The pro-IS Raqqa Media Center posted photos purportedly showing the captured Jordanian pilot
slamic State (IS) militants have captured the pilot of a Jordanian warplane that crashed in northern Syria, Jordan’s military has confirmed.
The jihadist group claimed it had shot down the jet with a heat-seeking missile near the city of Raqqa.
It published photographs showing the pilot, who has been named as Flight Lieutenant Moaz Youssef al-Kasasbeh.
This is the first US-led coalition aircraft to be lost on IS territory since air strikes began in September.
Jordan is one of four Arab states which have bombed targets in Syria.
Plea for mercyThe confirmation that a Jordanian pilot had been captured came in a statement carried by the state news agency, Petra.
IS fighters were shown loading the wreckage of the Jordanian aircraft on to a vehicle
Jordan’s military said the jet was one of several involved in a raid on IS hideouts in the Raqqa region
The aircraft appeared to come down near a river or lake, outside the city of Raqqa
“During a mission Wednesday morning conducted by several Royal Jordanian Air Force planes against hideouts of the IS terrorist organisation in the Raqqa region, one of the planes went down and the pilot was taken hostage,” a military source was quoted as saying.
“Jordan holds the group and its supporters responsible for the safety of the pilot and his life,” the source added.
The source did not name the pilot, but Petra published a photo of Flt Lt Kasasbeh above its report.
Analysis: Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence correspondent
We do not know yet if the Jordanian aircraft suffered an engine failure or other technical problem, or if it was actually downed by IS air defences.
IS has been assumed to have a limited air defence capability – based not least on the sorts of shoulder-fired missiles that are rife in the region.
IS fighters have downed Iraqi and Syrian government aircraft and helicopters in the past. We also know that IS has overrun a number of Syrian air defence bases.
It is not clear if IS has personnel capable of operating any of these more sophisticated Soviet or Russian-supplied systems.
The US-led coalition permanently monitors the nature of the air defence threat and if the Jordanian aircraft was shot down then any potential lessons will be fed into the ongoing air campaign.
Earlier, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said it had received reports from its network of activists that IS members had taken “an Arab pilot prisoner after shooting his plane down with an anti-aircraft missile near the city of Raqqa”.
The pro-IS Raqqa Media Center also posted a photo on its Facebook page showing armed men taking the pilot out of what appeared to be a lake or river.
The man appeared able to stand but was bleeding from the mouth. He was wearing only a white T-shirt and was soaking wet.
A caption identified him as Lt Kasasbeh and later a photo appearing to show his military ID card was published.
Moaz Youssef al-Kasasbeh
Born in the city of Karak in Jordan in 1988, he is 26 years old
Has been a Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot for six years
Currently holds the rank of flight lieutenant
One of eight children, he got married in July
Lt Kasasbeh’s father, Youssef al-Kasasbeh, confirmed his son had been captured in Syria in an interview with the Jordanian newspaper, Saraya.
Youssef al-Kasasbeh said he found out the news after the head of the RJAF informed another of his sons.
He appealed to IS leaders: “May Allah plant mercy in your hearts and may you release my son.”
The air forces of Jordan, the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain have carried out hundreds of air strikes on IS in Syria in the past three months.
Many of the targets have been in and around Raqqa, which is the de facto capital of the “caliphate” whose creation IS proclaimed in June.
German author Juergen Todenhoefer recently met Islamic State fighters in Raqqa and filmed daily life
Syrian government warplanes also regularly bomb Raqqa and the surrounding province. On Tuesday, an air strike killed more than 20 people, according to the Syrian Observatory.
Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and UK have joined the US in conducting air strikes on IS in neighbouring Iraq.
The BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut says the latest news will raise concern among the coalition nations about the level of armament available to the militants and the defensive measures deployed by coalition jets.
It may further diminish the appetite of Arab nations to take part in such operation, our correspondent adds.
The war against ISIS is taking a dangerous, perhaps inevitable turn. The terror organization has been keen to expand to southern Syria and the Syrian capital of Damascus. Now it says it has recruited three Syrian rebel groups operating in the south of the country in an area bordering the Israeli occupied Golan Heights — that have switched their loyalties to ISIS.
This switch means that Israel, the U.S.’s closest ally in the Middle East, could be threatened from the southwest by the Egyptian ISIS group of Ansar Bait al-Maqdis in Sinai and by ISIS in southern Syria.
The ISIS war is not going well at all for the US-led alliance in Syria. ISIS and al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, are still the dominant rebel groups in the country. The U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army is still not a reliable fighting force.
The three rebel groups that just joined ISIS could make that situation even worse. Two of the groups are small in number, but the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade has hundreds of fighters. The Yarmouk Brigades has been at odds with al-Nusra Front and switched now to join what leaders of all thrwee groups believe is the future of Islam.
“If Israel was attacked by ISIS, America would expect a proportionate response by Israel, which is militarily capable of defending itself,” said Geoffrey Levin, a professor at New York University. “America would counsel against sustained Israeli involvement because it could threaten the tacit alliance between America, Iran, Turkey, and several Arab states against ISIS.”
“More recent reports indicated a closer alliance with [the Islamic State] due to tensions with JN [al-Nusra Front],” said Jasmine Opperman, a researcher at Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC). She said al-Nusra attacked the headquarters of the Yarmouk Brigade in southern Syria in early December 2014 following clashes between the two groups.
