This must disgust you: Clint Lorance denied clemency while disgraced sexual deviant general cuts plea deal

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U.S. Army 1LT Clint Lorance

Every day I wonder what’s happening in our America. Here’s another example. I received an email from Don J. Snyder regarding the plight of Army 1LT Clint Lorance – about whom we’ve written here often.

Here is what Mr. Snyder sent me:

“Col. West, we lost our clemency appeal. I was able to notify Anna (Clint’s mother) as she was about to visit Clint. So she told him. Essentially the Army stood on the investigation and court-martial. I am now turning all our attention to trying to persuade President Obama to grant Clint Lorance a presidential pardon. See the website here for the petition. Will you help us get the 100,000 signatures we need in the next month? I wonder if there would be some way to reach Veterans’ organizations for help? Thank you very much. Don”

We need 100,000 signatures by February 1, so please sign the petition here.

Of course I will help out, but here is what disturbs me. We are releasing Islamic terrorists from GITMO and yet we are holding a young American officer in prison for killing the enemy. And what is frightening and frankly disturbing, the Army withheld evidence in the court-martial of 1LT Lorance because the Army definitively knew about the terrorist actions of several of the Afghans involved. This is no different from the withholding of exculpatory evidence in the case of 1LT Michael Behenna — whom the Army finally released from prison.

What is happening in the U.S Army when we lock away Clint Lorance for 20 years while we dither and hide the whereabouts of deserter Bowe Bergdahl? And what a blatant slap in the face to Clint, that Bergdahl may end up with some $350,000 while Clint sits in the same facility as Nidal Hasan. Where is the outrage from the American people and our elected representatives?

I hear nothing but crickets from all these wannabe Commanders-in-Chief. Well, not a one will get my support if they don’t make a stand right now for this young American.

I share with you Clint’s words expressed to Mr. Snyder — and shared with me:

“I’ve come to believe that all that has happened to me is just my destiny. I believe I am destined to fight to change the army so that soldiers who come after me who serve in combat will know that the army and the country stand behind them and will not turn against them. If I must serve my twenty years here, I will pick up this fight from the day I am released from prison until the end of my life.”

I am astounded by this injustice, and this must be a cause for which an entire country lets its voices be heard. We have a current Commander-in-Chief who wants to open up diplomatic relations with a communist country and an Islamist theocracy, Cuba and Iran. Obama is dead set on freeing as many GITMO Islamic terrorists as possible in order to maintain a campaign promise — and Army 1LT Clint Lorance sits in a prison? Ladies and gents, this is unacceptable.

Lorance was on the front lines, making a split-second decision to protect his men. If you want to see how completely wrong this situation is, let me share how another army officer and paratrooper has been treated in what was a far more sordid and scandalous situation.

As reported by the Washington Post back in June of 2014, ” Disgraced Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair will retire as a lieutenant colonel, three months after he pleaded guilty to having a three-year romantic affair with a subordinate officer. The decision could be one of the final chapters in a sordid scandal that rocked the Army. Sinclair, 51 was accused of forcible sodomy, adultery and other charges, but struck a plea deal and avoided jail time. He was issued a reprimand that effectively ended his career and forced to pay a $20,000 fine.” However, he will still receive retirement benefits – albeit at lower level. Army Secretary John McHugh said “Sinclair displayed a pattern of inappropriate and at times illegal behavior both while serving as a Brigadier General and a Colonel.” Oh, you mean like forcible sodomy?

After his trial, Sinclair said “The system worked. I’ve always been proud of my Army. All I want to do now is go north and hug my kids and wife.” And then what, sir?

Sure, the system worked for BG Sinclair and he gets to go home and hug his wife and kids — while Anna Lorance laments over her son who honorably faced the enemy on the battlefield and killed them.

To anyone reading this post who doesn’t believe Clint Lorance should be free, I can only shake my head in abject disgust. What mother wants her son to join the Army and fight the enemy at the risk of being imprisoned? Ask Vicki Behenna. Even worse, what dad would want his daughter joining the Army knowing that the good ol’ boys seem to take care of each other? I love the U.S. Army but I detest what it’s becoming — a place where a disgraced general evades prison while a young warrior is locked up.

And where exactly is Bowe Bergdahl and that report, Secretary McHugh?

Please sign the petition on Clint’s behalf here.

We need 100,000 signatures by February 1! (Please note: your verification email once you sign the petition may go to your junk inbox, so look for it there. Thanks!)

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

A Proposed Agenda for Congress in 2015 to Defend America and its Ally Israel

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It is appropriate at the start of 2015 to take stock and make resolutions to protect against the wide ranging threats to freedom, liberty and free expression now imperiling America and those allies in the West, especially Israel, which share our values. Let us review the situation we face and develop an agenda for Congress and concerned activists to rally around with determination to defeat the enemies ranged against our national interests and those of our ally Israel.

What we are seeing at the UN, here in the US and especially in what Bat Ye’or calls Eurabia is push-back against governments that have abetted mass Muslim immigration and Islamization undermining fundamental Judeo Christian values in the West. Some say Eurabia became a reality in Bosnia in 1992. Bat Ye’or maintains it started during the October War of 1973 when the Euro Arab Dialogue was begun by European Council bureaucrats. This allowed the Saudi sponsored Organization for Islamic Cooperation and Turkish émigré groups to press the EC and OSCE to acquiescence to Shariah blasphemy codes (under existing hate speech laws). We in the US have been blessed with free speech guarantees under our First Amendment with its Establishment Clause protecting freedom of worship and the right to criticize a religion.

The New English Review Press published a collection of interviews in 2012, The West Speaks, originally published in editions of the New English Review. It was a compilation of interviews with many of the heroes of the free speech movement in Europe. They have been threatened with death by Jihadis and prosecuted for warning fellow citizens of what has occurred on the Continent. People like Geert Wilders in Holland, Elisabeth Sabaditsch Wolff in Austria, Lars Hedegaard and Kurt Westergaard in Denmark, Lars Vilks in Sweden and Bat Ye’or are among some of those featured in the book. They predicted what is occurring now in Europe – the massed rallies in Germany organized by the Pegida movement, the Swedish Democrats upending temporarily the Social Democrats and outbreak of Mosque fire bombings in Swedish cities, the Danish People’s Party surging to the top and Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party now vaulted to the top rank in polls in The Netherlands. Independently we  interviewed both Nidra Poller and Philippe Karsenty in France about the “lethal narratives” of the Mohammed al Dura Affair (with legal actions involving France 2 TV Michel Gurfinkiel) which questioned the future for French Jews given the looming threats of Muslim jihadists who have killed Jews, fire bombed synagogues and attacked Jews for wearing kippots and Stars of David. We also interviewed Paul Weston in the UK, founder of the British Freedom Party, now renamed GB Liberty, who experienced under British law what Wilders had been prosecuted for in The Netherlands – hate speech offenses. These included criticism of mass Muslim immigration and its consequences, the threat of Islamization and accommodation of Shariah courts and creation of infidel free no-go zones in Muslim dominated urban areas.

These developments in Europe have led to actions by the Palestinians seeking unwarranted statehood at the UN. This is directed at Israel verging on what Dr. Phyllis Chesler identified in 2003 as The New Antisemitism, anti-Israelism.

A draft Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN Security Council was defeated by one vote despite France’s vote for it and the UK’s abstention. That underlined the message to the two largest Jewish communities in Europe from Israeli NGO leader and author Manfred Gerstenfeld that 40% of the EU’s estimated population of 400 million evidences anti-Israel attitudes tantamount to antisemitism. He suggested that it was time for Jews to leave Europe. It is not lost on many that French Jewish Aliyah to Israel doubled to 7,000 in 2014 over that in 2013 and may likely double again in 2015. We read a statement recently from Danny Cohen, Jewish head of the BBC-TV, certainly not one of Israel’s media friends, saying that he questioned the future for UK and Continental Jews with the rise of these antisemitic attacks.

Some Jews in the UK, Europe and J Streeters in America myopically connect the rising anti-Islam rallies and firebombing of mosques in Sweden reflect the mistaken belief these problems with Muslim immigrants are caused by the fact that Israel, meaning PM Netanyahu, didn’t accept a two state solution that the Obama Administration and Secretary of State Kerry were pushing hard to resolve. Wrong. Those German, Swedish, Dutch and other European push back actions you read about daily are the result of the jihad by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq pushing hundreds of thousands of refugees desperately seeking asylum in the EU. The latest horrors, the hapless flotsam of Syrian refugees adrift in ships abandoned by smugglers  in the Mediterranean Sea only to be saved by the Italian and Icelandic Coast Guards. Germany is going to accept 200,000 and Sweden upwards of 90,000 Syrian refugees from the nearly four year bloody civil war. A war spawned by Sunni Salafist extremists, the Al Qaeda Jabhat al Nusra and the self-declared Islamic State. The US State Department is prepared to accept an allotment of 20,000 Syrian refugees in compliance with UN humanitarian refugee standards under the 1980 US Refugee Act.

The leftist governments in Europe and the US Administration are blind to the doctrinal imperative in Sunni and Shiite Islam to follow the way of Allah, jihad. Sunni extremists are compelled under this doctrine to retake the lands once conquered in the great waves of jihad begun over 14 centuries ago. That wave of jihad captured a broad swath from the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa to the heartland of the Sunni and Shiite Near East, Central and South Asia, parts of what is now China and the archipelago of Indonesia and even the Philippines. Those conquered realms cost the lives of hundreds of millions of unbelievers over a millennium removing their religions and cultures, leaving those remnants reduced in status, without civil or human rights, subject to depredations at any moment. These extremists believe that their G-d Allah gave them those conquered lands as a waqf or trust for eternity. Then think of the horrors perpetrated by Islamic State Salafists emulating the barbarity of Mohammed and his companions, the future Caliphs. The Islamic State, equipped with abandoned US and Russian equipment from Syria and Iraq has cut a swath across both Arab states. The Islamic State’s barbaric rampages have involved graphic beheading of American and British citizens along with mass beheadings of Syrian soldiers, crucifying, enslaving and extorting all along their path. Especially vulnerable have been religious minority Christians, Yazidis, Sabeans, Mandeans, Kurds, Shia and non-believing Sunni Muslims, whom they consider infidels. That is why there will never be a peace treaty between the Palestinians and the Israelis let alone between Islam and what we deem “the West.”

And who facilitated this in the West, you ask? How about the CIA and the Eisenhower Administration. They invited the son-in-law of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, Dr. Said Ramadan, into the Oval Office in the summer of 1953, in the delusion that they could combat Soviet Communism threats in the so-called third world through the Saudi sponsored Muslim League. The CIA even helped ex-Nazis and ex-Waffen SS Muslim veterans form a mosque in Munich that the Muslim Brotherhood took over and whose leaders, like Dr. Ramadan and others, sent agents to the US in the 1960s to form the Muslim Student Association and the Islamic Society of North America headquartered in Plainfield, Indiana. These groups and other Muslim Brotherhood fronts were cited as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2008 Federal Dallas trial that convicted leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Muslim charity that funneled upwards of $36 million to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, a foreign terrorist organization designated by our State Department.

Nothing has changed since the 1950’s. In the 21st Century both the Bush and Obama Administrations have deepened support for the Muslim Brotherhood concept of “democracy” in the countries of the Arab Spring and infiltrated of our government at the highest levels. Both US Administrations wanted to engage Muslim Brotherhood Islamists in dialogue, mistakenly believing that this might result in cooperation and peace at home and in the bloody borders of the Middle East surrounding the Jewish nation of Israel – a nation that, for its own security, has the most powerful military in the Middle East. The late General and Secretary of State Alexander Haig once said: “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.” Israel shares common American values of liberty, freedom, free speech and tolerance of minority citizens. The current US Administration’s agenda is to transform conflict through miltilateralism and avoiding having a steel fist in a velvet glove approach to protecting national interests. The Administration delayed shipping the IDF critical authorized weaponry during the 2014 summer war with Hamas in Gaza.

