‘Salam Alaykum’, Your Majesty

Present or former Bishops saying silly things is part of the rich fabric of our national comedy in Britain. Historically their silliest pronouncements are those which appear to disprove their own faith.

But in recent years an unamusing silliness has also entered into this. For instance there was Rowan Williams’ fateful pro-Sharia comments some years ago. A point he reiterated and dug himself deeper into recently when he said, in retirement, that pupils in Britain should not be concerned to be taught by teachers wearing full face veil coverings.

But the former bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, has now taken this further. Earlier this week in the House of Lords he suggested that the next coronation (of the present Prince of Wales) at Westminster Abbey should include readings from the Quran. His suggestion is that given Britain’s diverse modern makeup this would be a wonderful thing.

Of course you have to wonder whether he had thought any of this through. If Muslim scripture were read at the next coronation then surely Hindus, Sikhs, animists and others ought to have readings from their texts too. Oughtn’t atheists, Britain’s largest growing ‘faith’ – or non-faith – have readings from their foundational texts so that they should feel ‘included’? Something from the Origin of Species perhaps?

More seriously there is the matter of Islam and reciprocity.

Everyone surely now knows – especially the former Bishop of Oxford – that no Christian can even go to Mecca, let alone pray there. But let’s bring the same point closer to home. All synagogues in Britain include a prayer for the Queen in their services.

Why should mosques across Britain not do the same?

If there is to be representation it must be reciprocal. It’s not enough to be represented. The favour must be returned. When it is successful, outreach is a two-way street. So here is a proposal. In return for readings from their scripture in the coronation service, Britain’s newest faith communities must commit every week to offering up a prayer for the future King, as defender of the faith and head of Britain’s armed forces.

Nobody could possibly have any objections to that. Could they?

Now Look What They’ve Done [In English and Hebrew]

har419“Now look what they’ve done!” That sums up the reaction, in certain quarters, to the November 18th slaughter at Kehilat B’nei Torah. They who? Palestinians? Israeli Arabs? Terrorists? Mujahidin? Activists? Résistants? No. The Jews. Israel = the Jews, look at what they’ve done now. Will they never learn?

The massacre is condemned, that’s the first step. Then the condemnation makes a U-turn and aims at Israel. like one of those killer cars unleashed since… when? Since the Protective Border operation pushed back the all-out attack from Gaza, leaving Hamas with phony victory celebrations in the rubble and Israelis with a hollow feeling in the pit of the stomach. The cease fire in Gaza was directly followed by a new double-pronged phase of the ongoing assault on Jews in their State: random assassinations and a “diplomatic” campaign to create a fake Palestinian State that can be used as a real weapon.

But that isn’t enough. Because there is something so atrocious about attacking men in prayer with a meat cleaver, knives, and a gun, there is something so unbearably eloquent in the sight of thick red blood on prayer books and tallit, there is something so barbaric about smashing into a synagogue to butcher pious rabbis, that certain commentators feel a need to defend themselves from accusations of bias. The campaign to create a cardboard Palestinian State is buffered by a communications offensive. Media coverage? It’s faultless, they say, and we are tired of your complaints. The creation of a Palestinian State by European parliamentary fiat is the appropriate response to “lone wolf” attacks by hopeless Palestinians, they opine, in unison with lawmakers, leaders, and anointed specialists. Extremists on both sides are spinning this political & territorial conflict into a religious war, they warn, and that must be nipped in the bud.

Daniel Haïk, political commentator on i24 news in French, faces a Belgian correspondent. With a little help from anchorman Jean-Charles Banoun, Haïk politely suggests that there is something twisted about coverage of the latest attack. “Mais non mais non,” responds the Belgian correspondent. “We condemned it. We all condemned it.” Fifteen minutes of “yes, buts” did not suffice to squeeze out a single drop of self-criticism. They condemned it, that’s the ticket to paradise. And they “contextualize” it. That’s the part that makes us wince. Contextualizing means it’s the fault of the far-right Netanyahu government, the pursuit of colonization, the failure of peace talks, the intrusion of Jews in Arab Jerusalem and fanatic Jewish prayer mongers on l’esplanade des mosquées (French for Temple Mount).

Wouldn’t you rather write for Haaretz and be invited to lunch by your French colleagues than get kicked in the pants like a tramp begging for a crust of bread?

You’re choking on an overdose of factual errors, misinterpretations, grotesque analyses, lopsided round tables, cockeyed interviews, and indecent tongue lashing of anyone who even vaguely suggests that the Har Nof attack and others before it are not the fault of Israel… and they don’t even want you to make a squeak.

Are they right? Am I some kind of hypersensitive, partisan, paranoid, kvetching Jew? Am I so uncouth that I don’t know how journalism woks, how experts analyze, how European parliaments legislate (for Israel)? Shouldn’t I be ashamed of making a big stink just because CNN broke the news on the Har Nof massacre with “Deadly attack on Jerusalem mosque”? Don’t you know that news travels at the speed of light? And you’re claiming a simple mistake is evidence of bias?

“Le Secret des Sources” is a weekly program on state-owned highbrow France Culture radio. Journalists give a peek into the backroom, tell how they milk sources, navigate in government circles, circumnavigate obstacles, face dangers, and get the story. The story on Saturday November 22 was the Mideast conflict.

The lineup tells half the story: Charles Enderlin, France 2; Philippe Agret, Agence France Presse; Olivier Ravanello, I Télé; Gideon Kouts, Maariv and Kol Israel, and no one to challenge their self-satisfied hypocrisy. Except, briefly, Kouts who dared to make two remarks that perturbed the unanimity. I guess they hung up on him. He was never heard from again. Charles Enderlin, father of the Mohamed al Dura blood libel, dominated the chit chat.

Talk about kvetching! Where’s the justice for journalists who report with good faith on a grinding conflict that has worn international nerves to a fray? They swap persecution anecdotes. During the “Gaza offensive” Ravanello didn’t even look at his Facebook account. How about you, Charles? Yes, in fact, there were all kinds of threats after my report of the death of a Palestinian child, he replies. No one pronounces the name “al Dura,” Enderlin is urbane: it still comes up now and then, insults and whatnot, but it’s over for me. (My i24 news interview centered on the release of Al Dura: Log Range Ballistic Myth, aired on November 20th.)

Later in the program Enderlin threw a dart at i24 news, “a pro-Netanyahu radio network [it’s television] that forces journalists to call the occupied territories “disputed.” This is obviously bad journalism. As an example of good journalism, Enderlin’s colleagues explain that their media issue terminology guidelines. Ravanello gets hot under the collar about the terms “terrorist” and “résistant”: an act can be labeled “terrorist” but not an organization!!! Got it, fellows? Hamas = la résistance.

The overall impression was that journalists impartially covering the Mideast conflict are in mortal danger from disgruntled Jews. Gideon Levy, says Enderlin, needs bodyguards. Somehow they made this danger more eloquent than the hatchet massacre in a Jerusalem synagogue and the celebrations it earned in Muslim circles. The real gore was on their Facebook pages.

