How is ISIS Recruiting So Many in the Face of Beheadings, Enslavement & Other Outrages?

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ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has burst into the global consciousness with dramatic beheadings of Western journalists and aid workers. As ISIS has conquered territories in Syria and Iraq, its terrorizing of native Yazidis and sexual enslavement of Yazidi women, immolation of a captured Jordanian pilot, and beheadings of Coptic Christians have been widely publicized. Yet more than any of the jihadist movements – Iran’s Muslim Brotherhood and offshoots, al-Qaeda, for example, ISIS has drawn thousands of followers from all over the world, including the West, to ISIS controlled territories in Syria and Iraq.

To better understand the seemingly improbable recruiting success, and to explore what the United States can do, ‘Morning in America,’ the syndicated radio program hosted by Bill Bennett, welcomed in the vantage point of forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner, M.D., Chairman of The Forensic Panel. Dr. Welner, whose pioneering Depravity Standard research in criminal and everyday evil impacts the discussion of war crimes, unexpectedly characterized the beheadings and social media efforts of ISIS to be a distraction from the real reasons for its momentum.

In a lengthy interview that Bennett, the former United States Secretary of Education, termed ‘a masterful explanation,’ Dr. Welner pointed out the unique messianic quality that ISIS embodied in the declaration of a Caliphate by its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. ISIS, he noted, was appealing to the devout with a utopian message of nation building, and touching fundamental Muslim tenets and traditional longings to serve the Caliphate. Be it to Salafist groups annihilating those around them of other faiths, or quietly devout females or recent converts in Europe, the ideals of the Caliphate, now restored after over a 1,000 year absence, include idealized proscriptions that encompass even social welfare. ISIS message of traditional and unadulterated Islam, strictly adhering to the Qu’ran, insulates it from rejection from Muslims for whom criticism of the Qu’ran is strictly forbidden,  echoing political correctness, observed Dr. Welner.

Dr. Welner proposed a variety of underutilized solutions available to America, cautioning that the messianic quality of ISIS endowed it with the unusual determination that would need to be aggressively confronted while its forces are comparatively smaller and more easily defeated.

Listen to the full interview here:

Is John Kerry a Moron?

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John Kerry testifying before Congress on Vietnam War.

I can recall John Kerry, Obama’s Secretary of State, from the days he testified to a congressional committee and slandered his fellow soldiers as the spokesman for Veterans Against the Vietnam War in 1971. I was appalled then and my opinion of the man has not changed since those days. I opposed the war, too, but I did not blame it on the men who were conscripted to fight it, nor did I believe the charges he leveled against some of them.

These days Kerry is engaged in securing an agreement with the Iranians, if not to stop their program to make their own nuclear weapons than to slow it to a later date. Never mind that the Iranian government is listed by our own government as a leading sponsor of terrorism worldwide or that they have signed such agreements in the past and then tossed out the inspectors.

Kerry is convinced that the Obama administration can get an agreement that is, in his own words, “not legally binding”, nor is it a treaty that the U.S. Senate would have to vote for or against. In point of fact, President Obama can make the deal—sign the agreement—just as Presidents have done for over two hundred years. It can then be abrogated by whoever the next President will be.

Why Obama and Kerry are doing this defies my understanding. It gives the Iranians more time to reach nuclear capability. It is opposed by every nation in the Middle East. It puts every nation within reach of Iran’s missiles at risk and it virtually guarantees the destruction of Israel, a goal of Iran’s Islamic Revolution from the day it was born. Kerry is negotiating with people who took our diplomats hostage in 1979 and have played a role in the deaths of many Americans since then.

Is John Kerry a moron? I think so.

I asked myself this question in regard to another area of U.S. policy which the Secretary of State is also championing even if millions around the world have concluded otherwise.

On March 2nd, Kerry addressed the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C, telling them what he has been saying in many forums. Let us understand that “climate change” is the name being used to replace “global warming”, because the Earth has been in a cooling cycle for the past 18 years or so. And let us understand that “climate change” has been happening for 4.5 billion years.

Kerry said, “So when science tells us that our climate is changing and human beings are largely causing that change, by what right do people stand up and just say, ‘Well, I dispute that’ or ‘I deny that elementary truth’?”

The problem with this is that human beings are not causing the planet’s climate change. Forces far greater than humans are involved, not the least of which is the Sun.

As for science, its most fundamental methodology is to constantly challenge the various ‘truths’ put forward as theories until they can be proved to be true by being independently reproduced. Nothing about the “global warming” theories has been true. All of the computer models on which it was based have been proven inaccurate. In some cases, they were deliberately rigged.

On television meteorologists remind us that every day, indeed, from morning to night, the temperatures of the area about which they are reporting are in a constant state of change. They show us satellite photography and mapping that demonstrates how dynamic the weather is on any spot on Earth. The climate, however, is measured in decades and centuries. Every one of the doomsday predictions of the global warming “scientists” and propagandists have been wrong.

The enemies of the use of energy to enhance and improve the lives of the residents of Earth began to claim in the 1970s and 80s that carbon dioxide (CO2) was threatening the climate.

At best, CO2 is a very minor element of the Earth’s atmosphere, about 0.04%, which gets it rated as “a trace gas.” As such, it plays no role with regard to the climate.

Kerry asserted that climate change is “one of the biggest threats facing our planet today” and should be ranked with terrorism, epidemics, poverty and nuclear proliferation…” Oh, wait! Isn’t this the same Secretary of State negotiating with Iran to allow it to become a nuclear power?

And what “solution” does he offer to reduce the “threat” of climate change? Kerry urged that the U.S. transition away from “dirty sources of energy” such as coal, oil and natural gas.

Writing in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley noted that “In 2015, about 87% of the energy that the world consumed came from fossil fuels, a figure that—remarkably—was unchanged from 10 years before. This roughly divides into three categories of fuel and three categories of use: oil used mainly for transport, gas used mainly for heating, and coal used mainly for electricity.”

Fossil fuels have made the difference between modern life and burning cow dung to cook dinner. A billion people on Earth still do not have electricity.

Less obvious, but significantly more threatening is the White House effort to get the U.S. signed up for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its International Climate Justice tribunal. This is a follow-up to the 1977 Kyoto Protocol that was unanimously rejected by the U.S. Senate. Why? Because such treaties threaten the sovereignty of the U.S. and, just as importantly, because the entire United Nation’s climate program is a huge fraud.

This is what John Kerry wants the U.S. to agree to, just like the Iran deal, and just to be sure the U.S. Senate, as mandated by the U.S. Constitution, doesn’t have a say in it, he and the President are calling these deals anything other than a treaty.

Is John Kerry a moron? Maybe not as dumb as he seems to be, but surely cynical and devious.

Unfortunately, he is the Secretary of State.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

RELATED ARTICLE: California Dem Warns of Global Warming-Induced Prostitution

Israel Election 2015 Special – Day 1

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SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS- MONDAY MARCH 16 – TUESDAY MARCH 17 – WEDNESDAY MARCH 18

Featured today: From Israel, Barry Shaw, Michael Ganoe and Arie Egozi.

Most Americans are not even aware that one of the most important elections of OUR lifetime will take place this week, on Tuesday March 17, not in Washington DC but in Israel! There is a battle between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama as to whether the conservatives or the leftists will control the political process in Israel. With the addition of President Obama’s highly experienced “community organizers” into the Israeli political process, the leftists are moving into the lead making this race a real nail-bitter.

In the balance is the national security of the United States and the safety of Jews and Christians worldwide. Due to the critical importance of this election The United West will present THREE DAYS of programming dedicated to coverage of this important election. Our coverage includes in-studio experts and LIVE reports from various experts throughout Israel, including pundits and regular citizens.

Mark your calendar and tune in everyday!!

MONDAY MARCH 16, PRE-ELECTION…………4:00 – 5:00 pm eastern

TUESDAY MARCH 17, ELECTION DAY…………….4:00 -6:00 pm eastern ((two hour internet show)

WEDNESDAY MARCH 18, POST-ELECTION………..4:00 – 5:00 pm eastern

Tune in for exclusive coverage!

Even Democrats won’t back Obama’s Iran nuclear deal

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Everyone knows he is handing the Iranians a license to nuke Tel Aviv. Even some Democrats know. “Democrats won’t back Iran nuclear deal in blow to White House as enough break with Obama to to put veto-proof legislation in the works to stop an agreement,” by Francesca Chambers, Daily Mail, March 16, 2015:

Democratic senators remain irritated with their GOP colleagues who last week sent a letter to Iranian leaders undercutting President Barack Obama, but they will still back bipartisan legislation that would give Congress final say over a nuclear deal.

Enough members of the president’s party have signaled support for that bill and another that would impose new sanctions on Iran if it doesn’t make an agreement with negotiators that the White House would be powerless to stop the measures from going into effect once passed.