Israel may now be threatened with Palestinian charges of war crimes at the International Criminal Court at The Hague and a reprise of last week’s failed draft Palestinian resolution at the UN Security Council. A resolution which, if adopted, would consign Israel and its citizens to commit national suicide. Remember what happened to pre-World War II Czechoslovakia at Munich in September 1938 when allied appeasement of Hitler and Italian fascist dictator Mussolini dismembered a democracy with a well equipped modern army. By March of 1939, Czechoslovakia was dismembered. The largely German Sudetenland was ceded because of allied appeasement and an enforced agreement imposed on Czech President Eduard Benes. The Nazis marched into Prague signaling the death of democracy in central Europe. The nightmare of Czechoslovakia’s fall to appease Nazi tyranny wasn’t relieved until May 1945 when General Patton’s Third Army freed them, liberating Nazi death camps along the way. Is that what the Administration wants to have occur in the 21st Century at the UN Security Council to ally Israel whose sovereignty is supported by the majority of the American public and the Congress?

The machination against Israel by the Palestinians, the Arab League, members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and EU members at the UN and now the ICC are poised to harm Israel, despite support from Americans, Australians and Canadians. In Vienna there is the appeasement by the  P5+1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, seeking to rein in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s quest for nuclear hegemony providing a shield for its state sponsored terrorism.

The Administration has a dilemma facing them in the UN and Congress over vetoes against the Palestinian  state resolution seeking to dismember and destroy Israel and Iran’s perfection of nuclear capabilities to “wipe Israel off the map of the world,” all while Iran’s Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Khamenei, President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif have pulled the wool over the eyes of the Administration. President Obama and his National security advisers are seeking to re-establish an embassy in Tehran just like the one they intend to re-open in Havana. Think of it, renewing relations with two oppressive regimes, Communist Cuba and Mahdist Shiite Iran. Iran may already have achieved nuclear breakout and this year may be on the cusp of testing an ICBM for delivery of nuclear warheads to the US. They already have Intermediate range ballistic missiles covering all of Europe with conventional warheads. Shades of the Nazi V-1 and V-2 rockets that rained death and destruction on Britain during WWII.

The US military, as a result of the sequester and other budget initiatives, is unable to put boots on the ground in conflicts where projection of American military power could be effective. Think of the war to “degrade” and destroy the Islamic State, Russian President Putin’s actions in the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine and threats to NATO members in the Baltic states. The 114th Session of Congress in January 2015 will have to concern itself with redressing the imbalance in our military security budget. Witness an Army with a field force 440,000, less than we had in 1940 prior to WWII, a Marine force cut to 174,000 or a Navy fleet with less than 306 vessels and aging Air Force fleet with overage B-52’s. Is it any wonder that a recent Military Times survey found that less than 15 percent of active military were pleased with this Administration? The new GOP- controlled Congress may hopefully change that imbalance and enhance our national security.

In a late December 2014 NPR interview with President Obama, he said he might be prepared to use his veto authority on specific legislation passed by the new Congress. Senator Mark Kirk in theSunday Fox interview indicated that 17 Democrats, including New Jersey’s Bob Menendez and New York’s Charles Schumer may have the requisite votes to pass new stronger sanctions legislation against Iran’s nuclear program in view of the Islamic regime fobbing off failed P5+1 negotiations. Those 17 Democratic Senate votes would make such a measure veto proof. This puts President Obama in a difficult situation regarding his engagement of the Islamic regime in Tehran, a regime that has successfully outmaneuvered the P5+1 and Administration and likely has already achieved nuclear breakout. Omri Ceren chronicled this in a Commentary article, “Enabling Iran’s Nukes” saying, “The lies began at the very beginning with American assurances [it] had secured a ‘halt’ in the Iranian nuclear program.” This is a matter of great concern to Israel’s PM Netanyahu who would support such Congressional action on tougher Iran sanctions.

The one bright spot has been the US energy revolution driven by fracking and horizontal drilling technologies that has had a global impact. Iran is feeling the ravaging of its economy due to the loss of revenue from oil and gas production. Given the precipitous fall in world energy prices, due in part to the drop in demand and the vaulting of US energy production to first rank in 2015. That has forced Iran to suggest that fellow OPEC member Saudi Arabia cooperates to cut production. This is an unlikely prospect since the Saudis are unwilling to relent given their $750 billion dollar hard currency reserve cushion. What the 114th Session should also do is take up passage of the Keystone XL pipeline so that the US can export cheap energy to the world possibly contributing to the breakup of OPEC.

So, what can American activists do in 2015? Here are some suggested social media campaigns to alert the media and the newly-organized Congress under the Republicans to the issues involved and possible actions they should consider as an agenda:

  1. Push for enhanced budget initiatives for a strong military enabling the US to support valued allies by projecting power in concert with diplomacy.hashtag  # Congress increase our military strength and preparedness.
  2. Oppose the Palestinian suicide campaign against Israel.hashtag # Defund The Palestinian State
  3. Push for stronger sanctions against Iran’s nuke and ICBMs.hashtag #Pass strong sanctions against Iran’s nukes and ICBMs.
  4. Promote the American energy revolution in 2015. hashtag, # Pass the Keystone XL Pipeline to Export US Energy to the World.
  5. Support the 2014 US Israel Strategic Partnership Act. hashtag # Implement the US Strategic Partnership with Israel Act.
  6. Prevent the possible flood of “humanitarian refugees.”hashtag # Stop UN Abuses of our Refugee Laws.
  7. Complete the House Special Committee investigation into Benghazi.hashtag # Benghazi Truth is on the March.
  8. Build a local dossier on Muslim Brotherhood leaders at the more than 2000 mosques across America.hashtag # Know your local Imams.

Doubtless this agenda of social media agenda may attract activists to join in this battle for our liberty, freedom, and preservation of foundational Judeo Christian values. That would bring hope to embattled Europeans and support for Israel in the war torn Sunni and Shiite extremist Middle East.

This excerpts from speaking notes on February 9, 1941 by Sir Winston Churchill  when Britain was virtually alone should be a call for action:

We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

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

Father of a fallen U.S. Marine returns condolence letter to President Obama with comments

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Steven R. Hogan, father of fallen U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Hunter D. Hogan took the condolence letter he received from Barack Obama and wrote with his own hand the following:

“I wonder how many of these get returned to you!

“Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama,

I am deeply saddened that you are the President of the United States. You sir are an embarrassment to the Oval Office. My son, as well as most Marines I know, despise you and your lack of representation for our military.

Your ridiculous rules of engagement have caused the massive amount of casualties on your watch in Afghanistan. While we watch your media pander to your administration and clearly sweep things under the rug for you, I fully understand Marines die. You have tied their hands & feet!

I am thankful I did not serve under a Comm. in Chief such as you. I am sickened that my son had to. I wonder… I doubt that you will see this, I hope you do though!”

“Steve Hogan”

Kyle Becker, from IJReview.com, writes, “While President Obama boasts of ending the War in Afghanistan, a Marine dad’s letter from 2012 helps put this ‘achievement’ in perfect perspective. The comments on a letter of condolence from President Obama to Steven R. Hogan, posted publicly, tells a much different narrative than the one the White House and much of the news media have trumpeted.”

“In the 13-year war, over 74% of all military casualties have occurred on President Obama’s watch. In addition, a staggering 92% of all Marine deaths have happened under this presidency,” notes Becker.

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For a larger view click on the image.

General Allen: U.S. must “defeat the idea” of the Islamic State

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There is no indication that General Allen has any idea of what he is talking about. What “idea” does he propose to defeat? He probably means that he is going to destroy the idea that the Islamic State constitutes the new caliphate — which is no doubt one reason why the media establishment keeps churning out its endless stream of disingenuous and deceptive “ISIS is not Islamic” articles. But he is part of an Administration that has prohibited examination of the jihadis’ belief system; that is going to hamstring his efforts to combat it.

“Obama Envoy John Allen: No ‘Short-Term Solutions’ for Stopping Islamic State,” by Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark, Spiegel, December 31, 2014:

In an interview, US General John Allen, Washington’s special envoy for countering the Islamic State, discusses why he believes the recent military campaign has reversed the terrorist group’s momentum but warns the battle to stop its ideology could take years.

General John Allen, 61, has served as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (IS) under US President Barack Obama since September. He previously served for three years as the deputy commander of the US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Allen uses the Arabic term “Daesh” when referring to IS in order to prevent having to say the word “state”.

No, it’s to avoid having to say the word “Islamic.”

…SPIEGEL: President Obama has stated he wants to “ultimately destroy and dismantle” IS. Was it a mistake to set such a maximalist goal that is almost impossible to reach?

Allen: It’s important to have a clear understanding of what we ultimately seek. I don’t believe that the president intended to imply the “annihilation” of Daesh. That is far beyond our thinking in this regard. We want to deny Daesh the ability to have safe havens either in Iraq or, ultimately, in Syria, to preclude its capacity to organize an existential threat to those countries. Annihilation requires a great deal of investment, resources and time. The defeating, dismantling and degrading of Daesh, and ultimately destroying the idea, is the long-term objective. It’s important to understand that what we’re undertaking as a coalition is much bigger, much broader, than simply the military role. The military role is the most conspicuous right now and attracts the most attention. We have five lines of effort that in the end converge to degrade and defeat Daesh: providing military support to our partners; impeding the flow of foreign fighters; stopping IS’s financing and funding; addressing humanitarian crises in the region; and exposing IS’s true nature….

SPIEGEL: Another huge challenge is IS’s propaganda. It was a brilliant move to declare an “Islamic State”. How are you going to deal with this?

Allen: We need not only to expose Daesh for the darkness that it is, but also to celebrate the values within countries that help defeat the attractiveness of Daesh. You asked about “destroying” before: We can only destroy Daesh when we destroy the attractiveness of its brand. When you can defeat the idea, then you have destroyed the organization. We want to build capacity in countries in the region and the Coalition to reduce its attractiveness for recruiting…

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Egyptian President Calls For Islam To Grow Up

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“I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.” – Gen. El Sisi

By Wallace Bruschweiler and Alan Kornman.

Sisi TimeEgyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi calls for Islam to ‘grow up’ and join the 21st Century in its “Islamic thinking” at the prestigious Al-Azhar University.

General al-Sisi is saying the current Islamic Thinking based on the texts and Islamic Law are “antagonizing the entire world” General al-Sisi understands that the current trajectory of the Islamic World is the major “source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction” for the rest of the non-Muslim world.

General al-Sisi, a devout Muslim, is telling all who will listen that his fellow Muslims who use terrorism, suicide bombings, beheadings, mass killings, violent expansionism and wish to kill and subjugate ‘the others’ to build a new caliphate so that they themselves may live, is Impossible!

“You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it from the outside, to root it out and replace it with a more enlightened vision of the world” General al-Sisi says.

General al-Sisi’s message will will capture the imagination of everyone who dreams of the day where the Muslim and non-Muslim world will find a common ground of mutual respect and the possibility of living in a more peaceful world.

Sisi MB WarningConversely, al-Sisi’s message will enrage those who support violent Islamic expansionism, totalitarianism, hatred of the non-Muslim, and subjugation of entire populations both Muslim and non-Muslim who do not follow the right form of Islam, whatever that may be.

Assuming President Obama does not openly support General al-Sisi’s call for Islam to join the 21st Century, we will know he is not a part of the solution. If American Islamic civil rights groups like (CAIR) Council On American Islamic Relations, (MSA) Muslim Students Association, (ISNA) Islamic Society of North America, (NAIT) North American Islamic Trust, (MAS)Muslim American Society, and (MB) The Muslim Brotherhood to name only a few, do not publicly support General al-Sisi’s call for change then they are a part of the problem.

We strongly suspect General al-Sisi’s message had been cleared with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Egyptian President General El Sisi – New Years Day Speech 2015 (Excerpt):

“I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma[Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!

That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!
Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it from the outside, to root it out and replace it with a more enlightened vision of the world.

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.”

Where do you and especially the so called silent majority of Muslims stand?

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is courtesy of AFP.