Inviting Charles Enderlin as an example of integrity is equivalent to reporting the Har Nof massacre as an attack on a mosque: it’s a dishonest mistake. If his colleagues had read my book, they would know that a French court, having viewed raw footage shot by his cameraman Talal Abu Rahmeh at Netzarim Junction on September 30, 2000, included staged scenes. Some of which were aired in France 2 newscasts. This obvious falsification justified, in the eyes of the court, Philippe Karsenty’s right to publicly express his opinion that the al Dura “death scene” is a hoax. If I’m not mistaken, none of these journalists attended court hearings on the controversy. They probably applauded Charles Enderlin’s book Un Enfant est mort [a child is dead] without reading it or my critical analysis of same.

This is just one example of an international media onslaught. Anchormen and women jump out of their skin when faced with a defender of Israel. Journalists and specialists spill out sewers of defeatism about contemporary Israeli society, wealth disparities, tent protests, inaudible Leftists peaceniks & intellectuals, far right government, inexcusable pursuit of colonization, refusal to negotiate with the eminently moderate Mahmoud Abbas. A guest on “Moi president,” a program hosted by the very Ravanello who hobnobbed with Enderlin on Secret des Sources, said Israel is reduced to a mixture of Tel Aviv hedonists and Jerusalem religious fanatics; the disillusioned army was defeated by Hizbullah in 2006. [Or was it Ravanello himself? I came in at the end of the program and can’t find it on the I télé site to confirm this detail.] At the end of the program all four of his guests and 67% of viewers vote yes for French recognition of a Palestinian State. The real debate will take place in the French Parliament on Friday, November 28th with the vote scheduled for December 2nd.

The esteemed philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, distinguished member of l’Académie Française, loyal supporter of JCall will not join the European version of JStreet in calling for recognition of a Palestinian State at this stage. [L’esprit de l’escalier, Radio Communauté Juive, 23 November] Finkielkraut is profoundly aware of the horrifying significance of the synagogue massacre. A symbolic threshold has been crossed: These men were not killed as colonists, not as Israelis, they were slaughtered because they are Jews. Finkielkraut recognizes that the “occupation” that supposedly justifies such crimes is the whole of Israel. He acknowledges incitement. Mahmoud Abbas threatens war if “al Aqsa is contaminated by Jews.” That being said, he goes on to pummel Binyamin Netanyahu and Nafthali Bennet. He’s disgusted by their “jubilation.” They pounced on the occasion to dig in their heels and refuse to negotiate with Mahmoud Abbas. And the rest follows like rocks thrown by shababs: colonization, Temple Mount fanatics, extreme right coalition, refusal to negotiate, to make concessions. Netanyahu’s policies are dangerous and ineffective. They’re going to lead to Diasporism!

What is going on? What explains the sudden intensification of criticism of Israel and the urgent need to fabricate a Palestinian State? An unremitting offensive that began with the kidnap and murder of three yeshiva bochers and has been carried through several stages including rocket attacks, tunnel infiltrations, pro-Hamas stampedes in Western countries, assassinations by car ramming, slaughters with knives and hatches, culminates in and a campaign for recognition of a Palestinian State. Opinion assaults against Israel rise in rhythm with physical attacks from Hamas, applauded by the Palestinian Authority and global Islamist forces.

a-dura1This is what I call the lethal narrative strategy. Physical violence aimed at harming and demoralizing Israelis—making them suffer at home and look bad abroad—culminates in political and rhetorical offensives to destabilize the State, with the ultimate aim of toppling it. We witness a perverse logic in media and government circles that replaces the sense of horror when praying Jews are hacked apart with outrage at the State that allows itself to be persecuted. The obvious comparison between the Har Nof blood bath and DAESH decapitation orgies is stubbornly denied. The fanatics are not the demons that wield butcher knives but Jews who think there is room for them to pray on the Temple Mount. The source of conflict, the element that blocks any and all negotiated solutions is not the forked PLO tongue it is the refusal of a “far right” Israeli government to make the necessary concessions and create the Palestinian State. And, finally, the origin of a wave of aggression that has continued from June to date is, retroactively, the failure of a 9-month stint of peace processing driven by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

All of these causes can be more or less examined. Except for one: the failed peace process. It is the First Cause. What issues were discussed last summer? What were the stumbling blocks? In what way did those negotiations resemble previous efforts? These and all other verifiable details are locked in an unbreakable safe. The First Cause cannot be examined. And Israel is guilty.

What explains the failures of previous rounds of peace talks? In September 2000, after walking out on the Camp David negotiations, Yasser Arafat organized “spontaneous” demonstrations that blossomed into the “al Aqsa Intifada.” Last week Israeli forces intercepted a shipment from China labelled “Christmas decorations.” It contained 5,200 knives, 1,000 swords, 18,000 firecrackers, 4,300 taser-flashlight devices, 5,000 electric shock devices destined, obviously, for “spontaneous” demonstrators.

This explains the ebb and flow of shabab operations in “Arab” Jerusalem. The same forces that purchase street weapons from China decide when and where to spontaneously uprise. Punitive measure against perpetrators and their families—house demolitions, withdrawal of residence permits and welfare payments, transfer out of Israel—might not be effective if the lone wolves were really alone. They aren’t. Their paymasters and dispatchers will have to factor the new measures into their calculations.

But we still need to understand why the “international community” feels the urgent need for a Palestinian State. The conflict, they say, has gone on for too long. Nothing has worked so far. Now it is getting more violent and, worse, it is turning religious. If DAESH is not Islamic and the Palestinian ambitions are strictly political and territorial, who are the religious troublemakers?

The Jews.

If an outside observer–the EU, the UN, or your corner journalist—presumes to impose a solution to a conflict that stubbornly persists, he should be expected to think the issue through in all its dimensions. Otherwise, it is quite unrealistic to imagine that the outsider knows better than the concerned parties. When it comes to thinking through the “Israel-Palestine” conflict, one element is locked tight and unavailable for analysis: the two-state solution. It is the touchstone, the holy grail, the silver bullet.

Why is The Solution not forthcoming?

It’s the fault of the Jews. That’s why they are attacked with rockets, tunnels, cars, cleavers, and parliamentary resolutions. Like misers, they withhold The Solution. The good folks looking on from their high places are not without pity. They condemn the bloodshed. And impose the remedy. The State of Palestine…

…that will punish the Jews for refusing to submit.