The Obama administration and its international partners now have until March 24 to set up the framework for a deal.

After that, a dozen Democratic senators, including Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs committee, have said they will join with the GOP majority to pass bills inserting themselves into the process.

One would levy additional sanctions on Iran after June 30 if it doesn’t agree to the final terms of a deal, though monthly waivers would be allowed should more time be requested. The other would give the Senate the power to reject within 60 days any pact the executive branch makes with Iran.

Democrats who spoke with Politico voiced their displeasure with the 47 GOP senators who wrote a letter to Iran notifying the country’s leaders that any contract it makes with the Obama administration would be nullified when a new president takes office in January 2017, whereas most members of the upper chamber would be in office for years to come.

But that hasn’t changed their position on the core issue, they’ve said.

‘The letter’s incredibly unfortunate and inappropriate,’ Heitkamp said.’That doesn’t diminish my support for the legislation that we introduced.’

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters similarly said the missive was ‘simply unacceptable’ and ‘brought hyperpartisanship to an issue that we need to maintain our bipartisanship in.’

He added: ‘That doesn’t change my support for that bill. … I stay firm.’

Blumenthal last week called Republicans’ actions ‘unconscionable’ and bemoaned them for disrespecting the president.

At the time, he said the bipartisan coalition of senators willing to buck the White House was ‘in tatters.’ Blumenthal told CNN that he was determined to ‘stitch it back together,’ though.

A week later it appeared that the group was holding strong and that Senate Foreign Relations Bob Corker, one of just seven Republican senators who did not sign the ‘open letter,’ was correct in predicting last Thursday that the whole thing would blow over.

‘Let a couple days go by. We think there’s going to be really ignited momentum,’ Corker had told Politico. Nobody’s dropping out. We’ve had reaffirmed commitment.’

Meanwhile, Republicans who did sign the letter triumphantly declared on the Sunday news shows that they had no ‘regrets’ about sending Tehran the strongly worded message.

‘I stand by the letter,’ National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rodger Wicker said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

‘I think it’s interesting that we’ve had so much talk about process, just like we’ve had talk about process with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech, rather than dealing with the substance,’ the Mississippi Republican asserted, referring to House Republican leadership’s end run around the White House earlier this year when it invited Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN he thinks it was ‘fair’ for Republicans to explain that Congress will be involved in the process one way or another.

‘I don’t think it was a mistake,’ he said of the message to Tehran.

‘The administration would like to have a distraction, but the point is the subject of the matter,’ the GOP leader said.

‘Apparently, the Obama administration is on the cusp of entering into a very bad deal with one of the worst regimes in the world.’…

RELATED ARTICLES:

U.S. omits Iran and Hizballah from terror threat list

How & Why Islam Wages War Against ‘Idolatry’

Is The Islamic State Islamic? Of Course It Is!

Islamic State quotes Qur’an in vow to blow up White House, conquer Rome and Spain

Florida in Top 5 for Refugee Resettlement

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According to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement Florida was one of the top destinations in 2014. The largest numbers of refugees came from Cuba (2,177), Iraq (425), Burma (376), Democratic Republic of the Congo (155), Eritrea (36) and Iran (30).

Ann Cochran from Refugee Resettlement Watch notes, “[A]lthough we [the United States] resettled 69,986 refugees in FY 2014, that is not the complete story. The Office of Refugee Resettlement was responsible for over 30,000 asylees and another 58,000 ‘unaccompanied alien children’ being treated as refugees as well (and, cared for with your tax dollars!).”

Top resettlement states for FY 2014 are as follows:

  1. Texas (7,214)
  2. California (6,108)
  3. New York (4,082)
  4. Michigan (4,006)
  5. Florida (3,519)
  6. Arizona (2,964)
  7. Ohio (2,815)
  8. Pennsylvania (2,739)
  9. Georgia (2,694)
  10. Illinois (2,578)

Also three other states topped 2,000: Washington (2,483), North Carolina (2,443) and Minnesota (2,232). Readers may visit the Office of Refugee Resettlement to see from where in the world refugees to their state came from in 2014.

What is a fiscal year? For the purposes of refugee resettlement, a fiscal year runs from October 1 of the previous year to September 30th of the present year. So, that means we have now completed 5 months of fiscal year 2015.

RELATED ARTICLE: Corporate Greed Behind Push for H-1B Visas as Multinational Corps Fire Americans, Hire Immigrants

The Betrayal Papers: Obama’s Scandals and Assaults on Freedoms Explained

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The Betrayal Papers Part I – Under Obama: U.S. Captured by the Muslim Brotherhood, presented a picture of a conspiracy that is manipulating the American government.  Part II – In Plain Sight: A National Security “Smoking Gun” named several people in the Obama administration who have documented associations to Muslim Brotherhood front groups and the State of Qatar.  This article will explore the deliberate strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Obama administration to cripple the middle class and to steer the American economy, as well as identify, to the extent possible, their role in many Obama scandals.

Introduction

What do Common Core, “comprehensive” immigration reform, and IRS targeting of conservatives groups have in common?  They are just a few examples of Muslim Brotherhood-connected policy initiatives that are affecting the lives of Americans every day.  Under Obama, many new domestic policies, as well as many scandals, can be traced back to, in varying degrees, the Muslim Brotherhood.

To understand why America no longer feels like America – why it seems that the government has its favorites and while others are targeted and even persecuted – it is important to understand two strong influences on the Muslim Brotherhood.  The first is historical: the Nazi Party of Hitler’s Germany.  The second is more contemporary: the strategy developed by Al Qaeda’s strategic mastermind, Abu Musab al-Suri.

“The Vampire Economy” and Economic Repression

In 1939, German economist Guenter Reimann published a study of the German economy under Hitler. The Vampire Economy described a corrupt, backwards economy that was not based on any economic logic, much less profit seeking, but instead on the politics of the Fuehrer (i.e., Leader), Adolf Hitler.

Like Communism, Nazism was a form of socialism.  (The term Nazi is a contraction of the German word Nationalsozialismus, or National Socialism.)   Unlike Soviet Communism, which, at least theoretically, depended on shared ownership of capital to direct the economy, in Nazi Germany the shops, farms, and factories remained, nominally, in private hands.[i]  Yet the outcome was basically the same in both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany: total control over the economy by the Leader and the Party.

In Germany, the pseudo-legal rationale used by the Nazis was regulation, which was subject to change on a whim.  If you stepped outside the regulations, you were punished with fines, political persecution, imprisonment, and possibly shipped off to a concentration camp.  Sound familiar?

Yet pervasive corruption in the Third Reich ensured the rules applied differently to those in favor, and to those who opposed the Nazis.  Specifically, in such an economy, there are party members in good standing, and there were dissidents.  Party members can break rules with impunity, while dissidents face public character assassinations and blacklisting.

This calls to mind Obamacare’s implementation.  Certain companies, approximately 1,200 in fact, received waivers from the law.  Other businesses were forced to provide health coverage for abortions against the will and conscience of the business owners (though the Supreme Court later overruled this regulation).  A similar comparison can be made for the fines and prosecutions unequally levied on banks for violating a myriad of complex and overlapping regulations.

Abu Musab Al-Suri’s Plan to Cripple the American Economy

Although most Americans know the name Osama bin Laden, very few know the name Abu Musab al-Suri. While bin Laden provided the charisma and wealth to found Al Qaeda, al-Suri, one of his top lieutenants, provided valuable strategic advice to the fledgling jihadi network. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood from the time he was a student, al-Suri rose to become a member of the Brotherhood’s military command in 1982.

Al-Suri was a calculating thinker, who recognized that to bring down America (and the West in general) would require something different than mass murders.  He urged the targeting of high value targets, such as infrastructure, which would force the United States to incur significant economic costs.  As an example of this strategy in practice, Al-Suri was the architect of the 2004 Madrid train bombings. There is a good case to be made that the World Trade Center was long in Al Qaeda’s sights precisely because it was a bastion of capitalism, an important hub of New York City’s communications network, and the home of many prominent companies.

Of course, there’s little sense in physically targeting an economy which has already been knuckled-down under onerous, impossible to keep-up-with regulations issued by Obama’s bureaucracies.  Various sectors of the American economy have already been effectively taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood Obama administration, including: healthcare, banking, energy, agriculture (think EPA and FDA), and transportation.  Last week, the Obama administration, without the consent of Congress or the people, seized untold new powers to regulate the internet.