The 10 Most Important Jihad Stories of 2014

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Over at PJ Media I recap ten of the year’s low-lights:

Here are the most significant advances made by Islamic supremacists this year.

10. The abduction of the Nigerian schoolgirls

Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian jihad group named the Congregation of the People of the Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad and better known as Boko Haram (“Western Education Is Sinful,” or “Books Bad”), disgusted and horrified the world last May, and even provoked a Michelle Obama hashtag, by abducting over three hundred schoolgirls and selling them into sex slavery. Shekau even published a video in which he gloats about the abduction, telling the girls’ grieving families:

I abducted your girls. I will sell them on the market, by Allah….There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell.

Shekau had a point: the Qur’an really does allow for the owning of sex slaves. Muslim men can take “captives of the right hand” (Qur’an 4:3, 4:24, 33:50). It also says: “O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war” (33:50). 4:3 and 4:24 extend this privilege to Muslim men in general, as does this passage:

Certainly will the believers have succeeded: They who are during their prayer humbly submissive, and they who turn away from ill speech, and they who are observant of zakah, and they who guard their private parts except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed, they will not be blamed (Qur’an 23:1-6).

None – absolutely none – of the extensive international coverage of the abduction discussed the justifications for this practice within the Qur’an. This refusal to deal with the root causes only ensured that the practice would happen again, and it did later in the year, when the Islamic State pressed Yazidi and Christian women into sex slavery.

9. Britain’s capitulation on Muslim rape gangs

Britain’s Birmingham Mail reported in November that Birmingham’s City Council buried a report about Muslim cab drivers exploiting non-Muslim girls back in 1990.

A researcher, Dr. Jill Jesson, drafted a report on this issue. But, she explained,

the report was shelved, buried, it was never made public. I was shocked to be told that copies of the report were to be destroyed and that nothing further was to be said. Clearly, there was something in this report that someone in the department was worried about.

Authorities were worried because Jesson’s report illustrated that virtually all of the exploitative cab drivers were “Asians,” the British media euphemism for Muslims, and their victims were “white,” i.e., non-Muslim. The exploitation of these girls stems from Qur’an-based religious beliefs, but British officials were terrified because stopping this exploitation would appear “racist.”

Jesson elaborated:

There was a link between the sexual abuse of the girls and private hire drivers in the city. I thought at the time I did the work that there was an issue with race. Most of the girls were white. I was asked to take this link out, to erase it….Every time a news item has come on about sexual grooming of young girls and girls in care, and the link, too, between private hire drivers, I have thought “I told them about that in 1991 but they didn’t want to acknowledge it.”

“The sad part of this story,” Jesson concluded, “is not the suppression of evidence but that the relevant organisations have failed to address this problem.”

Indeed so – and that is because of its racial and religious aspects. British authorities persist in seeing this as a racial issue, when in fact these cabbies only preyed upon these girls because they were non-Muslims, and thus eligible to become “captives of the right hand” and used as sex slaves.

But the fact is they see it as a racial issue, and their anxiety to avoid “racism” led them to cover up these cases and allow thousands of girls to be victimized for 23 years. The officials responsible for this should be arrested, tried, and imprisoned. The race-mongers on the current British scene, such as far-Left smearmongers like Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate and Fiyaz Mughal of Tell Mama UK, have been denounced by opinion-makers and policymakers from all points on the political spectrum — and should be tried also if their complicity in this behavior is found to have risen to criminal culpability.

Instead, British authorities looked for scapegoats. The BBC reported in November that “the police watchdog is to investigate 10 South Yorkshire Police officers over the handling of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham,” where 1,400 British non-Muslim children were gang-raped and brutalized by Muslims, and “several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.”

These managers are the ones who are really responsible for this, along with opinion-makers such as Lowles and Mughal who created the culture in which people cower in fear at charges of “racism.” These ten police officers who were being investigated were just being set up to take the fall; they originated neither the police policies nor the cultural climate that led to the abandonment of these 1,400 abused children to their fate. Those who created the climate in which those who knew about this hesitated to speak out, for fear of being called “racist,” are the ones who ought to be put on trial — Lowles and Mughal and their ilk. These police officers, if they did cover up the activities of these rape gangs, are just the symptoms of the problem, not its cause.

8. The Bergdahl trade

The British weren’t the only ones capitulating. When he announced on May 31 the exchange of five Guantanamo detainees for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held by Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan since 2009, Barack Obama declared that the swap was “a reminder of America’s unwavering commitment to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield.” However, as ever more damning information came to light about both the deal and Bergdahl himself, it became increasingly clear that the prisoner exchange was actually a reminder of Barack Obama’s unwavering commitment to appeasing and aiding jihadis.

The freed jihadis included, according to the Associated Press, “Abdul Haq Wasiq, who served as the Taliban deputy minister of intelligence”; “Khairullah Khairkhwa, who served in various Taliban positions including interior minister and had direct ties to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden”; and “Mohammad Fazl, whom Human Rights Watch says could be prosecuted for war crimes for presiding over the mass killing of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.”

What could possibly go wrong?

Even more disturbing were the questions swirling around Bergdahl himself. Former infantry officer Nathan Bradley Bethea, who served with Bergdahl, wrote in the Daily Beast that “Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down.” Refuting reports that Bergdahl got separated from his unit while on patrol, Bethea declared: “Make no mistake: Bergdahl did not ‘lag behind on a patrol,’ as was cited in news reports at the time. There was no patrol that night. Bergdahl was relieved from guard duty, and instead of going to sleep, he fled the outpost on foot. He deserted. I’ve talked to members of Bergdahl’s platoon—including the last Americans to see him before his capture. I’ve reviewed the relevant documents. That’s what happened.”

By the year’s end, the results of the investigation of Bergdahl’s conduct have – as the most pessimistic among us could have predicted – not been released.

7. The Islamic State beheadings

Bergdahl was one of the few captives of jihadis to come home alive. The Islamic State shocked and appalled the world as it carried out a series of beheadings of hostages and other prisoners, including Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and Peter Kassig, and Britons David Haines and Alan Henning.

The White House response to these atrocities took on a clockwork predictability. Obama might as well have had a form ready for the next one: all he would have had to do would have been to fill in the blank and then take to the airwaves to say that the latest bloodshed had nothing to do with Islam.

In Kassig’s case, Obama seized on the hostage’s at-gunpoint conversion to Islam to assert: “ISIL’s actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own.”

“Least of all”! As if it were possible that the Islamic State’s actions represented Buddhism, or Methodism, or Christian Science, or the Hardshell Baptists, or the Mandaeans, to greater or lesser degrees, but the most far-fetched association one could make, out of all the myriad faiths people hold throughout the world, would be to associate the Islamic State’s actions with…Islam. The Islamic State’s actions represented no faith, said the president, least of all Islam – as if it were more likely that the Islamic State were made up of Presbyterians or Lubavitcher Hasidim or Jains or Smartas than that it were made up of Muslims.

Yet anywhere that people read the phrase “when you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” (Qur’an 47:4) as if it were a command of the Creator of the Universe, the fatuousness of Obama’s claim is revealed anew. The truth will out; indeed, it is already abundantly out. We can only hope that not too many more will have to feel the blade at their necks before Obama and the rest can no longer avoid taking realistic and effective action.

6. The Oklahoma beheadingOn September 21, the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, urged Muslims to murder non-Muslims in the West. “Rely upon Allah,” he thundered, “and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling.” He also addressed Western non-Muslims:

You will not feel secure even in your bedrooms. You will pay the price when this crusade of yours collapses, and thereafter we will strike you in your homeland, and you will never be able to harm anyone afterwards.

Five days later, Jah’Keem Yisrael (formerly Alton Alexander Nolen) beheaded one of his coworkers and was shot while in the process of trying to behead another in Vaughan Foods, a food processing plant in Moore, Oklahoma. No one made the connection between his actions and al-Adnani’s call, despite the fact that Yisrael’s Facebook was full of admiring material about the Islamic State, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The beheader even had a graphic photo of a beheading captioned with another Qur’anic beheading verse (8:12) on his Facebook page.

Authorities did not classify his action as terrorism.

5. The Canadian jihad strikes

In October, Canada experienced two murderous jihad terror attacks in three days. Ahmad Rouleau, a convert to Islam, hit two Canadian soldiers with his car, murdering Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Then he led police on a high-speed chase, during which he called 911 and explained that he was doing it all “in the name of Allah.” The chase, and Rouleau’s jihad, ended when he flipped his car and then, brandishing a knife, charged police, who shot him dead. One of Rouleau’s close friends said:

It was a terrorist attack and Martin died like he wanted to. That’s what happened….He did this because he wanted to reach paradise and assure paradise for his family. He wanted to be a martyr….The caliphate called all the Muslims on earth to fight. He listened to what they had to say and he did his part here.

Two days later, another Muslim, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, went on a shooting rampage in Ottawa, murdering military reservist Corporal Nathan Cirillo and engaging in a gun battle inside Canada’s Parliament building. He had threatened to strike “in the name of Allah in response to Canadian foreign policy.”

Islamic State spokesmen Al-Adnani told Muslims in September to murder non-Muslims with any weapon at hand, or anything that could be used as a weapon: “If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.” Zehaf-Bibeau found a bullet. Rouleau found a car.

In reality, what motivated him was blazingly obvious, but it was the one thing most Western government officials and all of the mainstream media have determined to ignore, and so the search was one for some other remotely plausible motive that could be sold to a public that is increasingly suspicious of what the government and media elites are telling them. Toronto’s Globe and Mail quoted a friend of Zehaf-Bibeau saying, “I think he must have been mentally ill.” It was a refrain we would increasingly hear in connection with jihad attacks as the year went on.

Meanwhile, the denial and unreality regarding the jihad threat took other forms as well…

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I trust that John Kerry or Joe Biden is on his way to Broward County to explain to Sheheryar Alam Qazi and Raees Alam Qazi how they’re misunderstanding the Religion of Peace.

“Accused Oakland Park Terrorist’s Phone Conversations Can Be Used as Evidence, Feds Say,” by Chris Joseph, BrowardPalmBeach.com, January 2, 2015:

Oakland Park brothers Sheheryar Alam Qazi, and Raees Alam Qazi are set to go on trial this year on terrorism charges, and prosecutors are planning to use secretly recorded phone calls between one of the men and his wife as evidence against them.

The defense says that the phone conversations were obtained in violation of the marital confidential communications privilege, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed.

The Pakistani-born brothers have been charged by the FBI with conspiring to explode a weapon of mass destruction in the United States. They pleaded not guilty at a hearing in federal court in Fort Lauderdale in 2013.

The younger of the two, 22-year-old Raees, was charged by the FBI with conspiring to funnel “material support” to terrorists planning to explode a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the United State. Raees allegedly planned to either blow himself up or detonate a bomb in New York that would cause massive casualties, according to federal prosecutors. Older brother Sheheryar, 32, financially supported Raees’ alleged plot.

According to court filings, Sheheryar and his wife’s phone conversations were wire-tapped between August and September of 2012. The calls include the couple discussing younger brother’s lack of income for their alleged plot, where the wife — whose name has not been made public — told her husband that his younger brother should get a job, particularly to help pay the bills at the couple’s home.

The wife complains that Raees should pay his own way, even in matters of trying to commit a terrorist act.

“Even if he is going for Jihad,” one of the conversations go, via the Sun-Sentinel, “Even so, he needs to do some hard work. He should not ask others for help … One should pay for one’s own expenses.”

She also apparently gave Sheheryar direction on how to encourage Raees to get off his lazy terrorist butt and get a job.

“Tell him, ‘You do a job’,” she says in one of the phone conversations. “Earning here is written into his destiny by God.”

Apparently, not getting a job was just one of the sort of clumsy way Raees went about trying to make Jihad on America.

While scouting locations to bomb in New York, Raees apparently read an al-Qaeda online magazine article titled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.”

Qazi also reportedly told authorities that he came to Broward to “practice” for a bombing and to build an explosive device. But the device failed.

In 2012, New Times reported that the brothers peddled an X-Box, a random assortment of videogames, and bicycles on Craigslist back in April 2010.

