
That’s 22 percent for virtually nothing.
While the UN many have been formed in an outburst of post-World War II idealism, it has descended into an international society for Third World kleptocrats of mind-boggling proportions—the Iraq War oil-for-food scandal being only one nauseating example--who engage in non-stop Israel-bashing to distract their populaces from their own thievery. What in the Sam Hill do we get out of that?
Everybody knows this, of course. When critical negotiations take place (i.e., the Iran nuclear talks, speaking of fiascoes, and the Syrian peace talks, not that they have much chance of success), they are removed from the UN and conducted between the serious players. No one is curious about what Zimbabwe’s Mugabe has to say, at least one hopes not.
Now it’s certain this suggestion—defunding the UN—would be treated with (feigned) uncomprehending derision by Hillary and even more contempt by Bernie, who would most probably like to cede US hegemony to the United Nations anyway, assuming some good socialist, like Venezuela’s Maduro or Brazil’s Rousseff (well, maybe not her), was secretary-general.
But the American voter, I would imagine, when informed of even a smattering of the facts, would support Trump in defunding or, more likely, greatly curtailing America’s financial support of the United Nations. It’s a negotiation, after all.
Maybe the UN can be reduced to a few divisions of more practical use like the World Health Organization. UNESCO has, sadly, already gone the way of political insanity. Whatever the case, a smaller UN footprint in NYC would be a big step in the right direction. Think what a positive it would be for the traffic and parking situation on the East side of Manhattan.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is organizing what is being billed as the first ever World Humanitarian Summit, which will take place in Istanbul Turkey on May 23-24 2016. Representatives from UN member states (including a number of heads of state and government), civil society, the private sector, crisis-affected communities and multilateral organizations are expected to attend the summit.
The summit’s purpose is said to be no less than to provide governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and community leaders a global platform to “announce major commitments to action, launch new partnerships aimed at saving lives, and highlight innovations which help reduce suffering and uphold humanity in times of crisis.” One of the most important goals is to inspire the creation of mechanisms for more reliable, multi-year financing for humanitarian and development programs combined. It sounds like OCHA is planning to dig an even deeper money pit for donors at the summit.
UN leaders have talked about a “grand bargain” in which UN organizations across the entire UN system would pledge to work together more cooperatively and to be more transparent in how they spend donated funds in return for enhanced, more predictable funding. “The donor base must clearly expand,” said OCHA’s Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, at a UN event on humanitarian financing last year.
However, when Mr. O’Brien spoke to reporters on May 2nd to highlight the importance of the upcoming summit’s agenda and the so-called “Grand Bargain” it is intended to promote, he inexplicably declined to answer some key questions. This is especially concerning, since Mr. O’Brien had already called into question his commitment to genuine UN reform and transparency. He declared in an interview with IRIN last October, for example, that “the UN doesn’t have to change.”
When asked at his May 2nd press conference how much the two day World Humanitarian Summit and preparations leading up to it are expected to cost, and where the money was coming from, Mr. O’Brien provided no numbers. He praised the host country Turkey for its generous contributions in helping to defray the full cost, without acknowledging Turkey’s self-interest in whitewashing its own abysmal record on two of the issues the summit is supposed to address – forced displacement and gender inequality.
According to OCHA’s 2016 budget plan, OCHA itself will be paying $700,748 towards the summit cost. In light of the recent scandal involving alleged payments by groups affiliated with an indicted businessman to buy influence at the United Nations, the identities and profiles of all donors of monies to defray the cost of the World Humanitarian Summit should be made public. At this point, Mr. O’Brien would not even agree to publicly disclose the heads of state and government whom have accepted invitations to attend the summit.
When asked to provide figures on the proportion of contributions to UN humanitarian programs that actually reach those in need, Mr. O’Brien also declined. There is reason to be concerned with Mr. O’Brien’s lack of transparency here as well. The UN’s Office of Internal Oversight had concluded in its 2012 audit of OCHA’s management of the Haiti Emergency Relief and Response Fund (ERRF) that “OCHA Haiti’s governance, risk management and control processes examined were assessed as unsatisfactory in providing reasonable assurance regarding the sound management of the ERRF and the effectiveness of OCHA’s coordination mechanisms and oversight role for humanitarian activities in Haiti.”
As of August 2011, $86 million had been received in donor contributions, of which approximately $80 million had been programmed and allocated for projects, and about $57.4 million had been disbursed. The UN’s internal audit found “insufficient oversight over $86 million funding made available to OCHA by donors.” The rate of international staff salaries ranged as high as $32,000 a month, while the monthly salary of national staff ranged as high $18,000. Some vehicles were rented for as high as $6000 per month.
This is not an isolated instance that should raise concern about where OCHA-channeled money is really going. According to Nicolas Séris and Roslyn Hees of Transparency International (TI), “The top ten Priority countries featured in OCHA’s 2015 Consolidated Appeal all received very low rankings in TI’s 2014 Corruption Perception Index, scoring less than 25 out of a possible 100.”
OCHA’s total 2016 budget (funded mostly from voluntary contributions, supplemented by an allocation from the regular UN assessed budget) is $323,982,056 million. In addition, OCHA coordinates the donations of hundreds of millions of dollars to specific humanitarian emergency relief programs, such as the much-criticized Haiti Emergency Relief and Response Fund. OCHA also spends funds to coordinate with politicized pro-Palestinian organizations.
Anyone who is serious about accountable, transparent delivery of humanitarian aid to people truly in need should think long and hard before making any further unconditional funding commitments to OCHA, including at the Turkish government-hosted World Humanitarian Summit.
