ISIS Poses Potential Bio-Threat — But Not Equal to al Qaeda or Hezbollah

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Foreign Policy (FP) published an exclusive report on August 28th regarding the contents of a laptop captured in Syria from a Tunisian ISIS jihadi, “Mohammed S”, “Found: The Islamic State’s Terror Laptop of Doom.”  Among the files on the laptop’s hard drive was a 19 page document allegedly providing details on plans to weaponize bubonic plague and use it as a mass casualty weapon.

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Dr. Jill Bellamy

We contacted noted Bio-Warfare (BW) expert, Dr. Jill Bellamy to address the issues raised by the FP account. Our concerns were whether the Islamic State (IS), formerly ISIS, might have overrun Syrian BW research and dual-use pathogenic production facilities.  Further, has  IS, like   Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, established a WMD directorate, and do they have the means of  producing one or more of the so-called ‘Black Six’ pathogens[1]?  See our 2007 and 2013  New English Review (NER) interviews with Dr. Bellamy on the Syrian BW Threat and Dr.  Bellamy’s, The Biological Warfare Blog: Black Six

Bellamy conveyed the following observations: While IS’ alleged BW threat is provocative, given its financial resources, the reality is that both Al Qaeda (AQ) and Hezbollah have established credible BW programs, while IS’ capability is still unknown.  Hezbollah’s programs are coordinated with both Syrian and Iranian BW programs, whose BW laboratories have successfully developed advanced synthetic pathogens that Western threat reduction agencies may not have the means of detecting.  The likely priority targets in the latter cases might be the Jewish communities, particularly in Europe, according to Bellamy. She views as formidable Israel’s highly credible BW threat reduction capabilities, which she says are superior to anywhere else in the world.

The greatest threat, according to Bellamy, is in the manufacture of synthetic BWs, for which there are few developed antidotes. In recent years, large strides have been made in biotechnology and genetic engineering that can facilitate the modification of BW agents to increase their toxicity, transmission, and lethality.

The FP Laptop of Doom Revelations

The FP report noted:

The information on the laptop makes clear that its owner is a Tunisian national named Muhammed S. who joined ISIS in Syria and who studied chemistry and physics at two universities in Tunisia’s northeast. Even more disturbing is how he planned to use that education:

The ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize the bubonic plague from infected animals.

“The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge,” the document states.

The document includes instructions for how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist attack. “When the microbe is injected in small mice, the symptoms of the disease should start to appear within 24 hours,” the document says.

The laptop also includes a 26-page fatwa, or Islamic ruling, on the usage of weapons of mass destruction. “If Muslims cannot defeat the kafir [unbelievers] in a different way, it is permissible to use weapons of mass destruction,” states the fatwa by Saudi jihadi cleric Nasir al-Fahd, who is currently imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. “Even if it kills all of them and wipes them and their descendants off the face of the Earth.”

[…]

“Use small grenades with the virus, and throw them in closed areas like metros, soccer stadiums, or entertainment centers,” the 19-page document on biological weapons advises. “Best to do it next to the air-conditioning. It also can be used during suicide operations.”

However, the FP suggested weaponization of both bubonic plague and anthrax via grenades is implausible. The heat generated by the explosion would kill the pathogens, not deliver them. Bellamy was not certain whether this clearly incorrect information in the directions was the result of ignorance or a misdirection. In any case, the West has stockpiles of antidotes to address outbreaks of both pathogens mentioned in the files.

While it is known that AQ and Hezbollah, as non-state actors, have the means to conduct mass casualty attacks against targets in the Middle East and the West, especially the EU, it is not known whether IS has this capability.

Looting of Syrian BW Laboratories by AQ and ISIS

In April 2014, Bellamy wrote on her blog, The Black Six ,about the threats  arising  from looting of Syrian BW laboratories and production facilities by  AQ and ISIS, “Looting the Labs: Syria’s Biological Weapon Program and Al Qaeda”.  She noted:

Serious concerns remain however, with regard to the looting of some laboratories and one estimate, one source that has previously provided highly accurate, in country accounts on a number of facilities, estimates the looting to be at around 70% of Syria’s laboratories and veterinary vaccine facilities. The source has provided ample documentation and photographic evidence from inside the labs.  The looting has occurred in sections where Al Qaeda has been fighting. In one incident, five members of Hezbollah were killed….. In my view, as  a BW expert, there is a risk that Al Qaeda … given their lengthy track record  and long term recruitment of experts trained in Western universities, could divert materials and pathogenic agents.  It is possible AQ, well aware of Syrian laboratory infrastructures, could divert such materials in areas where it is fighting and has access to these facilities. A geospatial analysis of certain areas in Syria, where BW labs are now under ISIS controlled zones, paints an increasingly concerning picture.

The Al Qaida Bio Terror Directorate

In a March 2014  Black Six post, Inside Al Qaeda’s Biological Weapon Directorate,  Bellamy  discussed:

What remains, if anything, of the programs which the Taliban oversaw, remains with the scientist-terrorists who worked in those labs and trained in the camps. Who were they and more importantly where are they now? Not only did the Taliban oversee several state of the art, mainly veterinary and agricultural laboratories which worked on vaccines for anthrax and other highly pathogenic agents, it applied this expertise to training camps, mainly the Derunta camp.  The “core” of AQ WMD Committee was associated with running training on CBW at the Derunta camp.

In 2004, an interior ministry official for France reported that evidence from Islamist militants arrested in the Lyon area made it clear an attack with botulinum or ricin toxin was being prepared. Of the eight suspects arrested, most were related to Menad Benchellali, the son of a radical imam in the Lyon suburb of Venisseux, jailed since 2002. The ministry official confirmed that Benchellali was a chemical weapon expert trained in poison-making in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and was actively trying to produce botulim toxin and ricin which he had tested on animals.

Israel recently announced the detention of Samar Halmi Abdel Latif al Barq, a Kuwaiti citizen of ‘Palestinian’ descent. Prior to his detention, Al Barq studied microbiology in Pakistan and underwent military training in Afghanistan before his recruitment by AQ.. According to the Jerusalem Post, he spent three months in 2003, at Guantanamo Bay and five years in a Jordanian prison.  Fortunately al Barq is in detention. However, other AQ BW experts continue to pose an unconventional weapons threat, if not a risk to global public health security.

One of the better known terrorist/scientist working with AQ is Yazid Sufaat. He too is currently in detention again, having previously served seven years in a Malay prison under ISA detention. Sufaat earned a degree in microbiology from California State University at Sacramento in 1987 and then serving as an army medical technician in the Malaysian Army. In 1993 Sufaat set up a pathology laboratory called Green Laboratory Medicine where he subsequently tried on behalf of al Qaeda to weaponize anthrax.

Lady Al Qaida and ISIS

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FBI photo of Aafia Sidiqqi

Then there is Pakistani Dr. Aaifa Sidiqqi , “Lady Al Qaida”, an MIT and Brandeis University trained, neuroscientist. Following a New York Federal trial and conviction in 2010, Sidiqqi is  currently serving an 86 year term in a Texas Federal prison facility for attempted murder during a 2008  attack in an Afghan  detention facility.  During that attack, she seized  a weapon and fired on US  personnel before being subdued.  As noted in a recent CNN report, her trial record disclosed:

At the time of the 2008 shooting, Sidiqqi was in police custody after being arrested outside the Ghazni governor’s compound in Afghanistan. She was said to be acting suspiciously and found to be carrying “numerous documents describing the creation of explosives, chemical weapons, and other weapons involving biological material and radiological agents,” according to court documents.

The papers included descriptions of various U.S. landmarks and military assets, excerpts from the “Anarchist’s Arsenal,” and a number of chemical substances in bottles and glass jars, the documents said.

The interest in Sidiqqi currently has to do with one of the demands for the release of the late American photo-journalist, James Foley, murdered by ISIS in Syria.  The CNN report noted:

“We have also offered prisoner exchanges to free the Muslims currently rin your detention like our sister Dr Afia Sidiqqi (sic), however you proved very quickly to us that this is NOT what you are interested in,” the email said, which was published in full on the GlobalPost website.

This renewed interest may also be an indication of heightened objectives on the part of ISIS in a BW program, for which they would consider her a valuable asset. Sidiqqi has never been charged under US terrorism laws.  Watch this CNN video about why ISIS wanted Siddiqui released:

Hezbollah, as a client of Iran and Assad’s Syria, has had access to BW as well as chemical and conventional weapons. In a June NER  2013 article, Dr. Bellamy noted, “Hezbollah has acquired almost every type of conventional weapon Iran has ever produced and works closely with Syria. As Hezbollah is considered by some to run their own laboratories in Lebanon, it is likely that Syria has already transferred weaponized biological agents to these labs.” She suggested that Hezbollah might use drones, provided by Iran, to deploy a BW payload.

In last year’s international confrontation over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, little attention was given to its biological weapons program. Our sources report that despite UN oversight, Assad transferred much of his chemical weapons to Hezbollah, which they transferred to caves in the Bekka Valley in Southern Lebanon. In fact, they reported, only 11% of Syria’s chemical weapons were actually destroyed. The rest were hidden or redistributed. Such deceptions give rise to further serious consideration of Hezbollah’s access to Syria’s BW program, as well as its CW stockpiles

Can ISIS Have a BW Capability?

Gas attacks in September 2013 in the vicinity of Damascus, were generally attributed to Assad. According to reliable sources in Syria, the gas attacks were also carried out by ISIS. In the gas attacks, ISIS acquired the weapons from a Syrian army base which they had overrun. Could they now do the same with bio-weapons?

On February 2, 2013, Israel carried out a bombing raid against several Syrian weapons facilities in an effort to destroy a shipment of Fateh-110 missiles being transported from Iran to Lebanon via Syria. Destroyed in this attack was a biological weapons research center at Jamarya, west of Damascus.  Other buildings destroyed in the attack were warehouses stocked with equipment necessary for the deployment of chemical and biological weapons.  However, Assad placed his CW and BW feacilities all around the country. Some 70% of Syria’s chemical and biological weapons facilities have been raided since the war began in 2011, and the location of stockpiles – and who possesses them – is now largely unknown.

Syria is long suspected of conducting work on botulinum, anthrax, smallpox, ricin, T2, among other agents and toxins. And while ISIS is now the best funded of all terrorist organizations, pulling in over $1 million  daily in revenues from extorted fees  and sale of oil , it is not clear that they have the skills or the training to safely handle and deploy the complex and dangerous biological weapons developed by Syria. As Dr. Bellamy explained, “Chemical weapons are relatively easy to understand and as a result, media attention has focused on Syrian chemical weapon stockpiles . . . biological weapons are less well understood. Syria’s biological weapons . . .  are far more dangerous”. Moreover, the results of a BW attack may not be immediately known, since disease spreads silently and sometimes, slowly. In today’s world of global travel, a bio-attack could be transmitted world-wide before being detected or, if possible, contained.

Conclusion

Bellamy’s observations about the ISIS, AQ and Hezbollah BW threats suggest the need for appropriate actions by both Israel and Western intelligence and threat reduction agencies.  Just think of one of her scenarios, a possible BW attack at vulnerable international air travel transit points like Schiphol in Amsterdam or Heathrow in London.  Such an attack could cause a veritable pandemic through the release of exotic synthetic viruses devised in Iranian and Syrian laboratories that are virtually undetected. With IS’ enormous financial resources and recruitment of scientist terrorists from the Muslim Ummah, what may be simply provocative today, could readily become reality tomorrow if not stopped in time.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

American ISIS Jihadi was Minneapolis Airport Employee with a Security Clearance

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Pictured: Facebook images of Abdirahmaan Muhumed (left) and Douglas McAuthur McCain taken before they were radicalized.

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Abdirahmaan Muhumed , ISIS fighter.

The death of the American Somali Émigré ISIS  Jihadi  Abdirahmaan Muhumed, 29, revealed his employment as a cleaner for Delta Global Services, Inc.  that gave him security access to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.  Muhumed, 29, left behind 9 children in the Twin Cities to become an ISIS jihadi, before his death in Syria.  A Daily Mail report, noted:

A Somali-American who was killed fighting for ISIS in Syria cleaned jetliners for Delta Airlines before he left the United States to fight for the Islamic terrorist group, it has been revealed.

Abdirahmaan Muhumed, 29, had security clearances that granted him special access to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in his job with Delta Global Services, KMSP-TV reports.