But the feds point to a troubled man in Raees, one who was ready to take his own life and possibly others as well in the process.

According to one phone call, Sheheryar tells his wife of a letter Raees showed him on his computer that talked about Osama bin Laden “uniting a Muslim army under one flag to wage Islamic war.”

“In a way, he has given up on himself,” Sheheryar tells his wife. “That is why he does not try to get … a permanent job so that, ‘I don’t get too tied up with something else and forget about God’s work.’”

Prosecutors point to the comments made about not getting a permanent job, and the line “God’s work,” as evidence that Raees was planning to do something that would harm or kill Americans. They also say that Sheheryar and his wife knew of Raees’ plans to commit a terrorist act, and that Sheheryar helped him financially to do so….

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Sheheryar Alam Qazi and Raees Alam Qazi.

Tom Trento and Friends Predictions and Resolutions 2015 (Part 2)

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PREDICTIONS & RESOLUTIONS from friends of The United West.

WOW, what a great two-part show we have for our listeners and viewers scheduled for Jan 1 & 2! We reached out to newsmakers, activists, patriots, Zionists and warriors for the Judeo-Christian worldview and asked them two questions: What RESOLUTIONS do you have for 2015 and what geopolitical PREDICTIONS do you have for 2015?

You will be amazed at the responses we got from our distinguished guests who range from military Generals to homemakers who are hard-core Tea Party activists!

Tune in, sit back, enjoy and oh, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To watch Part I click here.

Supreme Court Undercuts Fourth Ammendment as America’s Freedoms Fade

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The road is now cleared for martial law and perhaps the end of America as we know it. Military “standing where it ought not” (Mark 13:14) was a sign to flee Jerusalem, but the idea of fleeing the cities when we see it as early believers did, seems strange to most Christians. Are they like the frog in warm water, about to be cooked (trapped)?

The Supreme Court ruled that police officers are permitted to violate American citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights if the violation results from a “reasonable” mistake about the law (8-1 in Heien v. State of North Carolina ).

John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of the award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State said, “By refusing to hold police accountable to knowing and abiding by the rule of law, the Supreme Court has given government officials a green light to…police overreach, military training drills on American soil, domestic surveillance, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, wrongful convictions, and corporate corruption…This ruling is what I would call a one-way, nonrefundable ticket to the police state.”

Unconstitutional search and seizure is common if we understand Constitutional rights to travel uninhibited by such. I have been stopped when by highway patrol noting a single crack in my windshield. He wanted proof of insurance (search) but it wasn’t required to renew my car license (I was from out of state) so the ticket was $1000—seizure!

That may seem like an isolated case, but I have been pulled over by a cop (standing in a residential intersection) for not having my seat belt on, and then Pandora’s box is open for driver’s license etc. Woe be when they get everything computerized to find dissidents. Mary land also has stake-outs to ticket pedestrians who cross in the middle of the block—they are supposed to cross at the corner with the light. The government is like a predator.

Hate for unfair laws to support a greedy government is coming to a head with the image of Daniel 2 in the Bible crumbling to be blown away in the wind. Lawlessness is becoming widespread as seen by the killing of innocent police officers. This kind of rebellion will only end in FEMA camps and bondage.

Matt Drudge was right when he tweeted, “Have an exit plan.” Christ was implying the same idea when He said to flee the abomination that early believers understood to be military. They fled Jerusalem and were spared the siege by Titus, but that warning foreshadowed “the end of the world,” Matthew 24:3,15.

Early Chistians had no problem fleeing because they had already sold what they had and held everything in common, Acts 2:44,45. The Bible contrasts Christ’s last church as lukewarm with materialism—blind is part of the description that could apply to unhappy western Christians sometime soon.

Millions of Christians are trapped in cities of America. They have the illusion they are free, but will they do so as early Christians did from Jerusalem when military showed up? It’s doubtful. Most are like the frog in warm water that is slowly heating—they don’t know when to jump. Maybe God is giving us some signs?

Didn’t He say, “The sun shall be darkened and the moon turned into blood before…the day of the Lord,” Joel 2:31. It will happen this spring!

Furthermore, the solar eclipse on March 20 and a “blood moon” two weeks later on Passover supports this year as a unique parallel to Exodus 12:2 when God indicated the beginning of the biblical year and two weeks later, Israel put blood on their doorposts for Passover, verse 7.

And what is Passover? It’s a time of judgment. God said then, “I will execute judgment,” Exodus 12:12. Will He do it for America?

Billy Graham said, If God waits much longer, He will have to apologize to Sodom. Many cultures have a problem with homosexuality, but Sodom “paraded” it, Isaiah 3:9, NIV. In the US, gay parades flaunt sin as Sodom did.

Harold Camping, who died after a failed rapture event a couple years ago, was probably right with his idea of http://MayJudgmentDay.com but wrong to connect it to a rapture and he didn’t have the advantage of the unique timing for the solar and lunar eclipses that will mark this spring.

EDITORS NOTE: Dr. Richard Ruhling offers a dozen parallels of the US to Egypt, that received the plagues of God’s judgments, in his ebook, Exodus 2, available as a gift on Saturday, January 3 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EN63UR2. He also offers The Fall of America free January 3 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L1V2I84 (both 99 cents regular price).

Could Israel Lose the Energy Prize in the Eastern Mediterranean?

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Major Israeli Offshore Gas Fields

Source: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daniel Wurmser “The Geopolitics of Israel’s Offshore Gas Reserves”, April 4, 2013.

In December 2011, we published what might have been a prescient prediction of Israel‘s emerging energy independence, Will Israel Win the Energy Prize in the Levant Basin? We drew attention to the geo-political opportunities and security risks to the Jewish nation from the discovery and development of significant off shore gas deposits in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Levant Basin. These have been developed by Houston, Texas-based Noble Energy, Inc. and its Israeli partner, Delek Group, Ltd. (hereafter referred to as “the Consortium”). In 2009 came the discovery of the Tamar gas field with estimated reserves of 7.9 trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) by the Consortium followed by the giant Leviathan field a year later in 2010 with estimated reserves of 21.9 TCF. Production from Tamar began flowing in April 2013 with immediate economic benefits to Israel. A third major gas field discovery in Israel’s offshore EEZ, the Royee, with estimated reserves of 3.2 TCF was announced in mid-December 2014 by Ratio Oil. The potential significance of these energy developments for Israel is huge.

Combined, Israel’s current gas reserves in the leading Tamar and Leviathan gas fields amount to more than 31.6 trillion cubic feet (TCF). The US Geological Survey has estimated that the Eastern Levant Basin in the Mediterranean may conservatively hold upwards of 125 TCF of gas and 81 billion barrels of oil at lower depths.

Using the US Energy Information Administration current NYMEX natural gas futures price as of December 26, 2014 for delivery January 2015 of $3.07 07 per MBTU, the estimated value of the 31.6 trillion cubic feet of estimated reserves in Israel’s offshore fields developed by the Consortium could be worth approximately $97 billion. That is equivalent to over 35.5% of Israel’s 2013 GDP of $273 billion. The impact on the country’s GDP growth would be significant.

As evidence of how Israel values these offshore gas discoveries in September 2014, the Ministry of Defense after a delay of several years, issued tenders to naval shipyards in Germany, South Korea, US and Israel for procurement of four specialized patrol vessels at an estimated cost of NIS 2 Billion ($510 Million dollars) to provide security for offshore gas production platforms. Israel was also concerned about Hezbollah threats to these offshore gas facilities. One of the suspected reasons for an Israel Air Force covert attack in Syria on December 8, 2014 was to prevent delivery of long range missiles including Iranian supplied Yakhont anti-shipping missiles to proxy Hezbollah that might used to attack offshore platforms and Israeli Naval patrol vessels.

However, these prospects of an energy independent future may have been thrown in jeopardy by a ruling in late December 2014 by Israel’s independent Anti-Trust Authority (IAA) essentially declaring the Consortium a monopoly and reneging on prior compromise deals with the Consortium partners. Noble Energy, Inc. and Delek Group had agreed in the compromise to sell interests in smaller developed offshore gas fields in exchange for retaining ownership of both the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields in Israel’s EEZ. The Consortium partners have requested an early 2015 hearing on the IAA ruling. Many believe this unprecedented IAA ruling may have been a political maneuver aimed squarely at the caretaker government of Israeli PM Netanyahu in the midst of a campaign for a snap election on March 17, 2015. The question before us is could Israel lose it’s much sought after energy prize in the Eastern Mediterranean?

Potential Economic Benefits to Israel from its Off Shore Gas Developments

One indication of the importance is reflected in the long term economic benefits to Israel. An Ernst & Young report released at a January 2014 energy conference in Israel pegged the value of those economic benefits to Israel at $52 billion reported by Globes Israel Business:

The Tamar gas field, which began production in April 2013, boosted Israel’s GDP by almost half a percentage point, and it is projected to boost GDP by 1.5 percentage points in 2014.

Ernst & Young Israel found that the main component of the gas’s value is not the government’s expected tax revenues from oil and gas, but the savings to the economy from the purchase of cheaper natural gas for electricity production, industry, and transportation. Gas currently costs Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) about $6 per million BTU, a third of the cost of the alternative fuels – diesel, industrial oil, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) – all of which are imported.

Tamar Gas Platform offshore Israel: Source Noble Energy, Inc.

Tamar comes on line beginning Israel’s Energy Independence

The intervening three years have witnessed the opening of production for the Tamar field and negotiations of several deals to export production authorized by the Israeli cabinet.

The Consortium had opened up smaller gas deposits before discovering on January 1, 2009  the Tamar gas field with 7.9 TCF, 50 miles offshore Haifa. The Consortium committed $3 billion for development of Tamar. In March 2012 the Tamar Consortium “signed a 15-year, US$14 billion deal with the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) to supply it with 42 billion cubic meters (BCM) of natural gas, with an option to increase the gas purchases up to $23 billion. By March 2012, the consortium developing Tamar had signed deals worth up to a total of $32 billion with six Israeli companies, committing up to 133BCM.” Delivery of Tamara’s first gas to Israel’s national power company began in April 2013. The growing Tamar field deliveries to the IEC eliminated reliance on supply of Egyptian gas via pipeline from the Sinai frequently disrupted by terrorist bombings.

Leviathan gas platform offshore Israel Source Ynet.org.

Leviathan Emerges but Strategic Investment Deals Falter

In 2010 came word of the discovery and development of the large Leviathan gas field located 81 miles West of Haifa and 29 miles southwest of the Tamar field with an estimated 21.9 TCF that lies in Israel’s EEZ. Leviathan is due to begin producing gas in 2017. Leviathan attempts at exports have taken its lumps. That is reflected in the failure to reach a deal with Australian energy concern, Woodside, Pty.

Meanwhile, the Woodside Leviathan Partners deal hasn’t been inked. UPI had this update on talks with the Delek Group:

Bloomberg News reported that Woodside, the No. 2 oil and gas producer in Australia, would pay more than $2 billion for a 30 percent stake in the Leviathan natural gas field from partners Delek, Noble Energy and Avner Oil Exploration.

Delek said, however, that a formal deal was still in the works.

“The negotiation between the Leviathan partners and Woodside toward signing a binding agreement is ongoing,” the company said. “Should a significant development in relation to the above-mentioned negotiations take place, the partnerships will publish an immediate report.”

Woodside’s CEO Peter Coleman at a Houston HIS/CERA energy conference in early March 2013 expressed “confidence” about closing on the purchase of Nobel partner interest in the overall Leviathan deal.

Negotiations between the Consortium and Woodside continued. In February 2014, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed for final negotiations between the Consortium and Woodside. There was the hope that the Woodside deal might finally close at an enhanced its price for purchase of a minority interest in Leviathan which would provide LNG technology.

On May 21, 2014, Bloomberg reported, “Woodside Scraps $2.6 Billion Israeli Gas Deal as Talks Fail”:

Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (WPL), Australia’s second-biggest oil and gas producer, scrapped an agreement to buy a quarter of Israel’s largest natural gas field for as much as $2.6 billion after talks to complete the deal collapsed.