Al-Yarmuk Martyrs Brigade controlled an area near the Jordan-Israel border in March 2013. That same month, the brigade took as hostages some of the United Nations peacekeeping mission soldiers. Even so, Israel reportedly allowed the brigade to have its wounded fighters treated in Israeli hospitals.
ISIS has been known for launching surprise attacks and opening new battlefronts when it seems to be losing. ISIS also has been criticized by many Arabs and Muslims for not taking its fight to Israel and instead fighting fellow Arabs and Muslims. An attack aimed at Israel may boost ISIS’s popularity in the Arab world and refresh its recruitment and funding efforts.
On the other hand, some of ISIS’s top military commanders were former officers in Saddam Hussein’s army, and they may resort to what Saddam did in the 1991 Gulf War when he attacked Israel with mid-range rockets, hoping to drag the Israelis into a conflict that he was losing.
An Israeli retaliation in 1991 could have jeopardized the U.S-led coalition that then included Arab countries like Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The same is true now.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Despite some recent tensions between the countries, Israel remains America’s closest ally in the Middle East. Attacks on Israel by ISIS or affiliated groups could further escalate war in the region, or they could further strain ties between the Obama administration and the Israeli government.
“It would be more likely a sign of desperation, as were Saddam’s attempts to lure Israel into the 1991 war as a way of breaking the Arab coalition against him,” said NYU’s Levin. At that time, continuous pressure from the first Bush administration and the installation of the Patriot anti-rocket system convinced the Israelis to refrain from reacting to Saddam’s attack.
Israel could launch a preemptive attack to destroy or significantly damage these ISIS-affiliated units whether by air or by ground forces. Israel used its advanced air force to launch attacks in Syria several times since the beginning of Syrian civil war in 2011.
Meanwhile, Israel has recently boosted its defenses in the Golan Heights, saying its main concern was to prevent any major weapon transfer from Syria to Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla organization that has engaged in several rounds of war with the Israelis since the 1980s.
This article was updated at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 23.
Usually you have to get at least two sentences into an Obama speech to find a whopper so big that McDonald’s wouldn’t be able to figure out what to charge for it. Not this time. Instead the worst lie in Obama’s Cuba speech was in his very first sentence.
“Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba,” Obama said.
No, nope. Still no.
Cuban is run by the Castro thugs. There is no democratically elected government. Obama did not make a deal with the elected representatives of the Cuban people.
He made a deal with the Castro crime family.
The people of Cuba have no say in how they live. They have no say in how they are governed. They have no say in their relationship with the United States except to flee by boat. Which many of them have done.
That opening sentence is the slimiest lie in Obama’s series of lies about his dirty deal with the Castros. It’s the slimiest lie because with it Obama makes the explicitly false claim that Raul Castro represents the Cuban people.
It’s an endorsement of the Communist dictatorship.
“There’s a complicated history between the United States and Cuba. I was born in 1961 — just over two years after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, and just a few months after the Bay of Pigs invasion, which tried to overthrow his regime,” Obama said, as usual making it all about him.
The phrasing of his speech actually makes the case that the history involved doesn’t matter because it took place before Obama was born.
This is disturbingly egocentric even for Obama.
“Neither the American nor the Cuban people are well-served by a policy that’s rooted in events that took place before many of us were born,” Obama states.
Regardless of when Obama was born, the regime he just made a deal with it is still the same one as then. That concept seems to elude Obama’s narcissistic grasp of history.
“First, I’ve instructed Secretary (of State John) Kerry to immediately begin discussions with Cuba to re-establish diplomatic relations that have been severed since January of 1961. Going forward, the United States will re-establish an embassy in Havana, and high-ranking officials will visit Cuba.”
I’m sure Hanoi John will be thrilled.
“Second, I’ve instructed Secretary Kerry to review Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. This review will be guided by the facts and the law. Terrorism has changed in the last several decades. At a time when we are focused on threats from al-Qaida to ISIL, a nation that meets our conditions and renounces the use of terrorism should not face this sanction.”
Marxist terrorist groups haven’t disappeared and some of them interact with Islamic terrorist groups.
Step three involves bailing out the collapsing Castro regime by sending lots and lots of money to Cuba.
No, really. Here’s Obama.
Third, we are taking steps to increase travel, commerce, and the flow of information to and from Cuba… it will be easier for Americans to travel to Cuba, and Americans will be able to use American credit and debit cards on the island… we’re significantly increasing the amount of money that can be sent to Cuba… we will facilitate authorized transactions between the United States and Cuba. U.S. financial institutions will be allowed to open accounts at Cuban financial institutions… it will be easier for U.S. exporters to sell goods in Cuba…
But Obama respects the embargo. No really.
As these changes unfold, I look forward to engaging Congress in an honest and serious debate about lifting the embargo.
Unilateral dictatorship is not an honest and serious debate.
The Obama administration is shamelessly outsourcing the United States’ historic leadership in facilitating negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel of a workable, secure two-state solution to the United Nations and European governments. In putting its trust in these two centers of anti-Israel sentiment, the Obama administration refuses to say categorically that it would veto a UN Security Council resolution setting some sort of deadline for the creation of a Palestinian state and Israeli withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 lines.
In the words of an unnamed senior U.S. State Department official quoted by Reuters, “These things are all very much in flux, it’s not as if we’re being asked to take a position on any particular Security Council resolution right now. It would be premature for us to discuss documents that are of uncertain status right now.”