[…]

KMSP reports that multiple sources have revealed that Muhumed had unfettered access to jetliners at the airport, which handles 90,000 passengers a day. He also had access to the tarmac and special security clearance to other parts of the airport.

KMSP reported that it appears Muhumed had no criminal record in the United States that would have prevented him from getting a job at the airport.

[…]

Two weeks ago, Muhumed’s family was sent a picture of his body, confirming he had died.  He is the second American killed fighting for ISIS. Last week, it emerged that Douglas McArthur McCain, who was also from Minneapolis, had been killed after taking up arms with the terrorist group.

At least 15 men and one woman from Minneapolis have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, according to authorities.

Most of the fighters are from the city’s large Somali refugee population.

Watch the KMSP Fox 9 report.

Is this an isolated incident or a case of a threat to possible airport and airline security that may be more pervasive?

Last  March  my colleague Lisa Benson reported  on her weekly radio  show the comments of a Southwest Airlines captain who told her  that  aircraft  he flew on out of, Sky Harbor in Phoenix, was cleaned  by a service that only hires Somali community members who have unrestricted access  to the planes at night.  She further noted that the City of Phoenix,  which operates  Sky Harbor, has a  $10 million exclusive contract with  a US subsidiary of the  Danish firm  ISIS Worldwide A/S headquartered in Copenhagen. The US subsidiary  ISS Facility Services, Inc. is based in San Antonio.  ISS Worlwide  employs  over  a half million through their outsourced network of  airport and commercial  facilities  maintenance contracts.  ISS specializes in a broad range of facility management services including janitorial services, especially for airport authorities and major manufacturing  companies.

During the past several years  the U.S. subsidiary has won a number of U.S. airport facility management contracts. Among those was the  one for Sky Harbor in Phoenix that prompted the comment from the Southwest Airlines flight captain, who spotted some Somalis during ground cleaning of his aircraft.  ISS might have tie-ins  with US and foreign refugee resettlement groups hence the alleged employment of Somalis and other  émigré groups .  ISS may draw from this refugee pool throughout its global network, as those positions are at the bottom rung of both pay and training requirements . Further, ISS, like Delta Global Services in the Twin Cities Airport example, may have referral arrangement with major refugee resettlement voluntary agencies in the US who contract with the US State Department and the federal and state Offices of Refugee Resettlement and Coordination.

This revelation following the death of Somali émigré ISIS fighter Abdirahmaan Muhumed, should raise the concerns of both the TSA and Homeland Security regarding screening of airport and aircraft maintenance personnel at  international airports in the U.S. Moreover, without active community policing programs in the major US émigré communities recruitment of both deceased ISIS fighters, Muhumed and McCain, could not have been detected. Muhumed, as we saw in The Daily Mail and Fox Reports, had no criminal record.  Notwithstanding this isolated instance,  the Somali émigré community in the US remains a potential source of jihadi recruits for both al Shabaab and, now, ISIS.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the New English Review. The featured image is courtesy of the Counter Jihad Report.

Massachusetts: Pastor Scott Lively makes ballot for Governor — A Powerful voice on pro-family issues

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Pastor Scott Lively officially makes ballot for Governor of Massachusetts! Speaking out on pro-family issues other candidates won’t touch. Submits over 12,500 valid signatures from 250 towns across the state! Supports Fisher in GOP primary.

Pastor Scott Lively, the internationally renowned pro-family activist, author, and spiritual leader of the Springfield, Massachusetts based Abiding Truth Ministries, has officially made the ballot for Governor of Massachusetts, as an Independent. He is joined on the ballot by his Lt. Governor running mate, Shelly Saunders.

Scott Lively’s candidacy has caught on around the state. Here’s one of their flyers. Here’s their website.

In Massachusetts 10,000 valid signatures are needed to get on the ballot for Governor. In the days leading up to the July 29 deadline Dr. Lively’s statewide team of signature gatherers turned in approximately 16,000 signatures. Over 12,500 have now been validated by the local town clerks, well over the amount needed, from over 250 Massachusetts cities and towns.

Scott Lively and his running mate Shelly Saunders were hitting the streets campaigning early. Here they are in the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade back in March. Needless to say, they got a great reception that day!

Lively speaks out on issues that others don’t want to touch!

Since he announced his candidacy earlier this year, Dr. Lively has been a wonderful breath of fresh air at gubernatorial candidate forums on pro-family issues, especially the ones involving Democratic and Independent candidates together. In particular, he has been completely unafraid to take on the radical homosexual agenda, which is a subject that other candidates either tend to support, or stay away from. But he’s also articulated a Biblical approach to a range of other issues, such as health care and tax reform. Needless to say, voters in Massachusetts are not used to seeing this!

As we reported back in March, Scott Lively was outstanding in a candidates’ forum for “LGBT issues” sponsored by WGBH and the homosexual lobby group MassEquality. He was the only one actually willing to tell the truth among a sea of politicians shamelessly pandering to that lobby!

Lively was outstanding at this “LGBT issues” forum. Watch it here.

Recently at a candidates’ health care forum in Roxbury on Aug. 20, Lively outlined the Biblical-oriented approach to health insurance that he uses for himself, as opposed to RomneyCare (now ObamaCare) which is standard in Massachusetts. It’s very interesting. The other candidates were not too pleased, to say the least. Watch that forum HERE.

At the health care forum Lively outlined a Biblical-oriented approach that he uses himself!

To supporters: Vote for Mark Fisher in Sept. 9 Republican primary

Independent candidates for Governor do not go through a primary, but are directly on the ballot for the Nov. 4 General Election. Thus, the real “action “coming up is the Sept. 9 primary. There are three Democrat candidates for Governor and two Republican candidates for Governor in that primary. (There are also two other Independent candidates besides Lively who made the ballot for Governor.)

The Republican primary race features establishment RINO Charlie Baker against conservative Tea Party candidate businessman Mark Fisher. Fisher is good on all the issues. Because of his unabashed conservatism, the politically “moderate” State Massachusetts GOP has taken extraordinarily underhanded actions to destroy Fisher’s candidacy. Baker is leading in the polls but Fisher, with a big Tea Party and pro-family effort, is making a strong surge for conservative voters to go to the polls on Sept. 9.

Thus, Lively has released the following statement encouraging his supporters to vote for Mark Fisher in the Republican primary on Sept. 9:

I am asking my supporters to vote for Mark Fisher, a genuine conservative, in the Republican Primary on September 9th.  If Mark can win the primary, I have promised to defer to his candidacy and bow out of the race should he make a strong showing approaching the general election.  I will not be the reason an authentic conservative Republican would lose the governor’s seat.

Should Fisher lose, Lively’s campaign will go forward at full speed and he will definitely be a presence. The Boston mainstream media has a history of including the independent candidates in their televised gubernatorial debates. This may be because the independents have traditionally been hardcore liberals. And except for Lively, that’s the case this year.

In addition to campaign . . . cutting edge activism!

In addition to the formal campaign, Dr. Lively has continued his cutting-edge activism and religious pursuits as head of Abiding Truth Ministries, taking on many of the larger issues of the culture war. For example:

  • “Not Just Another Sin.” In response to what he (and others) see as a “tidal wave of gay theology” coming to Christian churches, he has published a pamphlet for pastors and others titled “Not Just Another Sin. ” It has already been highly acclaimed and he and others are preparing to distribute it across the country!  Read & download it HERE.
  • Debating Vicky Beeching. Lively did an excellent interview on British television debating Christian performer Vicky Beeching who recently “came out” as a lesbian and was celebrated in the mainstream media. Watch the video HERE (Scott Lively appears at 7 min 40 sec).
  • Anti-genocide organization. Dr. Lively is in the process of forming an organization in Springfield called “Christian Genocide Rescue” to address the horrors of the mass murders of Christians happening in Muslim countries right now. He recently held a “Rally Against Christian Genocide” that included a march through Springfield, MA.

However, he has curtailed much of his international traveling because of the campaign for Governor and other constraints. This month he had been scheduled to be in England for two weeks, and he recently canceled a trip to Russia scheduled for October.

And then there’s the international lawsuit against Lively . . .

As we’ve been reporting, back in March 2012, a radical Soros-funded organization based in New York began a high-profile lawsuit against Pastor Lively, filed in federal court in Springfield.  They are making the absurd and ridiculous accusation that Lively is guilty of international “crimes against humanity,” based on a few pro-family speeches he made in Uganda several years ago. This bizarre lawsuit is largely meant to intimidate Lively and anyone else from speaking out internationally on the homosexual issue.

Homosexual activists hold rally outside courthouse at Scott Lively’s initial hearing in 2012.

Quite a bit has happened in that case this year, and we have a full update coming up.

Currently, the case is in the midst of the “discovery” process. Dr. Lively has been required to find and submit over 4000 documents to the court and to the Soros-funded group, and he is still in the process of submitting more. His lawyers have also submitted lists of documents for the plaintiffs to submit.

The preliminary activities in the case will continue for several months. The trial itself would probably not start until early 2016 -– if it’s allowed by the judge to continue.

Lively is standing up boldly in this. The belief is still that the judge -– as left-wing as he is –- will eventually be forced to conclude that this lawsuit has no legal basis and dismiss it before it goes to trial. But in this insane world, anything is possible. We will keep you informed.

Dear Rick and Pam — as in Scott and Bondi

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AG Bondi and Governor Scott in Sarasota, FL.

Let me publicly reiterate my private conversations with each of you at your campaign rally on Labor Day. I am a laborer, a small business owner who works at least 60 hours a week six days per week and barely pays our family’s bills. I am also a strong advocate of elders and of children; thus, I vociferously support your combined efforts to cleanse Florida of pill mills and to “stop the pot” machine steamrolling over the Sunshine State, about to become the “Stoned State.”

Both of these issues are inextricably interwoven with each other and with another urgent elder issue – guardianship abuse. How so? The mentality that pushes pills to adults also pushes pot to our youth, in particular, and exploits our elders, by filling them with prescription drugs while in guardianship as Wards of the State of Florida. We call it chemical restraint. If there is one State Ward in Florida who is not under the influence of chemical restraints – anti-depressants and other psychotropics – it would be extraordinarily rare.

Typically, the State of Florida forcibly administers to each of its tens of thousands of Wards some or all of the following prescription drugs, commonly against the will of both the Wards and their families: Zoloft, Lorazepam, Clonidin, Lexapro, Seroquel, Ativan, Xanax, Risperdal, Haldol, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, … ad infinitum. If the names sound familiar, it is because these same drugs are part and parcel of the pill mills Florida has evicted from our borders. Why then are our beloved parents and grandparents victimized by court-authorized pill mills via guardianships?

SSPX0004

Beverly Newman speaking to Governor Scott.

At least equally hideous to the abusive use of chemical restraints on the elderly is the forcible immobilization of them through physical restraints, tethering frail elderly women and men to beds and chairs, such that they cannot move their bodies or limbs. On September 21, 2009, I personally witnessed both the chemical and physical restraint of my 89-year-old Father, Al Katz, at Manatee Memorial Hospital, against his will and mine.

From September 21 through September 24, with an emergency room diagnosis of cardiac and respiratory distress, my Father, a Ward of the State of Florida, was repeatedly drugged with Haldol, a narcotic that caused him to suffer vivid flashbacks to the tortures he endured as a slave laborer for seven years in the Holocaust. With each dosage of Haldol, Dad was infused with fear, which invariably led to what is known as four-point physical restraints on his wrists and ankles, tying him to the bed so that he could not move at all. Despite my pleas to cease the pill mill administration of Haldol to my Dad and to loosen the rigid physical restraints on him, which were causing him untold cardiac and respiratory stress, the Hospital staff did not relent.

Unknown to me at the time, Manatee Memorial Hospital had previously used the same chemical restraint, Haldol, and physical restraints on a patient whom it consequently buried due to cardiac arrest. During his Hospital stay for alcohol withdrawal in August 2007, Daniel Joseph Jordan, age 41. He entered the Hospital robust and left dead, a victim of torment; yet, two years later, the Hospital employed exactly the same measures on my Dad, a Ward of Florida, who miraculously survived after weeks of doctor-ordered chemical restraints, physical restraints, and isolation after his transfer to Manatee Memorial’s dark, deep basement.

The links between marijuana peddling, prescription pill mills, and guardianship abuse are based upon profit motives and a drug-culture mentality. We citizens of Florida call upon our Governor and our chief legal officer to cut the ties that bind these destructive forces in our State, which splinter our families and end human lives in immeasurable misery.