♦ Each of these politicians accused of anti-Semitism was voted into power by an electorate who knew exactly what their views were. Had they not held these views, they would not have been elected.
♦ “Anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace.” — Mehdi Hasan, British Muslim political journalist.
♦ The consequences of Western politicians’ continued weakness and appeasement are far greater than encouraging anti-Semitism and undermining the State of Israel. It is the fatal and irreversible descent of their own countries.
Battle-hardened British soldiers were moved to tears by the horrors they witnessed at the Nazi charnel house of Bergen-Belsen when they liberated the concentration camp in April 1945. Yet seventy years after thousands of troops fought and died to destroy the regime that murdered six million Jews, the scourge of anti-Semitism is again on the march across Europe.
In just one week, a British student leader, a Labour Party constituency MP, a London council leader, a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee and even Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have all been accused of being mired in Jew-hatred.
It is the tip of the iceberg. Each of these people was voted into power by an electorate that knew exactly what their views were. Had they not held these views they would not have been elected.
All are on the political left, but the problem does not stop there. The cancer of Jew-hatred today spreads from right to left throughout European nations and in all supranational bodies including the European Union and the United Nations. It is led by politicians, human rights groups and the media, whose contorted worldview has contaminated ordinary people on a scale unimaginable possibly even to the arch-propagandist Dr. Josef Goebbels himself.
Seventy years after thousands of British troops fought and died to destroy the regime that murdered six million Jews, the scourge of anti-Semitism is again on the march. Left: A British soldier talks to an emaciated prisoner after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945. Right: An anti-Israel protestor in London holds up a sign saying “Hitler you were right,” in July 2014.
In the 21st Century, outside the Middle East, it is hard to express hatred of Jews publicly. So Jew-haters everywhere have adopted a proxy: the Jewish state. Israel is the acceptable target of their hate. That is why Labour MP Naz Shah’s “solution,” with chilling echoes of Reinhard Heydrich, was to “transport” all the Jews out of Israel, with the obvious implication that this would be done forcibly and violently.
It is why National Union of Students President Malia Bouattia advocated violence against Israel and accused the international media of being “Zionist-led.” It is why Muhammed Butt, a London Labour council leader, shared a Facebook post denouncing Israel as “a terrorist state like ISIS.” It is why former London Mayor and Labour National Executive member Ken Livingstone sought to discredit Zionism by his assertion that Hitler supported it.
Where does all this hatred come from? Its long lineage begins with the Muslim prophet Muhammed and its modern form pre-dates Hitler. Back in the 1920s and 30s, murderous Arab gangs attacked Jewish communities in post-Ottoman, British Mandated Palestine and tried to drive them into the sea. They were stopped by Britain’s Captain Orde Wingate, who taught the Jews to defend themselves, fighting alongside British troops.
A few years later Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, made a deal with Hitler to bring the final solution to the Middle East, but the German advance was halted in its tracks at El Alamein by General Montgomery’s Eighth Army. As soon as the State of Israel was established, 68 years ago this month, by resolution of the United Nations, five Arab armies fell on her with the intent of annihilation. They failed, and ever since have been trying to destroy the Jewish state by military assault and terrorism in all its forms.
Recognizing their collective inability to eliminate Jews from their historic homeland by force, the Arabs have waged a pernicious and all-pervading propaganda war to demonize the Jewish State. Their lies have included the blatant falsehoods that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal under international law; that the Israeli government operates an oppressive apartheid state; that the IDF is strangling Gaza under an unprovoked and illegal siege; that successive Israeli administrations have been the sole obstacle to peace in the Middle East; and that Israeli security forces deliberately murder innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Understanding that the might of the pen is magnified by the flash of the sword, the Palestinian leadership and their Iranian paymasters have frequently used violence to seize international attention. Provoking the Israelis into killing Palestinian people to ensure global condemnation was the true purpose behind the Gaza rocket wars and the recent wave of murderous knife attacks and car-rammings.
Why does the West pander to this religiously inspired hatred and bigotry? There are three fundamental reasons. First, Europe especially is consumed by imperial guilt. Those that are seen to have been historically oppressed and exploited can today do no wrong; Westerners must prostrate themselves at their feet.
Second, every European country depends on Arab oil for its continued existence and relishes the return of its petrodollars through arms sales and massive investment into their economies.
Third, Western governments understand the power of their ever-increasing Islamic populations. They fear the extremism of those who reject Western values and want to violently replace them with the ways of Islamic sharia law. And they calculate the mathematics of the Muslim vote at the ballot box.
They know that among these communities there is widespread and innate hatred of Jews and of Israel. Mehdi Hasan, a British Muslim political journalist, has confirmed: “anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace.” Our politicians believe that by appeasement they will satiate the blood lust of the jihadists and gain the support of Muslim voters.
This is why we see Western leaders condemning Israel for insufficient restraint while defending itself from lethal Hamas rockets, when they know full well Israel has done all it can to avoid civilian deaths. It is why not one single EU member state had the courage to vote against the false condemnation of Israel for war crimes in the UN Human Rights Council last year. It is why the British government unequivocally asserts that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal when it knows they are not. It is why Prime Minister David Cameron, a friend and supporter of the Jewish state, accused Israel of turning the Gaza Strip into a ‘prison camp’ when he knew it had not.
These false and malicious condemnations fuel hatred of Israel and of Jewish people everywhere. They are driven and intensified by a media that is dominated by strident, virulent and unyielding anti-Israel bias.