Meanwhile, as the government unapologetically intrudes into every aspect of life and business, a case could be made that the middle class is being systematically bankrupted.   Financial columnist Charles Ortel has shown that the economy is fundamentally as weak as it has been in a generation.  Following the collapse in 2008, the government pumped in trillions of dollars to supposedly stabilize and jumpstart the economy (recall the misnamed “Stimulus”).  But as of January 2015, there were fewer core jobs in the private sector economy than ten years earlier.  Compounding this economic morass is national debt: in roughly the same period (2005-2014), debt has increased $16.5 trillion, to $58 trillion.  Finally, information from 2012 and 2013 (the most recent data available), shows pre-tax incomes decreasing for high, middle, and low income earning households.

Abu Musab al-Suri had a terrorist superstar with Osama bin Laden.  However, when it comes to economically knee-capping the American economy, Barack Hussein Obama has proved far more effective than the cave rat, Sheikh bin Laden.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Doha, Qatar – Bipartisan Influence by Muslim Brotherhood

What would be powerful enough to exert this influence over the American economy?  What entity could be that pervasive as to reach into big business across the nation?

In February 2010, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce established their first legal Chamber in Doha, Qatar.  Qatar, the reader should be reminded, is a prolific financier of terror.  Qatar is also home to the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, now an Interpol fugitive.  The Chamber represents American business and also has an explicitly political and diplomatic mission.  In the words of the Chamber’s Executive Vice President and COO, David Chavern, AmCham Qatar is “another concrete example of positive U.S. Engagement with the Muslim world.”

Among the companies and organizations which are premier sponsors of AmCham Qatar are ExxonMobil, The Boeing Corporation, Carnegie Mellon Qatar, Northwestern University in Qatar, and Fluor.   Moreover, the following companies have significant involvement with the State of Qatar: Lockheed Martin, Bloomberg, Bank of America, Miramax, among many more.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with its close ties to Qatar, is by far the largest lobbying spender in Washington ($136.3 million in 2012).  Business is a bipartisan pursuit, which means that money from Qatar – which is arguably today’s most prolific financial sponsor of Islamic terror – carries great weight in both Republican and Democrat circles.

Indeed, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is on the record last year as saying, “I’m going to embrace being a Chamber of Commerce Republican.”  He was part of a bipartisan Senate delegation to Qatar this January which also included Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Bob Corker (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), Angus King (I-ME) and Tim Kaine (D-VA).

The Brotherhood’s Connections to Policies and Scandals of the Obama Administration

In June 2012, The Daily Caller reported that the CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, had attended “hundreds” meetings with the Obama administration. CAIR, it will be recalled, is a Muslim Brotherhood front organization very closely tied to Hamas.

Why so many meetings?  What incredible portfolio of business does CAIR have to discuss with an American administration?  What follows is a snapshot of various policies and scandals that are linked, often directly, to Muslim Brotherhood individuals, organizations, and their goal of “civilization jihad.”

Militarization of the Department of Homeland Security: While running for President, Obama stated several times that America needed a civilian national security force that matched the might of the U.S. military.  Candidate Obama stated in 2008, “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

To many, this sounded like a call for a militarized federal police force.  Given that DHS has been advised by such people as Mohammed Elibiary, Arif Alikhan, Eboo Patel, and Mohamed Magid, who each have documented ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, is it not possible that DHS has been weaponized as a force against the American by the Islamists?

Domestic Spying and Wiretapping:  While journalists at AP and Fox News have been subjects of wiretapping ordered by Eric Holder’s misnamed Department of Justice, the NSA’s dragnet on regular Americans has been revealed to be broader than virtually anyone suspected.

Curiously, the spreadsheets that were leaked detailing the email tracking of Muslim American leaders stop in 2008.  CAIR Director Nihad Awad is listed as a target, as is Faisal Gill, a Republican operative who held a top-secret security clearance with the Department of Homeland Security.  The spreadsheets were leaked in 2014 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Purge of Military Officers and Christianity: Over the past several years, the U.S. military has been purged of hundreds of high ranking officers.  Many of these dedicated military officers were dismissed based on trivial offenses.  Occurring simultaneously is a purge of Christianity, indeed even Bibles, from the U.S. military.

Anti-Police Protests: In conjunction with the militarization of DHS, state and local law enforcement have been targets of the Obama administration and Eric Holder’s Department of Justice.  This anti-police agenda culminated last summer with riots in Ferguson, Missouri and violent protests New York City.  Among the most prominent groups involved in these protests was ANSWER, a pro-Palestinian group that had on its original steering committee the Muslim Students Association. 

Finally, the NYC cop killer Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley stated on his own Facebook page that he was previously an employee of the (Muslim Brotherhood) Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).  At the time of the killing, the president of ISNA was Mohamed Magid, an advisor to Obama, DHS, and the National Security Council.

Immigration and Amnesty:  Revealed in a recent editorial, “Between 2010 and 2013, the Obama administration imported almost 300,000 new immigrants from Muslim nations — more immigrants than the U.S. let in from Central America and Mexico combined over that period.”  Given the paucity of background and security checks, as well as the high incidence of terrorism from such countries, it is any surprise that the FBI now admits that ISIS is active in all 50 states?

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), another Muslim Brotherhood front organization operating in the United States, conveniently issued a policy paper in September 2013 calling for “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Moreover, in January the Obama appointed Fatima Noor, a veiled Muslim woman, to the position of “Special Assistant in the Office of the Director for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security.”  Other than her religion, her credentials are very thin.

It is hardly an exaggeration to state that the administration is taking gradual steps to eliminating the very concept of American citizenship.  In fact, a recent White House conference call made it explicit that these new immigrants are not supposed to assimilate into American society, but instead establish their own ethnic communities within the United States.  Does this remind anyone of Gaza, or the no-go zones in Europe?

Common Core: Even classroom education has not escaped the tentacles of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The connection between Common Core and the international terror group is through, once again, Qatar.  The Connect All Schools initiative is a program to promote “One World Education.”  It is aligned to Common Core State Standards, and is funded by the Qatar Foundation International (QFI).  The director of QFI’s Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics is Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al-Banna.

According to WND, in 2011 QFI “partnered with the Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to facilitate matchmaking between classrooms in the U.S. and international schools through … the “Connect All Schools” project.”  QFI explains on its own website that the initiative was founded in response to Obama’s infamous 2009 Cairo speech, during which Obama had the Muslim Brotherhood seated in the front row.

Participation of the Qatar Foundation International puts in proper context the ever more prevalent cases of Sharia (i.e. Islamic law) incursions into American schools, such as: girls forced to cover up like devout Muslims on school sponsored trips to mosques; Islamic vocabulary lessons in high school; the teaching of Islamic culture; teaching the five pillars of Islam and “A call to jihad;” and Qatar investing $5 million to teach Arabic in schools.

Finally, any treatment of Common Core would not be complete without mentioning the involvement of another one of Obama’s mentors, domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.  Ayers received $49.2 million from Vartan Gregorian, a board member of Qatar Foundation who is also part of Obama’s White House Fellowships Commission. Gregorian is an integral part of Connect All Schools.

IRS Targeting of Conservative and Pro-Israel Groups:  The targeting of Obama’s political enemies is reminiscent of the politicized bureaucracies of all tyrannies, from Nazism to Communism and everything in between.  Among the persecuted by apparatchik Lois Lerner were: hundreds of conservative groups, Constitutional groups, groups that criticized Obama, 5 pro-Israel groups, and an 83 year old Nazi concentration camp survivor. 

As usual, the pattern of targeting conservatives, Israel, and Jews in general is the trend of the Obama administration … and the Muslim Brotherhood.  The IRS targeting nearly mirrors DHS’s profiling of “right wing sovereign citizens and extremist groups” as the primary terrorist threat facing the country, which was CAIR approved.

In addition to suppressing political enemies, the IRS has actually enabled the Muslim Brotherhood through Obama’s half-brother, Malik.  In 2011, the IRS granted a 501(c)(3) statuses to two groups connected to Barack Obama’s half-brother, Malik Obama: the Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF), and Mama Sarah Obama Foundation (MSOF).

This would not be of particular concern, but for the fact that Malik Obama has documented associations with the Muslim Brotherhood, wanted terrorists, and terrorist organizations.  These include Sudan’s Muslim Brotherhood leader Omar al-Bashir, the organizers of the infamous 2010 Gaza Flotilla, and Hamas.  In fact, contravening all standard practices, the IRS granted the tax exempt status to BHOF retroactively, after it was learned that Malik was falsely and criminally representing his organization as a charity (which, at the time, it was not).  A full report on these activities was produced by the Shoebat Foundation, and can be read here.

The George Soros Connection

In more than one of these instances, the fingerprints of billionaire investor (and breaker of nations and currencies) George Soros can be found.  Soros operates a vast network of various “leftist” front organizations.  In reality, these organizations are anything but liberal.  They regularly attack capitalism, Israel, and fund the subversion of American society.  It is not the intention here to dissect Soros’s network and political machinations, but to place him in context in the above scandals.