Any Security Council resolution the Obama administration would agree to, which imposes pressure only on Israel to make more unilateral concessions for an illusionary “peace,” will serve to legitimize a United Nations timetable for Israel’s surrender to forces that wish to destroy it. The Gaza debacle following Israel’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza in 2005 and give the Palestinians a chance to build a prototype Palestinian state illustrates the danger Israel would face from being pressured into more withdrawals at this time.
The Palestinian Authority leadership is pressing for action on just such a Security Council resolution as early as this Wednesday, according to a Palestine Liberation Organization official and Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour. The Palestinian resolution, to be sponsored by Jordan (a non-permanent member of the Security Council), would reportedly set a two year deadline for complete Israeli withdrawal from all “occupied” territories, although Jordan’s UN ambassador told reporters it was news to her that any action to vote on the resolution would be taken as soon as the Palestinians are demanding. There is some speculation amongst UN insiders that a vote on a Palestinian resolution could be put off until early in the new year. The Security Council makeup will then be even more inclined towards the Palestinian position, because Malaysia will be replacing South Korea as a non-permanent member of the Security Council.
The Palestinians are finding a very receptive audience in Europe for their use of the United Nations to sidestep direct negotiations with Israel. As the tide of anti-Semitism is rising to the surface and spreading once again throughout Europe, a number of European countries’ parliaments have adopted non-binding resolutions calling upon their respective governments to recognize a Palestinian state. Sweden went further with official recognition of a state of Palestine. France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is taking the lead in crafting a European version of a Palestinian state resolution. The idea reportedly would be to set out an expectation for a final peace agreement to achieve a two-state solution within two years. During the two year interval, the United Nations might accord full UN membership rights to an officially recognized Palestinian state. The text is still a subject of consultations in European capitals, according to the United Kingdom’s UN Ambassador Lyall Grant.
The Obama administration, which would like nothing better than to see its nemesis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defeated in the upcoming March 2015 Israeli elections, is calibrating a position that appears intended to send a pointed message to the Israeli electorate. This message is not to count on the administration standing steadfastly with Israel on sensitive security concerns if Prime Minister Netanyahu is re-elected. The Obama administration is willing to consider a “compromise” Security Council resolution to pressure Israel into resuming negotiations against a backdrop of a framework withdrawal timetable, so that the administration can say it did all it can to avoid an immediate two year deadline and thereby not have to use its veto power to “protect” Israel.
Thus, Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting early this week with European foreign ministers, Arab League officials, and Israeli and Palestinian officials to “hear from and engage with other stakeholders…and to the best of our ability work toward a common path forward,” according to a senior State Department official.
Israeli civilians under relentless attack by Palestinian jihadists are the main “stakeholders” whom the United States should be worried about. If there is to be a “common path forward” to peace, it requires Palestinian negotiating partners who are willing to publicly give up their claim to a right of return of millions of so-called Palestinian refugees to pre-June 1967 Israeli cities and towns, and who recognize Israel’s right to self-determination as a Jewish state that can co-exist securely side by side with a peaceful Palestinian state. There has been no such partner to engage in genuine negotiations for more than six decades. There remains no such partner today, nor is there likely to be one in the foreseeable future.
Hamas has made clear its intention time again, by word and deed, to destroy the state of Israel and kill as many Jews as possible. Following, for example, are excerpts from an interview with Hamas MP and cleric Yunis Al-Astal, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on May 11, 2011 (courtesy of MEMRI):
The [Jews] are brought in droves to Palestine so that the Palestinians – and the Islamic nation behind them – will have the honor of annihilating the evil of this gang…All the predators, all the birds of prey, all the dangerous reptiles and insects, and all the lethal bacteria are far less dangerous than the Jews…When Palestine is liberated and its people return to it, and the entire region, with the grace of Allah, will have turned into the United States of Islam, the land of Palestine will become the capital of the Islamic Caliphate, and all these countries will turn into states within the Caliphate.
Hamas’s barrage of rocket attacks launched from Gaza against Israeli civilians since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 attests to its deadly intentions. Just last Sunday, Hamas marked its 27th anniversary by parading 2,000 of its armed fighters and truck-mounted rockets. A senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said: ‘This illusion called Israel will be removed.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has thrown in his lot with Hamas in forming a so-called “unity reconciliation” government and has himself incited sectarian violence in and around Jerusalem with incendiary rhetoric. But even Abbas has expressed frustration with what he called Hamas’s continued “shadow government… running the territory” in Gaza on its own.
In the real world, which is alien to the United Nations, the Arab world, European governments and the Obama administration, simply saying something is so doesn’t make it so. Diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state does not change the reality on the ground. Nor does a pie-in-the-sky declaration of a “unity” or “reconciliation” Palestinian government that exists only on paper. For example, in delivering his regular briefing to the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, Robert Serry, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, admitted to Security Council members on December 15th the lack of a functioning Palestinian reconciliation unity government to replace Hamas’s governance in Gaza. He said that delivery of thousands of tons of construction materials into Gaza is being permitted by Israel under the temporary Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism agreed upon by Israel, the so-called Palestinian Government of National Consensus and the UN, even though the “Government of National Consensus in Gaza has still not taken up its rightful governance and security function” that is a critical part of the arrangement.