What of the future? Imperial guilt in Europe shows no sign of diminishing. In fact, the ideology behind it is gaining strength as the EU seeks to undermine national identity in its drive for ever-closer union and the creation of a superstate.
Despite developing energy technologies, there is no prospect of significantly reduced dependence on Middle Eastern oil in the foreseeable future. And with the vast influx of refugees from Muslim countries into Europe, the urge to appease their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attitudes can only increase dramatically.
This means Israel and the Jews are going to come under even more intolerable pressure, leading to a greater exodus of Jews from many Western nations and the increasing international isolation of the Jewish state.
But there is an alternative. It is that Western political leaders find the courage to reject the virulent anti-Israel prejudice. To speak what they know to be the truth about the situation in the Middle East. To stop encouraging Palestinian leaders to believe their campaign against Israel is going to achieve its goal of destroying the Jewish state. And rather than supporting Palestinian hate with Western dollars, to impose sanctions against their racist and destructive behaviour.
The consequences of Western politicians’ continued weakness and appeasement are far greater than encouraging anti-Semitism and undermining the State of Israel. It is the fatal and irreversible descent of their own countries. By allowing this anti-Semitic hatred, they are betraying the millions of citizens who have fought and died to oppose the sort of malevolent ideologies that are now incubating it.
The only purpose of the Syria peace talks was to distract everyone from all the fighting in Syria. This is a Shiite vs Sunni holy war, with the addition of ISIS to make it a triangle. Most of the parties doing the fighting are not represented at the peace table. And the only reason the Russians were pushing the scam is to help Assad gain an advantage. Which he did.
The United Nations envoy mediating a resolution to the crisis in Syria warned that the latest round of talks was overshadowed by a substantial deterioration of the cessation of hostilities, and called on the leaders of the Russian Federation and United States to help salvage the “barely alive” pact.
“What we need to do and to hear is that the cessation of hostilities is salvaged and […] is saved from a total collapse,” Staffan de Mistura, UN Special Envoy for Syria, told reporters following a briefing to the Security Council yesterday.
Except that all the bombing and fighting casts some slight doubt on the existence of any “cessation of hostilities”.
“This round of talks has instead been overshadowed, let’s be frank, by a substantial and indeed worrisome deterioration of the cessation of hostilities,” he said. “We cannot ignore that and we have not ignored it.”
Cessation of hostilities means that the hostilities have ceased. If you have ongoing hostilities, then that’s not a deterioration of a cessation of hostilities. It means that the cessation of hostilities doesn’t exist.
“Let’s put it in a few words: In the last 48 hours, we have had an average of one Syrian killed every 25 minutes. One Syrian wounded every 13 minutes,” he said.
But other than that the hostilities have ceased.
“You remember when the word transition, at least in certain area, was taboo? Not anymore. Everyone acknowledges that that is the agenda,” the envoy stressed.
The envoy also said that there is a clear understanding that a credible political transition should be overseen by a new credible and inclusive transitional governance that will be replacing the present governance arrangements. The other common point is that the transitional governance should include members of the present Government, opposition, independents and others, he said.
Great plan. Also we should invite the unicorns. And plant a money tree.
Russia has no reason to agree to a transition since it’s winning. The UN helped make that happen with its truce. The Sunni Jihadists, not to mention ISIS, have already shown in Libya what that kind of transition would look like.
Tragically, and in his own words, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan thinks (or pretends to think) that “the primary reason behind terror in Turkey is to prevent Turkey from getting into the world’s top 10 economies.”
In fact that diagnosis explains why Turkey must still fight the war it has been fighting since 1984 – wrong diagnosis. But it does not explain if Turkey, three decades ago, was also heading for the top 10 list but was barred by a global network of conspirators who all of a sudden sparked terrorism on Turkish soil. So it was all because the world’s top 10 economies did not want Turkey on the list; they held secret meetings and decided that the best way to stop Turkey’s rise was to plot terror in a land that was best known for its peaceful past?
But then, ironically, Mr. Erdoğan also thinks that Turkey (or a Muslim) country should be sharing the same seat and powers as the same countries that are most probably the culprits of the global plot against Turkey: The United Nations Security Council (or the five permanent members of the UNSC).
In a recent speech, Mr. Erdoğan renewed his famous “the-world-is-greater-than-five” dictum. “There is no Muslim country among the five – all of them are Christian, non-Muslim. What is that approach? Is it fair? It’s not!” he roared, reminding everyone that he wants a Muslim member state at the UNSC “only to make the world fair” (not to be confused with the fact that Mr. Erdogan is Muslim).
Just smile and forget the fact that Mr. Erdoğan thinks that permanent member China is a Christian country.
There may be a boom in the number of house churches in the country but I have not read about the Communist Party declaring the country’s official religion to be Christianity.
If not five, what does the world equal, then, in Mr. Erdogan’s thinking? All 193 U.N. member nations as permanent members of the Security Council, all with veto powers? That would not be practical. Then, one country representing each monotheistic faith? Is Mr. Erdoğan implying that he wants Israel as a permanent member?
Should China and North Korea spell each other off and represent the atheist seat? Then the new UNSC should have India as a permanent member representing Hinduism and Japan representing Shintoism.
But the Muslim representation in UNSC could be more problematic than Mr. Erdoğan envisages. To begin with, which Islamic sect should win a seat at UNSC? Sunni or Shiite, or both? If it would be Sunni only, would that not go against Mr. Erdoğan’s preaching that all faiths must be represented? So, it will be Iran and a Sunni permanent member. But which Sunni country? It is not too hard to guess Mr. Erdoğan’s idea on the ideal candidate. But what would be the fair criteria? The world’s “most Muslim Sunni country?” Sadly science has not yet invented a Muslim-meter.