Combating “Islamophobia”:  Soros has “donated” $10,117,186 to the Center for American Progress since 2000.  One of the major initiatives of CAP is to combat “sharia hysteria” by the “religious right.”

Ferguson unrest: Soros’s Open Society Institute donated $33 million in one year to various activist groups in Ferguson who were active in the protests and subsequent destruction.

Immigration: Prominent Muslim American immigration lawyer Rabia Chaudry is employed by another Soros-controlled group, the New America Foundation.  Previously Chaudry was Media Relations Director of CAIR-CT.

Common Core: A project of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP), Common Core was conceived under the direction of John Podesta, while he was President of CAP.  Podesta is currently Counselor to Obama, and also a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center.  (Note: Georgetown has a campus of their School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar.  All campus costs are fully covered by a grant of the Qatar Foundation, which also funds aspects of Common Core.)

Net Neutrality Regulation:  According to Washington Examiner, Soros funded “net neutrality” groups to the tune of $196 million.  Net neutrality was adopted last week by a committee vote of the FCC, and is widely expected to be used to regulate content on the internet and television.

Conclusion

Tyranny, whatever name it’s given, has one recipe.  It starts with a base of fear, it’s spiced with terror, and served with sides of persecution and intimidation.  The poorer and more desperate the people become, the more readily they’ll meld into the pottage of political domination by their government.

[i] The nominal private ownership which was centrally directed by the Nazis was called Zwangswirtschaft, German for “compulsory economy.” Writes the famous economist Ludwig von Mises in Human Action, “The second pattern [of socialism] (we may call it the Hindenburg or German pattern) nominally and seemingly preserves private ownership of the means of production and keeps the appearance of ordinary market prices, wages, and interest rates.  There are, however, no longer entrepreneurs, but only shop managers (Betriebfuehrer in the terminology of Nazi legislation).  These shop managers are seemingly instrumental in the conduct of the enterprises entrusted to them; they buy and sell, hire and discharge workers and remunerate their services, contract debts and pay interest and amortization.  But in all their activities they are bound to obey unconditionally the order issued by government’s supreme office of production management.  This office… tells the shop managers what and how to produce, at what prices and from whom to buy, at what prices and to whom to sell.  It assigns every worker to his job and fixes his wages.  It decrees to whom and on what terms the capitalists must entrust their funds.  Market exchange is merely a sham.”

How Fateful are Israel’s Knesset Elections on March 17th?

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Sunday, March 15th, the Voice of Israel (VOI) Global Radio System aired a “National Security” program with Executive Producer and host Dan Diker and guests Dr. Harold Rhode former Pentagon Islamic Affairs expert, Distinguished Gatestone Institute Senior Fellow and Bassem Eid Arab correspondent for VOI. Eid is founder of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. The thought provoking title was “Whom Do Radical Islamists Want as Israel’s Next Prime Minister?”

This is a must listen program for all those concerned about Israel’s future in the run up to Tuesday’s March 17th Israeli Knesset elections.  Those elections have more than 20 parties competing for 120 seats. It will pit the current ruling coalition Likud government led by PM Benjamin Netanyahu against the Zionist Union headed by MK Yitzhak Herzog and former Justice Minister of Hatnuah, Tzipi Livni. There is also a new emerging factor. A coalition negotiated following the Knesset elections. It could include a Joint Arab List that might secure upwards of 13 to 15 seats. The Joint Arab List electoral results might possibly bolster the Zionist Union led opposition, including the leftist Meretz party, seeking to be given the nod to form a ruling coalition if selected by Israel President Reuven Rivlin. The VOI will have extensive live and extended coverage of these important Israeli Knesset elections on March 17th.

You may register and listen live to the VOI here.

Overarching this Knesset elections were disclosures this weekend of the U.S. Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee addressing complaints by PM Netanyahu of “foreign country involvement.” This is a reference to reports that the U.S. Administration has funded NGOs engaged in possible anti-Netanyahu “anyone but Bibi” vote campaigns among the country’s Arab and urban Jewish voters. The effort involves former Obama Presidential campaign field operations staff headed by Jeremy Bird of 270 Strategies.   Support has come from major Obama Jewish Democratic contributors and possibly State Department funding of NGOs.  Whether the Administration would prefer a new Israeli government whose policies might materially affect the national security and sovereignty of Jewish nation is at question?

This  Ides of March VOI “National Security” program, is a fascinating and elucidating commentary about the  dynamics of the contending forces in the regional  Muslim communities,  both Shia and Sunni, and  views of the US Administration as an unreliable ally. That is reflected in the views of Saudi -backed Al Arabiya  that gave  high marks to PM Netanyahu for standing up to the threat posed by  the Islamic State,  Iran  and proxies Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad  and Hezbollah. As pointed out by Dr. Rhode, Al Arabiya, strongly endorsed Netanyahu’s address before the Joint Meeting of Congress on March 3rd seeking to obtain a better deal to deter Iran from achieving nuclear hegemony in the region. There is also discussion of Egypt’s President Al-Sisi’s emerging role of importance trying to fashion a Sunni regional coalition of forces, the equivalent of a NATO – type organization to confront IS.  Al-Sisi’s New Year’s speech in  Cairo, before Al Azhar and the Awqfar  Ministry,  espoused reform of underlying Qur’anic doctrine  that has returned to the takfir purist form of Islam emblematic of the apocalyptic IS, a self styled Caliphate. A Caliphate that as Dr. Rhode pointed out may have been fostered originally by Shia Mahdist Iran now ironically engaged in combating IS in Iraq.

Rhode and Diker suggested that if a more compliant Israel government was elected on Tuesday that IS and Hamas cells in the West Bank and Hezbollah with Iran on the Golan might foment possible trouble.  Iran, as noted by Diker and Rhode, is rapidly spreading its hegemony threatening the region from Yemen on the Red Sea, across the Arabian Peninsula to the shores of the Persian Gulf and through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon on the Mediterranean coast. An Iran whose nuclear quest may have already triggered nuclear proliferation with Saudi Arabia’s disclosure of a recent nuclear development deal with South Korea.  We found fascinating the discussion among Diker, Rhode and Bassem Eid, astute VOI Arab correspondent, on the internal Israel Arab Muslim divide over the question of whether they would support the United Arab List.

Bassem disclosed the previously not well known fact that 60 percent of Israeli Arab Muslims are more likely to vote for Jewish parties as loyal citizens rather than for the Arab list. The Party’s leaders are more concerned about Israel as an ‘apartheid state’.  They have fashioned seditious relations with Ramallah, Gaza, Damascus and even Tehran and all   enemies of Israel. Bassem also noted that the Palestinians view the Likud government and Netanyahu as more reliable with honoring commitments than prior experiences with both Labor and Kadima governments.  Rhode explained that regional Arabs view favorably the Israeli democratic traditions that Arab Muslim citizens enjoy. He told of the impact of that on the Egyptian body guards of the late President Anwar Sadat when he came to Jerusalem in 1977 to give a speech before the Knesset. They noted, he said, the sharp contrast between the quiet respect paid to President Sadat when he spoke and the vigorous debates in the Knesset chamber that followed his address.  The VOI program offers insights into what might occur Tuesday when Israel votes for the 33rd Knesset.  The comments of these American and Israeli experts raise serious questions about the objectives of the US Administration Vis a vis a P5+1 non-binding deal to facilitate Iran’s nuclear hegemony.

Monday, March 16th, this writer and Mike Bates, co-host of Northwest Florida’s Talk Radio 1330 am WEBY will be interviewed by VOI National Security host Dan Diker. That recorded program will address Obama Administration funding via State Department AID and US Jewish moguls involved with OneVoice, V-15 and the Abraham Fund to get out the anti-Bibi vote in Israel. The program will also delve into controversy surrounding Sen. Cotton’s ‘Iran letter’. That controversy has led to revelations suggesting that  the Administration is striving to establish a  rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran  avoiding Congressional review instead  seeking a  nuclear agreement  by the P5+1 at the UN  via a Security Council resolution.  That could result in lifting more than an estimated $70 billion in UN financial sanctions against Iran held in US banks controlled by the US Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control.  Sunday talk show criticism of the Cotton letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran by Secretary of State Kerry and former Secretary Madeleine Albright on CBS’ Face the Nation were contested by Sen. Cotton who drew attention to the precedent of a non verifiable deal made during the Clinton Administration with North Korea that eventuated in the latter’s creating a nuclear stockpile of weapons 12 years later.

Tuesday, VOI host Diker will join Northwest Florida’s talk radio 1330 am WEBY periodic Middle East Round Table co-hosts Bates and Gordon to report first returns from what many consider the fateful 2015 Knesset elections during 4:00 PM CST (5:00 PM EST) segment of “Your Turn”.