מאת

תגים

אנטישמיות אירופית הפיגוע בהר נוף מוחמד א-דורה נידרה פולר עלילות דם צוק איתן שארל אנדרלין
מדוע התגברות האלימות הפיזית מצד הפלסטינים רק מעצימה

פלאש90
יהודיה עזת מצח שמסרבת להישחט. צילום: פלאש90

“עכשיו תראו מה הם עשו!” – זה מסכם את התגובה בחוגים מסוימים לטבח ה-18 בנובמבר בקהילת בני תורה. “הם”, מי? הפלסטינים? הערבים הישראלים? המחבלים? הג’יהאדיסטים? הפעילים? אנשי ההתנגדות? לא. היהודים. ישראל – כלומר, היהודים – תראו מה הם עשו עכשיו. הם לא ילמדו אף פעם?
הטבח זוכה לגינוי, זה הצעד הראשון. ואז הגינוי עושה פניית פרסה ומתחיל לשעוט לכיוון ישראל כמו אותן מכוניות מחבלים שדורסות מאז ש… ממתי, בעצם? מאז מבצע ‘צוק איתן’ שהחזיר מהלומה קשה למתקפה הכוללת מעזה והשאיר לחמאס לחגוג ניצחון מזויף על ערימת ההריסות, בעוד הישראלים נשארו עם גוש מכווץ בבטן. הפסקת האש בעזה הביאה בעקבותיה שלב ב’ של התקפה מתמשכת נגד יהודים. היא כוללת רציחות אקראיות מלוות במערכה “דיפלומטית” ליצירת מדינה פלסטינית מזויפת שניתן להשתמש בה בתור נשק אמיתי.
אך זה אינו מספיק. כיוון שיש משהו כל כך לא ייאמן באכזריותו בתקיפת גברים בתפילתם עם אנקול בשר, סכין קצבים ואקדח; ועם זאת יש משהו בלתי-נסבל ברהיטות ובבהירות של מראה הדם הסמיך על מחזורי התפילה והטליתות, יש משהו כל כך ברברי בהתפרצות אל תוך בית כנסת כדי לשחוט רבנים, מורים רוחניים. עד כדי כך ברברי ומקומם שכמה פרשנים בתקשורת האירופית מרגישים צורך להתגונן מפני האשמות בנקיטת דעות קדומות. אתם אומרים שהמערכה ליצירת מדינת קרטון פלסטינית מתבצעת באמצעות פגוש קדמי של מתקפה תקשורתית? אין בכך כל פגם, הם אומרים, ונמאס לנו מהתלונות שלכם. יצירתה של מדינה פלסטינית באישור פרלמנטרי אירופי היא התגובה המתאימה למתקפת “הזאבים הבודדים” של פלסטינים חסרי תקווה. כך אומרים בעלי הדעות, תוך שהם מיישרים קו עם המחוקקים, המנהיגים ושאר המומחים בתחום. קיצונים משני הצדדים הם שמכניסים את הסכסוך המדיני והטריטוריאלי הזה לסחרור, והופכים אותו למלחמת דת. כך הם מזהירים. ויש לקטוע זאת מיד בהתחלה.
בעקבות מתקפת “כן, אבל”
דניאל האיק, פרשן פוליטי ב-I24 ניוז בצרפתית מתמודד מול כתב בלגי עם קצת עזרה מהמגיש ז’ן שרל באנון. האיק רומז בנימוס שיש משהו מעוות בכיסוי של ההתקפה האחרונה. “mais non, mais non!” עונה הכתבלב הבלגי. “אנחנו מגנים את זה! כולנו מגנים את זה”. 15 דקות, נצח של “כן, אבל…”, “כן, אבל!” לא הצליחו לדחוק באלכסון טיפה סרוחה של ביקורת עצמית. הם גינו את זה, וזה הכרטיס שלהם לתיבת נוח של הצדיקים. והם נותנים לטבח את “ההקשר הנכון”. זה החלק שגורם לנו להתכווצות. לשים את הכל ב”הקשר” משמעותו שזה באשמת ממשלת הימין הקיצוני של נתניהו, המשך הקולוניזציה, כשלון שיחות השלום, חדירת יהודים לירושלים הערבית ומחרחרי התפילות הפנאטים היהודים ב”מתחם מסגדים” (כך הם קוראים בצרפתית להר הבית).
נו אז מה אתם מעדיפים? לכתוב ל’הארץ’ ולהיות מוזמנים לארוחת צהרים עם עמיתיך הצרפתים, או לקבל בעיטה בישבן כמו קבצן שמתחנן על פירור לחם?
אפשר להיחנק ממנת יתר של שגיאות עובדתיות, פרשנויות שגויות, ניתוח גרוטסקי, שולחנות עגולים הפוכים, ראיונות מעוקמים, והצלפות לשון נטולות קורטוב של הגינות – וזאת כלפי כל מי שרק רומז במעורפל שהטבח בהר נוף ומעשי טבח רבים לפניו אינם באשמת ישראל. הם לא רוצים שתוציא אפילו ציוץ קטן בנושא.
האם הם צודקים? האם אני איזו פריזאית פראנואידית הסובלת מרגישות יתר? האם אני יהודייה גונחת? האם אני כל כך חובבנית שאני לא יודעת איך עתונות עובדת? איך מומחים מנתחים? איך פרלמנטרים אירופים מעבירים חקיקה (שנוגעת לישראל)? אני צריכה להתבייש אם אני מחוללת סקנדל רק בגלל ש-CNN פתח את הדיווח על הטבח בהר נוף ב”התקפה קטלנית על מסגד בירושלים”? אתם רוצים להגיד שאתם לא יודעים שחדשות עוברות במהירות האור? ואתם עוד מנסים לטעון שמדובר בטעות פשוטה ושזה לא מעיד על דעה קדומה?
“מקורות חסויים” הוא שמה של תכנית שבועית גבוהת מצח של הרדיו הצרפתי הממלכתי. עתונאים מאפשרים הצצה אל מאחורי הקלעים, מספרים איך חולבים מקורות, איך הם מנווטים בחוגים הממשלתיים, עוקפים מכשולים, עומדים בכל סכנה ומביאים את הסיפור. והסיפור בשבת שעברה, 22 בנובמבר, היה כמובן המזרח-התיכון. רק הליין-אפ מספר את חצי הסיפור: שרל אנדרלן מפראנס 2, פיליפ אגרט מסוכנות הידיעות הצרפתית, אוליבייה רבנלו מערוץ טלה-1 וגדעון קוץ מקול ישראל. לא היה שם אף אחד שיאתגר את הצביעות הנפוחה משביעות רצון עצמית של החבורה הזאת. מלבד, לרגע, כשגדעון קוץ העז להעיר שתי הערות שפגמו באחדות הדעים. אני מניחה שפשוט סגרו לו את הקו. לא שמענו ממנו יותר אחרי זה. שרל אנדרלין, אביה של עלילת הדם של מוחמד א-דורה, חלש ללא מצרים על הפטפטת העקובה מדם.
אנדרטה לזכר מוחמד א-דורה בעיר במקו בירת מאלי
העלילה נמשכת. אנדרטה לזכר מוחמד א-דורה בעיר במקו בירת מאלי. צילום: PetterLundkvist
הזוועה התרחשה בפייסבוק
ואם מדברים על גניחות. לא מגיע קצת צדק לאלה המדווחים באמונה טהורה על הסכסוך שטחן את העצבים הבינלאומיים עד דק? הנה, הם מחליפים ביניהם אנקדוטות על הרדיפות שהם סובלים מהן. בזמן “מתקפת עזה” רבאנלו לא הציץ אפילו פעם אחת בדף הפייסבוק שלו! מה אתם אומרים?! אליך, שרל. כן, אוממם, למעשה הופנו כלפיי כל מיני איומים ברצח אחרי הדיווח שלי על ילד פלסטיני… השם א-דורה לא עולה. אנדרלין הוא אדם תרבותי ומאופק. זה עולה לפעמים, השם הזה, יש עלבונות פה ושם ומה לא. אבל מבחינתי זה נגמר. אותי במקרה ראיינו ב-I24 על הספר שלי ‘אל-דורה: טיל בליסטי מיתולוגי ארוך-טווח’.
אנדרלין זורק ש-I24 ניוז הוא רשת רדיו “פרו-נתניהואית” (זו טלויזיה בעצם), והיא מכריחה את הכתבים שלה להגיד “שטחים במחלוקת” ולא “שטחים כבושים”. זו כמובן עתונות גרועה. מנגד, מציגים עמיתיו של אנדרלין את מדריך המושגים שלפיו הם עובדים. רבאנלו צריך לשים קרח על הצואר כשהוא מדבר על המושג “טרוריסט” ו”לוחם התנגדות”. פעולה יכולה להיקרא “טרוריסטית” אבל לא ארגון! אתם הבנתם את זה? חמאס הוא תנועת התנגדות.
הרושם הכללי שהם מנסים ליצור הוא, שעתונאים שמציגים את המזרח-התיכון בצורה אובייקטיבית נתונים לסכנת מוות מצד יהודים ממורמרים. גדעון לוי! ידעתם שהוא מסתובב עם שומרי ראש?! ומפה לשם הם מצליחים לתאר את הסכנה הנוראה המרחפת על ראשו של גדעון לוי בצורה הרבה יותר משכנעת מבוקר הסכינים הארוכות בבית הכנסת בירושלים והחגיגות ברחוב המוסלמי. הזוועה המדממת הרי מתרחשת על עמוד הפייסבוק שלהם.