One natural candidate could be Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam’s holy place. It would also be fun to have both Saudi Arabia and Iran sitting on the UNSC together and in peace – and with Israel, too.
Another criterion could be to nominate the most populous Muslim country in the world. That would point to Indonesia and even Pakistan and Egypt would come before Turkey. Not just that: India where, according to the 2011 population census, the Muslim population is twice as big as Turkey, would be a far better candidate than the Crescent and Star.
Mr. Erdoğan complains that all five permanent members are Christian but since in the new “faith-based setting” there will be Sunni and Shiite members, what if the Christians want representation on the grounds of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant (and other) faiths? What about the animists in Africa? Or Zoroastrians – for whom Mr. Erdoğan has never hidden his deep disdain?
And, by the way, are we talking about a security council or a world congress of the faithful including those with faith in no faith?
PA wants the international community to ‘recognize the legitimacy’ of their murders by awarding a terrorist the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is seeking to have the international forum recognize their “right under international law” to murder Israeli civilians in all places and at all times, which they claim is established by a UN resolution.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reports that the PA are requesting that Palestinian “heroes and role models” who murdered Israeli civilians should receive an internationally protected right to murder Israeli civilians, that will also be recognized as a positive act that should be awarded.
As a means to attain this recognition, the PA is asking the international community to award an imprisoned Palestinian terrorist with the Nobel Peace Prize. As the leader of the Tanzim, Fatah’s terror wing, Marwan Barghouti orchestrated many terror attacks in which Israelis were murdered. He was convicted in an Israeli court and is serving five life sentences for murder.
“The candidacy (of Barghouti) is essentially a call to recognize the legitimacy of the prisoners’ struggle… and also a response to the claims and Israeli terms that do not recognize the legitimacy of their struggle, and treat them as ‘terrorists and criminals,’” said the head of the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Karake.
Barghouti was convicted of five murders – Yoela Hen (45), Eli Dahan (53), Yosef Habi (52), Police officer Sergeant-Major Salim Barakat (33) and Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus.
Additionally, dozens of other Israeli civilians were murdered by Tanzim terrorists under Barghouti’s reign, although he was not tried for those murders.
The PA claims it has the right to murder Israeli civilians according to UN resolution 3236 of 1974, which “recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means.”
The PA interprets “all means” to include violence and killing of civilians, while ignoring the continuation of the resolution which states that the use of “all means” should be “in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” The UN Charter prohibits targeting civilians, even in war, and that “international disputes” should be resolved “by peaceful means.”
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations are winning. Islamic terror in America, Europe and Israel has killed a thousand or so people. That’s a lot, but Islamization kills entire civilizations; with the death of our civilization, more deaths than Islamic terrorism has brought can be expected.
Should we give up and voluntarily commit civilizational suicide? Much of Europe has already done so and that’s what Obama and His minions are seeking for America. The forces pushing for it are strong and we can react with greater strength only if we have the will. Do we?
Part I – America
a. Muslims already in Obam’s America
The video embedded above promotes a new book titled See No Sharia, which deals with the Muslim Brotherhood and related Islamist organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood’s vision for America is laid out in a document put in evidence at the Holy Land Foundation criminal trial of several Islamist Muslim Brotherhood conspirators for funding Hamas, a terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law.
[w]ritten in 1991 by a top Muslim Brotherhood operative, Mohamed Akram, and entitled “The Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal of the Group in North America,” this internal correspondence was meant for the eyes only of the organization’s leadership in Egypt. So, the document is direct and to the point: It explicitly states that the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America is “destroying Western civilization from within … by [the infidels’] hands and the hands of the believers so that Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” [Emphasis added.]
Following guilty verdicts against indicted conspirators, the Obama administration could (and should) have sought indictments against their multiple unindicted co-conspirators. It chose not to do so, most likely because pursuing the matter further would have been inconsistent with Obama’s world view — which seems to be consistent with that of the Muslim Brotherhood, et al.
See No Sharia, and to some extent the related video, illuminate ways in which Obama’s America has been seduced by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Muslim Brotherhood-related Islamist groups into requiring our law enforcement agencies to reject the notion of Islamist Terrorism and to accept instead that of non-denominational “Violent Extremism.” We are repeatedly told that Violent Extremism has nothing to do with Islam.
It was the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Cairo in 1928, that established Islamic Jihad as a mass movement. The significance of the Muslim Brotherhood to Islamic Fascism is comparable to the significance of the Bolshevik Party to Communism: it was, and it remains to this day, the ideological reference point and the organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including Al Queda and Hamas. [Emphasis added.]
While British colonial policy contributed to the rise of Islamic radicalism, the Brotherhood’s jihad was not directed against the British, but focused almost exclusively on Zionism and the Jews.
Membership in the Brotherhood rose from 800 members in 1936 to over 200,000 in 1938. In those two years the Brotherhood conducted a major campaign in Egypt, and it was against the Jews, not against the British occupiers. This campaign against the Jews, in the late 1930s, which established the Brotherhood as a mass movement of Islamic Jihadists, was set off by a rebellion in Palestine directed against Jewish immigration from Europe and Russia. That campaign was initiated by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini. [Emphasis added.]