Florida: Muslim threatens to “kidnap an American and behead him”

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faisal-albagdadi

54-year-old Faisal Albagdadi

Faisal Albagdadi and Ahmed Hindi [pictured above] started the brawl after they walked into the bar already drunk. Drinking alcohol is, of course, forbidden in Islam, and so it may be surmised that Albagdadi and Hindi are not particularly devout. But when Albagdadi threatened to “kidnap an American and behead him, once he’s released from jail,” he was falling back on deeply ingrained cultural and religious touchstones: “when you meet the unbelievers, strike at the necks” (Qur’an 47:4). People start bar fights all the time, and threaten to kill people all the time — but when one brings in beheading, one reveals an Islamic supremacist outlook or upbringing.

“2 arrested after starting bar fight, making threats, Volusia cops say,” by Loren Korn, ClickOrlando.com, August 28, 2014 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Two men are facing charges after Volusia County deputies said they started a fight at a bar Wednesday night.

Staff at the Jus’ Beachy Bar on Ocean Shore Boulevard claimed they refused to serve alcohol to 54-year-old Faisal Albagdadi and 30-year-old Ahmed Hindi after they walked into the bar already drunk.

“I need cops at Jus’ Beachy Pecker’s Pub immediately. I got a huge fight going. I mean they’re tearing (expletive) up,” the caller told 911 dispatchers. “We wouldn’t even serve him when he came in, he was so drunk.”

Deputies said that’s when the men got angry and attacked the customers.

“They’re using chairs and everything else,” the caller told dispatchers.

Deputies said the men smashed six bar stools, threw several glasses that cut one woman in the eye and beat up a couple of men. At one point, the fight got so out of control, the dispatcher couldn’t get a hold of the caller.

The men took off before deputies arrived, but the caller was able to get their tag number and the description of their car. Ormond Beach police then quickly tracked down the car and arrested the men.

The arrest report showed that not only did Hindi deny initiating the bar fight, deputies said Albagdadi was uncooperative and threatened to “kidnap an American and behead him, once he’s released from jail.”

Both men face criminal mischief and battery charges. The other customers were not seriously injured. However, the men allegedly caused more than $1,200 in damage.

Albagdadi was previously arrested on Aug. 23 for drunk driving charges.

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Bill Gates Grant to “Further Hardwire the Common Core Curriculum”?

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One way to ensure permanence in the field of electronics is to “hardwire”– which means to “permanently connect.”

In electronics, “hardwiring” refers to circuitry.

For billionaire public education purchaser Bill Gates, circuitry and mass education, it’s all the same.

Bill Gates has already likened the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to circuitry, with the moronic assertion that standardization of an American education from which he and his children are exempt will surely lead to “innovation” in this March 2014Washington Post appeal to teachers to “defend” CCSS:

Gates said common standards could transform U.S. education, reduce the number of students taking remedial courses in college and enable American students to better compete globally.

Standardization is especially important to allow for innovation in the classroom, said Gates, who used an analogy of electrical outlets.

“If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive,” he said. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers, he said.

If states use common academic standards, the quality of classroom materials and professional development will improve, Gates said. Much of that material will be digital tools that are personalized to the student, he said. “To get this innovation out, common standards will be helpful,” he said. [Emphasis added.]

Gates said, Gates said, Gates said. Got that?

Making all US classrooms “the same” will somehow (only the fairies really know how) *transform US education.* He assumes that since appliances operate via the same “plug,” CCSS is suitable for the American classroom for the masses.

Just plug in the children of the masses, and creativity will bloom. Standardization will lead to *digital solutions*, which apparently are the solutions for all kids of the masses, no matter their capabilities, personalities, tendencies, interests, or preferences.

Just plug ‘em in.

Gates doesn’t address the fact that not everything inserted into an outlet is beneficial.

I could “innovatively” design a gadget, plug it in, and get electrocuted.

But back to that “hardwiring.”

Hardwiring is not “innovative.” It is permanent and set.

In that March 2014 Washington Post article, Gates appealed to teachers to “defend” CCSS.

March 2014 was a busy month for Bill and his CCSS campaign. He “explained” CCSS at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)– one of many “nonprofits” he funded to “explore” CCSS; he dined with 80 senators and other officials and pitched his reforms; he gave the keynote at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) conference, and he granted Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post an interview in which he insisted he is neither purchasing nor driving American education.

And yet…

As of July 2014, he is willing to pay for organizations to “help” teachers “hardwire”… the CCSS “curriculum??

I thought CCSS wasn’t a curriculum….

Anyone who believes that CCSS can be isolated from curriculum and tests (and professional development has not read mega-education corporation Pearson’s February 2014 earnings call.

Pearson intends to capture millions (billions?) by casting the lucrative CCSS net wide– tests, curriculum, professional development– and, of course, it will use technology.

Plug it in, plug it in.

That doesn’t mean others cannot help with the rewiring.

Gates July 2014 “hardwire” grant has been paid to the nonprofit (of course, a nonprofit) Constitutional Rights Foundation:

Constitutional Rights Foundation

Date: July 2014 
Purpose: To provide professional development opportunities for teachers to further hardwire the Common Core curriculum 
Amount: $299,709 
Term: 18 
Topic: College-Ready 
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA 
Program: United States 
Grantee Location: Los Angeles, California 
Grantee Website: http://www.crf-usa.org

(For those interested in the CRF 2012 990, here you go.)

Note the “purpose”:

“Professional development for teachers to further hardwire the CCSS curriculum.”

Further hardwire?

In May 2014, Pearson was awarded the contract for one of the two federally-funded CCSS testing consortia, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). Before that, in February 2014, Pearson was already banking on CCSS– curriculum included. Pearson plans to “embed” itself in American education and make itself “indispensable” to the American CCSS venture.

Pearson is already planning to “hardwire” American teachers and students to their CCSS curriculum. And why not? It will complement their CCSS high-stakes PARCC tests.

PARCC is a fantastic “hardwiring” mold. And at last, PARCC begins to publicly admit as much:

In August 2014, PARCC CEO Laura Slover (one on the inside of CCSS development via Achieve and now, in charge of one of the powerful, lucrative CCSS testing consortia) admitted that the CCSS assessment will indeed drive curriculum (not news to those of us who are currently in the classroom) by way of “informing instruction.”

Of course it will.

Here it is, in Slover’s words:

“High quality assessments go hand-in-hand with high quality instruction based, on high quality standards,” said Laura Slover, the Chief Executive Officer of the PARCC nonprofit. “You cannot have one without the other.” [Emphasis added.]

The comma placement in Slovner’s first sentence is a curiosity– as though she paused to consider what exactly she was saying. Don’t want to state too clearly that the tests will drive curriculum.

Too late, Laura. We already get it. High-stakes tests drive classroom instruction. The higher the stakes, the stronger the drive.

Plug it in, plug it in.

As to that Gates “hardwire” grant to the Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF)–

–it will only *work* if the CRF professional development leads to a curriculum that *fits the outlet* of the CCSS assessment.

And it could, based upon CCSS ELA literacy standards for grades 6 through 8.

However, CRF is located in California, which happens to be a Smarter Balanced consortium state. Thus, CRF hardwiring likely must be suited to the Smarter Balanced outlet.

Just to be safe, Bill–

–better make sure your purchased hardwiring is okay with PARCC and Smarter Balanced first.

You see, Bill, CCSS is not the outlet. The CCSS assessments are the outlets.

Plug it in, plug it in.

Like my writing? Read my newly-released ed “reform” whistle blower, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education. NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE.

GOP, Are You Ready To Reach Out to Blacks Yet?

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Because I am a black conservative, someone wrote asking me this great question.

“What is it that compels some black men and women to cling to, and follow people like Sharpton, Jackson, Wright, Obama, Spike Lee, Black Panthers, Holder, etc.?”

I have pondered the same question. Some black folks embrace victim status because it provides cover for their laziness and irresponsible lifestyles. Black Judases preach a false evil gospel of victimhood-ism for profit. Some blacks are racist, pure and simple.

I believe a majority of black Americans simply have not been exposed to unfiltered Conservatism; blacks articulating how blessed they are to be born in the greatest land of opportunity on the planet.

Ironically, all of the blacks who are given big microphones to tout the horrors of being black in America are wealthy. The MSM and Democratic Party viciously and relentlessly block any and all patriotic black voices from the main stage touting achieving success and wealth the old fashion way via education, hard work and morally right choices. And of course, we know the reason for their attempts to silence such voices is because the MSM and Democratic Party’s mission is not to empower blacks, but further their big government socialist/progressive agenda.

Now that America is burning in the flames of racial tension and polarization, it is crucial that Republicans/Conservatives finally reach-out to black America. I am not suggesting that they offer blacks a Democrat-lite, America sucks and is somewhat racist — so we will lower standards and give you free stuff message. Heaven forbid.

I am talking about taking a pedal-to-the-metal conservative message to black America, boldly articulating its virtues and why it is the best for all Americans; the most direct route to success.

While I have no problem with packaging our message to better connect with diverse audiences, our rock solid conservative principles must remain in tack. Republicans must reject using the Democrats’ insidious tactic of dividing Americans into victimized voting blocs (blacks, women, Hispanics and so on). After convincing various groups of Americans that they are victims, the Dems request their votes to use as protection money to keep their white racist sexist Republican/conservative enemies at bay. It is disgusting and evil.

A young black college student worked on the Tea Party candidate Joe Carr’s U.S. Senate campaign for college credit. The black youth told me that he realized he is conservative. That’s what I am talking about; giving blacks an opportunity to hear our inspiring be-all-you-can-be feel good message. Ronald Reagan’s speeches always made me feel good about myself and my country.

Several years ago, I produced many of the Volusia County Florida Republican Executive Committee annual Lincoln dinners. I was one of two blacks on the committee. I was always thinking of ways to invite and involve more blacks. A few outspoken voices said, “Why bother? They are going to vote for the Democrats no matter what we do.” I have experienced that same defeatist mindset in the national GOP leadership.

Using my background from working in the Creative Services Dept of a major TV station, I designed a campaign to reach out to blacks titled, “Reach Your Dreams”. My campaign included touring the black community; music and conservative minority speakers telling their stories of how they achieved their American dreams. GOP officers consistently shot my idea down. “Why bother?” They thought it would not produce enough votes to make it a wise financial investment. I argued that it was not totally about producing votes. It was the moral and right thing to do.

Well, the GOP’s chickens have come home to roost for allowing the Democrat’s lie that America and Republicans/Conservatives are racists to go unchallenged. Oh my gosh, did I just quote that evil man, Rev Jeremiah Wright?

To spread Christianity, Romans 10:14 says:

“And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?”

I wish to apply this same wisdom to spreading our gospel of Conservatism. Blacks can not embrace the liberation of Conservatism without hearing about it.

My dad has been a Christian preacher for over 50 years. Little did I know that God was preparing me for such a time as this; appointed to spread the gospel of Conservatism to those suffering, lost and enslaved by Liberalism.

Bottom line, we conservatives must find a way to bring our good news to black Americans. It is the moral and right thing to do for America.

Why doesn’t America want to be sovereign?

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There is an urgent need for the U.S. to recover its lost sovereignty, especially in terms of borders and immigration but also in more subtle ways such as freeing ourselves from UN Agenda 21 or Common Core in education. Part of our problem is the distorted idea of what sovereignty really is.

Some think national sovereignty is a possible encroachment on state and personal sovereignty. Some say that sovereignty was a term avoided by the Founders because they were conditioned to think it referred to sovereign kings and queens of Europe. These concerns raise the question of what sovereignty really is, and I hope herein to add a few grains to our understanding. There are several levels of sovereignty, which are, from lower to higher, essentially as follows:

  1. Popular sovereignty,
  2. State sovereignty,
  3. National sovereignty.

The founders did not eschew the notion of sovereignty, as some have worried. In fact, it is central to their founding idea as pointed out here. Nor does national sovereignty imply a loss of state sovereignty. The Tenth Amendment is dedicated to protecting state sovereignty. When I mentioned sovereignty above, I was referring to national sovereignty. National sovereignty is the concept that the national government is not beholden to any other outside country or entity and has the full right to decide its path and destiny.

But in the case of our political class, it is clear that they are following leadership that does not come from We the people. Mind you, it does not necessarily come from the UN or from any particular country. But there are bits and pieces of supranational ,and what could be called ‘foreign’ leadership in Washington.