“Negotiations between the parties failed to reach a commercially acceptable outcome,” the Perth-based company said today in a statement. Woodside had been in talks with a group includingNoble Energy Inc. (NBL) to invest in the Leviathan venture.

Tamar and Leviathan Consortium Potential Gas Deals with Jordan and Egypt

Agreement between the Consortium and the Israeli government allotted up to 40 percent of Tamar and Leviathan production for export. The US State Department thought this might be useful for development of regional economic and peace prospects. That resulted in negotiations of gas delivery projects with a Palestinian energy group and major Jordanian potash and bromine companies. A potential Egyptian contract may be in the works, as well. Consortium partner Noble Energy played a key role in facilitating these initial agreements. The New York Times reported:

Noble helped break the impasse by striking a separate deal with two Jordanian mineral companies, Arab Potash and Jordan Bromine. The companies will buy about $500 million of gas over 15 years from Tamar.

Jordan is one of the latest deals for Leviathan. In January, Noble and its Israeli partners reached an agreement to supply a power plant under construction in the West Bank by a Palestiniangroup.

Industry experts say that Noble will need more long-term commitments to support the expense of Leviathan. The project is expected to cost as much as $8 billion, and the Jordan deal accounts for only about 9 percent of the gas.

The most likely anchor customer is Egypt, a huge and growing market. Today, two gas export facilities on the Mediterranean are sitting largely idle. The Egyptian government is blocking exports in order to meet high domestic demand and stave off power blackouts.

This year, Noble reached nonbinding agreements with the owners of both of these facilities — British Gas, the large British producer, and a joint venture of Italy’s ENI and Spain’s Gas Natural Fenosa — to supply their facilities from Tamar and Leviathan. As part of the deals, the gas would also probably flow to the domestic market in Egypt.

Source: Turkish News September 8, 201.

Turkish Double Dealings over Offshore Gas in the Levant Basin

Turkey under Islamist Premier, now President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had threatened the Republic of Cyprus with retaliation over the discovery of the Aphrodite gas field off the southern coast of the Republic an EU member. The Aphrodite field with 7 TCF of natural gas is located 24 miles west of the giant Leviathan field with 21.9 TCF in Israel’s EEZ. Both the Aphrodite and Leviathan fields were developed by the Noble Energy, Inc. and Delek Partners consortium. We noted the quickening pace in November 2011 of geo-political moves and countermoves over exploitation of these strategic gas fields in the Levant Basin:

  • On November 2, 2011 Israel signed a bilateral energy development agreement with Cyprus, and Noble Energy announcing the development of a major LNG facility off the Island nation’s south coast;
  • On November 16th Turkey announced an offshore drilling deal with Shell Oil in an area in the waters close to the Turkish enclave in northern Cyprus;
  • On November 20-21, Israel’s then deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon met with Greek officials to discuss joint exploration of the region’s gas fields;
  • On November 23rd, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Israeli and Cypriot energy exploration in the Mediterranean was illegal, an agreement should first be reached with all relevant parties, and resources should be equally shared; and
  • On November 25th, Russia announced that it was sending its aircraft carrier the Admiral Kuznetzov for maneuvers in the disputed area offshore of Cyprus in a clear demonstration of support for Greek Cypriot claims and as a warning to the Erdogan regime in Ankara.

In mid-September, 2011, two Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-15s flew over both the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish northern enclave after buzzing a Turkish research vessel off Cyprus’ southern coast in violation of Cyprus’ EEZ. An Israeli helicopter loitered overhead near a Turkish research vessel, Piri Reis, while the later was in the Aphrodite gas field claimed by the Republic of Cyprus. IAF AWACs aircraft were patrolling along the EEZ of Cyprus and Israel, at an altitude of more than 40,000 feet. They were monitoring Turkish intrusions over Cypriot airspace. In symbolic retaliation, Turkey’s Air Force jets made passes over a Greek island off Turkey’s southwestern coast.

A week prior to these confrontations over Greece and Cyprus, Turkey and Turkish Cyprus concluded an agreement delimiting maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean. Agreements that conflict with the Republic of Cyprus-Israel EEZ. Turkey declared that it would protect its sole research vessel with warships. These actions raised the prospect of possible armed conflict.

Turkey’s posturing in 2011 was based on its seizure of an enclave, the rump Turkish Northern Cypriot ‘Republic’ carved out by a Turkish invasion in 1974. An opportunistic invasion contrived by the Turkish government at the time to counter the Greek military coup of the Archbishop Makarios government of Cyprus. All of Cyprus is recognized by the EU. The Island’s offshore EEZs are divided among the Republic, the North Turkish “Republic” and two British bases on the Island.

Machinations over the Turkish Northern Cypriot Republic’s stake hold in the Cypriot EEZ gas field surfaced in an embarrassing episode at an international energy conference in Tel Aviv on November 6, 2014. That was the surprise address by Özdil Nami, the foreign minister of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) at an Energy and Business Conference. Turkey is the only country that recognizes the TRNC enclase it seized from Cyprus in 1974. The Jerusalem Post noted these remarks of Nami that drew the ire of Cypriot businessmen at the conference and an official involved with pursuit of joint development of the proposed Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline:

Natural resources of Cyprus belong to all Cypriots and must benefit all Cypriots.
Nami called for a united Cyprus comprised of Cyprus and Turkish federations, with cooperation fueled by the offshore natural gas discoveries. Dealing with a united Cyprus expands the options available.

That led to this comment in a press release from Prof. Toula Onoufriou, president of the Cyprus Hydrocarbons Company:

The invitation of Mr. [Özdil] Nami to this conference and his appearance in the opening session without any mention in the conference program is unacceptable and is not in the spirit of collaboration that has been developed between our countries.

Earlier in 2014, there was an abortive round of Turkish negotiations with Cyprus over “unification” of the Republic of Cyprus. Meanwhile Turkey was pressing for a lucrative share of the gas development offshore Cyprus and transmission to EU markets via its network of pipelines.

Erdogan threatened to bring Israel before the International Criminal Courts over the deaths of Turkish nationals in an Israeli naval commando raid on the Turkish ferry vessel, the Mavi Marmarathat pierced the enforced blockade during the May 2010, Free Gaza flotilla. The dispute threatened a diplomatic impasse between the two countries until the March 2013 trip by President Obama to Jerusalem. He prevailed upon Israeli PM Netanyahu to call then PM Erdogan and apologize. Israel offered compensation to the Turkish victims in the Mavi Marmara incident. That cleared the way for bi-lateral discussions for possible transmission of gas via a submarine pipeline from the Leviathan field to on-shore Turkish receiving facilities at Ceyhan on the Mediterreanean coast with its network of pipelines servicing the EU. Today’s Zaman in February 2014 reported the burgeoning commercial rapprochement with the Consortium over a possible gas pipeline deal:

Turkey’s Vatan daily said that representatives from US-based Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek Group, two of Leviathan’s largest stakeholders, are in talks with four Turkish energy firms for a possible deal in the construction of a natural gas pipeline via Turkey to Europe. Vatan said the Leviathan shareholders are in negotiations with Turkey’s Turcas, Zorlu, Çalık and Enka Enerji for a pipeline that would carry 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Israeli gas via Turkey starting  in 2017, the year Israel expects to start extracting gas.

Globes Israel Business reported:

In March 2014 “that two Turkish companies, Zorlu Holding and Turcas Petrol, had participated in a tender for the possible construction of a 7-10 bcm/y gas pipeline to link Leviathan with the Turkish mainland. The proposed 500 kilometer pipeline would cost about $3.5 billion. Zorlu Holding has stakes in several power plants in Israel and its chairman, Ahmet Nazif Zorlu, is known to have close links with the governing Justice and Freedom Party (AKP) in Turkey.

Then, Israel’s 50 day summer 2014 war with Hamas erupted, that virtually ended these discussions. In early August Turkish Energy Minister, Taner Yildiz announced that a deal was unlikely until a cease fire was concluded between Israel and Hamas. The Jerusalem Post  noted:

Calling for “an end to the cruelty in Palestine,” Yıldız said that his country’s “door will be closed,” until calm has been attained, the  Hurriyet added.

“If we build a natural gas pipeline from Israel or the eastern Mediterranean under these circumstances, the blood of innocent infants and mothers, not natural gas, would flow through it,” Yıldız said, according to the Hurriyet report.

Turkish parliamentary opposition in Ankara and Israeli Consortium partner Delek Group optimistically suggested that there might be renewal of talks. Erdogan’s opposition over the 2014 IDF conflict with Hamas virtually ended the discussions. As we shall see the Consortium’s hopes for a means of transmitting Leviathan gas fields output the lay in the EU’s interest in the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline with Cyprus.

Russian President Putin and Turkish President Erdogan Ankara, December 1, 2014. Source: Turkish Presidential Photo Service.

Putin’s December 2014 “Surprise” Gas Deal with Turkey

Turkey’s President Erdogan a new card to play in the energy geo-politics of the region with Russia’s embattled President Putin. On December 1, 2014 at a meeting between the two heads of government in Ankara, Putin announced abandonment of the yet to be completed South Stream pipeline to the EU via Bulgaria. In its stead, Putin proposed a proposition to Erdogan that was hard to pass up despite Turkey’s increasingly being beholden to Russia as its principal gas supplier. As reported by Eurasia.net, the pact presented compelling opportunities for both countries:

Energy-poor Turkey stands to benefit from Moscow’s surprise decision to drop the $45-billion South Stream natural gas pipeline project. At the same time, it raises questions about whether Turkey will become a pawn in the broader energy contest between Russia and the EU.

Ankara has long been keen to wean itself off Russian energy, which currently accounts for an estimated 57 percent of its gas needs, according to the 2014 BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Both the Turkish government and the European Union had seen gas imports from Azerbaijan, a cultural cousin and close ally of Ankara’s, via the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) as the answer to decreasing their level of energy dependency on the Kremlin.

Eurasia.net detailed Putin’s deal noting:

He proposed a new, 63-billion-cubic-meter-per-year gas pipeline running under the Black Sea from Russia via Turkey to the Greek border, which would serve as a forwarding point to Europe. He pledged a 6 percent discount on the price of the 14 bcm of gas available for sale annually to Turkey from the pipeline.

The deal would increase Turkey’s reliance on Russia for supply of gas, while reducing the cost for its power and commercial requirements. However, it places Islamist President Erdogan in a diplomatic quandary given Putin’s support for the embattled Syrian regime of Bashar Assad. Erdogan has argued to the Obama Administration that the toppling of the Assad regime was the price of Turkey’s joining the US-led coalition seeking the “degrading and destruction” of the Islamic State occupying large swaths of both Syria and Iraq. The Putin Erdogan deal is presently embodied in a Memorandum of Understanding awaiting further negotiations. Given both US and EU sanctions against Russia over its takeover of the Crimea and support for the irredentist conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the deal between the two autocrats over gas deliveries to the EU market is problematic.  Enter the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline involving Israel, Cyprus and Greece.

The Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline Project Rises to the Fore.

President Erdogan has been relentlessly pursuing a reckless geo-political strategy for several years disputing Cyprus’ sovereign right to exploration and development of offshore gas and oil in its EEZ. We saw that reflected in actions Erdogan directed in 2011 sending research vessels, Turkish air craft and naval vessels to violate the United National Convention of the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). Turkey issued a NAVTEX (Navigation Telex) warning on October 3, 2014 that rattled the Cypriot Republic, EU and spurred Israel to suggest a counter proposal – The Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline. Moreover, as we saw on November 6, 2014 the  sudden appearance of the foreign minister of the Turkish Northern Republic of Cyprus disrupted a Tel Aviv Energy conference. He conveyed less than subtle demands of Ankara for development of undersea resources benefitting “all Cypriots” and presumably Turkey. When Vice President Biden visited President Erdogan in Istanbul in November 2014, while primarily concerned about enlisting Turkey in the war against the Islamic state, he also expressed the Administration position on Cyprus. He suggested that moribund unification talks be resurrected and that both sides on the Island seek joint development of the EEZ energy resources.