The Palestinians’ own internal power struggle between Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority, which currently dominates the West Bank, means that there is no real unified state government apparatus. Hamas won’t give up its military control in Gaza and is seeking to expand its influence in the West Bank at the Palestinian Authority’s expense. There can be no real foundation for a workable Palestinian state under international law when there is no single governing authority in a position to effectively exert sovereign control over all of a putative Palestinian state’s territory and people. Nor can there be a real state under international law that does not have the capacity to ensure compliance with any bilateral or international agreements such a state may enter into in the future.
No matter what kind of “common path” Secretary of State Kerry thinks he can achieve with the Palestinians and their Arab and European supporters on a Security Council timetable resolution, Israel must reject the path of forced withdrawal that could lead to its own destruction. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said during the regular Israeli cabinet meeting on Sunday, a UN Security Council-imposed deadline for Israeli withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 lines would bring “Islamic extremists to the suburbs of Tel Aviv and to the heart of Jerusalem. We will not allow this. We will rebuff this forcefully and responsibly. Let there be no doubt, this will be rejected.”
A credible U.S. military option against Iran is off the table and something the Obama administration can “no longer even think about,” according to one of Iran’s top military leaders, who claimed in a wide-ranging interview that Iran has deployed advanced missiles and satellites capable of tracking foreign militaries.
Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), scoffed at the Obama administration’s insistence that a credible military option exists against Iran and discussed the Islamic Republic’s offensive military capabilities during a wide-ranging interview on Iranian state-run television.
On the heels of another deal with Iran that extends talks with Western powers over the country’s contested nuclear program through July 2015, Salami accused the United States of bluffing about the threat of military action against Tehran.
“We have denied our enemy any military option,” Salami said in an interview on Iranian television just days after the Nov. 24 extension in talks was announced. “The enemy can no longer even think about a military option.”
“When senior U.S. officials use the term ‘military option,’ it is only for psychology purposes,” Salami said, according to a translation of his Farsi language remarks provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “It is an outdated bluff. It is a banal and decayed theory. To use the Americans’ own words, it is ‘political decay.’”
Salami went on to declare that U.S. sanctions against Iran—which have been significantly weakened under the terms of an interim deal with the West—no longer have an impact on the Iranian economy and will not push the Islamic Republic to make concessions in the nuclear negotiations.
“The Americans believe that their economic sanctions have had an effect on our people or on our economy,” the military leader said. “They believe that they can take their time, wear us down in negotiations, and continue the sanctions.”
“That way, they hope to bring our people to despair, and to lead to political defeat [in the negotiations],” he continued. “We can and must throw these beliefs into the garbage-can of history.”
In the weeks since the extension in nuclear talks was announced—along with around $50 billion in cash payments to Tehran over the next months—Iranian officials have accused the White House of lying about concessions the Islamic Republic has made.
It also has unveiled a range of advanced military hardware following a call by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ordering the nation’s military to be on the ready.
IRGC official Salami warned that the country’s ground-to-ground missiles are “capable of reaching enemy targets thousands of kilometers away.”
Israel for instance is about 1,600 kilometers, or 1,000 miles, away from Tehran.
These ballistic missiles “are able to deal deadly blows of various magnitudes to our enemies,” Salami said.
These include missiles that can reach around 2,000 kilometers, making them capable of hitting portions of Europe and much of the Middle East.
The continued construction of ballistic missiles by Iran was not barred under the terms of the interim nuclear agreement with Iran.
Salami also issued a veiled threat to U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf region.
“Our land-to-sea missiles are capable of reaching naval targets deep in the sea,” Salami said. “Our radars are able to detect enemy satellites. Our drones are able to track enemy movements thousands of kilometers beyond our borders. Our helicopters can fly, and our cannons can fire.”
Salami also claimed that Iran has satellites in space that “can see tiny objects on the ground,” as well as “send us photographs and connect us to the entire world.”
The military leader went on to provide further confirmation that Iran is arming Palestinian terrorist in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Relatedly, Hamas officials were in Tehran this week to renew its anti-Israel military alliance with Iran.
“I am sure that the day will come—and that day is not far off—when the West Bank will become a living hell for the security of the Zionists,” he said. “We shall see the day when the children of the West Bank and Gaza will hold hands. Allah willing, that day is near.”
Meanwhile, Iranian commanders announced that the country will test new radar systems and fire at least five new “homemade” missiles next month, according to the country’s state-run press.
Iran unveiled earlier this week a laser simulator to help the country’s troops learn how to fire rocket-propelled grenades.
All indications are that US mediation efforts to revive peace talks have failed,” says Abbas.
Talestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ( abu mazen ).. (photo credit:REUTERS) o
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday threatened to halt security coordination with Israel unless the peace talks are revived.
“We are no longer able to live with the status quo,” Abbas said in a speech before an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.
He also reiterated the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
“We recognize the State of Israel, but we won’t recognize a Jewish state at all,” Abbas stressed.
The meeting was held to discuss the latest developments surrounding the Palestinian issue in light of Abbas’s plan to seek a UN Security Council resolution that sets a timeline for Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.
Abbas is hoping to win the Arab ministers’ support for his plan in wake of US pressure to refrain from presenting it to the Security Council.
Abbas has said in the past that he intends to present the plan to the Security Council by the end of this month.