להזמין את שרל אנדרלין כמגלם יושרה עתונאית זה כמו לדווח על הטבח כהתקפה על מסגד. זו טעות של אי-יושר. בחומר הגלם שצילם הצלם שלו בצומת נצרים בפרשת א-דורה בשנת 2000 נראות לא מעט סצינות מבוימות. כמה מהן שודרו בתחנה שלו פראנס 2.
מחר הדיון בפרלמנט הצרפתי
וזו רק דוגמא אחת למתקפת מדיה. מגישים ומגישות באולפנים קופצים מתוך עורם כשהם נתקלים במקרה במישהו שמגן על ישראל. עתונאים ומומחים שופכים מהפיות ביוב של נאצות על החברה הישראלית של היום, פערי העושר, מחאת האוהלים, וכמובן הסירוב לשאת ולתת עם האיש המפורסם במתינותו מחמוד עבאס. אורח בתכנית שאותה מגיש אותו רבאנלו אמר, שישראל מצטמצמת בעצם להדוניזם התל-אביבי כנגד ירושלים הפנאטית הדתית. והצבא המאוכזב הובס על ידי חיזבאללה ב-2006. בסוף הצביעו 67 אחוז מהצופים בעד הכרה במדינה פלסטינית. הוויכוח האמיתי יתקיים מחר (יום שישי) בפרלמנט הצרפתי. ההצבעה תתקיים ב-2 בדצמבר.
וישנו הפילוסוף המוערך אלן פינקלקראוט, חבר במעמד רם באקדמיה הצרפתית. הוא לא מצטרף לגירסה האירופית של J-STREET בקריאה להכרה במדינה פלסטינית. בשלב זה. פינקלקראוט מבין באופן עמוק את המשמעות המבהילה של הטבח בבית הכנסת. סף סמלי נחצה. האנשים האלה לא נרצחו כמתנחלים, לא כישראלים, הם נטבחו בגלל שהם יהודים. ופינקלקראוט מכיר בכך ש”הכיבוש” שכביכול מצדיק פשעים כאלה כולל את ישראל כולה. הוא מכיר בקיום הסתה. מחמוד עבאס מאיים במלחמה “אם אל אקצה יזדהם על ידי יהודים”. אבל! אבל… לאחר שאמר את כל זה הוא פורץ לפתע בהתקפה על בנימין נתניהו ונפתלי בנט. הוא נתקף גועל מה”חגיגות” שלהם. הם נאחזו באירוע כדי להתחפר בעמדותיהם וסירבו לשאת ולתת עם מחמוד עבאס! וכל מה שבא אחר כך פורץ כמו מטחי אבנים של השבאב: קולוניזציה, קנאי הר הבית, קואליציית הימין הקיצוני, סירוב למשא ומתן, סירוב לוויתורים. מדיניותו של נתניהו מסוכנת, גורס הפילוסוף, והיא גם לא יעילה. הם יובילו ל”דיאספוריזם!” (האידיאולוגיה המעדיפה את הגלות על הציונות)
אז מה קורה פה? מה יכול להסביר את ההתעצמות הפתאומית של הביקורת על ישראל והצורך הדחוף לפברק מדינה פלסטינית? מדובר במתקפה בלתי-מתפשרת שהחלה בחטיפתם ורציחתם של שלושת נערי הישיבה ונערכה בכמה שלבים: מתקפות טילים, חדירות של מנהרות, שעטת אספסוף פרו-חמאסי ברחובות המערב, התנקשויות באמצעות מכוניות דורסות, טבח בסכינים שמגיע לשיאו בקמפיין להכרה במדינה פלסטינית. מתקפת מאמרים ודעות משודרות נגד ישראל, מתעצמת לפי קצב התקפות הטרור של חמאס, וההתקפות האלה מתקבלות בתשואות על ידי הרשות הפלסטינית והכוחות האיסלאמיסטיים העולמיים.
קואליציה אנטי-ישראלית. צילום: פלאש90
קואליציה אנטי-ישראלית. צילום: פלאש90
הפתרון הסופי: למוטט את מדינת ישראל
זה מה שאני קוראת אסטרטגיית הנרטיבים הקטלניים. אלימות פיזית שמטרתה לחולל דמורליזציה בקרב הישראלים – סובלים בביתם ונראים רע בחו”ל – וכל זה מגיע לשיאו במתקפות פוליטיות ורטוריות שכוונתן לערער את יציבות המדינה. הפתרון הסופי: למוטט אותה. אנו עדים לגילויים של הגיון סוטה בחוגי ממשלה ותקשורת שבא במקום תחושת הזוועה כאשר יהודים נרצחים בצורה כזאת; הזוועה מתחלפת בזעם מתפרץ כלפי המדינה שנהפכת לנרדפת. ההשוואה המתבקשת בין מרחץ הדמים של הר נוף לבין אורגיות כריתת הראשים של דאע”ש מוכחשת בעקשות ובחרי אף. לא, הפנאטים אינם אלה שמנופפים בסכיני קצבים ורוצחים אלא אותם יהודים שחושבים משום מה שיש להם זכות להתפלל על הר הבית. מקור הסכסוך שחוסם כל פתרון של משא ומתן איננו הלשון המפוצלת של אש”ף, אלא הסרבנות של הימין הקיצוני בממשלת ישראל, שמסרבת לעשות את הוויתורים הדרושים ולהקים מדינה פלסטינית. ולבסוף, מה המקור האמיתי של גל התוקפנות שנמשך מחודש יוני ועד היום? במבט לאחור זהו כשלון הסבב בן תשעת החודשים של מערבל השלום שהונע על-ידי מזכיר המדינה ג’ון קרי.
כל הגורמים האלה ניתנים לבדיקה. חוץ מאחד. תהליך השלום הכושל. זהו הגורם העיקרי. על מה דובר באותן שיחות? מה היו הבעיות שנדונו? מה היו אבני הנגף? באיזו מידה דומה המשא-ומתן הזה למאמצים הקודמים? אלה וכל שאר הפרטים השונים נעולים בכספת שאיננה ניתנת לפריצה. הסיבה הראשית לא ניתנת לפענוח. וישראל אשמה.
המשאים-ומתנים רק מסבירים משהו על הגאות והשפל באלימות הערבית. בשבוע שעבר תפסו כוחות הביטחון משלוח מסין שהגיע על תקן “קישוטי חג המולד”. היו בו 5,200 סכינים, 1,000 חרבות, 18 אלף זיקוקים, 4.300 פנסי טאזר, 5,000 שוקרים חשמליים – כמובן, הכל לטובת “הפגנות ספונטניות”.
אותם כוחות הרוכשים נשק רחוב הם שמחליטים מתי ואיפה להתקומם בצורה “ספונטנית”. צעדי ענישה נגד מבצעי האלימות ומשפחותיהם הכוללים הריסת בתים, עיכוב אישורי בניה והפסקת תשלומי סעד מישראל אולי לא היו יעילים אם אותם “זאבים בודדים” היו באמת בודדים. אבל הם לא. משלמי המענקים למחבלים האלה ומשלחיהם יצטרכו לשקול את צעדי הענישה החדשים בחישוביהם.
אבל עדיין אנחנו צריכים לנסות להבין למה “הקהילה הבינלאומית” מרגישה צורך דחוף במדינה פלסטינית? הסכסוך מתמשך כבר יותר מדי זמן, הם אומרים. שום דבר לא עבד עד עכשיו. עכשיו זה נעשה יותר אלים ויותר גרוע: זה הופך לדתי. אם דאע”ש איננה “איסלאמית” (ראה הכרזותיו של אובמה) והשאיפות הפלסטיניות הן מדיניות טריטוריאליות בלבד, אז מי כאן עושה הצרות הדתי? דומה שהתשובה ברורה מבחינת האנדרלינים.
אם משקיף מבחוץ – האיחוד האירופי, האו”ם או העתונאי השכונתי שלכם – מתיימר לכפות פתרון על סכסוך שמתמשך בצורה עיקשת, צריך לפחות לצפות ממנו שיחשוב לעומק על ממדי הסכסוך. אחרת, זה לא מציאותי לדמיין שהמשקיף החיצוני יודע משהו טוב יותר מהצדדים המעורבים. כשמדובר בבחינה יסודית של הסכסוך “הישראלי-פלסטיני”, יש יסוד אחד שנעול היטב ואינו מסור לניתוח ובדיקה: פתרון שתי-המדינות. זוהי אבן הפינה, הגביע הקדוש, קליע-הקסם.
אז למה הפתרון מסרב מגיע?
זוהי אשמת היהודים. זו הסיבה שהם מותקפים בטילים וברקטות, במנהרות, באנקולי בשר, באמצעים פירוטכניים חצי-צבאיים, ובהחלטות פרלמנטריות. כמו קמצנים הם חוסמים את “הפתרון”. הברנשים הטובים הצופים בעניין מהחלונות הגבוהים בכל המהומה אינם חסרי חמלה. הם מוקיעים את שפיכות הדמים. וכופים את התרופה. מדינת פלסטין… מדינה שתעניש את היהודים על כך שהם מסרבים להיכנע.