In partial response, the European Parliament passed a resolution on November 5, 2014, titled, “European Parliament (EUP) resolution on Turkish actions creating tensions in the exclusive economic zone of Cyprus.” The EUP resolution underscored the illegal actions of the October 3, 2014 NAVTEX issued by Erdogan’s Turkey violating UNCLOS. Turkey was conducting seismic surveys in Cyprus’ sovereign EEZ over the period from October 30 to December 30, 2014. These illegal actions by Turkey violated Cyprus’ maritime border with Egypt. Moreover, it jeopardized exploration by Italy’s ENI and KOGAS in blocks of the Cypriot EEZ. The EUP resolution drew attention to Turkey’s 2005 accession filing to the EU, as it required approval of all EU members and poisoned prospects for unification discussions between the Republic of Cyprus and the Northern Turkish enclave on the Island. The resolution suggested that Turkish withdrawal of troops stationed in the enclave was a pre-condition for accession to the EU. It urged immediate revocation of the offending NAVTEX and negotiation of bilateral agreements with the Cypriot Republic covering exploration and developments of undersea resources to benefit all Cypriots. The EUP Resolution suggested that Turkey sign the UNCLOS and honor its provisions.

In late November 2014 Israel’s Energy Minister, Sylvan Shalom, raised the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline project in meetings with the European Commission’s new energy chief Maros Sefcovic at a meeting hosted by the Italian EU President. An article in Natural Gas Europe reported, “The Cypriots also seem supportive of such an endeavor, the Cypriot Foreign Minister receiving Israel’s suggestion positively and stating that a viability study was being conducted” for joint development of a submarine pipeline to Greece connecting the gas fields in the Israeli and Cypriot EEZs for delivery of gas to EU.

This was a geo-political gauntlet thrown down to counter the illegal moves of Turkish President Erdogan. It was an outgrowth of the bi-lateral agreement struck in November 2011 between Israel and Cyprus that would enable the Noble Energy-Delek Group to undertake exploration of the feasibility of the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline. The announcement came just before the strategic December 1, 2014 meeting in Ankara between Putin and Erdogan during which the Russian President announced abandonment of the $45 Billion South Stream Pipeline that would deliver Russian gas to the EU. The Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline offered a secure means of transmitting gas through several EU members and associate member Israel.

On December 9th, Israel, Cyprus and Greece pitched the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline a day before a conference organized jointly by Natural Gas Europe, the Greek Energy Forum, ESCP Europe, RCEM and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). The conference was titled “2030 EU Energy Security, the Role of the Eastern Mediterranean Region” and took place at EESC headquarters in Brussels. Natural Gas Europe in an article on the EESC conference noted the comments of Greek Energy Minister, Ioannis Maniatis:

Europe will need an extra 100 bcm of natural gas in the next 15 years, and in light of Europe’s increasing dependence on imports to fulfill its energy needs, the EU must find a sustainable model to ensure it is a competitive economy.

The EU needs to reduce external dependence, increase efficiency, diversify its sources and routes of supply, and improve interconnectors, he added. Fully connected energy grids, greater transparency, good governance and a thorough understanding of global events should also be the focus of the EU according to Maniatis. He explained that Greece’s importance is growing. TheEast Med pipeline pitched by Israel, Cyprus and Greece would run from Israel and Cyprus via Greece to Italy and then to the rest of Europe is technically feasible and attached to attractive prospects said Maniatis. He told the audience that the results of a feasibility study on the East Med pipeline will be released next year and that the pipeline would serve as a new source and provider of natural gas comparable to the Southern Corridor. The attractiveness of the East Med Pipeline, said Maniatis, is that unlike the Southern Corridor, it would pass exclusively through four member states and hence deserves strong EU backing for its materialization.

The Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline had received the endorsement of the EC as a priority project for underwriting in November 2013. According to The Guardian that could provide the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline project “access to a €5.85bn fund, and preferential treatment from multilateral banks.”

Natural Gas Europe reported at the time the options under consideration:

The basic plan will see the pipeline stretch from the Leviathan field offshore Israel on to Cyprus ending in eastern part of the Island of Crete in Greece. Three alternate routes were discussed:

  • To the Peloponnesus Peninsula joint via spur with the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP)
  • From Crete to northern Greece where it would join the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB)
  • From Crete to the Revythousa LNG terminal close to Athens. The terminal would be significantly upgraded to accommodate large amounts of gas exports thereafter.

The technically difficult 1,880 kilometer long submarine pipeline project, reaching depths of more than 2,000 meters, would connect Leviathan and Aphrodite gas fields ultimately to Italy. Cost for the project  was  estimated at over $20 Billion and would likely not be concluded at the earliest until 2020, assuming that production of the Leviathan field in the Israeli EEZ begins in 2017. With the demise of both the Turkish Leviathan-Ceyhan pipeline and the Australian Woodside Pty. Ashdod LNG –Eilat pipeline for delivery of gas to the Asian markets, the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline project may have serious consideration. There is the alternative of the onshore LNG facility at Vassilikos on Cyprus’ south shore to be built by the Consortium at an estimated cost of $10 billion. A Memorandum of Understanding for planning the Vassilikos LNG complex was signed by Cyprus and the Consortium in June 2013. In the interim, offshore floating LNG processing platforms that might be leased to ship processed gas via pressured LNG vessels to receiving terminals in Greece and Italy. However, Noble Energy was not initially supportive of the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline option, instead concentrating on sales from Leviathan to regional users like Jordan and Egypt and building the proposed Cypriot LNG processing facility. As we will shortly see, as a result of regulatory actions by the independent Israeli Anti-Trust Authority (IAA), both Noble Energy and its Israeli consortium partner Delek Group plans for Leviathan as well as the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline may be in jeopardy

Watch this CNBC video: Israel-Cypriot Pipeline: Game Changer for EU Energy?

Dr. David Gilo, Director Israel Anti-Trust Authority.

Could Regulatory Zeal and Politics Deprive Israel of its Offshore Energy Prize?

Israel’s pursuit of energy independence and potential gas exports may have been upended by a ruling regarding Israel’s Cartel Law by the head of the independent Israel Anti-trust Authority (IAA). Dr. David Gilo of the IAA effectively ruled that the Noble Energy – Delek consortium constituted a monopoly and would be forced to sell the Leviathan or Tamar fields in Israel’s offshore Exclusive Economic Zone. Gilo was cited by the New York Times saying, “The entry of Delek and Noble into Leviathan has created a situation in which these groups control all the gas reserves on the coast of the state of Israel.” Gilo’s rationale for his ruling was the prior agreed to sale of smaller gas fields Tanin and Karish owned by the Consortium “did not create a real competitive solution to solve the problem of a monopoly in the market.” Globes, Israel Business reported in an article, Regulator decides Tamar and Leviathan form monopoly:

[Gilo] is going back on his decision, subject to a hearing, to let the companies continue holding both the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields. The State will now require the companies to sell their holdings in one of the fields.

Sources in the energy market believe that such a step will delay development of the Leviathan field by several years and could see Israel dragged into the international court of arbitration by US company Noble Energy, which has been developing both fields.

The reaction from Noble Energy was swift:

Noble Energy Israel Country Manager Binyamin (Bini) Zomer said, “For 16 years, Noble Energy has invested in the exploration and development of Israel’s gas and oil resources. To date we have invested with our partners close to $6 billion in developing the country’s oil and gas sector. These investments contribute to the Israeli economy and environment, and at the same time grant Israel energy independence while providing an opportunity for regional cooperation and contributing to regional stability.”

[…]

He warned, “The antitrust regulator’s decision to go back on the agreement. casts a shadow over the future of Israel’s gas and oil sector and influences Noble Energy’s continued investment in the country.”

Zoma’s comments were mirrored in official statements from Houston-based Noble Energy’s Chairman in a news release:

Earlier today, Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NBL) and its partners in the Leviathan field were advised by the Israel Anti-trust Authority of its decision to not submit the Consent Decree to the Anti-trust Tribunal for final approval. In response, Noble Energy and partners have requested a hearing on the topic with the Anti-trust Authority, which Noble Energy expects to occur in the next few weeks.

In March 2014, Noble Energy, its partners, and the Anti-trust Authority reached agreement for the Consent Decree that included the divestiture of the Tanin and Karish gas fields. This agreement is a key component for the final investment decision on the Leviathan development.

Charles D. Davidson, Noble Energy’s Chairman, commented, “The actions of the Anti-trust Authority are another disturbing example of the uncertain regulatory environment in Israel. Specifically, this is a matter that we believed was resolved some time ago and follows on recent assurances from the Anti-trust Authority that approval was forthcoming. We believe this is a harmful precedent for Israel to set and we will vigorously defend our rights relating to our assets.”

Ominously, the ruling may delay, if not stop, development of the significant Leviathan gas field with more than 21.9 TCF. Further, the IAA would significantly delay indefinitely the implementation of the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline connecting Leviathan with the adjacent Cypriot Aphrodite gas field with 7 TCF via Greece and Italy to securely supply gas to the EU thereby stymieing geo resource hegemony by Russia and Turkey. The Noble-Delek Consortium had signed agreements with the Republic of Cyprus in 2011 for the joint development of Cyprus’ offshore gas fields, despite threats from Turkey and its enclave the Northern Turkish Cypriot Republic.

Billions of Israeli tax revenue, billions of returns to the Noble Energy–Delek consortium and billions in sales to Egypt, Jordan and other regional markets in signed agreements are now at risk. The effects on the trading values of the Noble Energy-Delek consortium stocks on the NYSE and Tel Aviv Stock Exchanges were immediate. Noble Energy stock (NBL-NYSE) plummeted by over 6.4 % from $50.97 at the market close on December 22nd to $ 47.73, currently. Globes reported the fall off in trading for the Delek and Tamar partners caused by the IAA announcement:

In the stock market, Delek Group Ltd. (TASE: DLEKG) fell 16.5% for the largest fall on the Tel Aviv 25 Index following the antitrust order to sell either its Leviathan or Tamar holdings. Delek’s energy exploration units Avner Oil and Gas LP (TASE: AVNR.L) and Delek Drilling Limited Partnership (TASE: DEDR.L) fell 11.75% and 12.73% respectively. Tamar partner Isramco Ltd. (Nasdaq: ISRL; TASE: ISRA.L) fell 7.44% on the day’s largest turnover, and Leviathan partner Ratio Oil Exploration (1992) LP (TASE:RATI.L) fell 16.9%.

This ruling comes amidst the snap election campaign triggered by a no-confidence vote confounding the ability of the Netanyahu caretaker government to seek possible redress via the Knesset. There are suspicions in Israel that the IAA ruling may have been politically motivated by Labor Party and Histadrut leaders, given the latter’s control over the Israel Electric Company, the national power authority.

These rapid fire developments brought troubling assessments from Gal Luft in an article in  The Journal of Energy Security, “Israel’s Energy Dream- the End is Nigh”:

After years of delays and billions of dollars spent, a new and increasingly likely scenario should be considered – the premature – and tragic – death of the Israeli gas dream. I alluded to this option in an August 2013 article titled “Israel’s Zero Gas Game” in which I warned that Israel has become so busy dividing the pie that its leaders forgot it must first be baked and that due to the failure of the government to present a clear vision for the country’s energy sector, articulate the rights and responsibilities of foreign investors and most importantly set rules and stick to them.

[…]

There are very few oil and gas companies who have both the experience of drilling in deep waters and the willingness to associate themselves with Israel, especially in light of Noble’s experience. With falling energy prices worldwide, the chance of a Noble-like operator popping out of nowhere is slim. This means that in its desire to avoid the creation of a monopoly, Israel is taking the risk that Leviathan, the world’s largest offshore gas discovery of the past decade, will not be developed for many years to come – if ever.