Recent presidents have all had cabinet members who were members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) or the Trilateral Commission. According to Carroll Quigley, a liberal professor who taught at Georgetown, wrote in his book “Tragedy and Hope”:

“The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is the American Branch of a society which originated in England… (and) believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years, and was permitted in the early 1960’s to examine its papers and secret records…. I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.”

Richard Haas, as president of the CFR, once wrote that it is time to “rethink” sovereignty. Only a person who does not want countries to be sovereign would think that way. Now you might say, “what’s wrong with that? The CFR is not part of our government, and even if the organization came from England, it is not making the US subservient to England.” All very true.

However, any organization, whether domestic or foreign, that seeks to weaken our national sovereignty, as Quigley describes above, is intentionally undermining the US as a sovereign nation, taking it closer to becoming part of a supranational entity, similar, for example, to the Soviet Union or the EU, whose member states were barred from making independent decisions (the people of EU nations are starting to push back against this authoritarian top-down rule). Yet all presidential cabinets have prominent members from this clearly subversive organization. This does not bode well for our national security or our freedom to shape our own destiny.

There are two aspects of sovereignty that are being undermined routinely by our national government, and they are: borders and immigration. Just as no household can survive for long if the owner leaves the doors wide open 24-7 and hangs a sign on the door “All welcome to enter any time. Help yourselves to furnishings and fridge contents,” no nation can claim sovereignty if it has no control over its borders or invites all and sundry to enter and stay, with or without ID and without any background checks. Spain, under Prime Minister Zapatero, of which Obama seems to be a reasonable facsimile, kept Spain’s borders notoriously wide open, giving rise to a concept dubbed the “call effect”, an unspoken invitation to illegal immigration, a phenomenon that, in our case has birthed the “children’s invasion” from Central America.

I did not mean to give short shrift to state sovereignty. State sovereignty has been unduly undermined, particularly since Lincoln and needs to be restored to its rightful place. For example, state authorities must annul federal laws that encroach on their sovereignty, as in the case of the Bundy ranch.

As for popular sovereignty, it was a concept held in high esteem by our Founders: Sadly, this concept has been so badly distorted in today’s America that there are groups of people who think they are free to drive cars with no plates or drivers licenses, citing the Constitution’s mention of free travel. Others insist that the Constitution gives them the right to buy, sell and take drugs. It also leads some to side with criminals who are shot by police in self-defense. Many “sovereign citizens” openly defy the law, declaring themselves sovereign when confronted by law enforcement. They have gotten the cart before the horse. You don’t acquire freedom simply by declaring yourself to be sovereign. The authorities do not give people special rights based on their ability to quote the Founders. I have known some who wound up behind bars and were forced to find a new hobby.

This warped concept of “sovereignty” has detracted from the overall concept of national sovereignty and is one reason why our national sovereignty has taken a back seat. 

Many fail to apprehend that no one is truly free in a nation that is not sovereign. If people can be deluded into believing that they are each a king or queen, then national sovereignty and winning back our lost national rights to exist are no longer a relevant issue for them. But the reality of the situation is that we are losing jobs and inviting dangerous criminals to our shores in ways that will not be sustainable for too much longer — in ways that will affect even “sovereign citizens.”

So far no national political party has arisen to make this issue of national sovereignty a central part of its platform. Both of the main ones are rushing to open our borders even further, using false mantras and excuses, such as pretending that building a border fence would lead us to become another Soviet Union, with its famous Iron Curtain, or suggesting that because Americans are all descended from foreigners, we should welcome foreigners without background checks or ID. Yet none of these bleeding heart idealists would think of requiring other nations to do likewise.

Americans across the political spectrum would say “we must respect the sovereignty of all nations.”What they mean is, all nations is the U.S.

“Shock and Flaw”

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Not a week goes by without our work at HJS turning out to be ever more prescient and ever more disconcertingly necessary. Sometimes it is our work on Russia and other autocratic states. Sometimes – and never more so than in recent months – it is our work on Islamic extremism, its causes, proponents and the possible answers to it.

The murder of an American citizen by a British subject would always be a cause of shame and horror. But never could it have been more shameful or horrific than in the murder of the American journalist James Foley this week. Everyone is shocked – David Cameron is shocked, the leaders of the opposition are shocked. But shock is not enough, and nor is horror or outrage. We are all capable of feeling that and all do. The question for political leaders is what they are going to do about it.

To date, the political reaction in Britain has been woeful. The normally hawkish former Security Minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones was reduced to advocating more ‘tweeting’ to extremists from Britain in Syria. The shadow Home Secretary was reduced to complaining about the coalition government’s watering-down of Control Orders into ‘TPIMs’. Nothing could have been more grossly partisan or inept. Even if the very slightly watered-down ‘TPIMs’ were turned back into Control Orders immediately it could have had no impact on the life or death of James Foley.

So the paucity of debate is striking. Our political leaders remain strangely fearful of trying to answer the problem that we are all now aware of and increasingly concerned by. But that gap of political leadership will at some point have to be filled. And that is one of the areas where The Henry Jackson Society is able to tread. Because we have been ahead of the curve in identifying this problem, we are also in a good position to be ahead of the curve in providing the answers to it.

Fox News – and CNN, ESPN, CBS & NBC – Sponsor and Recruit at Biased ‘Gay Journalists’ Convention

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AFTAH exclusive: FOX, CNN, NBC, CBS, ESPN fund conference where mainstream journalists heard highly partisan, pro-”gay” presentations by Peter LaBarbera

CHICAGO–As it has year after year, Fox News Channel served as a major sponsor of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association (NLGJA), providing a $10,000 grant for its 2014 annual convention, which recently concluded here (August 21-24). The conservative-leaning network also recruited at the homosexual journalists event.

Fox signed on as a “Feature Sponsor” for the convention–which included several one-sided presentations in favor of homosexual and transgender activist goals, and zero speakers advocating against LGBT goals such as the legalization of same-sex “marriage.” I attended a day and a half of the three-day conference, which was held at the swank Palmer House Hilton hotel in the downtown Loop. As in the past, NLGJA organizers allowed me (a critic, and not a homosexual journalist) to attend, but only after paying a “non-member” registration fee ($330/day).

Other media and corporate sponsors of the event included: CNN; CBS; ESPN; Comcast-NBC; Bloomberg; Gannett; Coca-Cola (the largest sponsor at $25,000); JetBlue airlines; Eli Lilly & Co.; Toyota; Nissan and the homosexual lobby organization Human Rights Campaign.

A natural bias?

Proud 'Gay' Christianity? Openly homosexual Lutheran (ELCA) Bishop Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin (far left) and former Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson (second from right) pose for photo following their presentation at the NLGJA convention. Robinson, who gained international fame as the first openly homosexual bishop of a major Christian denomination, criticized Christians who do not wish to participate in homosexual "weddings." Robinson said there is something "profane and sacrilegious" about "religious people arguing for the right to discriminate." No opposing orthodox Christian viewpoint was included on the panel.

What I found at the Chicago conference is what I have observed at every other NLGJA convention I have attended in the last two decades: the natural bias that one would expect from an organization whose members view homosexuality personally and mainly through a “civil rights” prism.

The prevailing viewpoint at the conference–surely shared by most secular media professionals these days–is that “gay, lesbian and transgender” journalists are a legitimate sexual (or gender) “minority,” not unlike racial and ethnic minorities, deserving solicitous attention in newsrooms. That would include allowing LGBT journalists to guide coverage on homosexual-bisexual-transgender stories in culture and politics.

Even the NLGJA panel on religion and “gay rights” was bereft of a traditionalist perspective, while the two openly homosexual speakers—former Episcopal Church bishop V. [Vicky] Gene Robinson and new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ECLA) Bishop Rev. Doctor Guy Erwin—were heralded in the program as leaders of “this next wave of the civil rights movement.”

Both Revs. Robinson and Erwin compared opposition to homosexuality and Christian businessmen’s principled refusal to participate in “gay weddings” to racist bigotry (see below).

Perhaps it is asking too much of “mainstream” journalists who consider homosexuality part of their intrinsic identity (“who they are”) to cover LGBT-related issues impartially. Nevertheless, intellectual diversity and ‘opposing’ viewpoint inclusion—the watchwords of this conference and pro-LGBT advocacy in general—were in short supply at the NLGJA convention. That is a peculiar and glaring deficit for a profession that ideally is supposed to cover “both sides” of controversial issues.

To quote the famous Fox News’ slogan: the NLGJA religious panel was hardly “Fair and Balanced” regarding the controversial question of (pro-) “gay Christianity”: who could argue that openly homosexual bishops advocating for rights based on homosexuality is not a divisive issue?

Note that as opposed to the attendees working in “mainstream” (non-LGBT) media corporations like NPR and CBC, many NLGJA members work in LGBT media, like the Windy City Times for Chicago-area homosexuals–from whom is expected a lower standard of objectivity.

[To read more on the NLGJA’s record of advocacy, FOX News’ financing of the NLGJA and the network’s escalating pro-homosexual coverage, see the PDF of my 2013 in-depth report for America’s Survival, Inc: “Unfair, Unbalanced & Afraid: Fox News’ Growing Pro-Homosexual Bias & the NLGJA.”]

The NLGJA convention also included professional workshops that were unrelated to the homosexual debate—e.g., a panel on the economy and the 2014 election led by even-keeled NPR business editor Marilyn Geewax—and others geared to improving participants’ journalism skills.

NLGJA program lists major sponsors for the conference. Click to enlarge.

As you can see, Fox News was hardly alone as a major media sponsor of the NLGJA and its “Breaking Barriers” convention. The following are media corporate sponsors and their donations to the NLGJA [see the group’s sponsorship levels HERE]:

  • Fox News Channel – $10,000
  • CNN – $10,000
  • ESPN – $10,000
  • CBS News – $5,000
  • Comcast -NBC Universal – $5,000
  • Gannett – $5,000
  • Bloomberg – $5,000
  • Crain Communications Inc. – $5,000
  • Cox Media Group – $2,500
  • The McClatchy Co. – $2,500

The following were the non-media corporate sponsors of the NLGJA convention:

  • Coca-Cola Company – $25,000
  • JetBlue – $20,000 
  • Eli Lilly and Company – $15,000
  • Nissan – $15,000
  • Prudential – $15,000
  • Toyota – $15,000
  • Stolichnaya – $15,000
  • Chevrolet – $10,000
  • Human Rights Campaign (world’s leading homosexual activist organization) – $5,000
  • Astellas – $5,000
  • SAG [Screen Actors Guild] -AFTRA – $5,000

Lastly, the following Journalism schools and foundations were listed as NLGJA sponsors:

  • Knight Foundation – $10,000
  • McCormick Foundation Journalism Program – $5,000

AFTAH will delve more deeply into the NLGJA conference, but the following are some examples of pro-homosexual advocacy and anti-Christian/anti-conservative bias at the event and demonstrated by its presenters:

Religious panel – no attempt at balance:

CNN Kicks in $10,000: Like Fox News Channel, CNN gave $10,000 to the “gay” journalists group. This is an ad in the NLGJA convention program. It reads: “CNN Proudly Supports the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.” Click to enlarge.

The following is the NLGJA convention brochure’s tendentious, pro-LGBT description of the Saturday panel on religion and “gay rights”:

“The church and other religious groups were an essential organizing force when it came to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, yet they have not been as helpful when it has come to LGBT civil rights efforts. Now, as LGBT equality has become more accepted by the mainstream, more churches and synagogues are on board. While there are still strong hold-outs when it comes to equality and inclusiveness, more religious groups are helping to shape this next wave of a civil rights movement.”

On the panel, Rev. Robinson, who gained international fame a decade ago as the first openly homosexual bishop of a major Christian denomination (Episcopalians), criticized Christian small businessmen who refuse to participate in homosexual “weddings” on the basis of their religious liberty. He said there is something “profane and sacrilegious” about “religious people arguing for the right to discriminate.”

Robinson compared discrimination based on homosexuality and “gay marriage”–e.g., Christian wedding cake bakers refusing to bake a wedding cake for homosexuals–to past racism: “This is a very slippery slope and we’ve been there before.” He said such religious-based refusals constitute an “overblown understanding of religious liberty” and are an extension of invidious discrimination against black Americans, like saying, “I don’t want to serve you at a lunch counter because you’re African-American.”

Rev. Doctor Guy Erwin, bishop of the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, echoed Robinson’s concerns, saying with regard to Christian non-participation in homosexual “weddings”: “I see this as an assault on pluralism.” He said it “goes against the law of Christianity,” as a manifestation of not loving one’s neighbor as commanded by Jesus Christ in Scripture.