Listen Live here.

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

Orlando Pastor Dexter Sanders Stands With Netanyahu and Israel

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Pastor Dexter Sanders is the founder of Rock Orlando Center of Transformation Many Mansions Ministries, as well as founder and director of MMMMOVEMENT, an evangelistic organization. He is currently leading an initiative called “Transformation Orlando”, which will bring spiritual, physical and emotional transformation to the citizens of the Parramore community, and eventually the entire city of Orlando. Pastor Sanders is a friend of Israel.

Since arriving in Orlando six years ago, Pastor Sanders has worked hard in the area of evangelism. His mission is simple; to facilitate the move of the Holy Spirit through the city of Orlando, causing major transformation for its citizens. This movement will make way for the gospel of Jesus Christ to come out from behind the church walls and into streets and homes. In 2008, Dexter led such an initiative with a Gideon army through the streets of Parramore, knocking on every door, marching down every street and sharing the gospel.

To learn more about Pastor Dexter Sanders please visit www.yourservantdexter.com

General Jerry Boykin: Navy Chaplain was “Deliberately Set Up” by Homosexual Activist [Video]

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Navy Chaplain Wes Modder

Restoring Liberty reported earlier this week, a Navy chaplain with an incredibly distinguished service record has been relieved of his duties and may be forced out of the military just shy of his 20-year mark because he discussed the bible’s view on homosexuality.

Shortly thereafter, General Jerry Boykin appeared on The Joe Miller Show and announced that he had actually spoken with Chaplain Wes Modder that day and described for listeners what was really going on with the case.

General Boykin’s discussion about Chaplain Wes Modder begins at 9:30 in the below interview:

Read more.

The Five Fingers of Islam

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There have been many who have written about Islam. Some defend it, others criticize it. Needless to say Islam is a topic deserving of academic study, explanation and understanding. However, many do not understand, or want to understand, Islam. Daily, news stories focus on the slaughter of innocents by the followers of Mohammed. These stories focus on the five fingers of Islam that hold the sword that strikes at the necks of the unbelievers. These five fingers are: the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State, Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda and Iran. Are politicians missing the forest (the whole of Islam) because of the trees (the five fingers holding the sword)? Is the free world missing the big picture?

This column is provided to give a simple analogy that explains Islam. It defines Islam simply as a human body.

Think of Islam as your body. As your body is made up of billions of cells, so too is Islam made up of 1.3 billion Mohammedans (followers of Mohammed) called the Ummah (the Islamic community). The mind of Islam is shariah law, the heart of Islam is the Quran. Just as your body resists disease, so to does Islam. Islam protects itself from the the ideas and ideals (diseases) of the non-believers. This self protection mechanism is called “Fitnah.” Fitnah is anything that upsets or causes discord among the body of Islam. The Arabic root of Fitnah occurs sixty times in the Quran, while jihad occurs fewer than 30 times.

Bruce Phillips in his column Fitna is Worse Than Slaughter writes:

… I have come to believe that Fitnah is the most essential motivational component of Islamic theology, i.e., it is the cornerstone of an adversarial, confrontational worldview that inevitably leads to a state of perpetual conflict with the non-Islamic world.

In fact, fighting against the multi-faceted threat of Fitnah is such an essential part of a Quran-based worldview, that it is both the Strategy & Tactics and the ‘BeatingHeart’ of the Global Islamic Movement (GIM). Removing Fitnah from the world is so fundamental to Islamic ideology that every primary source contains extensive references to this concept.

The body of Islam is designed for one thing and one thing only to defend itself from Fitnah. The free world tends to focus on terrorism and jihad. These are tactics used to resist Fitnah globally. The free world is not at war with terror or jihad, the free world is at war with the body, heart and soul of Islam – Fitnah. In order to fight this war, and win it, the free world must first understand Fitnah.

As mentioned above, the mind of Islam is shariah law. The body is controlled by the mind. The more shariah compliant an individual, organization, or nation, the more dangerous and deadly. Those who resist shariah are causing Fitnah. If a daughter or wife violates shariah then the father/husband must fight this Fitnah (resistance). Hence we see honor killings, women stoned for adultery, and genital mutilation. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State, Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda and Iran are fully shariah compliant.

Some argue that there are peaceful Mohammedans. While the right hand destroys anything and slaughters anyone who causes Fitnah, non-Muslims wonder why isn’t the moderate follower speaking out? Just like the human body resists infection, so can Muslims kill Muslims who cause Fitnah. Speaking out against Islam is Fitnah. Does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing? Some argue that a radical Muslim wants to behead you while a moderate Muslim wants a radical Muslim to behead you. That is Fitnah in a different form. A Mohammedan may wage fitnah without drawing the sword. He or she may resist Fitnah using different forms of jihad or by just keeping silent. Not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act.

As Phillips notes, “Removing Fitnah from the world is so fundamental to Islamic ideology that every primary source contains extensive references to this concept… According to the Quran, any effort by non-Muslims to oppose the advancement of Islam is considered a flagrant, abhorrent crime.  Also known as Fitnah, such crimes are seen as so egregious that people can be slaughtered, honor-killed, beheaded or crucified (and yes, all of these punishments are found in the Quran, with added endorsements and insights in the Hadith & Tafsir).”

QUESTION: How does the free world fight Fitnah? ANSWER: By causing Fitnah!

The free world must prepare itself to wage Fitnah. On December 28, 2014, Major General Michael K. Nagata, commander of American Special Operations forces in the Middle East, made the following public statement: ‘We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it.  We have not defeated the idea.  We do not even understand the idea.’

The idea is Fitnah. The sooner the free world understands this the quicker the threat will be met and defeated. As was done with the former Soviet Union, a united effort is in order to defeat this global ideology that will prevail if not stopped, as it was at the gates of Vienna in 1683. It is not enough to stop Islam, it is imperative to drive it back, to reverse it. This effort must be global and include waging political, social, economic, judicial and ideological Fitnah.

Fitnah is the cure, the disease is Islam.

Senator Cotton Defends Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran

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We posted several times this week on the controversy that erupted following  publication of letter on Monday, March 9th, 2014, authored by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) and signed by 46 other Republican colleagues that was tweeted to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Seven Republican Senators for various reasons declined to do so.  It drew the ire of the President, Secretary of State Kerry and most Democratic Senators.  It triggered several White House website “We the People” website petition campaigns. One requested charges of “treason” be filed while the other accused Sen. Cotton and the 46 Republican signatories of violating the 1799 Logan Act suggesting they could be sued for illegally conducting foreign relations when Members of Congress are exempt from the hoary law. Further, both sides of the aisle have done so historically, including then Senators Kerry and Biden, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. That didn’t stop some media like the New York Daily News and others from suggesting Republican signatories of the Cotton Letter were acting in a traitorous manner in an editorial  and front page headline, “GOPers Sabotage Bam Nuke Deal”.

The letter  has been called “mutinous” by a former Army General cited by the Washington Post. Politico blamed Sen. Cotton for “getting us a hard-line Supreme Ruler.” President Obama found it “somewhat ironic” that the Cotton letter may have aligned them with so-called hardliner opposition in Iran to the nuclear deal. Others contended that the letter was “ misguided”  and ”disrespectful” of the Presidential perogatives under our Constitution for negotiations of treaties and executive agreements. In our most recent post on the controversy on Friday, we wrote:

Two independent legal experts confirmed the Constitutional requirements for review of foreign treaties and Congressional executive agreements. Sen. Cotton’s letter also pointed out that any executive order signed by the President may not survive past the end of his term in 22 months and might be modified or terminated for cause by any successor. That raised a question of why the Memorandum of Understanding was non-binding. That provoked responses from both Foreign Minister Zarif and Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Khamenei.  While the latter railed in rhetoric about how the GOP initiative reflected “the disintegration of the US” and why our representations can’t be trusted and laughing at the State Department citing Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. It was left to Foreign Minister Zarif, to reveal that Congress wouldn’t have to approve anything saying: “The executive agreement was not bilateral but rather multi-lateral with the rest of the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, subject to a resolution of the Security Council.”

Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu wrote in a Jewish Press article published today, “U.N. Security Council’s lifting of sanctions and endorsement of a deal might make Congress irrelevant.” He then cites the observation of Omri Ceren, Communications Director for the Washington, DC-based The Israel Project:

The letter forced the Administration to explain why they’re icing Congress out of Iran negotiations, and now that explanation has ignited a firestorm. The administration looks like it intentionally chose a weaker, non-binding arrangement, rather than a treaty, to avoid Senate oversight.

Ken Timmerman, whose FrontPageMagazine article, we cited noted the reason for Zarif’s and presumably the Administration position:

The Obama administration has told Congress that it won’t submit the nuclear agreement with Iran for Congressional approval, but now Zarif is saying that it will be submitted to the United Nations, to form the basis of a United Nations Security Council resolution, presumably aimed at lifting UN sanctions on Iran.