Dr. Norman A. Bailey, former Reagan era National Security Advisor on national economic security, offered this assessment of the IAA ruling in a Globes Israel Business column, “Israel shoots itself in both knees”:

This is not Israel shooting itself in the foot, it is Israel shooting itself in both knees. This incredibly stupid, illegal and immoral decision will undoubtedly be reversed by the courts and/or international arbitral tribunals, but by the time that happens much of the damage will have been done and recovery will be difficult or perhaps impossible. Even if an accommodation is reached without legal action, the image of Israel as a reliable partner will have been severely degraded.

Echoing Dr. Bailey’s concerns, our NER colleague Dr. Richard L. Rubenstein commented:

The Israeli regulators are both insane and suicidal, but not that different than some U.S. regulators, save that America has a greater margin of error to protect it from comparable damage. Instead of being glad that an American firm has taken the huge risk in this investment, they prefer ideological rigidity to a quantum leap in Israel’s economic and political situation. Will petty little men who probably never managed anything approaching the magnitude of this project have the power to ruin it?

Given this maligned IAA ruling, will Israel in 2015 come to its senses, overcome misplaced regulatory zeal and re-gain the prospect of a  promising economic future fueled by these  important energy discoveries in the Levant Basin?

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

Obama’s NPR Interview Raises Troubling Questions About Normalization of Relations with Iran

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President Obama held a year end  interview with NPR’s  Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep on December 17, 2014 that aired on December 30th. During the interview Obama  was questioned about possible normalization of relations with Iran. He coyly said , “ I never say never.”  He also said  that he might like  to see the Islamic regime become  a “successful  regional power in the region.” All while the  P5+1 beavers away trying to conclude a nuclear deal with Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran, the last time we looked, is still called  a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department  Read the transcript here.

This sounds like legacy building akin to his dramatic announcement of a renewal of relations with Communist Cuba.

Today’s  concerning remarks are in juxtaposition to his signing into law on December 19, 2014, The US Israel Strategic Partnership Act, H.B. 938  which passed after a year of debate by Congress allegedly deepening trade and military support for Israel. The Times of Israel reported:

Obama said his administration will interpret certain sections in a manner that does not interfere with his constitutional authority to conduct diplomacy. That includes a section requiring the administration to provide Congress with certain diplomatic communications.

The US-Israel Strategic Partnership Act increases the value of emergency US weaponry kept in Israel by $200 million, to a total of $1.8 billion. It promotes closer US-Israeli links in energy, water, homeland security, alternative fuel technology and cybersecurity.

It also offers a verbal guarantee of Israel maintaining a qualitative military edge over its neighbors.

The law also expands cooperation on research and development, business, agriculture, water management and academics.

Perhaps the December 19, 2014  signing of the US Israel Strategic Partnership Act was to bolster the Labor- Hatnua alliance in the March 17, 2015 snap election for a new Knesset. The leftist alliance position is that the right in Israel have abused the partnership with the US  through approval of settlement building authorizations undermining possible two state peace arrangements with the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile the PA supported by Arab League  is rushing to file a resolution for a vote by the  UN Security Council  demanding a peace deal with Israel within a year for and the end of alleged Israeli occupation of the West Bank by 2017. The PA, the Arab League and sponsor of the proposed resolution, Jordan  have been  emboldened by the Recent actions of the European Parliaments and several EU member states passing symbolic Palestinian statehood resolutions. There has been an indication from Secretary Kerry that the US might veto the Palestinian resolution  as it might jeopardize  the March 2017 Israeli snap elections result. Meaning that Israeli leftist allies might hopefully form a new  ruling coalition more amenable to a peace deal . There have also been leaks that the US might threaten to  abstain from such a resolution. The PA believes it may have sufficient votes on the Security Council to pass such a resolution.

Today’s State Department Press Briefing evinced concerns over the President NPR interview in an exchange between Jeff Rathke, Director of the Department’s Press Office and AP’s Matt Lee who covers both the White House and State Daily Press Briefings.

Omri Ceren of The Israel Project in a post this evening drew attention to concerns over the President’s NPR interview comments and a recent wave of support in Washington among advocates for normalization of relations with the Islamic Republic. He  wrote:

He said two things about an Iran nuke deal that are getting talked about: (1) it “would serve as the basis for us trying to improve relations over time” beyond the nuclear issue and (2) it would allow Iran to become “be a very successful regional power.”

The AP’s Matt Lee asked about both of those at today’s briefing: whether negotiations are designed to “bring Iran back into the fold” and whether the White House would reverse 35 years of Iran policy “designed to keep it from becoming a successful regional power.

There’s a separate reason why the normalization comments are getting so much attention: pro-engagement advocates have been flooding the zone with the argument. Barbara Slavin from the Atlantic Council said on Friday that “a deal with [the] US would be transformative.” Robin Wright from the Wilson Center toldFace the Nation on Sunday that for the “first time in 35 years, Iran and United States are on the same page at the same time.”.

The push has raised some eyebrows, because the Iranians – including and especially Khamenei – have been saying the exact opposite and rejecting any possibility of post-deal normalization.

Since taking office, President Obama has written four letters to Ayatollah Khamenei. All have been dismissed by the Supreme Ruler. The fourth and latest ‘secret’ October  2014 letter suggesting that the US and Iran had common interests regarding the Islamic State came amidst P5+1 efforts to obtain a final agreement by the deadline of November 24, 2014. That failed  to interest Khamenei leading to  the P5+1 to set a new  date for June 2015. Obama was roundly criticized by both querulous Arab allies and Israeli PM  Netanyahu  as constituting appeasement of this state sponsor of terrorism. Joseph Puder in a FrontPage Magazine article on November 17, 2014 wrote:

Ayatollah Khamenei rejected Obama’s overtures for improved relations, and in the words of Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, the latest letter smacks of “Obama chasing after Khamenei in the undignified and counterproductive manner of a frustrated suitor.”

Watch this C-Span Excerpt we prepared of the exchange between Rathke of State and AP’s Matt Lee:

Below is an excerpt from the transcript of today’s State Department Press Briefing:

Matt Lee: Well, no, I mean normally I would ask the people at the White House, since it was the President’s words. But is that this building’s understanding of the way the negotiations, the nuclear talks with Iran are going on? They’re not an end to themselves IE to get to get rid of any ability Iran might have to build a nuclear weapon, but they are actually aiming towards normalization of the sort that you are looking for, that the President is looking for with Cuba?

Jeff Rathke: Well I think I would encourage folks to read the entire text of the president’s interview in particular with respect to Iran. He was, in response to a question about the possible opening of a U.S. embassy, he said, “I never say never,” and then he proceeded to lay out the fact that right now the focus is on getting the nuclear issue resolved and that’s a question of whether Iran is willing to seize the opportunity that the nuclear talks represent. So, and then he describes that as the first big step and then there would then perhaps be a basis over time to improve relations. But I think reading the President’s answer to that question, it’s quite clear that the focus is on the nuclear negotiations and that is…

Matt Lee: But my question is that, given his comments, is the specific, the nuclear negotiation, is that just a part of what the administration hopes will be a broader reconciliation or rapprochement with Iran that ends up with normalization of relations by 2016 when the president leaves office?

Jeff Rathke: Well as the administration has said, we are not closing any doors, but our concerns on Iran are well-known and our focus now is on resolving the nuclear issue. There is a chance to do that but that’s a question of Iran taking that, taking that opportunity.

Matt Lee: Another thing he said in the interview on Iran is that if they went ahead and reached an agreement, if they got a deal, a nuclear deal, and if the Iranians actually comply, that Iran would be in a position to become a successful regional power and suggested that that’s something that the United States would like to see. And you guys have made no secret of the fact that it’s not just the nuclear issue that is a problem for you with Iran, that there are numerous other things including the fact that it is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world, as identified by you guys. I’m just wondering does the administration want to see Iran become a “successful regional power,” given the fact that since 1979, American foreign policy, with respect to Iran, has been designed to keep it from becoming a successful regional power, has been designed to keep it from exerting its strength over your or exerting pressure on your allies in the region, both Israel and the Arab states?

Jeff Rathke: Well, again, the President’s answer to the question and U.S. policy is focused on resolving the nuclear issue. That is our focus and that’s why we have the P5+1 talks going on.

Matt Lee: Well right, but then why bring all this other stuff in then? If the focus is just on the nuclear issue, why even broach the idea that you want to see Iran become a successful regional power and leave the door open to you know, normalization of relations to the point where you could open an embassy?

Jeff Rathke:  Well, I think the point is that Iran’s behavior is the factor that drives that, and it’s, Iran’s behavior needs to change, not only on the nuclear issue where we have been involved in the negotiation process, but in other respects as well.

Matt Lee: I get all that but I’m just wondering why, and I guess someone needs to ask the president why he answered the questions the way he did, to leave this thing open because it sounds as though that, it sounds as though the administration sees or at least he sees the nuclear negotiations as a path to bring Iran back into the fold, back into the fold and not just the United States, but…

Jeff Rathke: That’s not the way I interpret the transcript. I think it’s quite clear that focus is on dealing with the nuclear issue.

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

Living on Mars is un-Islamic, and five other weird fatwas from 2014

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This post could be entitled The Wacky Side of Sharia were it not for the unaccountable human suffering caused by #2 (and the beliefs that it echoed and reaffirmed) in the Islamic State, as well as in Nigeria. “Six weirdest fatwas of 2014,” Egypt Independent, December 30, 2014:

“God’s agents” — that was the term that famed 13th-century Islamic Jurist Ibn al-Qaayyim al-Jawziya gave to reflect how critical and sensitive it is to be a mufti, an Islamic scholar approached for religious opinions pertaining to all matters of Muslims’ lives.

Despite that sensitivity, several fatwas (religious edicts) that were issued throughout 2014 not only stirred controversy, but also inspired biting sarcasm from observers. Here are a number of those opinions that are believed to have failed to live up to the earnestness of the position.

1. Take a stealthy look at your bathing fiancee

Social network users circulated a video of preacher Ossama al-Quosy, who said it was permissible for a man to take a quick, stealthy look at his fiancee while she is showering, only on the condition that he has an earnest intention of getting married to her.

Literal interpretation of Islamic teachings prohibit women from showing any parts of their bodies, except the face and the hands, to men other than their husbands.

2. The return of concubation

A video was also trending on Youtube of Jordanian preacher Yassin al-Aglouny, in which he stated that female Syrian refugees are allowed to ask financially-able Muslim men to shelter them as “concubines.”

3. Open buffet is “haram”

Saudi preacher and member of Saudi Arabia’s senior scholars authority, Saleh al-Fawzan, had the lion’s share of contentious fatwas during 2014, most notably that open buffet banquets are impermissible on the basis that they do not quote a clear price for transactions.

4. Elections prohibited

Politics had their role in fatwas during the year, with the most outstanding political fatwa made by Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, prohibiting participation in the presidential elections that brought Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power.

Qaradawy is the chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and an ardent supporter of Sisi’s predecessor, deposed President Mohamed Morsy.

5. Lying is halal

Contrary to the popular opinion, Yasser Borhamy, deputy chairman of the Salafi Daawa, said it was even permissible for a wife to lie to her husband to be able to get out and vote in the constitutional referendum last January.

Opponents to the document said the fatwa resembled a manipulation of religion for political goals.

Borhamy backed the ouster of Morsy in 2013 and the adoption of the new constitution.

6. Living on Mars impermissible

On of the weirdest fatwas was made by United Arab Emirates’ General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments, prohibiting life on Mars. In an official statement, the authority said living on Mars was against Islam, responding to Dutch-run project, Mars One, which proclaims plans for a human colony on the red planet by 2025.

The authority’s argument was that heading to Mars would resemble a suicide given the dangers such a step could involve.

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Is Major General Nagata subtly questioning Obama’s refusal to acknowledge the reality of jihad terror?

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There is good reason to think so, and it would be heartening to think that there is still at least one high-level official who sees the reality of the situation and is unwilling to close his eyes to it. More on this story. “Obama’s See-No-Islam Policy Forces Military Rethink,” by Neil Munro, Daily Caller, December 29, 2014:

…“We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it,” Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata, the special forces commander in the Middle East, told the group of outside experts, according to a friendly article in the New York Times.The general’s instructions to the group ostentatiously ignored the role of Islam. “I want to engage in a long-term conversation to understand a commonly held view of the psychological, emotional and cultural power of I.S.,” he said, formally obeying Obama’s see-no-Islam policy.