Al-Husseini was extremely impressed with Adolf Hitler and his anti-Jewish rhetoric. In 1941 he visited Hitler in Berlin. He was so enthralled with Hitler and the Nazis, and their plans to exterminate the Jews that he decided to remain in Berlin. He lived there from 1941 to 1945, recruiting Muslims in Europe for the Waffen-SS. He was very close to Hitler. Husseini’s best friends were Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann.
He convinced Hitler that he would be able to persuade his Muslim brothers in the Arab world to carry out the extermination of Jews in the Middle East, just as the Nazis were doing in Europe.
Back then, Hitler was largely focused on the elimination of Jews. That remains the focus of Hamas, of which the Muslim Brotherhood remains a principal supporter. Might it be due to long-standing Muslim Brotherhood ideas that many blame all of the conflicts in the Middle East on the Jewish “occupation” of Israel? That view is held by Obama and members of His administration. Hence, their persistent efforts to turn parts of Israel over to the “Palestinians,” culminating in a two state solution giving Hamas and the Palestinian Authority enhanced leverage in driving Jews from Israel.
Under pressure from the Obama administration, our law enforcement agencies cooperate with Islamist organizations to implement Sharia principles to fight “Islamophobia” rather than to locate, arrest and prosecute Islamist terrorists and wannabe Islamist terrorists. One possible rationale is that if we are nice, they may reduce their efforts to “radicalize” Muslims and, perhaps, stop some Islamic attacks. Another more likely rationale is that our dear leaders actually believe that Islamophobia (along with the Jewish “occupation” of Israel) is the principal cause of Islamic terrorism and that Sharia compliance (along with the “two state solution” and death of Israel) will solve the problems.
America has no blasphemy laws and should want none. They would violate our First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The Organization for Islamic Cooperation, consisting of fifty-seven Islamic nations, has been pushing the United Nations to impose Sharia law-style laws prohibiting blasphemy. They do not seek such laws for their own nations because they already have them to protect Islam. They seek them for America and the rest of what’s left of Western civilization, but seem to have little or no interest in prohibiting “blasphemy” against Judaism or Christianity.
The cartoon is blasphemous under Sharia law because it depicts Muhammed; some Muslims seek to kill those who produce such material. An “art exhibit” featuring an image of the Virgin Mary in a glass of urine is considered sacrilegious; some Christians seek to have government funding removed. I am reminded of this rather old Andrew Klavan video:
The issue of the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States has understandably ignited a firestorm of protest by Americans concerned about their safety and the safety of their families. These Americans are not exhibiting “xenophobia,” the usual claim made by the open borders immigration anarchists. They have simply been paying attention to what James Comey, the Director of the FBI, and Michael Steinbach, the FBI’s Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division, have stated when they testified before congressional hearings about the Syrian refugee crisis. They made it clear that these refugees cannot be vetted. There are no reliable databases to check and no capacity to conduct field investigations inside Syria to verify the backgrounds of these aliens. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
I focused on these issues in my October 7, 2015 article for FrontPage Magazine, “Syrian ‘Refugees’ and Immigration Roulette: How the government is recklessly playing with American lives.”
Further reports have provided disturbing information that ISIS operatives have seized blank Syrian passports and other identity documents, along with the printing devices used to prepare passports and other ID, and have sold these documents to reporters in false names. These identity documents are indistinguishable from bona fide documents because they are bona fide documents — except that the photos and biometrics do not relate to the original person but create credible false aliases for anyone willing to pay for them.
Even if we had the documentation referred to above, it would be of little help because due to pressure from Muslim Brotherhood-related groups, we are not allowed to “profile” Muslims. As noted here,
obeisance to politically correct proscriptions against “profiling” is just one of the myriad ways in which we tell the jihadist enemy we really aren’t serious about the latest battle in the 14-century-long war of Islam against the infidel West.
. . . .
This lack of seriousness is endemic in this administration. Refusing to call ISIS “Islamic,” even going so far as to censor comments by French president François Hollande that used the word, bespeaks a dangerous frivolity. . . .
Our problem, however, goes beyond the politicians. Too many of us have failed to understand that this war did not begin on 9/11. It did not begin when al Qaeda declared war on us in the 90s and attacked our embassies and naval vessels. It did not begin in 1979, when our alleged neo-colonialist depredations supposedly sparked the Iranian revolution and created today’s Islamic (N.B., Mr. President) Republic of Iran, the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism. It did not begin in 1948, when five Arab nations, all but one members of the U.N., violated Resolution 191 and attacked Israel. It did not begin when after World War I the victorious Entente powers exercised mandatory powers, granted by the League of Nations and codified in international treaties, over the territory of the Ottoman Empire that had sided with the Central Powers.
All these acts of aggression were merely the latest in a war begun in the 7th century when Islam attacked the eastern Roman Empire and began its serial dismemberment of the heart of Christendom, the old word for the West. For a thousand years the armies of Allah successfully invaded, conquered, occupied, enslaved, and raided the West, in accordance with its doctrine of jihad in the service of Muslim domination, and in homage to Mohammed’s injunction, “I was told to fight all men until they say there is no god but Allah.” This record of success began to end in the 17th century with the rise of the modern West and its technological, economic, and political advantages. [Emphasis added.]
But the war didn’t end with that Muslim retreat, even after what bin Laden called the “catastrophe” –– the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate, and the division of its territory into Western-style nation-states. The West won that battle, but it did not win the war. One reason is the Muslim nations of the Middle East never suffered the wages of their aggression. They sided with the Central Powers in World War I. They sat out World War II––apart from the many thousands who fought on the side of the Nazis––and received fugitive Nazis as guests after the war. Their serial aggression and terror against Israel has never been repaid with bombed-out capitals or punitive postwar reprisals. Their governments have never been punished for funding and proliferating mosques and madrassas teaching hatred of the infidel and terrorist violence in the service of jihad. [Emphasis added.]