Ferguson: The Progressive Socialist Left’s Racial Waterloo

It was supposed to be that seminal moment, shining a glaring light on the abject horror of white police brutality towards young black men. It was intended to be a triumph for the champions of race baiting. It was intended to be a midterm election rallying point for the black vote, staving off an electoral debacle of monumental proportions. It was intended to be a victory for victimhood and mob justice over the rule of law and judicial process. In the end, Ferguson, Missouri resulted in a Waterloo for the Left — especially the liberal progressive media who was caught perpetuating a lie of epic proportions.

And now Ferguson burns and a family is embarrassed not only nationally, but internationally.

First, my heart goes out to the parents of Michael Brown who were used as pawns in a game of politics with the vehicle being the tragic loss of their son. It was never the intent of anyone passing themselves off as their “sympathetic friends” to know the truth — it was their goal to advance an agenda, at their expense.

Second, the media owes an apology to one Ferguson Police Officer named Darren Wilson — yeah, I know, it will not be forthcoming. Wilson survived death threats, a bounty, and his name being horrifically smeared by a mob spun into a frenzy by a sensationalist Leftist media machine not interested in truth, fact, and evidence — just a story that fit their insatiable hunger.

Third, a special hat tip goes out to St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch who realized the volatility of the situation and delivered what was the most articulate and meticulous grand jury summary we may ever come to hear. His careful explanation of the entire proceeding, and decision to make public the evidence and findings de-fanged a multi-headed hydra that was poised to strike.

Of course, the hydra decided to strike anyway, displaying true disregard once again — two weeks in a row — of the rule of law in America. The real losers in all of this were those like Jesse Jackson Sr., Al Sharpton, and the mob who, even in the face of truth, made a conscious decision not to abide by it — or accept it.

Consider the Democrat Party of Georgia, who unabashedly used images of Ferguson, Missouri in campaign materials to stoke racial animosity during the recent Senate race. They likened a vote for the GOP candidate, David Perdue, to being supportive of another “Ferguson” occurring in Georgia. One has to ask, will the Chairman of the Georgia Democrat Party issue an apology statement to the people of the “Peach state?” I certainly don’t expect one to be given to Senator-elect Perdue.

And what now of the public image of our law enforcement officers, who have seen their collective reputation besmirched all in the name of what? Some ill conceived sense of “social justice?”

Shall we now — in light of the truth of Ferguson — realize these men and women place their lives on the line every day for the sake of the preamble of the Constitution which states, “to establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility?”

The men and women of the “Thin Blue Line” are the everyday soldiers on the front lines, fighting to maintain a peaceful environment in which we can all find the “security of the blessings of liberty.”

Are there bad cops out there — yep — just like there are bad anything. However, the blanket assault on the honor, integrity, and character of the American law enforcement officer must end. After all, where are the protests and rioting when one of them loses his life? Recently we’ve even seen that come at the hands ofillegal immigrants who have been deported on several occasions, only to return.