“We have not defeated the [jihadis’] idea. We do not even understand the idea,” he said, according to the article, which does not mention Islam as a motivating force, nor the White House’s fatwa against any mention of Islam.

But Nagata’s statements repeatedly hint that the Islamic State’s power is based on its Islamic authenticity.

“What makes I.S. so magnetic, inspirational?…There is a magnetic attraction to I.S. that is bringing in resources, talent, weapons, etc., to thicken, harden, embolden I.S. in ways that are very alarming,” he wrote.

The general also used a religious term when he commented about the persuasive power of America’s Muslim allies in the region, who are regarded as traitors to Islam by the Islamic State’s jihadis. The Islamic State’s supporters “revel in being called murderers when the words are coming from an apostate,” said Nagata.

An apostate is a religious term used to describe a person who has quit a particular faith. In numerous Islam countries, and in the Islamic State, apostates are deemed to be traitors who deserve the death penalty, and criticism from apostates is a sign of fidelity to Islam.

Nagata’s use of the apostate term “indicates he knows very well what the Islamic state is all about, and that it is absolutely forbidden to say so in the Obama administration,” said Robert Spencer, the author of several best-selling books on Islam, and the operator of the jihadwatch.org website.

The groups’ leaders use Islamic arguments to explain the group’s attacks, brutality, enslavements and strategic goals. For example, the group’s founding document is titled “This is the Promise of Allah.” The group’s black flag says ‘There is No God but Allah,” and carries the symbol for Islam’s reputed prophet. The group calls itself The Islamic State, and its gunmen promise perpetual jihad.

“Our expansion will be perpetual,” one jihadi told a CNN correspondent. “And the Europeans need to know that when we come, it will not be in a nice way. It will be with our weapons. And those who do not convert to Islam or pay the Islamic tax will be killed.”

But Obama has repeatedly insisted that the Islamic State isn’t motivated by Islam. “Now let’s make two things clear,” Obama said Sept. 2014 about the Islamic State, sometimes dubbed ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

“ISIL is not ‘Islamic.’ No religion condones the killing of innocents… it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way,” Obama said.

No religion condones the killing of innocents, but Christianity and Islam mandate very different responses to perceived guilt and innocence.

Nagata’s actions are needed because Obama’s see-no-Islam policy is crippling U.S. strategy, said Spencer.

By asking for help from outsiders, Nagata “was subtly suggesting that the administration’s refusal to examine the Ideology os the Islamic State is foolish and wrong-headed,” Spencer said. “He’s trying to suggest that the [see-no-Islam] dogma that the Obama administration has is hampering our ability to combat it,” he said.

Nagata’s statement suggest a policy change is needed. “We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it,” Nagata said, according to the New York Times.

Obama has also enforced the see-no-Islam policy on the FBI’s domestic anti-terrorisminvestigations, partly by curbing investigations of extremist Islamic groups and leaders….

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Has Qatar turned Away from Islamist Support in the Middle East?

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Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published an intriguing analysis by Yaroslav Trofimov of the of Qatar’s apparent withdrawal from being a broker in the murky world of Middle East peace and Islamist causes, “Qatar Scales Back Role in Middle East Conflicts.”   Trofimov noted:

From mediating in Lebanon and Sudan to helping rebels in Libya and Syria and backing the Palestinian group Hamas, Qatar has been involved in virtually every Middle Eastern flash point. But, under pressure from bigger neighbors Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, it has moved in recent weeks to distance itself from its traditional posture of championing Islamist movements—particularly the Muslim Brotherhood—in Egypt and elsewhere.

“The Qataris were a little bit shaken about how much blowback they have had,” said Abdullah Baabood, director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University. “The recent events show they have overstretched themselves. They will now pick their battles and focus on what serves best their strategic interests.”

Trofimov drew attention to some demonstrable turns of events in December 2014 following the dust up in March when envoys from three Arab States in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia withdrew their Ambassadors.  In November the UAE followed Saudi Arabia and listed the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliates Hamas,  CAIR and the Muslim American Society in the US as terrorist organizations. Trofimov noted the turnabout:

After their threats to boycott a summit of Gulf monarchies in Doha this month, Qatar revised its stance on the critical point of disagreement—how to treat the Muslim Brotherhood and the current Egyptian leadership, which ousted the Islamist group from power last year.

Having expelled several Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders ahead of the summit, Qatar sent a senior envoy to Egypt on Dec. 20 to seek a rapprochement with President Abdel Fattah El -Sisi.

Two days later, Qatar shut down the Egyptian channel of its Al Jazeera TV network, an outlet for the Brotherhood and other opponents of Egypt’s current leadership.

“The security of Egypt is important for the security of Qatar,” Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said.

Earlier on December 6, 2014, we reported that the Qatari Ambassador to the US,  H.E. Mohammed Jaham Al-Kuwari at a presentation before the Pensacola, Florida Tiger Bay Club proclaimed, “We do not support Hamas”.  He astounded some in the audience.  That was in contrast to the views of Jon Schanzer of the Washington, DC-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies who in a September 2014 Congressional hearing said, “That Qatar is currently Hamas’ ATM”.  We noted Qatar’s pledge of $1 billion to rebuild Gaza after the cease fire that ended the 50 day war in the summer of 2014. Qatar had provided a luxurious safe haven for billionaire Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.  The Ambassador said, “Better to have Khaled Meshaal in Qatar than across the Gulf in Iran”.  But then there were other matters for example the Taliban office in Qatar that facilitated the exchange of senior commanders released from  Gitmo for US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.  Oatar had provided a long exile of anti-Semitic and anti-American Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Preacher Yusuf al Qaradawi who coincidentally had an Interpol red tag warrant issued for his arrest and extradition to Egypt on the same day as the Ambassador’s Pensacola presentation. We cited US Treasury concerns over wealthy Qatari businessmen funding Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra in Syria and the Islamic State. These stood in contrast to GCC member Kuwait that had moved at US behest to shut off the spigot of such jihad donations from wealthy individuals there.  The Qatari Ambassador cited diplomatic recognition of Israel and a state office the Jewish nation had in Doha. Curiously, the other GCC member who maintains relations with Israel, Oman, apparently doesn’t support the Palestinian cause.

The Qatari Ambassador’s  presentation on December 6th in Pensacola was eclipsed by the Emir al-Thani’s appearance at a GCC summit in Doha three days later on December 9th that marked the start of a lowering of Qatar’s profile internationally reflected in Trofimov’s WSJ revelations.

There were also some fundamental economic realities; the plummeting oil and gas prices, reflecting the excess of supply over current global demand.  That resulted in hammering the revenues of oil producers like Russia, Iran and Venezuela.  There is the prospect in 2015 of the US vaulting to the forefront as both the world’s leading oil and gas producers propelled by the fracking revolution. If allowed by the Obama Administration exports of oil and gas would further weaken world prices that could result in a further drop in Qatar’s revenues.  Al Arab in a report on December 16, 2014 quoted the Qatari energy minister at an industry conference in Doha saying:

“Energy markets are interconnected, and we can see the effects of the oil price drop affecting gas too,” Mohammed al-Sada told reporters in Doha.

There was already a “strong degree of conversion of gas spot prices between different regions,” he said on the sidelines of the 16th ministerial meeting of gas exporting countries.

Oil prices have dropped by nearly 50% and natural gas prices 10% since June 2014.

Then there were still unresolved FIFA 2018 and 2022 bribery investigations of both Russia and Qatar. That has besmirched the reputation of the world football federation and its autocratic head, Sepp Blatter, following the resignation of former US Attorney Michael Garcia of the US law firm of Kirkland and Ellis, over the failure to release the final report of his investigation in bribery allegations. There have been  accusations that some of the $220 billion funds for the infrastructure  in preparation for 2022 FIFA World Cup competition  in Qatar may have involved bribes to FIFA officials and  possible  diversion of contractor payments  to fund the Jihad of the Islamic State.

Qatar’s estimated $220 billion investment in infrastructure to support the 2022 World Cup matches in its torrid climate has engendered another problem: the deaths of  nearly 1,000 foreign workers and their  near servitude-like employment and housing conditions. The Times of India in a December 24, 2014, report cited evidence of Qatar’s continuing toll of foreign workers:

A series of stories in The Guardian have shown that migrant workers from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere were dying in their hundreds.

While some were listed as having been killed in workplace accidents, many more were said to have died from sudden, unexplained cardiac arrest.

The government confirmed in the DLA Piper report that 964 workers from Nepal, India and Bangladesh had died while living and working in the Gulf state in 2012 and 2013.

The report recommended that Qatar do more to record and investigate the causes of death among the migrant population but it has made little outward progress.

After it was published, Qatar said it would reform the kafala system that keeps workers tied to their employer, and better enforce laws that require contractors to provide humane living conditions and ban them from seizing passports.

But the system that Qatar proposed to replace kafala would still leave workers tied to their employers for the length of their contract, which could be as much as five years.

Seasoned observers of the Middle East region say that Qatar under the two century rule by the Al-Thani family “has been punching internationally above its weight class” to use the boxing analogy. Yet Qatar has often been referred to as a Frenemy.  Not exactly a friend, not exactly an enemy.  The friend part is reflected in the forward operating base for the US CENTCOM at the al-Udeid airbase complex and multi-billion dollar purchases of weapons from US defense contractors. There was also the creation of an education hub for several US universities and the Brookings Institution Doha Middle East Research Center.  That may be winding down with status of forces agreement with the Afghanistan government and the Obama Administration ending active US combat participation in the conflict with the Taliban.  The enemy side of Qatar  had  until these latest developments been reflected in support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Al Qaeda and Islamic State by wealthy fundamentalist Qataris.

Trofimov in his WSJ analysis cites the characterization of Qatar by a human rights critic:

Despite its rhetoric in favor of democratic change in the region, the absolute monarchy has remained just as repressive as its neighbors, said Najab al Nuaimi, the country’s former justice minister who is now a prominent human-rights lawyer.

“It is a police state. There is no democracy in Qatar. If you open your mouth, they will even strip you of your passport,” he said. “We supported directly all the uprisings, with violence, with guns—but only the Brotherhood, not the liberals.”

Thus, tiny Qatar has been forced to rein in its support of the Islamist jihadist causes because of geo-political realities, leaving Turkey’s President Erdogan as the lone supporter of Hamas in the region.  That has been  fueled by the  US energy revolution producing a glut in the weakened demand for oil and gas that precipitated  the plummeting oil and gas prices. We can thank American entrepreneurial enterprise for causing the drop in revenues to energy dependent producers like Russia, Iran and Venezuela and quickening the possible demise of OPEC.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha on 12-9-14. Source: Associated Press.

UN Security Council Nixes Palestinian Resolution

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The following is a JTA report issued on December 30th, 2014:

U.N. Security Council vote on Palestinian statehood resolution fails

NEW YORK (JTA) — A Palestinian-backed U.N. resolution setting a deadline for a peace deal with Israel failed to garner sufficient votes for passage in the U.N. Security Council.

The resolution, which was voted on Tuesday, was aimed at achieving a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank by late 2017.

Eight nations on the 15-member council votes yes, two voted no and five abstained. Nine votes were required for passage.

Had nine votes been obtained, the United States, which voted against the resolution, was expected to exercise its Security Council veto. The United States believes a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians must be negotiated by the parties themselves.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, called the draft resolution “deeply imbalanced” and slammed the council for the unusual move of putting the resolution to a vote without any debate.

“We voted against it because we know what everyone here knows as well: Peace will come from hard choices and compromises that must come at the negotiating table,” Power said.

“This text addresses the concerns of only one side,” she said. “It would undermine efforts to get back to an atmosphere that achieves two states for two peoples.”

The deadlines in the resolution, she said, “take no account of Israel’s legitimate security concerns.”

The vote took place shortly after 5 P.M. EST on Tuesday.

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