What might have been a lively debate between the Christian Left and a more orthodox perspective on religious liberty and the outworking of Christian faith in the culture did not occur, as there was no forceful defender of the latter worldview on the panel. Moreover, none of the assembled journalists pressed Robinson or Erwin on their comments, which took a very dim view of Christian citizens asserting their freedom under the First Amendment not to participate in homosexual “weddings,” based on their belief that homosexual behavior is sinful and that marriage as ordained by God is an institution solely between one man and one woman.

[To read more on the NLGJA’s record of advocacy, FOX News’ financing of the NLGJA and the network’s escalating pro-homosexual coverage, see the PDF of my 2013 in-depth report for America’s Survival, Inc: “Unfair, Unbalanced & Afraid: Fox News’ Growing Pro-Homosexual Bias & the NLGJA.”]

NEXT ARTICLE: More examples of “advocacy” journalism and anti-social-conservative bias at the NLGJA convention.

Michigan Governor affirms Israel’s right to exist at Hamas-linked ISNA convention

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Snyder ISNA conference

Governor Rich Snyder (R-MI) at ISNA Conference

Islamic supremacist academic propagandist Hatem “Hate ‘em” Bazian, a professor of “Islamophobia” at (where else?) the University of California Berkeley, has equated the Boston jihad bombings with “Islamophobia” and, several years ago, called for an “intifada” in the U.S. Tonight he is enraged that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has dared to affirm Israel’s right to exist at the convention of the Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood group the Islamic Society of North America. He posted this on Facebook. Be sure to call Snyder and tell him, “Bravo!”:

Call Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and express that Palestinians have the right to exist, be free on their land and an immediate end to Israeli Occupation. You lost the Muslim-Arab vote in Michigan!

(517) 373-3400

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder spoke at the opening session of ISNA’s 51st Annual Convention on Friday held in Detroit and made it a point to declare that Israel has the right to exist without making any references to the Palestinians. The statement was completely out of context and seems intended to make a point to his audience as if to each them a lesson considering the recent situation in Gaza.

Being in America, one understands the political leadership taking its marching orders from AIPAC and repeating the same exact words every opportunity they have as if it is part of the US constitution. While the Governor is welcome to his point of view but to come to a Muslim convention and attempt to score points by pushing AIPAC’s agenda is insulting and demonstrate a lack of basic political respect to the community.

What is more glaring is that no one on the stage jumped to make any comments after him to indicate that the implied insult conveyed by the Governor in this speech is not acceptable to the Muslim community and for it to be expressed at this time considering the slaughter campaign unleashed by Israel on Gaza….

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Has the Third Gaza War Between Israel and Hamas Ended?

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On Tuesday, August 26, 2014, the thirteenth cease fire in Operation Protective Edge between Israel and Hamas and its terrorist partners in Gaza was declared at 7:00 PM local time. The cease fire had been brokered by Egypt was unconditional and without a set time limit. Despite the onset of this latest cease fire, some rockets continued to be launched from Gaza towards Israel past the time set for cessation of attacks. Subsequently, this latest cease fire has held. It is only temporary and there is no definitive peace agreement in the works. The suspicion is that Israel may have exacted significant punishment on both Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad forces who agreed to a tadiah, a time out, with no hudna, or truce in the offing.

Some quarters in the world media have expressed the opinion that this might be the end of the third war between Israel and Hamas in nearly six years. It has been the longest in the series, 50 days. But it is only a temporary halt and the conflict may be renewed. This conflict was perpetrated by Hamas in June with the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish youths near the West Bank community of Hebron. It was reportedly organized by a senior Hamas military wing operative based in Turkey, Saleh Muhammad Suleiman al-Arouri. He took credit for that on August 20, 2014 at the fourth conference of the World Union of Islamic Sages held in Turkey. Al-Arouri allegedly was speaking on behalf of Hamas leader Khalid Mashal ensconced in luxury in Qatar. Al-Arouri may also have planned what some have called a Mega-9/11 event  that would  have attacked Israel from the West Bank coordinated with suicide Hamas commandos infiltrating Israel’s southern frontier through a network of terror tunnels from Gaza. The IDF and General Security Service, Shin Bet, uncovered arms caches and millions of dollars in the West Bank that could have been used for this attack planned for Rosh Hashanah in late September. That planned attack was evidence of a power play by Hamas seeking to topple Fatah and the PA Leadership in the West Bank, akin to the terror group’s bloody ousting of Fatah in the 2007 takeover in Gaza. PA leader Abbas, sidelined in the current Gaza War, allegedly had heated discussions with Mashal when they met in Qatar in mid-August over the alleged power plot.

This third war between Israel and Hamas firing rocket and mortar barrages on July 6th and retaliatory Israeli air attacks on a command center in southern Gaza. A ground incursion phase by the IDF began following a surprise tunnel attack by Hamas commandos inside Israel  on July 16th. More than 4,500 rockets and missiles have been fired at Israel to date during this third war. Israel’s Iron Dome System has been effective in taking down several hundred rockets headed for populated areas. Those rockets and missiles have covered virtually 80 percent of the Jewish nation including Israel’s populous central and northern areas. Israel’s South has been the most exposed since Hamas and  the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) began rocket launches nearly a decade ago. The rain of terror from the skies has targeted communities and cities like Sderot and Beersheba in the Western Negev and Ashdod and Ashkelon on Israel’s southern border. Many residents of those most exposed communities have left temporarily for safety elsewhere. Upwards of 16,000 rockets and missiles and untold thousands of mortars have been fired over the past decade at Israel from Gaza. The vast preponderance of those has been supplied from Iran supplemented by locally manufactured short and medium range Qassem and M-75 rockets.

One community on the frontier with Gaza, Kibbutz Nahal Oz, has borne the onslaught from Hamas and the PIJ  during all 50 days in this current war. Forty eight hours before this cease fire, a four year boy, Dan Tragerman, who was about to depart with his family for the security of his grandparents’ home near Tel Aviv, was mortally wounded with shrapnel in a mortar attack. Israel has no defense against indiscriminate mortar fire. He was the first Israeli child to die in the current war. 70 Israeli deaths have occurred in this third war with Hamas, 66 IDF service personnel and four civilians including young Dan Tragerman. Casualties in Gaza according to unconfirmed reports of the Health Ministry there were 2,100 killed, half of whom Israel maintains were Hamas and PIJ fighters.

Israel scored several hits via air strikes on four senior military wing commanders of Hamas, the CFO for the terror group and may have taken out the elusive overall military wing commander, Mohammed Deir. Hamas reacted by publicly executing 18 Gazans who they contended were Israeli collaborators. Those attacks and Hamas’ public executions of civilians may have demonstrated Israeli intelligence prowess in the conflict and its network of local assets in Gaza. Those assets have also assisted in targeting command centers that have been flattened by precision air attacks.

During the ground incursion in a section of northern Gaza City, the IDF uncovered a Hamas combat manual that revealed a conscious policy of using women, children and civilians as human shields by launching rockets and mortars from homes, hospitals, apartment complexes and schools used as refuge centers. The mortar attack that took the life of young Dan Tragerman came from a position near a school in Gaza, one of the refuge centers for displaced Gazans.

One of the unpleasant surprises for Israel was the more than 35 tunnels crossing the frontier from Gaza into adjacent communities inside Israel. Those tunnels had been built using funds diverted from the hundreds of millions of dollars supplied by Qatar for reconstruction following the eight days Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012. Qatar may also have supplied sophisticated cyber warfare technology for remote launching of rockets and booby traps in these terror tunnels. In 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit was kidnapped and held captive by terrorists who abducted him through one of the tunnels. For whatever reason, the military bureaucracy in Tzahal had stymied development of a system to detect tunnel excavation, an effort begun as early as 2004. A successfully tested system may be deployed by the IDF in 2015, too late for this current conflict. Those dozens of tunnels destroyed by the IDF in Operation Protective Edge are only one aspect of the struggle. The other is the several hundred tunnels between Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai through which weapons and cash could be transferred to Hamas and the PIJ.  Egypt under President al-Sisi has successfully destroyed over 1,300 tunnels on the Rafah frontier with Gaza. Those Gaza tunnels have been excavated at great human cost. Reports surfaced during this campaign of over 160 children and dozens of adults killed in the terror tunnel projects. Projects allegedly designed with assistance from Hezbolleh based on North Korean tunnel excavation expertise.

An ominous new terrorist group has emerged in Gaza, the Islamic State, formerly ISIS that has conquered vast swaths of both Syria and Iraq. The black flags of Islam flown by the Islamic State have been seen at funerals and on other occasions in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Against this background, another in the periodic 1330amWEBY Middle East Round Table discussions was convened.

Mike Bates

Mike Bates:  Good afternoon and welcome to Your Turn. This is Mike Bates. We are having our periodic Middle East round table discussion and I have with me in the studio Jerry Gordon, Senior Editor of the New English Review and its blog the Iconoclast. Welcome Jerry.

Jerry Gordon

 Jerry Gordon:   Glad to be back.

 Bates:  Also we have Rabbi Eric Tokajer. He is the Rabbi at Brit Ahm Messianic Synagogue in Pensacola.  Joining us by telephone from Jerusalem is Dan Diker, former Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress. He is currently a research fellow with the International Institute for Counter-terrorism and Foreign Policy and he is a Foreign Policy Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Dan Diker, welcome to Your Turn.

Daniel Diker

Daniel Diker:  Good to be with you

Bates:  Thank you for joining us. We will begin with what is hopefully good news,  a cease fire was announced at roughly 7:00 p.m. Jerusalem time or noon Central time. Dan Diker, what is the cause of that and has it held so far?

Diker:  First of all it has held. I am not exactly sure that it’s good news. It’s certainly news that can be called in two words a time out. There is a tendency in the West to look at cease fires of any kind as a stepping stone towards a peace agreement. This is very different from what a Middle Eastern Muslim/Arab understanding is of a cease fire. This is really in Arab/Muslim terms a tahdia, calming down. This is not a hudna, truce. This is not a long term detailed cease fire that would be closer to a Western understanding. Israel has accepted it because there are no conditions attached that would have forced Israel under different circumstances to accept impossible demands by Hamas. It affords Israel the opportunity to watch Hamas from the air, sea and ground and to see how it behaves. To see if there are any terrorist troop movements in the Gaza strip. It essentially allows the Israeli Army to see what is happening on the ground from moment to moment without conceding anything substantial.

Bates:  How did this cease fire come about? Who brokered it?

Diker:  The cease fire was brokered by Egypt and it was unexpected by many in Israel especially those in the South. They have suffered the most as many know in the United States. A beautiful four year old child, Daniel Tragerman was killed just forty-eight hours ago and then a person was killed today, just minutes before the cease fire went into effect. Many people in the South have fled to Central and Northern Israel to relatives and friends effectively creating a situation which Hamas is publicly celebrating. They call Jewish Israelis who move refugees inside the State of Israel. This is  first time that you have had this massive movement away from one particular area of Israel in order to recover from ongoing fire. However, all in all it is a neutral cease fire. Perhaps it joins one of the other twelve cease fires that have come and gone over the last fifty days. I would definitely not hold my breath; my assessment is that this will probably be broken by Hamas. I would not be surprised to see it broken in the coming days perhaps a week, or two. It gives Hamas a much needed chance to lick its wounds, to recover and get ready for the next round of assault against Israel.

Gordon:  Dan, there is a strange story out of Israel that the demand for this cease fire came from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. How did that occur and contrast that with the demands typically that Hamas has been making.

Diker:  Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters have been hit really badly in this latest round. We don’t know exactly the number of PIJ fighters versus Hamas fighters that were killed. We do know that upwards of twelve hundred terrorists have been eliminated in this latest round but we understand  through reports coming from Gaza that Islamic Jihad officials were placing a lot of pressure on their Hamas compatriots to accept this cease fire. The Israeli Army stepped up its policy of decapitating, not in the Islamic State sense, but decapitating in terms of eliminating Hamas command structure from mid to senior-levels. The IDF started collapsing buildings making sure that first of all that there were no people inside. However,  fifteen and sixteen story buildings that housed command structures were also the homes a lot of Hamas officials.  The terrorist leadership felt that enough was enough for this round and they wanted a chance to pull themselves together.

Tokajer

Tokajer:  Is this part of an infighting that has been going on between the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad? How does that fit in with Abbas’ new movement to force a vote at the UN on allowing an Islamic Palestinian state in the West Bank?