“The situation in the West Bank is dangerous and can’t continue as it is,” Abbas said in his speech. “The most dangerous thing facing the Palestinian cause at this time is the continuation of the status quo.”
He said that Israel knows very well that there would be no Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip. Israel, he charged, is continuing with its policy of creating facts on the ground by building settlements on Palestinian territories.
“Israel does not know where its borders are and is refusing to define them,” Abbas said. “We will present an Arab plan to the Security Council calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. All indications are that US mediation efforts to revive the peace talks have failed.”
He said that the PA had asked US Secretary of State John Kerry to work together to draft the resolution that would be presented to the Security Council. The PA also asked Kerry to put pressure on Israel to stop settlement construction, Abbas added.
Amb. Prosor addresses UNGA debate on the Question of Palestine”
Mr. President,I stand before the world as a proud representative of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I stand tall before you knowing that truth and morality are on my side. And yet, I stand here knowing that today in this Assembly, truth will be turned on its head and morality cast aside.The fact of the matter is that when members of the international community speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a fog descends to cloud all logic and moral clarity. The result isn’t realpolitik, its surrealpolitik.
The world’s unrelenting focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an injustice to tens of millions of victims of tyranny and terrorism in the Middle East. As we speak, Yazidis, Bahai, Kurds, Christians and Muslims are being executed and expelled by radical extremists at a rate of 1,000 people per month.
How many resolutions did you pass last week to address this crisis? And how many special sessions did you call for? The answer is zero. What does this say about international concern for human life? Not much, but it speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of the international community.
I stand before you to speak the truth. Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, less than half a percent are truly free – and they are all citizens of Israel.
Israeli Arabs are some of the most educated Arabs in the world. They are our leading physicians and surgeons, they are elected to our parliament, and they serve as judges on our Supreme Court. Millions of men and women in the Middle East would welcome these opportunities and freedoms.
Nonetheless, nation after nation, will stand at this podium today and criticize Israel – the small island of democracy in a region plagued by tyranny and oppression.
Mr. President,
Our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state.
Sixty seven years ago this week, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Simple. The Jews said yes. The Arabs said no. But they didn’t just say no. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon launched a war of annihilation against our newborn state.
This is the historical truth that the Arabs are trying to distort. The Arabs’ historic mistake continues to be felt – in lives lost in war, lives lost to terrorism, and lives scarred by the Arab’s narrow political interests.
According to the United Nations, about 700,000 Palestinians were displaced in the war initiated by the Arabs themselves. At the same time, some 850,000 Jews were forced to flee from Arab countries.
Why is it, that 67 years later, the displacement of the Jews has been completely forgotten by this institution while the displacement of the Palestinians is the subject of an annual debate?
The difference is that Israel did its utmost to integrate the Jewish refugees into society. The Arabs did just the opposite.
The worst oppression of the Palestinian people takes place in Arab nations. In most of the Arab world, Palestinians are denied citizenship and are aggressively discriminated against. They are barred from owning land and prevented from entering certain professions.
And yet none – not one – of these crimes are mentioned in the resolutions before you.
If you were truly concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people there would be one, just one, resolution to address the thousands of Palestinians killed in Syria. And if you were so truly concerned about the Palestinians there would be at least one resolution to denounce the treatment of Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps.
But there isn’t. The reason is that today’s debate is not about speaking for peace or speaking for the Palestinian people – it is about speaking against Israel. It is nothing but a hate and bashing festival against Israel.
Mr. President,
The European nations claim to stand for Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité – freedom, equality, and brotherhood – but nothing could be farther from the truth.
I often hear European leaders proclaim that Israel has the right to exist in secure borders. That’s very nice. But I have to say – it makes about as much sense as me standing here and proclaiming Sweden’s right to exist in secure borders.
When it comes to matters of security, Israel learned the hard way that we cannot rely on others – certainly not Europe.
In 1973, on Yom Kippur – the holiest day on the Jewish calendar – the surrounding Arab nations launched an attack against Israel. In the hours before the war began, Golda Meir, our Prime Minister then, made the difficult decision not to launch a preemptive strike. The Israeli Government understood that if we launched a preemptive strike, we would lose the support of the international community.
As the Arab armies advanced on every front, the situation in Israel grew dire. Our casualty count was growing and we were running dangerously low on weapons and ammunition. In this, our hour of need, President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, agreed to send Galaxy planes loaded with tanks and ammunition to resupply our troops. The only problem was that the Galaxy planes needed to refuel on route to Israel.
The Arab States were closing in and our very existence was threatened – and yet, Europe was not even willing to let the planes refuel. The U.S. stepped in once again and negotiated that the planes be allowed to refuel in the Azores.
The government and people of Israel will never forget that when our very existence was at stake, only one country came to our aid – the United States of America.
Israel is tired of hollow promises from European leaders. The Jewish people have a long memory. We will never ever forget that you failed us in the 1940s. You failed us in 1973. And you are failing us again today.
Every European parliament that voted to prematurely and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state is giving the Palestinians exactly what they want – statehood without peace. By handing them a state on a silver platter, you are rewarding unilateral actions and taking away any incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate or compromise or renounce violence. You are sending the message that the Palestinian Authority can sit in a government with terrorists and incite violence against Israel without paying any price.