Instead of paying the price of aggression, partly because of the Cold War, more recently because of Western failure of nerve and civilizational exhaustion, Muslims have been the beneficiaries of billions in Western aid, Western arms, Western defense against enemies, Western lax immigration policies, Western appeasement, and Western suicidal ideas like cultural and moral relativism. In short, Muslims have never accepted their defeats, and have never experienced the humiliating cost of their aggression, because the modern West has never forced them to pay for it. [Emphasis added.]
Thus they look at our unserious, godless culture of consumption and frivolity, of self-loathing and guilt, and these serious believers are confident that 350 years of defeat in battle have not led to defeat in the long war. And so the war goes on. The frivolous Western dogs bark, but Allah’s caravan moves on. [Emphasis added.]
Part II — Israel
Israel is constantly attacked by various UN organizations, most recently UNESCO, which has named the Western Wall after Muhammed’s flying horse, Barack Buraq.
There is a concerted effort among “Palestinians” and their supporters to erase all evidence of the historical connection of Jews to Israel. The UN, controlled by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, is a willing partner in these efforts. Besides being motivated by Islamic Jew-hatred, this endeavor is in line with the Islamic supremacist tendency to appropriate the holy places and sacred figures of other religions.
Buraq is claimed to have transported Muhammed from Mecca to Jerusalem, hence giving Palestinians valid claim to all of Israel. Here’s one depiction of Buraq. Obviously, there are no photographs of Muhammed actually riding him, because images of Muhammed are prohibited. Look closely at the picture. Where did the horse’s head come from?
Here’s an explanation of the Muslim nexus with the Western Wall:
Various scholars and writers, such as Ibn al-Faqih, Ibn Abd Rabbih, and Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, have suggested places where Buraq was tethered, mostly locations near the southwest corner of the Haram.[7]However, for several centuries the preferred location has been the al-Buraq mosque, just inside the wall at the south end of the Western Wall plaza.[7] The mosque sits above an ancient passageway that once came out through the long-sealed Barclay’s Gate whose huge lintel remains visible below the Maghrebi gate.[7] Because of the proximity to the Western Wall, the area next to the wall has been associated with Buraq at least since the 19th century.[8]
A New York Times editorial published in October of last year purported to compare the Jewish and Muslim claims to the Temple Mount. An article by Daniel Greenfield at Front Page Magazine posed a few questions for the NUTNYT editorialists.
The Temple Mount is holy to Jews because of the Temples. So the New York Times chose to discuss whether the Temples really existed. It’s holy to Muslims because Mohammed supposedly flew there on a flying horse (with a woman’s head).
. . . .
Let’s interview some of the same scholars and archeologists as to whether the entire Muslim basis for laying claim to the area has any basis in reality. The New York Times discusses the need for “independent scientific verification” of the Temples. How about “independent scientific verification” of this?
1. Buraq was a flying horse with a woman’s head. Can we get any verification that such a creature ever existed.
2. Buraq flew from Mecca to Jerusalem and back in one night. “The distance between Mecca and Jerusalem is 755.1 miles. To complete this feat in one night would have meant that Buraq must have been jet propelled in the 7th Century.” Please provide independent scientific verification of the existence of a flying horse with a woman’s head that can travel faster than the speed of sound.
Oddly the New York Times doesn’t appear to be interested in independent scientific verification of Islamic Supremacist myths.
Evidently, UNESCO puts more stock in flying horses than in Jewish claims to the Temple Mount.
In view of the gravity of the Islam vs. Everybody Else situation, I decided to try to inject a bit of humor into only one of the many problems Israel faces with the UN, the OIC, Obama’s America, Europe, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and others. I had originally intended to write a more comprehensive piece on Islam vs. Israel, and will probably do so after I post Part III of this series dealing with the Islamisation of Europe.
A better and more detailed account of the UNESCO – Temple Mount absurdity is provided here.
Conclusions
Obama’s America has the will to “win,” but confuses winning with eradicating Islamophobia and slicing Israel into pieces to give to the “Palestinians” and perhaps Syria, hence bringing “peace” to the Middle East. Under that definition of “winning,” Israel, the only democratic nation and the only solid ally of the United States in the region, will cease to exist; the Islamists will have won.
We need a very different version of “winning,” one under which our constitutional freedoms and our democratic nature will be cherished and protected. Both are inconsistent with Sharia law and are not part of any definition with which Obama would agree.
We can win against Islamist encroachments on our government and in our society only if enough of us recognize the dangers they entail. Then, we will have not only the means to win but the will to do so. A first step will be to bid Obama good riddance and to welcome a successor who recognizes the dangers of Islamism and is prepared — and wants — to move quickly and effectively against it.
At an open debate on the Middle East at the United Nations Security Council in New York on Monday — as a bus was being blown up in Jerusalem — Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon told his Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Mansour, that he ought to be ashamed for not denouncing terrorism and incitement.
Danon had brought Natan and Renana Meir to the session to personify the devastation that Palestinian Authority incitement to violence against Jews continues to wreak. Natan is the widower of Dafna Meir, a 38-year-old nurse who was murdered three months ago by a Palestinian teenager at the entrance to her home in Otniel, a settlement south of Hebron. Renana is Natan’s 17-year-old daughter, who not only witnessed her mother being stabbed to death, but tried to help fend off the assailant.