That prompted Sen. Coker (R-TN) and Foreign Relations Senate Committee chair co-sponsor of The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 to write President Obama Thursday:

There are now reports that your administration is contemplating taking an agreement, or aspects of it, to the United Nations Security Council for a vote.

Enabling the United Nations to consider an agreement or portions of it, while simultaneously threatening to veto legislation that would enable Congress to do the same, is a direct affront to the American people and seeks to undermine Congress’s appropriate role.

bill bennetSen. Cotton was interviewed on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America program on Wednesday, March 11th, 2014 in the midst of the continuing controversy. He presented the salient background and rationale for the letter.  Among points regarding his letter he made during the interview were:

He indicated that the letter took shape following Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to a Joint Meeting of Congress that, in his opinion, raised questions about what sort of deal the Administration was entering into among both his Republican and many Democratic colleagues, as it did not preclude Iran from achieving a nuclear capability.

His letter was directed at informing Iran’s leaders of the Constitutional authorities for Senate review of foreign treaties and executive agreements and that they may be terminated by end of President Obama’s term or modified by succeeding Presidents or Congress under existing related sanctions legislation.  He thought that the response from Iran’s foreign minister reflected his lack of understanding of Congressional review and ratification  requirements as regarding any Memorandum of Understanding on Iran’s nuclear program that the US P5+1 might enter into.

He illustrated the ability of President to rescind executive agreements of predecessors with reference to the 2004 letter of former President Bush to the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reaffirming Israel’s rights under UN Resolution 242 to “secure and defensible” borders and that Jerusalem was Israel’s undivided capital. President Obama, according to Sen. Cotton, rescinded that executive agreement by suggesting that Israel might divide Jerusalem along the lines of the pre-1967 1949 Armistice Line.

The President’s objective, endeavoring to conclude so-called verifiable agreements on Iran’s nuclear agreements in their current form, would be a bad deal as reflecting in Israeli Prime Minister’s address comments before a Joint Meeting of Congress on March 3rd as it could allow Iran to continue developing a nuclear capability, not preclude it.

He suggested that President Obama’s motivation for pushing for the Iran nuclear deal was to achieve a strategic rapprochement with Iran. This despite the Islamic Republic cited by our State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. Among specific examples cite by Cotton during the interview  were the 1979 US Embassy hostage taking and terrorist attacks by proxies  over several decades that resulted in deaths and injuries to hundreds of American diplomats and service personnel in Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

On the Matter of the Administration’s new Authorization for the Use of Military Power submitted to the Senate, he called it seriously restrictive. He pointed to the collapse of Iraq and rise of the Islamic State following the Administration’s failure to conclude a status of forces agreement with Iraq on the termination of the Iraq War in 2011.

When asked about Iran’s involvement in the current battle for Tikrit with Iraq national security forces and Iranian controlled Shia Militia, Cotton noted the role of the Quds Force, a combination of Special Forces and its CIA and its ubiquitous commander Qassem Suleymani. He accused Suleymani’s Quds Force of involvement in American casualties in both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. It also reflected Iran’s rapidly expanding sphere of influence over four Arab countries in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and more recently, Yemen.

Sen. Cotton’s Bennett program interview came just before revelations about the implications of Foreign Minister Zarif’s remarks suggesting the non-binding Memo of Understanding reflected resort to UN approval of any appraisal arising from the multilateral negotiations with the P5+1. You may listen to the Bennett interview with Sen. Cotton, here.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is courtesy of CNN.

U.S. Senate Investigating Administration Funding of anti-Netanyahu V15 Campaign

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As the Israeli Knesset election looms on March 17th Fox News reported that the bi-partisan U.S. Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee of Homeland Security and Government Affairs  may be engaged in investigating Administration funding of  OneVoice. It is an NGO linked to the Israel-based V15 anti-Netanyahu field effort headed by veteran Obama Campaign official Jeremy Bird.  The Fox report noted:

A powerful U.S. Senate investigatory committee has launched a bipartisan probe into an American nonprofit’s funding of efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Obama administration’s State Department gave the nonprofit taxpayer-funded grants, a source with knowledge of the panel’s activities told FoxNews.com.

The fact that both Democratic and Republican sides of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations have signed off on the probe could be seen as a rebuke to President Obama, who has had a well-documented adversarial relationship with the Israeli leader.

The development comes as Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel Two television station this week that there were “governments” that wanted to help with the “Just Not Bibi” campaigning — Bibi being the Israeli leader’s nickname.

It also follows a FoxNews.com report on claims the Obama administration has been meddling in the Israeli election on behalf of groups hostile to Netanyahu. A spokesperson for Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican and chairman of the committee, declined comment, and aides to ranking Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, of Missouri, did not immediately return calls.

The Senate subcommittee, which has subpoena power, is the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ chief investigative body with jurisdiction over all branches of government operations and compliance with laws.

[…]

 “It’s confirmed that there is a bipartisan Permanent Subcommittee inquiry into OneVoice’s funding of V15,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity about the American group, which bills itself as working for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

According to the [Fox]source, the probe is looking into “funding” by OneVoice Movement – a Washington-based group that has received $350,000 in recent State Department grants and until last November was headed by a veteran diplomat from the Clinton administrations, [former Carter Administration Advisor on Middle East Policy and Clinton Ambassador to Morocco, Marc Ginsburg].

Ginsberg, who has described the administration’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “window of opportunity,” is now serving OneVoice as “special advisor” after resigning as CEO at a time that turned out to be just ahead of the early December announcement of the Israeli election.

“I resigned on November 11, 2014, because I had only committed to serve as CEO for one year and my resignation was effective December 19, 2014,” he wrote in an email to FoxNews.com. “I agreed to be available after that as a Senior Adviser on an occasional basis to the organization…along with many others, but have had ZERO decision-making authority over personnel, budgets, programs, etc. That responsibility was transferred to the Executive Director of the OneVoice Europe organization after I resigned.”

Frank Curtis, a New English Review contributing editor and colleague  had  more about OneVoice and Bird’s connections with the Israel based V15 (“Victory”) “anyone but Bibi” support group  in a Feb 2, 2015, The Commentator article “Netanyahu should be shown respect by the White House”:

Bird has begun advising V15 on its Tel Aviv campaign, with the intent to recruit thousands of volunteers to go door to door canvassing for anti-Netanyahu parties. V15’s collaborator OneVoice is a group that describes itself as an international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians. OneVoice claims to have 600,000 Palestinian, Israeli, and international signatories. Its president is Daniel Lubetzky, son of a Holocaust survivor, who was born in Mexico City in 1968, and is now a wealthy businessman based in the U.S. He apparently has funded the activity of Israeli peace groups, and is actually the founder of one of them, PeaceWorks. V15 and OneVoice are active in the attempt to defeat Netanyahu.”

Aaron Klein, veteran Israel-based investigative reporter has interviewed the head of the OneVoice offices in Tel Aviv and filed several reports on both Klein On-line and the WorldNetDaily.  He reported the February 1st, 2015 injunctions claims by Likud officials raised by Prime Minister Netanyahu and filed with the Israel Election Commission:

“Accus[ing] V15 and other related nonprofits of being supported “through millions of dollars funneled from Europe, the U.S., the New Israel Fund and international factors interested in bringing down Prime Minister Netanyahu” who think “that all means are appropriate.”

The Likud further called for Israel’s Central Elections Committee to outlaw V15′s activities to “ensure the integrity of the election.” The party today will be filing an official complaint with the Committee seeking an injunction against V15.”

Klein reported OneVoice spokesman in Israel saying:

Uri Wollman, V15′s spokesman, said  his organization will not stop its campaign to ensure a center-left coalition forms the next government in Israel.

Wollman accused Netanyahu and the Likud of “fabricating” a relationship between V15 and the Obama administration.

“We have no relation to any U.S. political party, the White House or the State Department,” Wollman told [Klein].

However, Wollman revealed to Klein that in addition to OneVoice Movement  founder Lubetzky, the grass roots efforts  were being funded by two other philanthropists: “S. Daniel Abraham, the Palm Beach based billionaire founder of the Slim Fast food line. Abraham is a major donor to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Foundation and [Israeli ]Alon Kastiel, a Tel Aviv-based businessman and owner of multiple local venues, including bars, clubs and hotels.”

 Klein’s  further investigations uncovered another  possible get out the Anti-Netanyahu vote effort directed at Israeli Arab voters by The Abraham Fund. Like OneVoice, The Abraham Fund had been given a three year grant  by the  U.S. State Department of nearly $1 million to improve Jewish Arab relations in Israel. Klein noted an Abraham Fund news release on January 21, 2015 announcing the launch of a non-partisan turnout the vote campaign to increase participation in the upcoming Knesset elections with a focus on conferences at colleges and in media and advertising to enhance Arab integration in the election process.

Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon reported on January 27th, Christina Taler, State Department Grant officer for OneVoice saying:

“ We’ve formed a partnership with [V15], but it’s important to know we’re absolutely nonpartisan,” “Our biggest emphasis and focus right now is just getting people out to vote.”

When Klein asked Nimrod Dweck,  Founder  of V-15 in OneVoice’s Tel Aviv office about why Bird and the 270 Strategies team of Obama Campaign operatives were hired to ‘get out the vote’, Dweck responded:

Israelis don’t know how to run field (operations) as Americans [do], and that was the major contribution of Jeremy’s team. Bird provided very professional help about how to organize, manage people, how to go door-to-door, how to talk to people on the street. It’s a matter of finding the right professionals. And if I need to pick the best professional in the world for the job, [Bird] knows what he is doing. 270 [Strategies] is a great company.

State Department funding of both the OneVoice/V-15 and the Abraham Fund  is potentially  aiding  the anti-Netanyahu Arab and leftist Jewish vote in the “anyone but Bibi” campaign.   V-15 has hired the Jeremy Byrd of 270 Strategies, former Obama campaign field organizer coupled with funding by wealthy U.S. Democratic contributors and Israeli Zionist Union supporters fueling the tight race for control of the 33rd Israeli government on March 17th.  Given today’s Fox News report it has also led the U.S. Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee to address  complaints by  Senate colleagues and Prime Minister Netanyahu of U.S. Administration interference in these critical elections, the results of  which will be the basis of coalition negotiations to  form the next government.

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

Do we strike now or wait until Iran has nuclear weapons and face a nuclear catastrophe?

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Today we can stop Iran’s path to nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation, or we can wait and suffer an unimaginable nuclear catastrophe.

Four nuclear sites are key to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Isfahan, Arak, Natanz and Qom. Isfahan and Arak are above ground and can be destroyed by air or sea launched missiles. Natanz is under an earth berm and reinforced concrete and Qom is built inside a mountain. The U.S. currently has ordinance that can penetrate these two facilities. with its Massive Ordinance Penetrators ( MOP’s). Iran has other nuclear weapons facilities as well but they a much less important.

Sanctions have had little effect on stopping Iran’s march toward nuclear weapons. It is increasingly apparent that the only way to stop Iran’s march toward developing nuclear weapons are targeted air strikes against these four sites. This may also stop Iran’s goal for a Persian Shiite Caliphate and terrorist activities that will surely result in an all out war between Shiites and the Sunni majority.

If the U.S. strikes Iran’s four major nuclear sites it will bear no relationship to the extended wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. No U.S. ground troops will be involved. The destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities likely will take only several days. If the U.S. fails to take action it is likely Israel will. However Israel’s ability to eliminate the threat is probably limited to Iran’s two above ground nuclear facilities. It may set Iran’s nuclear weapons program back a couple of years. However only the U.S. can set it back for many years or permanently.

If Israel takes preemptive action the U.S. will nevertheless be drawn into the fray. Iran knows Obama will not initiate military action, however Iran’s recent naval action attacking a mockup of a U.S. aircraft carrier is a warning to the U.S., if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities Iran will attack U.S. ships in the area.This was the purpose of Iran’s recent naval exercise sinking a mockup U.S. aircraft carrier. Under these circumstances the U.S. should take preemptive action and not wait to be attacked.

The U.S. can prevent nuclear proliferation and ultimately a nuclear catastrophe if it destroys the four key facilities from the air before Iran has nuclear weapons.  Without nuclear weapons Iran has limited options to strike America or Europe. Other nations who would like nuclear weapons are waiting to see what the U.S. does.

In 1939 the world was in a similar place. Hitler’s Nazi Germany could have been stopped before it  invaded Czechoslovakia which allowed Nazi Germany to build a massive war machine. England and France could have easily stopped Germany at that time. They failed to do so and over 60 million people died. We are in the same position now with Iran as England and France were then. We can only hope  U.S. leadership doesn’t repeat the 1939 mistakes. If the U.S. fails to take preemptive action soon a nuclear catastrophe in the future is inevitable.

Read this interesting analysis by Joshua Muravchik:

Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

The logical flaw in the indictment of a looming “very bad” nuclear deal with Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before Congress this month was his claim that we could secure a “good deal” by calling Iran’s bluff and imposing tougher sanctions. The Iranian regime that Netanyahu described so vividly — violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States — is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any “good deal” or by cheating.

This gives force to the Obama administration’s taunting rejoinder: What is Netanyahu’s alternative? War? But the administration’s position also contains a glaring contradiction. National security adviser Susan Rice declared at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference before Netanyahu’s speech that “a bad deal is worse than no deal.” So if Iran will accept only a “bad deal,” what is President Obama’s alternative? War?

Obama’s stance implies that we have no choice but to accept Iran’s best offer — whatever is, to use Rice’s term, “achievable” — because the alternative is unthinkable.

But should it be? What if force is the only way to block Iran from gaining nuclear weapons? That, in fact, is probably the reality. Ideology is the raison d’etre of Iran’s regime, legitimating its rule and inspiring its leaders and their supporters. In this sense, it is akin to communist, fascist and Nazi regimes that set out to transform the world. Iran aims to carry its Islamic revolution across the Middle East and beyond. A nuclear arsenal, even if it is only brandished, would vastly enhance Iran’s power to achieve that goal.

Such visionary regimes do not trade power for a mess of foreign goods. Materialism is not their priority: They often sacrifice prosperity to adhere to ideology. Of course, they need some wealth to underwrite their power, but only a limited amount. North Korea has remained dirt poor practicing its ideology of juche, or self-reliance, but it still found the resources to build nuclear weapons.

Sanctions may have induced Iran to enter negotiations, but they have not persuaded it to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons. Nor would the stiffer sanctions that Netanyahu advocates bring a different result. Sanctions could succeed if they caused the regime to fall; the end of communism in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and of apartheid in South Africa, led to the abandonment of nuclear weapons in those states. But since 2009, there have been few signs of rebellion in Tehran.

Otherwise, only military actions — by Israel against Iraq and Syria, and through the specter of U.S. force against Libya — have halted nuclear programs. Sanctions have never stopped a nuclear drive anywhere.

Does this mean that our only option is war? Yes, although an air campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would entail less need for boots on the ground than the war Obama is waging against the Islamic State, which poses far smaller a threat than Iran does.

Wouldn’t an attack cause ordinary Iranians to rally behind the regime? Perhaps, but military losses have also served to undermine regimes, including the Greek and Argentine juntas, the Russian czar and the Russian communists.

Wouldn’t destroying much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure merely delay its progress? Perhaps, but we can strike as often as necessary. Of course, Iran would try to conceal and defend the elements of its nuclear program, so we might have to find new ways to discover and attack them. Surely the United States could best Iran in such a technological race.

Much the same may be said in reply to objections that airstrikes might not reach all the important facilities and that Iran would then proceed unconstrained by inspections and agreements. The United States would have to make clear that it will hit wherever and whenever necessary to stop Iran’s program. Objections that Iran might conceal its program so brilliantly that it could progress undetected all the way to a bomb apply equally to any negotiated deal with Iran.

And finally, wouldn’t Iran retaliate by using its own forces or proxies to attack Americans — as it has done in Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia — with new ferocity? Probably. We could attempt to deter this by warning that we would respond by targeting other military and infrastructure facilities.

Nonetheless, we might absorb some strikes. Wrenchingly, that might be the price of averting the heavier losses that we and others would suffer in the larger Middle Eastern conflagration that is the likely outcome of Iran’s drive to the bomb. Were Iran, which is already embroiled in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza, further emboldened by becoming a “nuclear threshold state,” it would probably overreach, kindling bigger wars — with Israel, Arab states or both. The United States would probably be drawn in, just as we have been in many other wars from which we had hoped to remain aloof.

Yes, there are risks to military action. But Iran’s nuclear program and vaunting ambitions have made the world a more dangerous place. Its achievement of a bomb would magnify that danger manyfold. Alas, sanctions and deals will not prevent this.