The first E.U. member to officially recognize a Palestinian state was Sweden. One has to wonder why the Swedish Government was so anxious to take this step. When it comes to other conflicts in our region, the Swedish Government calls for direct negotiations between the parties – but for the Palestinians, surprise, surprise, they roll out the red carpet.
State Secretary Söder may think she is here to celebrate her government’s so-called historic recognition, when in reality it’s nothing more than an historic mistake.
The Swedish Government may host the Nobel Prize ceremony, but there is nothing noble about their cynical political campaign to appease the Arabs in order to get a seat on the Security Council. Nations on the Security Council should have sense, sensitivity, and sensibility. Well, the Swedish Government has shown no sense, no sensitivity and no sensibility. Just nonsense.
Israel learned the hard way that listening to the international community can bring about devastating consequences. In 2005, we unilaterally dismantled every settlement and removed every citizen from the Gaza Strip. Did this bring us any closer to peace? Not at all. It paved the way for Iran to send its terrorist proxies to establish a terror stronghold on our doorstep.
I can assure you that we won’t make the same mistake again. When it comes to our security, we cannot and will not rely on others – Israel must be able to defend itself by itself.
Mr. President,
The State of Israel is the land of our forefathers – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is the land where Moses led the Jewish people, where David built his palace, where Solomon built the Jewish Temple, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace.
For thousands of years, Jews have lived continuously in the land of Israel. We endured through the rise and fall of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman Empires. And we endured through thousands of years of persecution, expulsions and crusades. The bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land is unbreakable.
Nothing can change one simple truth – Israel is our home and Jerusalem is our eternal capital.
At the same time, we recognize that Jerusalem has special meaning for other faiths. Under Israeli sovereignty, all people – and I will repeat that, all people – regardless of religion and nationality can visit the city’s holy sites. And we intend to keep it this way. The only ones trying to change the status quo on the Temple Mount are Palestinian leaders.
President Abbas is telling his people that Jews are contaminating the Temple Mount. He has called for days of rage and urged Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount using (quote) “all means” necessary. These words are as irresponsible as they are unacceptable.
You don’t have to be Catholic to visit the Vatican, you don’t have to be Jewish to visit the Western Wall, but some Palestinians would like to see the day when only Muslims can visit the Temple Mount.
You, the international community, are lending a hand to extremists and fanatics. You, who preach tolerance and religious freedom, should be ashamed. Israel will never let this happen. We will make sure that the holy places remain open to all people of all faiths for all time.
Mr. President,
No one wants peace more than Israel. No one needs to explain the importance of peace to parents who have sent their child to defend our homeland. No one knows the stakes of success or failure better than we Israelis do. The people of Israel have shed too many tears and buried too many sons and daughters.
We are ready for peace, but we are not naïve. Israel’s security is paramount. Only a strong and secure Israel can achieve a comprehensive peace.
The past month should make it clear to anyone that Israel has immediate and pressing security needs. In recent weeks, Palestinian terrorists have shot and stabbed our citizens and twice driven their cars into crowds of pedestrians. Just a few days ago, terrorists armed with axes and a gun savagely attacked Jewish worshipers during morning prayers. We have reached the point when Israelis can’t even find sanctuary from terrorism in the sanctuary of a synagogue.
These attacks didn’t emerge out of a vacuum. They are the results of years of indoctrination and incitement. A Jewish proverb teaches: “The instruments of both death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
As a Jew and as an Israeli, I know with utter certainly that when our enemies say they want to attack us, they mean it.
Hamas’s genocidal charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews worldwide. For years, Hamas and other terrorist groups have sent suicide bombers into our cities, launched rockets into our towns, and sent terrorists to kidnap and murder our citizens.
And what about the Palestinian Authority? It is leading a systemic campaign of incitement. In schools, children are being taught that ‘Palestine’ will stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. In mosques, religious leaders are spreading vicious libels accusing Jews of destroying Muslim holy sites. In sports stadiums, teams are named after terrorists. And in newspapers, cartoons urge Palestinians to commit terror attacks against Israelis.
Children in most of the world grow up watching cartoons of Mickey Mouse singing and dancing. Palestinian children also grow up watching Mickey Mouse, but on Palestinians national television, a twisted figure dressed as Mickey Mouse dances in an explosive belt and chants “Death to America and death to the Jews.”
I challenge you to stand up here today and do something constructive for a change. Publically denounce the violence, denounce the incitement, and denounce the culture of hate.
Most people believe that at its core, the conflict is a battle between Jews and Arabs or Israelis and Palestinians. They are wrong. The battle that we are witnessing is a battle between those who sanctify life and those who celebrate death.
Following the savage attack in a Jerusalem synagogue, celebrations erupted in Palestinian towns and villages. People were dancing in the street and distributing candy. Young men posed with axes, loudspeakers at mosques called out congratulations, and the terrorists were hailed as “martyrs” and “heroes.”
This isn’t the first time that we saw the Palestinians celebrate the murder of innocent civilians. We saw them rejoice after every terrorist attack on Israeli civilians and they even took to the streets to celebrate the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center right here in New York City.
Imagine the type of state this society would produce. Does the Middle East really need another terror-ocracy? Some members of the international community are aiding and abetting its creation.
Mr. President,
As we came into the United Nations, we passed the flags of all 193 member States. If you take the time to count, you will discover that there are 15 flags with a crescent and 25 flags with a cross. And then there is one flag with a Jewish Star of David. Amidst all the nations of the world there is one state – just one small nation state for the Jewish people.