Diker:  Two things. First of all Islamic Jihad is an extension of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps which  is under the direct command of Khamenei. Hamas is not under the direct command of Khamenei and the Iranians at this point. There was a falling out between the Hamas leadership and their Iranian benefactors and sponsors two and a half years ago when Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood fell on the wrong side of the conflict in Syria. The Iranian backed Syrian government expelled Hamas and the Hamas leaders looked for a different home. They are now housed by the Qataris. Yet there is a new courting relationship going on between Hamas and Iran. This is sort of an important test for the Hamas leadership in order to re-engage their former benefactors. Having said that, the Islamic Jihad and Hamas have cooperated, however they have also killed each other. This is not unsurprising in the Middle East. Many people believe that the Sunni Jihadist organizations cooperate with, but usually hate their Shiite adversaries which are not necessarily true all of the time. They cooperate and they kill one another when it is convenient for them to do that. However, these two groups have mostly cooperated in their coordinated assaults against Israel. I would not  be surprised if Iran also played a strong role in asking their proxies to agree to a temporary halt in the fighting. This is a temporary halt in the fighting. This is not a long term arrangement.

Oh I’m sorry I didn’t answer Eric’s other question regarding Mahmoud Abbas and his threat to take Israel to the International Criminal Court. That move is merely a result of Mahmoud Abbas, the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, feeling irrelevant over the last fifty days. Hamas has taken center stage. Part of this war is really behind the black curtain or hijab. It is a darker war between Fatah and  Hamas for control, influence, power and support of the Palestinian people. They work it out by attacking Israel. This is exactly the reason why Mahmoud Abbas actually fell into the arms of Hamas in the very beginning of the current war in order to vie for power and support of the Palestinian people. He felt in the last two months completely irrelevant and powerless. The West has re-empowered Mahmoud Abbas by wanting to dance him into Gaza and to become the new white knight there once the Hamas forces are demilitarized which is the demand that’s being made by Israel. He’s taken that to the next  level; and said if you guys are going to back me anyway I’m going to threaten Israel and try to force them to withdraw to the 1967 line by  going to the International Criminal Court. The Palestinian Authority did the exact same thing in the 2008/2009 Cast Lead Operation. They petitioned the International Criminal Court and  brought Israel up on war crimes charges that triggered the Goldstone Report. This is not a new strategy by the Palestinian Authority. However it will fail and it will help them commit suicide in their quest for a Palestinian State. The Israeli public will completely reject that and move further away from the Palestinian Authority as any kind of honest and real partner for peace.

Bates:  You brought up the Goldstone Report, not all of our listeners are going to be familiar with that. If you could  review what it is and why Goldstone himself ultimately renounced it?

Diker:  The Goldstone Report was a grotesquely inaccurate UN sponsored report that was led by South African Judge Richard Goldstone. He made extraordinarily twisted and inaccurate charges against Israel.  He charged the Israeli Army with malice of forethought targeting in a premeditated way Palestinian civilians which he himself retracted a year later in either a Washington Post or New York Times Op/ed in which he wrote that he was incorrect. He had the wrong information and these were claims that Israel was making all along. However, the damage to Israel’s image, good name and reputation as a liberal, democratic free country defending itself against radical Islamic terror had already been done. We have seen that the role of the Western media has been particularly injurious to Israel by its largely non-objective reporting. That is due to fear of either being killed or expelled by their Hamas host for reporting what they knew was Hamas’ use of children, women and civilians as human shields. Planting weapon factories and weapon depots very near to where the international media themselves were staying in Gaza.

Bates:  The accusations are always on page one and the retractions and corrections are always on page 26 if they appear at all.

Diker:  Well said.

Gordon:  You mentioned cutting off the snakehead of leadership in Hamas. We had the spectacular series of air assaults by the IAF resulting in the killing of significant military commanders and potentially the head of the military wing itself, Mohammed Deif. Can you connect the dots between those events and what occurred prior to the cease fire, public executions of Palestinians or Gazans as so-called collaborators?

Diker:  The summary execution of eighteen most probably completely innocent Palestinian civilians over the weekend really strengthens the charge that Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas, referring to the Islamic State network, was the result of complete desperation in the Hamas leadership. They were absolutely shocked that Israel had completely penetrated their command structure and done it with local informants. Israel has excellent intelligence networks inside Gaza and they had conducted pinpoint operations, many of which were not covered by the press. Israel  took out not only leadership but lots of weapons storage and manufacturing depots hitting the homes of Hamas officials and the military structure. They were really freaked out, to use the colloquial expression, that Israel had been able to take out their top three or four commanders and they had to make someone responsible for it. They didn’t know quite how to handle it otherwise and they wanted to send a very strong message to Gaza and to other Jihadis with whom they are competing. Let’s remember, they are competing with ISIS for the reality show of who can be the best Jihadi organization in the Middle East. Thus there was a cognitive reason and PR reason to do that. They were just plain desperate.

Bates:  Dan you speak of the Israeli intelligence network in Gaza that has been phenomenal and yet Israel seemed genuinely surprised at the extent of the tunnels coming out of Gaza leading into Israel. Was that genuine surprise?

Diker:  That’s a very good question Mike. It’s a very difficult issue for the Israelis. I think one of the better ways to approach the whole surprise over the attack tunnel issue is from an Israeli point of view. Their point of reference was tunnels into Gaza coming from the Egyptian Sinai. Those were the tunnels built over the last fourteen or fifteen years. Their building intensified after the 2005 unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Those were the scores of tunnels that supplied the underground economy that was Hamas driven and mostly controlled with some cooperation of Salafist groups in the Egyptian Sinai. Perhaps there were a hundred tunnels from Sinai into Gaza. What happened since the Egyptian government changed through a coup by President al-Sisi was that he shut down those tunnels. Israel had still not paid enough attention to a whole new tunnel network that was being created as attack tunnels.

Even though Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped in 2006 and held captive for five years in Gaza, was kidnapped and dragged through one of those new types of attack tunnels. Hamas created a major network of these attack tunnels. So yes there was surprise to the extent  these tunnels were actually death tunnels, attack tunnels. Some were million dollar tunnels that you could move cars through. These tunnels also provided, much to the surprise of some in the Israeli Security and Defense Establishment, the whole underground city to protect Hamas operatives, senior members and their families. So yes, there is a real serious question as to why Israel did not know the full extent of this massive network. Hamas leadership intended to send hundreds of Hamas operatives through these tunnels simultaneously next month in order to launch a  mega-9/11 attack against Israeli cities.

Tokajer:  Could you comment upon the drop in support that Bibi Netanyahu is receiving now? I saw polls that said he went from over 80% favorable to down to about 33% favorable currently as a result of these constant cease fires. The Israeli public actually wanted him to send the military in force into Gaza to stop these attacks.

Diker:  That is correct. It is ironic, because it is precisely Netanyahu’s strategy of staged attacks against Hamas using Hamas’ breaking of the cease fire to create additional legitimacy abroad and support at home for the Israeli army to take the next military step. That has backfired on his local support. There has been a very large amount of support from the Israeli public for the Israeli Army to go into Gaza in a full-fledged multi-divisional ground assault against Hamas. They wanted the IDF to get rid of all of Hamas’ weapons and demilitarize Gaza. Netanyahu chose not to do that, ironically in order to maintain more legitimacy. He felt that the perceived price as discussed by the media in Israel, was pending large IDF Israeli casualties from a massive ground operation. He thought that would please the Israeli public to keep things done from the air. I will say this. It was noted in Israel that he did not launch a ground operation even though it did reflect in lower public support numbers ended up forcing Hamas into an unconditional cease fire without sending in ground forces. The jury is still out as to whether that decision was right or wrong. However, there was a big outcry by many in the public, especially in the South that wanted to finish this problem. They have been dealing with this for years in the South. They have been getting hit by Hamas rockets and mortars for fourteen years and they said enough is enough. No country in the world would put up with it and Israel shouldn’t put up with it either. Therefore, they wanted the government to finish the job even if it took another three, four or five months and that didn’t happen. The public wants certainty. Number two, the public feels uncertain as to what the government strategy is. The example of that is this unconditional cease fire that nobody really understands what it means. My assessment of this, it is  just a calming down. It’s a seventh inning stretch. It’s just a momentary cease fire before Hamas starts firing again.

Gordon:  There was a heated discussion in Qatar last week between PA President Abbas and Hamas leader Khalid Mashal who lives there  in luxury. What was that all about and what is the connection to this current war?

Diker:  Behind this current war has been the well known enmity between Fatah and Hamas. It was recently reported that the Israeli Security Services uncovered a plot by Hamas to launch mass casualty attacks from the West Bank and at the same time engineer a coup against, Fatah for control in the West Bank and take over the PLO. The Hamas/Fatah competition for control of the PLO has been the Arab/Palestinian narrative that has governed these very bloody relationships between Fatah and Hamas. The Israeli Security Service in searching for the kidnapped and ultimately murdered Israeli teens used the help of the PA, against Hamas. Hamas has positioned Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah as essentially stooges of the Israelis and the United States. Hamas sees itself as the true inheritors of the PLO throne. Further, they have been taking violent actions in order to topple Fatah. We saw an example of that in 2007 in Gaza when Hamas took over. Remember Fatah used to control Gaza until 2007 so this has been a bloody war. The attempts in Qatar were to try to broker the existing shell of unity between these two unfriendly factions. They cooperate on Monday, kill each other on Tuesday and cooperate on Wednesday. That’s exactly what Fatah and Hamas have been doing to one another.

Bates:  Has the funding of Hamas continued out of Turkey and Qatar? Why hasn’t Washington been doing more to put pressure on those two nations to reduce or preferably cease funding of the Hamas terrorists?

Diker:  That is a really complex question Mike. There was a real brouhaha in Israel when the Obama administration through the auspices of Secretary of State Kerry proposed and backed Turkey and Qatar as the two potential brokers for a long term peace agreement for a cease fire. You remember they gathered in Paris just a few weeks ago and there was real displeasure in Israeli government circles over that as opposed to the Israeli full-fledged support for the Egyptians as much more favorable brokers. It’s a matter of public record that President Obama has pursued a strategy of engaging political Islam which translated into support for the Muslim Brotherhood. He supported President Morsi in Egypt. He was not exactly thrilled with the actions of President al-Sisi when he overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. President Obama has made Turkey a key partner. Turkey is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter as is Qatar. While he has come out in favor of Israel’s right to defend itself the American administration has never come out in this current war and said Hamas is a terror organization. It really raises questions. At the same time, one does have to say publicly the United States continues to be Israel’s major ally in defense, intelligence and in other matters. However, there are real questions that have gone unanswered as to why Israel and the United States are not completely on the same page. Both countries are facing radical Islamic terror on their borders. I remind Americans that Hezbollah at the behest, funding and backing of Iran is sitting in Mexico today working with Mexican drug cartel groups close to America’s Southern border.

Tokajer:  How do the Israelis view the United States and the rest of the world the situation from their perspective? They seem to only identify the conflict going on in Israel. For instances, we have the Egyptians, the United Arab Emirates that are involved in Libya now. We have ISIS all over Syria and Iraq. We have these Islamic battles going on with hundreds of thousands being killed. Contrast that with hundreds and low thousands being killed in the Israel conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

Diker:  The Israeli body politic feels very much alone at this juncture. There is a strong feeling here in Israel that the American people and Congress embrace the Israeli people. There is, to be a little bit cynical about it, probably more support for Israel in the American Congress than there is in the Knesset if you take all of the parties together. That’s just an attempt at humor, to express an idea that’s very profound in Israel. They really do feel embraced by the American people. But on the world stage there is a completely disproportionate view of the world towards Israel versus the Palestinians than the much larger problem of radical Islamic terror in the world. No one can quite understand why people in the West refuse to understand that Hamas, the Islamic State formerly ISIS, Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Iran are all the same in terms of their ultimate goals. That is to kill Americans, kill Israelis, kill Christians, kill Jews, and kill anybody that is not a Muslim in their image. We do not understand why people are not making the connection to radical Islamic terror and have isolated the Palestinian/ Israeli Conflict as if it were some other sort of conflict other than the Jihad in Gaza. It is the same Jihad that attacked the United States on September 11th and twenty-nine times after that trying to penetrate the borders of the United States.

Tokajer:  How do the Israeli people view the world accusing them of disproportional use of weaponry against Hamas? Yet the United States may have used much more weaponry in just a short time against ISIS than Israel has used in Gaza during this whole fifty day period.