RELATED ARTICLE: An End to Iran’s Containment? – Editorial (Washington Post)

If you want to know what’s in the Nuclear Deal with Iran — Ask Tehran

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Yesterday, we wrote how 47 Republican Senators, led by Arkansas U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, did us a real favor when they sent an open letter to the “Leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. By published the open letter to Iran’s leaders, responses from Tehran revealed that the Congress may be by-passed and its approval might not be required to ratify a nuclear deal with Iran. Secretary of State Kerry indicated during his Senate Armed Services Hearing Wednesday that the Memorandum of Understanding was “non-binding” and thus no approval was required. State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki affirmed that position. The White House “We the People” website petition campaign created by  “C.H.” of Bogota, New Jersey accused the 47 signatories of ‘traitorous’ actions violating the 1799 Logan Act which  bars private persons, but not members of Congress, from conducting  foreign relations was simply a smokescreen. Ditto for the New York Daily News front page and editorial declaration published Tuesday. 

Two independent legal experts confirmed the Constitutional requirements for review of foreign treaties and Congressional executive agreements. Sen. Cotton’s letter also pointed out that any executive order signed by the President may not survive past the end of his term in 22 months and might be modified or terminated for cause by any successor. That raised a question of why the Memorandum of Understanding was non-binding. That provoked responses from both Foreign Minister Zarif and Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Khamenei.  While the latter railed in rhetoric about how the GOP initiative reflected “the disintegration of the U.S.” and why our representations can’t be trusted and laughing at the State Department citing Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. It was left to Foreign Minister Zarif, to reveal that Congress wouldn’t have to approve anything saying: “The executive agreement was not bilateral but rather multi-lateral with the rest of the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, subject to a resolution of the Security Council.”

Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu wrote in a Jewish Press article published today, “U.N. Security Council’s lifting of sanctions and endorsement of a deal might make Congress irrelevant.” He then cites the observation of Omri Ceren, Communications Director for the Washington, DC-based The Israel Project:

The letter forced the Administration to explain why they’re icing Congress out of Iran negotiations, and now that explanation has ignited a firestorm. The administration looks like it intentionally chose a weaker, non-binding arrangement, rather than a treaty, to avoid Senate oversight

After we published our clarification of Sen. Cotton’s letter, our colleague Ken Timmerman wrote and thanked us for our piece. He said more would be revealed in his FrontPage Magazine, article published today, “Iran Deal Secrets Revealed – by Iran.”

Here are some excerpts from the Timmerman article.

On why Zarif said Congressional approval wasn’t required:

 That if the current negotiation with P5+1 result[s] in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council, and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution.

Timmerman’s observation:

The Obama administration has told Congress that it won’t submit the nuclear agreement with Iran for Congressional approval, but now Zarif is saying that it will be submitted to the United Nations, to form the basis of a United Nations Security Council resolution, presumably aimed at lifting UN sanctions on Iran.

That prompted Sen. Coker (R-TN) and Foreign Relations Senate Committee chair co-sponsor of The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 to write President Obama Thursday:

There are now reports that your administration is contemplating taking an agreement, or aspects of it, to the United Nations Security Council for a vote.

Enabling the United Nations to consider an agreement or portions of it, while simultaneously threatening to veto legislation that would enable Congress to do the same, is a direct affront to the American people and seeks to undermine Congress’s appropriate role.

Timmerman then recounts the repeated Iranian violations of the interim Joint Plan of Action adopted in November 2013 and how the Administration has caved to Iran’s demands:

When the negotiations began, the U.S. was insisting that Iran comply with five United Nations Security Council resolutions and suspend all uranium enrichment. Now the discussion is on how many centrifuges Iran can spin, and more importantly, how many new generation (and more efficient) centrifuges Iran can install.

On issue after issue, it’s the United States – not Iran – that has given way. When Iran got caught violating the terms of the November 2013 agreement within the first two months, by enriching fresh batches of uranium to 20%, the United States pretended not to notice.

When the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed that Iran had produced fresh batches of 20% uranium on Jan. 20, 2014, no one called it a violation, highlighting instead Iranian steps to convert a portion of the 20% uranium into fuel rods for a research reactor.

Anyone who was been observing Iran’s nuclear cheat and retreat over the past twenty years recognizes the pattern: Iran is constantly pushing the limits, and when they get called out, they take a step backwards until they think we are no longer watching, when they do it again.

And we never punish them. Not ever.

Timmerman asked a rhetorical question and gave the obvious answer:

Can Obama legally circumvent Congress and go directly to the United Nations?

Undoubtedly, just as he could ignore multiple U.S. laws – and his own statements – that prevented him for granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens by Executive Order.

But if the Iranians really believe they can find sanctuary from Congress in Turtle Bay, former White House speech writer Marc Thiessen suggests they should think again.

“The US constitution trumps international law. The U.S. constitutional trumps the United Nations,” he told FoxNews anchor Megyn Kelly on Thursday. “The Supreme Court has actually ruled on this.”

It should be crystal clear to anyone observing the U.S.-Iran charade what Tehran wants from these talks: absolute victory over the United States.

Iran’s “moderate” president Hassan Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator himself, said it the day the November 2013 agreement was announced: “In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iran’s national will,” he tweeted victoriously.

So why is Iran engaging in this subterfuge?  It is all about achieving victory, meaning continuing the inevitable development of nuclear weapons, and having their financial sanctions lifted:

This is the deal-maker for the Iranian regime, the one thing they want so bad they actually will make concessions to achieve it.

But wait: even though the Iranians claim the sanctions are unjust, and that all the sanctions imposed over the past two decades must be removed instantaneously for a deal to be signed, that does not mean they will walk away if some sanctions stay in place.

“What they really care about are the financial sanctions,” an Iranian businessman familiar with the way the Tehran regime moves money told me. “As long as they can use and move dollars, the rest they don’t care about.”

Iran has lived so long with sanctions on dual use technology and weapons procurement that they have learned how to get around them. “They can get anything they want,” the businessman told me. “It may cost them 5 percent or 10 percent more, but they consider that the cost of doing business.”

So be prepared for a last minute, Hail Mary deal that will lift financial sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iranian promises not to build the bomb.

If such a deal will prevent or even delay a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East is anyone’s guess.

Remember, Sen. Cotton’s observation in a Tweet, after hearing Secretary Kerry’s testimony on Capitol Hill, Wednesday:

cotton tweet on iranEDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, second from right. Source: CNN September 2014.

Unreformed HAMAS is Rearming for Further Escalation and Poses a Serious Danger to Stability

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hamas today study hjsDespite sustaining significant damage to its infrastructure and capacity for violence during the previous conflict, Hamas in Gaza is once again resurgent – replenishing its weapons stockpiles and resuming construction of its offensive terror tunnel system.

Without counter-measures, it appears highly likely that Hamas will soon have the means to fight a fourth war, warns The Henry Jackson Society in a new policy paper, Hamas Today: An Assessment of Alliances and Capabilities, launched this week in Parliament.

Examining the state of Hamas since the Gaza conflict last year, the paper finds that the group remains a corrosive and destabilising factor in the region. Links to terrorism in the Sinai peninsula and the Muslim Brotherhood have put Hamas at odds with the Sisi regime in Egypt, which has now imposed a tight blockade of Gaza. At the same time Hamas continues to enjoy sponsorship from powerful allies, courting Turkey and renewing ties with Iran while also continuing to receive the backing of Qatar.

Hamas remains a major obstacle to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian equation, and as the report outlines, with no real distinction between Hamas’ political and military wings, further outreach to Hamas is unlikely to yield progress. It is now essential that the international community prioritises preventing the flow of funds and arms to Hamas by coordinating with ongoing Egyptian and Israeli efforts to prevent further escalations.

Tom Wilson, Resident Associate Fellow at The Centre for The New Middle East at The Henry Jackson Society, commented:

“Hamas remains completely committed to an extremist and uncompromising ideology that prevents it from playing any kind of helpful part in achieving a sustainable peace. For the sake of stability in the region and the welfare of the population of Gaza, eliminating Hamas must be the long term goal. In the meantime it is important that all parties work to prevent further militarisation in Gaza and that the international community avoids any move that would embolden Hamas. Concessions to groups such as Hamas inevitably undermine Palestinian moderates and incentivise recourse to violence on the part of extremists.”

Hamas Today: An Assessment of Alliances and Capabilities is available to download here.

tom wilson hjs

Tom Wilson, Resident Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Hamas Today: An Assessment of Alliances and Capabilities is the first publication authored by our latest edition to the team, Resident Associate Fellow Tom Wilson. We’re delighted to welcome Tom to the team.

Working within our Centre for the New Middle East (CNME), Tom will assist us in addressing the continually changing politics of the Middle East with a focus on Israel, Iran and Palestinian extremist groups.

His writing has been widely published in The Wall Street Journal, The Jerusalem Post and Commentary Magazine, where he previously worked as a Tikvah Fellow. As well as continuing to examine Hamas’ strategy post-Gaza, including the frosty relations with Egypt’s Sisi regime, he will be scrutinising the nuclear negotiations with Iran as the deadline for a settlement nears. Our work at CNME has never been more relevant and we are excited that Tom is joining us at such a pivotal time.