And for some people, that is one too many.
As I stand before you today I am reminded of all the years when Jewish people paid for the world’s ignorance and indifference in blood. Those days are no more.
We will never apologize for being a free and independent people in our sovereign state. And we will never apologize for defending ourselves.
To the nations that continue to allow prejudice to prevail over truth, I say “J’accuse.”
I accuse you of hypocrisy. I accuse you of duplicity.
I accuse you of lending legitimacy to those who seek to destroy our State.
I accuse you of speaking about Israel’s right of self-defense in theory, but denying it in practice.
And I accuse you of demanding concessions from Israel, but asking nothing of the Palestinians.
In the face of these offenses, the verdict is clear. You are not for peace and you are not for the Palestinian people. You are simply against Israel.
Members of the international community have a choice to make.
You can recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, or permit the Palestinian leadership to deny our history without consequence.
You can publically proclaim that the so-called “claim of return” is a non-starter, or you can allow this claim to remain the major obstacle to any peace agreement.
You can work to end Palestinian incitement, or stand by as hatred and extremism take root for generations to come.
You can prematurely recognize a Palestinian state, or you can encourage the Palestinian Authority to break its pact with Hamas and return to direct negotiations.
The choice is yours. You can continue to steer the Palestinians off course or pave the way to real and lasting peace.
Returning from his trip to Asia, President Obama issued a statement reacting to the beheading of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig by Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists.
Kassig, a convert to Islam, took the name Abdul-Rahman and was captured and held hostage by members of ISIS a year ago.
“ISIL’s actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own,” Obama wrote. “Today we grieve together, yet we also recall that the indomitable spirit of goodness and perseverance that burned so brightly in Abdul-Rahman Kassig, and which binds humanity together, ultimately is the light that will prevail over the darkness of ISIL.”
Obama called the action “an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity.”
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
Statement by the President on the Death of Abdul-Rahman Kassig
Today we offer our prayers and condolences to the parents and family of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known to us as Peter. We cannot begin to imagine their anguish at this painful time.
Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity. Like Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff before him, his life and deeds stand in stark contrast to everything that ISIL represents. While ISIL revels in the slaughter of innocents, including Muslims, and is bent only on sowing death and destruction, Abdul-Rahman was a humanitarian who worked to save the lives of Syrians injured and dispossessed by the Syrian conflict. While ISIL exploits the tragedy in Syria to advance their own selfish aims, Abdul-Rahman was so moved by the anguish and suffering of Syrian civilians that he traveled to Lebanon to work in a hospital treating refugees. Later, he established an aid group, SERA, to provide assistance to Syrian refugees and displaced persons in Lebanon and Syria. These were the selfless acts of an individual who cared deeply about the plight of the Syrian people.
ISIL’s actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own. Today we grieve together, yet we also recall that the indomitable spirit of goodness and perseverance that burned so brightly in Abdul-Rahman Kassig, and which binds humanity together, ultimately is the light that will prevail over the darkness of ISIL.
Ali Khamenei / AP
ran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei published early Sunday a 9-step plan to “eliminate” Israel, prompting Israel’s prime minister to file a formal complaint with Western negotiators involved in nuclear talks with Tehran.
Khamenei’s official Twitter account on Sunday tweeted out the 9-step plan explaining “the proper way of eliminating Israel.”
“Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah Khamenei’s answer to 9 key questions,” Khamenei tweeted, along with a graphic illustrating the plan to annihilate Israel.
“The only means of bringing Israeli crimes to an end is the elimination of this regime,” Khamenei wrote. “And of course the elimination of Israel does not mean the massacre of the Jewish people in the region. The Islamic Republic has proposed a practical and logical mechanism for this to international communities.”
Khamenei accuses “the fake Zionist regime” of committing acts of “infanticide, homicide, violence, and iron fist while boasts about it blatantly [sic].”
Israel’s enemies must commit to “armed resistance” until Israel is eliminated, Khamenei says.
“Up until the day when this homicidal and infanticidal [sic] regime is eliminated through a referendum, powerful confrontation and resolute and armed resistance is the cure of this ruinous regime,” the supreme leader writes. “The only means of confronting a regime which commits crimes beyond one’s thought and imagination is a resolute and armed confrontation.”
Khamenei also reiterates his call for the West Bank to be armed like Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Khamenei’s plan is another example of Iran’s extremism.
Khamenei is “publicly calling for the annihilation of Israel as he is negotiating a nuclear deal,” Netanyahu said in videotaped remarks.
“There is no moderation in Iran,” said Netanyahu, who sent a letter to the P5+1 negotiators outlining Khamenei’s extremist rhetoric. “It is unrepentant, unreformed.”
Khamenei “calls for Israel’s eradication, promotes international terrorism … and [Iran] continues to deceive the international community about its nuclear weapons program,” Netanyahu said. “I call on the P5+1—don’t rush into a deal that will let Iran rush to the bomb.”
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University.
He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization.
His most recent book, Democracy’s Dangers and Discontents Hoover Institution Press, is now available for purchase.