Diker:  I’m  unclear as to what is the charge of disproportional force. As former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “If a murderer comes into your house do you call one police officer or do you call the entire police force to come and save you?” That’s what, the understanding here is of disproportional force. The disproportional force is that which is used to maintain security and protect the civilian population of any country. People, either with malice of forethought or people who are just ignorant, do not understand it has nothing to do with international law, the use of massive force in order to turn back or kill terrorists. If we were to use the common understanding of proportional force, that would mean that Israel would be entitled to send over three thousand rockets indiscriminately into Gaza because that’s what they send in to Israel. Would that be proportional?

Bates:  Of course they are blaming it on the death toll but what is ridiculous about that as I have argued many times on this program with callers who somehow think Israel is the bad player here. Even though I think anywhere on the world stage in the modern era if there is a clear good player and a clear bad player it is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and Israel is clearly the good guy. The example that I always cited is if you are in a military firefight and your enemy is poorly armed and poorly trained  they’re just firing at you indiscriminately. If  your forces are all expert marksmen are you not allowed to take out one of them until they luck out and take out one of you? I mean that’s absurd and Israel is using precision munitions. Gazans are just firing indiscriminately hoping to kill civilians in Israel. Rabbi Eric before we began this program you were telling me that Hamas is actually saying that they want precision munitions. What’s that about?

Tokajer:  Right, the leader of the Hamas in Gaza came out and said they do not purposely fire at civilians in Israel. They just have unguided munitions and if the world will provide them with guided munitions then they will only fire at military installations. It’s not their fault that they don’t have the equal equipment to not kill civilians.

Diker:  Right. Exactly. That is their use of psychological warfare on the part of Hamas. One should applaud their …

Tokajer:  Creativity?

Diker:  … upgrade in use of psychological warfare. That’s exactly why they attempted to target our nuclear facilities, our airport, all of our sensitive installations with the weapons that they already had. If they had precision weapons they would be killing children not indiscriminately but very discriminately as their Charter calls for. We have to be very firm in terms of our moral clarity as to whom we are dealing with. We are dealing with an evil, radical Islamic, genocidal, terrorist organization that is dedicated to murdering Jews, Christians, people from the West. That’s what they say, that’s what they do. So all of this other stuff is pure nonsense and should be ignored.

Bates:  While I support Israel completely I must confess that I often don’t understand why they are playing so nicely. If I was in charge it would be a lot more like Dresden than Gaza. Let me just point out that Israel, throughout this entire conflict has been providing humanitarian aid into Gaza. Just last week, on the 21st and 22nd of August, there were periods when Israel was bringing into Gaza 232 trucks full of food, medicine and supplies, 262 tons of gas and one hundred seventy-two thousand, two hundred sixty-five gallons of gasoline and in exchange Hamas fired 83 rockets back “during” the crossings! What country in the history of warfare has provided assistance to the people that are attacking them? I can’t think of anyone but Israel.

Diker:  Your memory is correct and in fact, it’s worse than that. It has not been reported in the West, but is clearly well known in Israel, that Hamas systematically refuses international humanitarian delegations to come  to Gaza. They have systematically refused to allow injured Palestinian civilians to come to a field hospital that was set up by the State of Israel. This installation on the border outside of Gaza where Israel was prepared with a full contingent of surgeons, nurses, orderlies, specialists to receive Gazans that Hamas had used as human shields and had been injured inadvertently in Israeli strikes against Hamas. Israel was prepared to take care of them by the hundreds. Hamas refused to allow civilians to cross the border into Israeli territory to be given medical care.

Gordon:  There is also a blood libel going on. We see it on posters in the US and elsewhere saying that Israel murders Palestinian children. Rabbi Tokajer, you had something on that that we were just discussing?

Tokajer:  Time Magazine is coming out with a news article which proclaims as blood libel that Israelis are harvesting organs from the Palestinians to make a profit off them. Blood libel goes way back to the 1400’s with the Spanish Inquisition, the claim of Jews making matzo out of blood of babies and such but this is a constant thing that comes up. Dan, can you talk about that?

Diker:  Frankly what was been uncovered were propaganda sheets that Hamas used  to re-energize the 15th century blood libel that Jews use blood of, they didn’t even say blood of Christians in this case, but they said blood of Muslims in order to make Matzos on Passover. Hamas in a very sophisticated way, working even in the United States through Muslim Brotherhood backed organizations and in Europe, promoted these blood libels against Israel. These libels have been transformed into what many Americans understand as BDS, Boycotts, Divestitures and Sanctions. The BDS movement is an extension of a terrorist strategy. That is not a grassroots punitive initiative by well meaning people in order to create two states for two peoples solution as many in the United States think it is. It is not that at all. It is war by other means. It is political warfare in order to cause the dissolution of Israel through its criminalization and isolation in the international community. Back of it are these blood libels advanced by Hamas the way the Nazis and Soviets did. As you pointed out Rabbi, the Spanish did that in the Inquisition. It’s just a continuation of the same blood libel.

Bates:  I’ve got a question about the Islamic state ISIS, ISILL, whatever name they happen to be going by today. They just beheaded an American journalist, James Foley, and they are threatening to kill more. It is very clear that they pose a threat to the region. Is Israel concerned about their border integrity vis-a-vis ISIS or the Islamic State?

Diker:  Let’s be clear about what the Islamic State is. The Islamic State is a terrorist network very well   funded in Syria and Iraq. Now they are finding their footing, a little more difficult in Southern Lebanon because that is controlled by the Hezbollah an enemy of ISIS. However, they are in Gaza and operatives have been found in the West Bank. From an Israeli point of view a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist. If it’s Hamas that targets children or executes innocent Palestinians by shooting them as opposed to beheading them or crucifying them as ISIS does, Israel looks at it as all the same. Hamas itself is no less cruel and evil than ISIS. We are surrounded by Hezbollah in Lebanon, ISIS in Syria and in Gaza. Israelis are surrounded by radical Islamic terrorist threat on all sides. ISIS plays a role in it. There is no additional challenge to Israel’s border integrity by them than by anyone else. Hamas is clearly in control in Gaza as Hezbollah is in Southern Lebanon. Those are, the central addresses that Israel looks for when defending their territory.

Bates:  I thank Ha Shem that Israel has the Golan Heights because without holding the high ground there it would pose a much greater threat coming out of Syria into Tiberias and along the sea of Galilee.

Diker:  Very true.

Bates:  The Iron Dome has been very successful intercepting the rockets that have been fired out of Gaza. Now Hamas is firing mortars and Iron Dome is not designed to intercept mortars. How big of a threat are these mortar attacks?

Diker:  Mortar attacks are a threat. They claimed the life of that young child, Daniel Tragerman, just the other day and claimed the life of an Israeli today as well. There are only three seconds in between the firing of a mortar and the alert for a person to zip into a protected area. There is virtually no trajectory on mortars.  It’s very low.  It is a dangerous nuisance and one that affects the Southern most communities abutting the Gaza border. The majority of projectiles fired have been these short and medium range rockets. Even with medium range rockets there are only between twenty and sixty seconds to get into a protected area. Iron Dome doesn’t protect against mortars and they have been part of the difficulty. They are considered no less dangerous in terms of  an overall threat to Israel. This is no tolerance policy for mortars or rockets. There is a no tolerance policy for any of it.

Bates:  Dan, thanks much. We’ve been speaking with Jerry Gordon, Rabbi Eric Tokajer and Dan Diker on this international round table discussion here on 1330 WEBY.

Listen to this August 26, 2014 audio from the WEBY AM 1330 “International Middle East Round Table Discussion”: Segment 1, Segment 2, Segment 3 and Segment 4.

EDITORS NOTE: This Middle East round table discussion with Dan Diker, Mike Bates, Eric Tokajer and Jerry Gordon originally appeared on the New English Review.

Did the CIA Brief the U.S. Military on an ISIS Bombing Plot on the Texas Border?

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According to a confidential and highly reliable source, Major General Stephen M. Twitty, Commanding General of the 1st Armored Division and Fort Bliss Military Reservation in El Paso,Texas, was briefed on Friday, August 29, 2014 by the CIA on a credible threat by ISIS against the US. Based on intelligence from chatter and intercepted radio transmissions, General Twitty was told that a truck bomb or other Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) attack along the US southern border may be imminent.

Further information revealed by Judicial Watch indicates that the attack may emanate from the border city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, across the border from El Paso, where terrorist groups, including ISIS, have been very active. This report flies in the face of Friday’s statement by White House spokesman Josh Earnest that “There is no evidence or indication right now that ISIL (ISIS) is actively plotting to attack the United States homeland.”

Washington cross-talk notwithstanding, we have been alerting our readers over the last few months that ISIS has targeted the US and already has agents within her. They are escorted by ‘coyotes’ as ‘special customers’ for as much as $50,000 per head. The probability that once here they will attempt to attack American targets is very high.

ISIS terrorists are savage, brutal, and deadly. They fervently believe in their cause – the global caliphate according to the strictest interpretation of Shariah law. They welcome death as part of their belief system. You cannot intimate those you are not afraid to die. This enemy, with billions of dollars in financial resources to support its efforts, is more dangerous and more committed to our destruction than any terrorist group we have yet faced. Yet, despite the CIA warning, there seems to be little urgency in the White House. The President flew to New York to attend yet another fund raiser, after having admitted on open mike that he has “no strategy” to deal with ISIS.

Michael Morell, former Deputy Director of the CIA in a CBS interview on August 21, 2014 said:

After explaining what he thought needed to be done to defeat the terrorists (more targeted strikes and better intelligence), he said that “if an ISIS member showed up in a mall in the United States tomorrow with an AK-47 and killed a number of Americans I would not be surprised.”

“Over the long-term, I worry that this group could present a 9/11-style threat,” he added, noting the group presents both a short-term and long-term threat.

We drew attention to exactly this scenario in a New English Review article in June 2009 on the Somali Émigré threat. The article discussed the threat posed by recruitment of dozens of fighters in the Twin Cities to join Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab, Foot Solders of Islam. We warned of a possible swarming attack by returning Al Shabaab veterans on a mall in the US or Canada.

We hypothesized:

Such attacks could be perpetrated by homegrown Jihadis like those naturalized American Somali youths, alleged to have ‘disappeared’ to join Al Shabaab militia groups in Somalia. Those returnees could constitute cadres to train fellow American Somali youths. They could orchestrate swarming attacks against public facilities in this country using so-called low tech means: cheap weapons and pickup trucks. These possible swarming attacks could be devastating ‘mini- 9/11events.’ The casualties from such orchestrated swarming attacks could be devastating and the economic impacts, significant.

Just think of the Nairobi Westgate Mall attack in September 2013. Our report was entitled Al Shabaab is a Threat to the World at Large. Exchange ISIS for Al Shabaab and the threat looms considerably larger. Given the new information about the latest threat, we should be adding a Kansas City bombing scenario to the possibilities.

The situation on the southern border is not our only vulnerability. Neither border is secure, nor are the over 15,000 airports in the United States, including 378 primary airports that support scheduled commercial air service, and 2,952 other landing facilities including 2,903 general aviation airports, 10 heliports, and 39 seaplane bases. Most of the smaller airports represent a significant threat to the US, because they are generally close at sunset, have minimal security, and represent a large vulnerability gap which is exploited by traffickers, cartels, gangs, and terrorists.

The northern Canadian border is porous from Maine to the State of Washington. A recent trip along the northern border of New England showed just how porous it is. Not far from customs stations, one could cross from one country to the other by using logging roads which crossed the border through heavy forests, across open lakes, rivers, and open fields. Helicopters crossed the border unchecked, and during this trip, the co-author witnessed a drug drop from one of them.

Even at the check points, security is lax. Algerian Ahmed Rassem nearly got through a checkpoint at a US border crossing at Port Angeles in Washington on December 14, 1999, when he tried to cross with a car load of bomb making materials, intended for a New Year’s Eve attack on the Los Angeles International Airport, the so-called LAX Millennium Plot. Only an alert customs inspector who found Rassem’s behavior odd stopped him before he could carry out his plot. An explosives expert later concluded that the bomb making materials in his car could have produced a blast 40x greater than that of a conventional car bomb at one of the world’s busiest airports.

There are more than 500 Canadians who are estimated to have joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Add to that the American ISIS contingent of at least 150. Their return home from the training fields of Iraq and Syria using  their valid passports opens the possibility of ‘home-grown’ terror attacks in Canada and the US.