Ferguson, Missouri and the case of the shooting of Michael Brown must awaken in all of us the notion that individuals are responsible for their actions — and there are consequences. It was not just the actions of Michael Brown, but the despicable actions of those who would willingly lie as Prosecutor McCulloch brilliantly presented in his grand jury summary.

Where are we going in America, when there is no compunction to tell the truth when it comes to the life of another human being? We must understand the closed grand jury hearing was necessary in order for the truth to surface and those who could speak it could do so without fear of retribution. And again, a hat tip to McCulloch for being astute enough to protect the names and reputations of those who would commit perjury — and for what?

In closing, Ferguson, Missouri was a triumph for the system of federalism once again displaying the preeminence of the state over the federal government in such a matter. There can be no doubt that the federal government under the social activist agenda of President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder sought to fully interject itself.

However, with complete transparency of witnesses and physical evidence, Robert McCulloch checked and checkmated the secret whims of Obama and Holder. And that was clearly visible Monday evening when President Obama rambled on after the decision, still straining to stoke the fires of racial animosity.

Yes, we do have a problem in America and it is with raising our young black men to be respectful and responsible — there is a reason why we have a Ray Rice or an Adrian Peterson — it starts early. We have a problem with media sensationalism and truth. We have a problem with the respect of the rule of law. We have a problem with regard for our law enforcement officers. We have a problem with victimization and the politics of race and the advancement of a “by any means necessary” skewed vision of justice.

Officer Darren Wilson was “innocent until proven guilty” and too many forgot what that meant. He has been exonerated of any wrongdoing as he was attacked. We must ask ourselves, would we feel better as a nation is we had buried Wilson? Would there have been incessant media coverage and protests? Sadly, we all know the answer to that question. Our law enforcement officers die and no one really cares, save for the families who go missing a loved one — as seen in the murder of Captain Kevin Quick in Virginia. Or does anyone remember the name of the NYPD rookie who was attacked by the ax-wielding jihadist?

I thank God that even in the face of all this negativity — and at times hatred — we still have young men and women who will serve and protect us on our streets, preventing complete anarchy and lawlessness. In the end, we should all take a pause and thank a law enforcement officer today for his or her service, sacrifice, commitment, and bravery. Thanks guys, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com. The featured image is of people gathering around burning stores in Ferguson, Mo. as President Barack Obama speaks to the media in the briefing room of the White House in Washington. Source: AP

One Mans ‘Islamophobe’ is another Mans Freedom Fighter

Islamophobia is a term used by Mohammedans to identify those who criticize Islam.

Andrew Zak Williams in the New Statesman writes:

“Surely, rational discourse should be permitted to tiptoe cautiously along the hallowed corridors of the house of Islam without the guards frogmarching it out, bellowing allegations of racism and bigotry. Cannot we not agree that the real issue is whether the critiques of Islam proffered by today’s prominent atheists are correct? For instance, does Islam fall short when it comes to women’s rights? Does it trample free speech while enforcing its own precepts, by the sword if necessary? By all means, apologists may disagree with the likes of Harris and biologist Jerry Coyne. But what signal is sent by a refusal to permit the issues to be even debated?”

Williams notes, “This time round, the scientific and intellectual elite of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens have found themselves accused of Islamophobia. The whole sorry saga was conveniently summarised in last Friday’s Independent.”

Can’t atheists, and those with other political or religious beliefs, be permitted to “tiptoe cautiously along the hallowed corridors of the house of Islam?” The answer to this question from CAIR-FL is no!

The Florida chapter of the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL) recently held its annual fundraising banquet in Tampa, Florida. Each attendee received a booklet titled,  “CAIR – Florida ANNUAL REPORT”.  On page 26 of this booklet  there is a section titled, “Islamophobia 2014”. The report is signed by CAIR-FL Chief Executive Director Hassan Shibly and Operations Director Nezar Hamze.

CAIR-FL lists Florida Islamophobes who must be dealt with using a “proactive approach.” The CAIR-FL report states, “Using daily media monitoring and in depth analysis, we have identified trends that the Islamophobia industry uses to serve’s [sic] their special interests.” The report targets those who “[O]perate in sync to support institutionalizing discrimination against Islam and Muslims in Florida.”

Below are the eighteen Floridians listed in the CAIR-FL report as Islamophobes (for a larger view click on the image):

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As Mohammedans wage jihad against U.S. and Canadian citizens, in the name of Allah, the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and CAIR-FL have published lists of American individuals and organizations it considers to be “Islamophobic.”

Question: Will the Islamic State use the CAIR lists of Islamophobes to attack these individuals?

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Is CAIR a Terror Group? by Daniel Pipes, National Review Online

Rep. Michele Bachmann under 24-hour guard after Islamic State threat

Denver teen Muslimas talked for almost a year with Islamic State jihadis

Islamic State announces beheadings for all who insult Allah

CBC laments that online “Islamophobia” goes unprosecuted

Islamic supremacist groups connect their jihad to Ferguson riots

In the photo above (thanks to Kay), Leftist demonstrators relate the strife in Ferguson to the “Palestinian” jihad. And Pamela Geller has a great deal of information on how Islamic jihadists and supremacists, including the Hamas-linked terror organization CAIR, have tried to co-opt the Ferguson riots as part of their own jihad. Most noteworthy is the active presence in Ferguson of “Palestinian” jihad activist Bassem Masri.

The connection between Ferguson and “Palestine” (and the global jihad in general) is clear: both the Islamic supremacists and the Ferguson rioters think that the American system is corrupt and must be brought down. The Islamic supremacist presence in Ferguson is thus akin to jihad recruitment in prisons: both attempt to capitalize upon resentment toward America and American authority, and channel it into jihad.

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Islamic State training children to be jihad killers

“We’re going to kill you, O kuffar. Insha’allah we’ll slaughter you.” Kuffar = Infidels. Insha’allah = Allah willing. Not that this has anything to do with Islam.

“Children of the Jihad: ISIS Behead Kurdish Children; Train Kazakh Children to Fight,” by Donna Rachel Edmunds, Breitbart, November 24, 2014:

New horrific evidence of ISIS embroiling children in their religious war has emerged. Refugees fleeing the fighting in the battle-stricken border town of Kobane, Syria, have told of how ISIS fighters are beheading children in their bloodthirsty siege; whilst in Kazakhstan, ISIS have released a propaganda video showing children being trained as fighters.

“They were beheading people — we heard that they were even beheading children,” a young woman fleeing the fighting in Kobane told the Sunday Times. “We ran.”

Her words are echoed by Zawa, a new mother who gave birth to her daughter, Shirin, whilst deserting Kobane. The young mother crossed first into nearby Turkey, and then on into Iraq. “There was no choice,” says Zawa. “We had to do it.”

Kobane has been the focal point for heavy fighting since mid September, when ISIS militants laid siege to the Kurdish border town in northern Syria. As shells and heavy artillery pounded the town and over 300 villages in the area, up to 300,000 Kurds fled the region, 45,000 from Kobane alone.

The town is still the scene of heavy fighting between Kurdish Peshmerga forces, backed by coalition airstrikes and the Free Syrian Army, and ISIS jihadists intent on claiming the land for their oppressive Islamic State.