The news that President Obama has sent a secret letter to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei––apparently promising concessions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for help in defeating ISIS–– is a depressing reminder of how after nearly 40 years our leaders have not understood the Iranian Revolution. During the hostage crisis of 1979, Jimmy Carter sent left-wing former Attorney General Ramsay Clark to Tehran with a letter anxiously assuring the Ayatollah Khomeini that America desired good relations “based upon equality, mutual respect and friendship.” Khomeini refused even to meet with the envoys.
Such obvious contempt for our “outreach” should have been illuminating, but the same mistakes have recurred over the past 4 decades. But Obama has been the most energetic suitor of the mullahs, sending 4 letters to Khamenei, none directly answered. In May of 2009 he sent a personal letter to Khamenei calling for “cooperation in regional and bilateral relations.” Khamenei’s answer in June was to initiate a brutal crackdown on Iranians protesting the rigged presidential election. Obama’s response was to remain silent about this oppression lest he irritate the thuggish mullahs, who blamed the protests on American “agents” anyway. Even Carter’s phrase “mutual respect” has been chanted like some diplomatic spell that will transform religious fanatics into good global citizens. In his notorious June 2009 Cairo “apology” speech, Obama assured Iran, “We are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.” This latest letter repeats the same empty phrase.
But our president is nothing if not persistent. In October of 2009, it was revealed that Iran had failed to disclose a uranium enrichment facility in Qom. Obama commented on this obvious proof of Iran’s true intentions, “We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran,” and promised that the “offer stands” of “greater international integration if [Iran] lives up to its obligations.” Iran answered by increasing the pace of enrichment, helping the insurgents in Iraq kill our troops, and facilitating the movement and communications of al Qaeda with other jihadists.
Indeed, every concession and failure to respond forcefully to Iranian intransigence and aggression confirm its belief that Iran is strong and America weak. As Khamenei has said, “The reason why we are stronger is that [America] retreats step by step in all the arenas [in] which we and the Americans have confronted each other. But we do not retreat. Rather, we move forward. This is a sign of our superiority over the Americans.”
Given this long sorry history, how long will it take for our foreign policy geniuses to figure out that Iran’s theocrats don’t want better relations, or “mutual respect,” or “international integration,” or anything else from the infidel Great Satan and its Western minions, other than capitulation? The mullahs and their Republican Guard henchmen may lust for wealth and power as much as anyone, but the foundation of their behavior is a religious faith that promises Muslims power and dominance over those who refuse the call to convert to Islam and thus by definition are enemies of the faithful to be resisted and destroyed.
Given these spiritual imperatives, the material punishment of the regime through economic sanctions, particularly limited ones, is unlikely to have much effect. During the hostage crisis, mild sanctions and the threats of more serious ones were brushed away by Khomeini. The Economist at the time pointed out the obvious reason why: “The denial of material things is unlikely to have much effect on minds suffused with immaterial things.” Khomeini made this same point after the humiliating disaster of Carter’s half-hearted attempt to rescue the hostages in April 1980, when mullahs were televised worldwide poking their canes in the charred remains of 8 dead Americans. Speaking of the sandstorm that compromised the mission, Khomeini preached, “Those sand particles were divinely commissioned . . . Carter still has not comprehended what kind of people he is facing and what school of thought he is playing with. Our people is the people of blood and our school is the school of Jihad.”
With their eyes on Allah’s intentions for the faithful, the leaders of Iran see the acquisition of nuclear weapons as the most important means of achieving the global power and dominance their faith tells them they deserve as “the best of nations produced for mankind,” as the Koran says. Thus duplicitous diplomatic engagement and negotiation are tactics for buying time until the mullahs reach “nuclear latency,” the ability quickly to build a bomb. Every concession or offer of bribes from the West are seen not as an inducement to reciprocate in order to meet a mutually beneficial arrangement, but rather as signs of weakness and failure of nerve, evidence that the mullahs can win despite the power and wealth of the West. That’s because the Iranian leadership views international relations as resting not on cooperation or negotiation, but on raw power. As Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institute quotes from a hardline Iranian newspaper, “Our world is not a fair one and everyone gets as much power as he can, not for his power of reason or the adaptation of his request to the international laws, but by his bullying.” And the Iranians believe that their power politics serves the will of Allah.
Obama is not the first president who has completely failed to understand the true nature and motives of his adversary. FDR misunderstood “Uncle Joe” Stalin, and George Bush misread the eyes of Vladimir Putin. This mistake of diplomacy reflects the peculiar Western arrogant belief that the whole world is just like us and wants the same things we want––political freedom, leisure, material affluence, and peaceful relations with neighbors. Some Iranians may want those things too, but a critical mass wants obedience to Allah and his commands more. Obama’s endemic narcissism has made this flaw worse in his relations with the rest of the world, for he can’t believe that the leaders of other nations, many of them brutal realists indifferent to the opinions of the “international community,” aren’t as impressed as he is with his alleged brilliance and persuasive eloquence.
As a result we are on the brink of a dangerous realignment of the balance of power in the Middle East. Despite Iran’s continuing defiance of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, and its long record of lies and evasion, Obama allegedly has offered to raise the number of centrifuges enriching uranium from 4000 to 6000, bringing the mullahs closer to “nuclear latency”––in a regime that has officially been designated the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism; that has threatened genocide against Israel, our most important strategic asset in the region; and that for the last 40 years has stained its hands with American blood.
Rather than the ornament of his foreign policy legacy, as Obama hopes, his pursuit of a deal that will make Iran a nuclear power will be remembered as his Munich.
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