Four American ISIS fighters were killed in Syria this past week, including 33 year old Douglas McAuthur McCain. The four came from the Somali émigré community or were converts associated with that community. Three came from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and McCain came from San Diego. Instead of journeying to Somalia, they evaded the FBI, found the means of entering Syria via Turkey, and joined up with ISIS in Syria.

In another instance, a young Vero Beach, Florida man, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, undertook a massive suicide truck bombing of a Syrian military base in March 2014. In a recent video he explained his reasons for joining up with the Al Qaeda militia, Jabhat al Nusra. He said that the FBI was tailing him, but he was never detained by the FBI, and they did not stop him from accomplishing his deadly mission.

Canada’s major cities, especially Metro Toronto and Montreal, have large communities of Somalis, Middle Eastern or Asian extremist Muslims. There are reports that some of these ISIS fighters may have already slipped into the US over the easily traversed US/Canadian border. Another 3,000 ISIS fighters may carry foreign passports that give them access to this country under the visa waiver system.

The news that a senior US military commander has been briefed on the credible threat of an ISIS jihadi team successfully infiltrating  our southern border to conduct a devastating truck bombing only heightens concerns as we approach the 13th commemoration of 9/11.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the New English Review.

Shaking, Quaking, and Freezing

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Have you noticed how much earthquake and volcanic activity has been occurring lately?

There was a major earthquake in Napa, California on Sunday, August 24th as well as considerable volcanic activity from Iceland to Papua, New Guinea. August was also a month that set records for colder U.S. temperatures.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there were some 1,097 “low max” temperature records broken in the U.S. between August 1 and August 23, meaning that the maximum temperature during that time period was the lowest it has ever been. NOAA reported that summer across much of the U.S. has been colder than normal.

Most of us, after decades of global warming predictions that became more and more absurd, rising sea levels drowning Manhattan and Miami, an upsurge in hurricanes, forest fires, and every other calamity, have concluded that none of these things have happened in the volume or intensity predicted. In the 70s we were told the Earth would get colder. In the 80’s and 90’s we were told it would get warmer.

A new book is advising us to prepare for a serious cold spell that is not only going to arrive in twenty to thirty years, but will likely stay around to become the next ice age. This time, though, the prediction is based on well-established climate cycles and the behavior of the Sun that was known as far back as Galileo’s day.

The new “normal” is colder weather and this is because the Sun’s sunspot activity has been in a cyclical decline since about 1998, producing the latest cooling cycle for the Earth.

John Casey

John Casey, author, lecturer and rocket scientist.

In combination with the earthquakes and volcanic activity, says John L. Casey’s new book, “Dark Winter: How the Sun is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell” ($24.95, Humanix Books, Boca Raton, FL) what we’re really looking at is a repeat of the Dalton Minimum, a solar sunspot minimum that occurred between 1793 and 1830. His earlier book, “Cold Sun” addressed this cyclical phenomenon.

Casey asks “Will we also experience volcanic activity that will add to the solar cooling?” and the answer, given the fifty active volcanoes around the world, is that “We should expect to deal with multiple geological disasters, including volcanoes and earthquakes, during the next solar hibernation.” We have in fact already entered that “hibernation.”

Casey is the president of the Space and Science Research Corporation. It specializes in independent research regarding the coming decades of cold weather. For thirty-five years Casey has been active in science and high tech industries. He has been a national space policy advisor to the White House and Congress, and a former space shuttle engineer, consultant to NASA headquarters.

Casey has formulated a “Bicentennial Cycle of 206 years correlated with near 100 percent accuracy to every major cold-temperature period of the past 1,200 years.” His Theory of “Relational Cycles of Solar Activity” accounts for its effects and those of other solar cycles.

He is not the first scientist to recognize the relationship of diminished sunspot activity and cooling cycles, but he is the first to have synthesized the earlier work of others who made comparable observations. His Relational Cycles theory, however, is more specific than preceding ones, pegging the arrival of significant global cold climate to begin as early as 2024 or as late as 2036. “My math says 2031” says Casey.

Earth Ice AgeCasey’s book is a prediction of a coming ice age that will have devastating effects for all life on Earth, but my readers know I have been writing about this for several years based on Robert W. Felix’s book, “Not By Fire, But By Ice” ($15.95, Sugarhouse Publishing, Bellevue, WA). I have frequently referenced his website http://iceagenow.info, for its daily updates on cold weather events, records established and broken, and reports on volcanic and earthquake activity around the world.

Before I proceed, the reader should contemplate the fact that not one single child entering or returning to school this year has ever lived in a period of “global warming.” The cooling cycle began around 1997.

You do not need to be a meteorologist to know nothing humans do affects or alters the weather. The claim that “greenhouse gases” such as carbon dioxide are making the Earth warmer is false.

We have been experiencing this as the Earth has cooled, along with increased volcanic activity and earthquakes, and yet on September 23rd the United Nations will hold a “Climate Change Summit” that will be attended by more than a hundred of the world’s presidents and prime ministers. They will continue the greatest international scientific fraud ever perpetrated.

Despite the cooling cycle that is occurring and which will grow in intensity, the U.S. government has devoted billions to global warming research and, as Casey notes, “not one research dollar has been dedicated to the science and planning needed for the United Sates to be prepared for the only climate change that we can expect—a long and potentially dangerous cold climate!”

The U.S. is not taking the steps necessary for the cold that is coming. It has not only failed to encourage the use of our multi-generational reserves of coal, the Obama administration has declared “war” on it, putting several hundred plants out of business, reducing the amount of electricity the nation needs now and will require. Power plants and refineries cannot be built overnight and the lack of them will severely impact our lives and the economy.

AA - Obama Says Planet is Warming

Despite thousands of miles of pipelines that safely distribute oil and natural gas, Obama has refused to permit a new one, Keystone XL, for oil to be shipped to gulf state refineries from Canada. Railroad cars needed to transport food crops in a timely manner are being diverted to transport oil. No new nuclear plants are being built on a scale that will be needed. The “grid” that distributes electricity nationwide is in vital need of repair and expansion.

Cold weather will reduce the amount of crops needed to feed the nation’s human population and the stocks of cattle, pigs, sheep, and chickens upon which we depend. This will happen here and worldwide. Famine will be rampant. In countless ways ours and worldwide societies that depend on all manner of technology will be impacted.

Nations and people will fail to prepare for what is coming because (1) they have been deceived by the global warming hoax and (2) we will be leaving behind one of the longest climate cycles other than an ice age, the interglacial warm period. Casey notes that “For the past 11,000 years, we have been living in one of these rare interglacial periods, called the Holocene warm period.”

What we call civilization is the result of the Holocene warm period and, without it, civilization and a global population nearing or surpassing eight billion will be largely decimated as the next, entirely predictable, ice age occurs.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

Israel is not ‘sightless’ in Gaza

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Destroyed home of Mohammed Deif in Gaza city, August 20, 2014. Source: AFP

Yesterday in Jerusalem, with visiting American Congressman Darrell  Issa (R-CA) at his side, Israeli PM Netanyahu heaped considerable praise on Shin Bet-Israel’s General Security Service – for the targeted  killings of senior Hamas commanders in Rafah. The International Business Times(IBT) quoted Netanyahu saying:

The “hard work and professionalism” of Shin Bet had enabled the Israeli military to “carry out this operation against the Hamas leaders who plotted fatal attacks against Israelis,” Netanyahu reportedly said, referring to pre-dawn air strikes in Rafah that killed the three Hamas commanders.

“In the name of every Israeli citizen, I thank the Shin Bet, the heads of the intelligence and operational units, and the chief of the organization, Yoram Cohen,” he said, according to Ha’aretz. Meanwhile, the Israeli military said that it had killed six militants of the Islamic Jihad — a Palestinian Islamist organization — as they were “about to launch rockets into Israel.”

Possibly in retaliation, today, Hamas,  publicly executed 18 ‘collaborators’. These public executions come in the midst of a rising wave of ‘collaborator’ executions in the terrorist stronghold of Gaza.  Israel National News  reported a series of such reprisals in an article, “Hamas Goes on an ‘Israel Collaborator’ Killing Spree”:

Majd, a website close to Hamas, on Thursday reported that Hamas’s military wing,the Al-Qassam Brigades, executed three Gaza residents and arrested seven others for ‘collaborating’ with Israel during Operation Protective Edge.

No date was given for the executions or arrests, but the Hamas security official quoted in the report said the three were killed after “revolutionary procedures” were completed against them.

The same website reported on August 6 that “a number” of Arab collaborators had been killed, again without giving a date.

In the last week of July, Palestinian sources reported that over 30 Gazans were executed by Hamas, most of them in the Shejaiya neighborhood. In that case too, Hamas claimed that they were collaborators with Israel.

The Times of Israel reported a revelation by a Lebanese publication that a phone call between Hamas leader Khalid Mashal in Qatar and  Mohammed Deif, the elusive  head of the Hamas military wing, may have  provided Israel with intelligence that sealed the fate of both he and his family.  According to the TOI  Mashal may have broken protocol to discuss a possible cease fire with Israel. The Deif residence in Gaza was hit with several bunker buster bombs which  cratered  the structure. That resulted  in a massive funeral purportedly for Deif’s wife and children. Hamas spokesman persist in conveying the impression that Deif escaped the fatal attack, and yet have not provided any proof of life.  That attack signifies, as one source told me, that the IAF is flying missions with small bunker buster bombs, in just such a  instance to make  an instantaneous attack.

MohammedDeif

Mohammed Deif, Hamas military leader.

A report by the Shaham Palestinian news service published a picture of Deif along with this statement:

“The bodies arrived at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, after the occupation planes attacked the al-Dalo home, in the Rimal neighborhood in the north, in Gaza City, last night,” the report said. “The document we obtained was confiscated by an armed squad of the Al-Qassam brigade from Shifa’s archive, and also changed the check-in information in the hospital to erase Deif’s name from the list.”

“We at Saham News are forced to tell the Palestinian nation, with great sadness, of the death of Deif,” it concluded. “We belong to Allah, and to him we return.”

Shin Bet is also to be credited for its role in uncovering  the Hamas  power play against Fatah in the West Bank with funds  and arms caches. Many observers believe this may have been a key part of the Rosh Ha Shanah attack plan by Hamas that included infiltration of suicide commandos through  the terror tunnels dug across the frontier between Gaza and Israel. The joint IDF-Shin Bet Operation Brother’s Keeper that detained hundreds of Hamas operatives in the search  for three murdered Jewish Yeshiva students may have provided the intelligence resulting in disclosures of the thwarted plot. Senior Hamas representative ensconced in Turkey, Salah al-Aruri,  announced his role in orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish yeshiva students. The Jerusalem Post reported:

SalahalAruri

Hamas Military leader in Turkey, Salah al-Aruri.

A senior Hamas official admitted for the first time on Wednesday that the organization’s armed wing, the Kassam Brigades, was behind the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teens Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah in the West Bank in June, Channel 2 reported.

The Hamas official, Salah al-Aruri made the comments during a conference of Islamic clerics in Turkey. He praised the “heroic action of the Kassam Brigades who kidnapped three settlers in Hebron.”

Israeli lawyer, Nitsana Darshan Leitner of Shurat ha Din (Israel Law Center) asked US Attorney  General Eric Holder to invoke the extradition treaties between the US and Turkey to bring to justice al-Aruri for the murder of Israeli-American, Fraenkel.  Meanwhile, PA President Abbas is reported to have had heated conversations in Doha, Qatar with Mashal triggered by Hamas’ plans to overthrow Fatah . Further, there are indications that pressure  is building  on the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to eject Mashal from his luxurious palace in Doha.  Qatar has been a major funder of Hamas, supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and  ISIS, along with Erdogan’s Turkey. If that eventuated Mashal might then be subject to apprehension and possible trial in Egypt. Lest we forget, PM Netanyahu was caught in an embarrassing position in 1998, when an attempted assassination of Mashal by Mossad agents was disclosed by the late King Hussein of Jordan.  Mashal also could have been taken out, while a resident in Damascus, before his departure for Qatar at the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011. Witness the Mossad assassination in February 2008 of Hezbollah terrorist mastermind, Imad Mughniyeh.

Whether it is human intelligence through cultivation of assets, or ELINT ears and eyes in the skies over Gaza, these targeted assassination episodes by the IDF with assistance from Shin bet have succeeded in decimating  the military leadership of Hamas. These actions clearly indicate that unlike the Biblical Shimshon, Samson the Nazerite, Israel is not ‘sightless’ in Gaza.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.