The 15-year-old terrorist later told Israeli interrogators that he had been inspired to commit his heinous act from broadcasts on PA television and social media.
Mansour did not condemn any of it, of course. Instead, he berated Israel for imprisoning and killing Palestinian children. No surprise there, which is why Danon — who should be lauded for standing alone in the hornets’ nest of hypocrisy and deceit that the Security Council occupies — was wasting his breath. As Natan Meir said later in a small press conference after the event, it hurt him to hear a diplomat referring to jailed Palestinian kids as victims, when one of those “kids” had slaughtered his wife in cold blood.
Danon already knows that the PA is a lost cause in every possible respect. So his finger-pointing at Mansour was a gesture aimed elsewhere — but hopefully not at the United States, which is just as deserving of a tongue-lashing as the PA that it morally equates with Israel.
Indeed, “disgraceful” doesn’t begin to describe the statement made by David Pressman, the U.S.’s “alternative representative to the U.N. for special political affairs,” at the session in question. Condemning terrorism and settlements in the same sentence, Pressman talked about America’s “steadfast” efforts to “advance dialogue and progress,” which, he said, “will be borne from hard choices made by both leaders to advance the cause of peace over parochial politics.”
Thus, he continued: “We remain very concerned by the wave of terrorism, violence and the utter lack of progress the parties have made toward a two-state solution. It is important that both sides demonstrate, with concrete policies and actions, a genuine commitment to achieving a two-state solution to reduce tensions and restore hope in the possibility of peace. What we have seen on the ground, and what families like the Meir family present here today have experienced first-hand, is absolutely unconscionable.”
Yes, said Pressman, “acts of terrorism have taken too many lives, including Americans. The victims have included soldiers and civilians, pregnant women and mothers, Israelis and Palestinians. … Terrorism is terrorism. It is wrong. It is bloody. And it must stop. Anyone that aspires to achieve a viable and independent Palestinian state must understand that engaging in incitement to violence only serves to undermine this goal. Only a political outcome, not violence, will allow this goal to be realized.”
And here came the clincher: “We remain deeply concerned about the shooting of a Palestinian assailant on March 24 in Hebron by a member of the Israeli security forces, and are following the legal proceedings against the accused perpetrator closely. We note that just today charges of manslaughter were brought against the soldier. … In cases where anyone from any side acts outside the law, they must be held accountable.”
In other words, while Israel always holds each and every soldier accountable for the slightest whiff of wrongdoing, and the PA encourages, glorifies and funds terrorists as a matter of course and principle, “both sides” share responsibility for the violence that is causing the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians alike.
But Pressman didn’t stop there. No, he completed his comparison by reprimanding Israel for “settlement activity” that the U.S. “strongly opposes.” Such actions as “land expropriations, settlement expansions, and legalizations of outposts,” he said, “are wrong and fundamentally undermine the prospects for a two-state solution.”
Shame on him and the entire Obama administration for not realizing that the only kind of construction the U.S. should be linking to the jihad that the Palestinians are waging against Israel is that of terror tunnels, rocket launchers and lies.
An IDF soldier stands atop a tank near Alonei Habashan on the Golan Heights, close to the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria. (photo credit:REUTERS)
In a first reaction to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that “Israel will never leave the Golan Heights,” Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad said Sunday that Syria is prepared to use every possiblemeans to recapture the area, including military means.
“The Syrian Golan is an occupied Arab land according to the UN Security Council’s resolutions, and the presence of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Forces proves this,” Miqad said in an interview with the Lebanon-based TV channel al-Mayadeen.
“We have never renounced the resistance and we are ready to recapture the Golan in all possible ways, including military ways. Israel wants to provoke us, but we will never surrender,” Miqdad added.
Regarding Syria’s cooperation with Russia, he stated that “the daily communication between the Syrian leadership and the Russian leadership continues. We believe that the Russian policy leans on the international law and on UN Security Council resolutions.
“Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor any other president in the world would have accepted the indecent Israeli logic regarding the Golan,” Miqdad argued.
At the opening of a special cabinet meeting held for the first time ever on the Golan Heights on Sunday, PM Netanyahu declared: “The time has come after 40 years for the international community to finally recognize that the Golan Heights will remain forever under Israeli sovereignty.”
The United Nations is an evil body dominated by Islamic nations and tyrannies.
Just last week, on March 24 in Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Council concluded its session by passing five resolutions condemning Israel. This followed a series of blood libels accusing the only democratic country, in a region surrounded by barbarism, of engaging in a policy of deliberate murder of Palestinian children.
Indeed the Human Rights Council has passed more resolutions condemning Israel over the past decade than all resolutions criticizing other governments combined. This, despite the fact that countries leading the charges against Israel are themselves engaged in horrific human rights violations. And despite the fact that in Syria, Israel’s neighbor, hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions are trying to flee the country as President Bashar Assad’s army and ISIS butcher entire communities.
The reality is that the United Nations, with its subsidiaries, has morphed into an evil body dominated by Islamic nations, tyrannies and rogue states whose policies it legitimizes.
Freedom House, the independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy, maintains that 80% of UNHRC members are “not free” or only “partly free.” In this degenerate body, Saudi Arabia was elected last year to chair a key human rights panel.
The UNHRC has consistently appointed fiercely biased anti-Israel rapporteurs and commissioned numerous reports to demonize Israel and accuse the Israel Defense Forces of engaging in war crimes.