According to the Times, the war in Syria has created over 3 million refugees since 2011, half of whom are children. Save the Children, who operates in the region, are now appealing for more help to provide food and shelter. Justin Forsyth, Save the Children’s chief executive said “Millions of terrified children have lost their parents, brothers, sisters, friends, homes and normality through no fault of their own. Many don’t have any memories left of what a normal childhood, free from war should look like.”

Meanwhile, ISIS has created and released a high production quality propaganda video titled Race Towards Good, showing Kazakh children at an Islamic school being indoctrinated in radical Sharia law and taught military skills. In one scene, a boy demonstrates his ability to strip down and reassemble a machine gun while his classmates look on.

Their teacher narrates in Arabic: “They’ve completed lessons in Qur’an, Tajwid and the Arabic language. They will move on to physical and military training until they get older and pound the thrones of the tawaghit. With Allah’s permission, they are the next generation. They are the ones who will shake the earth and spread this precious deen [religion] to all regions of the earth.”

In another, a boy, who identifies himself as Abdullah from Kazakhstan, is quizzed. He is asked what he is doing, to which he replies “Right now I’m training in the camp”; where he is: “In the Islamic Khilafeh”; who his leader is: “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi”. When asked what his future holds, he smiles and proudly declares “I will be the one who slaughters you, O kuffar. I will be a mujahid, insha’allah.” His interviewer praises his every answer.

The film also shows a toddler dressed in military fatigues totters about carrying a toy machine gun, while behind him an older child leads a group of his classmates in declaring their mission, proclaiming “We’re going to kill you, O kuffar. Insha’allah we’ll slaughter you.”…

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Islamic State recruits in South Africa

Submitted by Jasmine Opperman –

The murderous Islamic State (Isis) is active in South Africa and has been recruiting citizens to fight in Iraq and Syria. So far, three have died fighting for the terrorist group.

Iraq’s ambassador to South Africa, Dr Hushaim al-Alawi, said on Saturday that the men’s deaths were subsequently covered up as car accidents. The trio had travelled to Syria separately.

The terror group is known for its highly publicised beheadings of foreigners and for carrying out other public executions.

Al-Alawi says he shared the information with Department of International Relations and Co-operation officials. According to a UN report, more than 15 000 people from various countries have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Isis. The Sunday Independent understands that up to 140 men have left South Africa to join the group.

But Department of State Security spokesman Brian Dube said he was unaware of any South Africans joining Isis. However, he said intelligence officials would look into it.

The Syrian Embassy said it was not aware of the matter.

The Foreign Military Assistance Act, 1998 (Act No 15 1998) prohibits South African citizens from participating in the armed forces of foreign states, rendering foreign military assistance and taking part in armed groups.

Although al-Alawi said he was not aware that 140 SA citizens had allegedly joined Isis, he said there were groups operating in the country recruiting for and raising funds for Isis under the guise of humanitarian aid.

He said one of the South Africans who died fighting for Isis was recruited by two men in Joburg.

The 24-year-old had travelled with a group of young men from Azaadville and Lenasia. He is believed to have been killed in combat for Isis in October last year.

The ambassador said before the man left the county he sold all his belongings, including his car.

Al-Alawi said the man came from a wealthy background.

“He was recruited by two men in Gauteng. The group used the slogan of supporting refugees and orphans,” he said. The third victim to die in combat this year was a 26-year-old man from Vereeniging, who went to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage.

“When he got to Saudi Arabia he came in contact with a man who convinced him to travel to Syria to join Isis,” he said.

The man died fighting for Isis, but his family were told he had died in a car crash. “They always use car accidents as an excuse.”

A 54-year-old man from Cape Town had left with a group that was meant to provide humanitarian aid but then joined Isis and died while he was travelling in a convoy with the terror group.

“His body has been returned to South Africa,” said al-Alawi.

He said the group used its strong media resources to lure young men from various countries to join them.

He cited the example of a man who attended Friday prayers with a friend at a mosque in the Eastern Cape. He was shocked by the speaker’s inflammatory language. “They were saying all non-Muslim should be sent to hell,” said al-Alawi.

A spokesman for the Muslim judicial body, the Jamiatul Ulama South Africa, said: “If this is a matter of fact that so many South Africans are joining the Islamic State, there will always be concerns. There are legal implications for anyone involved in armed conflicts around the world.”

This week the African Christian Democratic Party released a statement calling on the government to investigate the allegations that elements in South Africa are “key players in facilitating funding and sending of recruits to fight alongside Isis”.

Al-Alawi said it was the obligation of all countries to raise awareness to prevent young men from joining terrorist groups.

“This is not a simple issue to deal with, but we have to bring on board government and non-government organisations to fight terrorism. I think if we do that we are likely to succeed,” said al-Alawi.

Last year South Africans were shocked when it emerged that “White Widow” Samantha Lewthwaite – believed to be the mastermind behind the terrorist attack in Kenya – had lived in a flat in Mayfair, Joburg with her three children.

International Relations spokesman Nelson Kgwete told The Sunday Independent on Saturday they were unaware of South Africans being recruited by Isis, but if the ambassador had passed on such information, it would have been relayed to security authorities.

Kgwete could not confirm whether the bodies of the dead men who were allegedly Isis recruits had been repatriated to South Africa.

“The UN Security Council recently adopted a resolution that member countries must take harsh action against citizens helping such groups. In South Africa we have laws that deal with this, and any citizens who are found to be in contravention of the laws will be dealt with.”

He said security agents would be best positioned to look into the allegations and take appropriate action.

Islamic State has enough weapons to carry on fighting for two years, UN warns

Submitted by Norman Lihou – 

A new report prepared for the United Nations Security Council warns that the militant group known as the Islamic State (Isis) possesses sufficient reserves of small arms, ammunition and vehicles to wage its war for Syria and Iraq for up to two years.

The size and breadth of the Isis arsenal provides the group with durable mobility, range and a limited defense against low-flying aircraft. Even if the US-led bombing campaign continues to destroy the group’s vehicles and heavier weapons, the UN report states, it “cannot mitigate the effect of the significant volume of light weapons” Isis possesses.

Those weapons “are sufficient to allow [Isis] to continue fighting at current levels for six months to two years”, the UN report finds, making Isis not only the world’s best-funded terrorist group but among its best armed.

Isis, along with its former rival turned occasional tactical ally the Nusra Front, are sufficiently armed to threaten the region “even without territory”, the report concludes.

The report, months in the making, recommends the UN implement new steps to cut off Isis’s access to money and guns.

The Isis arsenal, according to the UN assessment, includes T-55 and T-72 tanks; US-manufactured Humvees; machine guns; short-range anti-aircraft artillery, including shoulder-mounted rockets captured from Iraqi and Syrian military stocks; and “extensive supplies of ammunition”. One member state, not named in the report, contends that Isis maintains a motor pool of 250 captured vehicles.