Last month, it passed a resolution to boycott produce and compile a list of businesses over the Green Line — clearly a first step in the direction of sanctions and an extension of the global anti-Semitic BDS movement.
Similar outrageous bias is also prevalent in the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council where demonizing, delegitimizing and attributing all the woes of the world to the Jewish state is reminiscent of Nazi propaganda or the Middle Ages when Jews were held responsible for all the misfortunes of mankind.
The initiatives of these efforts to demonize Israel emanate from rogue states that dominate the U.N.
A few examples:
Representatives of Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya and Qatar served as presidents of the General Assembly;
A representative of Iran served as a vice president;
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who heads the world’s most virulent terror state, used the General Assembly to “condemn terror” while interspersing his statements with anti-Semitic remarks;
Iran, which stones women for adultery, was appointed to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women;
Assad’s Syria was elected to a UNESCO commission dealing with human rights and nuclear proliferation;
As recently as 2010, the UNHRC published a report praising the human rights record of Libya;
A representative of Sudan, whose president is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, was elected vice president of the Economic and Social Council, which regulates human rights;
North Korea was elected to chair the Conference on Disarmament;
UNESCO continuously condemns Israel and only once condemned Syria, and yet elected Syria to one of its human rights committees.
In 2015 the World Health Organization had the gall to pass a resolution, introduced by Syria, by a majority of 104 with 4 opposed and 6 abstentions, absurdly claiming that Israel was “targeting the health of Syrians in the Golan … injecting them with pathogenic viruses.” The WHO has never carried a single resolution condemning any other country.
Further examples abound of the hypocritical, corrupt and evil machinations of the U.N.
After the defeat of Nazism, the founders of the United Nations endorsed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They never envisaged that the organization they created would subsequently be hijacked by dictatorships and tyrannies who would exploit it as a platform to promote evil, even including the endorsement of genocide.
Israel became the canary in the mine. Two decades after having endorsed the creation of the State of Israel, the U.N. initiated a concerted effort towards its delegitimization.
We have witnessed a dramatic downward spiral at the U.N. over the last 30 years. In the 1990s, the Security Council was disgraced by its failure to quash genocide in Rwanda, despite the fact that it had peacekeeping forces in the area. Likewise, the shocking blunder in Srebrenica, Bosnia, when a U.N. battalion — in a U.N.-declared “free zone” — handed 8,000 Muslim civilians to the Serb military, which promptly slaughtered them all. Nor was the U.N. able to deal with the genocide in Sudan or more recently the carnage in Syria.
Instead, it intensified its anti-Israel campaigns. What is morally despicable is that the Europeans, who initially displayed token resistance to some of the more outrageous attacks on Israel, have reverted to the role they played in the 1930s when they stood aside as the forces of darkness enveloped the Jewish people.
They seem to have entirely forsaken their moral compass and rarely vote against the most extreme anti-Israel resolutions, preferring to abstain so as not to antagonize those powers seeking to delegitimize and destroy the Jewish state. They also join the obscene calls on Israel to respond “more proportionately” to Palestinians engaged in murdering their civilians.
Now they have gone one step further. In a world rampant with human rights injustices, they preceded the UNHRC with an EU demand for “labeling” Israeli products emanating from over the Green Line.
This must be seen as an extension of the ongoing campaign to rescind U.N. Resolution 242, which calls for negotiations based on defensible borders and substituting it with a demand to return to the indefensible 1949 borders unless an agreement on swaps with the Palestinians (currently inconceivable) can be achieved. In this context, the settlement blocs, the Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem and even the Jewish Quarter of the Old City are regarded as occupied territories.
Until now, the Security Council was prevented from passing such a resolution because the U.S. protected Israel by employing its veto. While U.S. President Barack Obama has been at the vanguard of those demanding that Israel accept the indefensible 1949 armistice lines as future borders, until now he was inhibited by Congress and his own party from endorsing a Security Council resolution to this effect.
But in recent months there have been numerous signals and outright threats that unless Israel makes further unilateral concessions, it should no longer rely on a U.S. veto to prevent a harsh Security Council resolution which could in turn pave the way for global sanctions against the Jewish state.
Obama is unlikely to act until after the presidential elections. But there are growing concerns that in the two-month hiatus between the elections and his retirement, he could well do so.
The U.N. is intensifying its campaign against Israel. The horrendous ISIS attacks in Europe have in no way impacted on EU policy toward Israel.
The months until the presidential elections present the optimal time to influence future U.S. policy toward the U.N. and to ensure that Israel is not abandoned to the wolves.
This year, due to a mandatory rotation, the U.S. is not a member of the UNHRC. Presidential candidates should be canvassed to express their commitment to refuse to participate in the UNHRC unless it halts its obsessional anti-Israel crusades. They should also be urged to commit themselves to refute any effort to impose a solution on Israel or rescind U.N. Resolution 242.
Donald Trump has already completely written off the U.N. But the real challenge is to persuade the likely winner — Hillary Clinton — to translate the speech she made at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference expressing her love for Israel into a clear cut commitment that, if elected, she will ensure that the U.S. either enforces a modicum of morality at the U.N. — including confronting the vile hatred that portrays Israel as evil incarnate — or take appropriate action.
The U.N. today incubates evil and provides legitimacy to tyrannies. If this will not change, the U.S. and other democratic countries have an obligation to condemn these pathological actions and, if necessary, establish a global association of democracies to promote human rights and combat terrorism.
Democratic leaders would do well to recall the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian executed by the Nazis, who stated that “silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
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