Much of the Isis weapons stocks, particularly “state of the art” weaponry stolen from the US-backed Iraqi military, was “unused” before Isis seized it, the report finds. But some of the relatively complex weapons “may be too much of a challenge” for Isis to effectively wield or maintain.

Earlier this year, speculation focussed on Isis’s potential ability to produce chemical weapons after it seized Iraqi facilities that had contributed to Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons programs, but the UN report casts doubt on the likelihood that Isis possesses the “capability to fully exploit material it might have seized”. Nor does the UN report believe that Isis can manufacture its own chemical or other weapons of mass destruction.

But at least one anonymous member state has provided information about “chemicals and poison-coated metal balls” placed inside Isis’s homemade bombs to maximize damage. In October, Kurdish forces defending the Syrian town of Kobani from Isis reported cases of skin blistering, burning eyes and difficulty breathing after the detonation of an Isis bomb.

The UN Security Council is expected to take up consideration of the report on Wednesday.

The report recommends the UN adopt new waves of sanctions designed to disrupt the well-financed Isis’s economic health. Significant among them is a call for states bordering Isis-controlled territory to “promptly seize all oil tanker trucks and their loads” coming in or going out.

While the report warns that Isis has alternate revenue sources, and does not predict that truck seizures can eliminate Isis’s oil smuggling money, it holds out hope that raising the costs to smuggling networks and trucking companies will deter them from bringing Isis oil to market.

To combat Isis’s ability to resupply its weapons stocks and launder money, the report recommends the UN mandate that no aircraft originating from Isis-held territory can land on airstrips in member states, and to prohibit flights into Isis-held territory. Exemptions would be made for humanitarian relief planes.

The report comes on the heels of an October report to the Security Council assessing that 15,000 fighters from 80 countries have flooded into Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Isis and other militant groups.

While still months off, the US has indicated it will intensify its fight against Isis, primarily in Iraq. After doubling the US troop commitment there, defense officials have said the US will bolster 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades, and may even join in the Iraqi fighting for key terrain, such as the borderlands between Syria and Iraq or the city of Mosul.

The War for the Free World

Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, and Dr. Daniel Gouré the Vice President of the Lexington Institute, a think tank based in Arlington, Virginia, and an analyst on national security and military issues for NBC, discuss the War for the Free World.

Dr. Gouré has worked as an Adjunct Professor in the National Defense University’s Homeland Security. Gouré has taught at Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, the Foreign Service Institute, the National War College, the Naval War College, the Air War College, and the Inter-American Defense College.

The Secure Freedom Channel and The United West join forces to bring you this compelling broadcast:

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Hamas-linked CAIR-Florida discourages Muslims from talking to FBI

The photo above comes from Hamas-linked CAIR-Florida’s “14th Annual Banquet Rooted in Faith” in Tampa yesterday, courtesy of an anonymous reader who was at the banquet. It is not the first time Hamas-linked CAIR, designated a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates, has discouraged Muslims from talking to the FBI. A few years ago a Hamas-linked CAIR chapter in California distributed this poster:

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House Intel Committee: Benghazi not escalation of peaceful protest

The Obama Administration narrative is definitively torpedoed in this report — and yet the mainstream media, even more craven and dishonest than usual, is spinning the report as an exoneration of Obama.

“CIA gathered intelligence on weapons to Syria: Benghazi report,” by Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne, FoxNews.com, November 22, 2014:

A leading Republican wants to expand the House investigation into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack by adding a Senate probe, as a new House Intelligence Committee report Friday concluded that the initial CIA assessment found no demonstrations prior to the assault and a primary purpose of the CIA operation in eastern Libya was to track the movement of weapons to Syria.

The report described the attack as “complex” with the attackers affiliated with Al Qaeda. It also said the initial CIA assessment concluded there were no demonstrations outside the State Department Consulate in Eastern Libya.

Referring to the House Select committee Chairman, and the Democratic ranking member, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said the current House investigation should be expanded.

“(Republican) Trey Gowdy and (Democrat) Elijah Cummings have done a good job,” he said. “I can’t imagine the U.S. Senate not wanting to be a part of a joint select committee. We’ll bootstrap to what you’ve done, but we want to be part of discussion,” Graham told Fox News. “What I would suggest to (incoming Senate majority leader) Mitch McConnell is to call up Speaker Boehner and say ‘Listen, we want to be part of this’.”

Graham, along with his two Republican colleagues, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, have been outspoken advocates of a special investigation, because they say then-acting director of the CIA Mike Morell misled them about his role in crafting the so-called media talking points that blamed an opportunistic protest gone awry for the assault.

“Number one, Mike Morrell misled three senators,” Graham said of their November 2012 meeting on Capitol Hill, where Morell accompanied then UN Ambassador Susan Rice to explain her flawed explanation on national television five days after the attack.

“I think it’s important that for future CIA personnel to understand, that if you come to Congress and you’re asked a question and you give a deceptive answer, you tell half the story, not the entire story, you play word games, it will follow you and will be unacceptable,” Graham said.

On Friday, with little fanfare, the House Intelligence Committee released the findings of its two year, bi-partisan investigation into the terrorist attack. The 37 page report found that the first, internal CIA assessment was accurate — that no protests were involved — but then-CIA Director David Petraeus, Morell and the administration latched onto information that supported the flawed demonstration scenario.

Fox News was first to report on September 17, 2012, one day after Rice’s controversial Sunday talk show appearances, that there were no protests when the attack unfolded.

“One day after the assault, on 9/12/12, the first CIA assessment about the attacks, a September 12th Executive update, said ‘the presence of armed assailants from the incident’s outset suggests this was an intentional assault and not the escalation of a peaceful protest,” investigators found. And while intelligence gaps remain, “No witness has reported believing at any point that the attacks were anything but terrorist acts,” the report added.

On Saturday September 14, 2012, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes wrote in an email titled “PREP CALL with Susan,” that one of the goals for the administration’s public statements should be “To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.” The House report says these conclusions were “incorrect.”

Judicial Watch, not Congress, obtained the Rhodes email as the result of a federal lawsuit.

The Obama White House did not move away from the protest explanation for the attack that killed four Americans – Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, and former Navy Seals and CIA contractors Ty Woods and Glenn Doherty – until September 20, when then White House Spokesman Jay Carney told reporters ‘It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” and the State Department did the same much later.

The report found the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs made three “substantive” changes to the talking points that included the removal of references to Al Qaeda and swapping the word “attacks” with “demonstrations.” It is not clear from the publicly available, and heavily redacted emails exactly who made the changes and who directed them, since the CIA public affairs office would be unlikely to make these changes unilaterally…

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Expert Panel on Negotiations with Iran Over Nuclear Program

The deadline is looming for a supposed final agreement with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program. Don’t count on it. Yesterday there was a 2.5 hour panel discussion on Capitol Hill co-sponsored by the B-National Policy Center, Foreign Policy Initiative and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies that was both highly informative with acknowledged experts and both Democrat and Republican Members of the House and Senate.

You can listen to the discussion on-line at YouTube:

Cliff May, President of the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies sent out this digest of the high points of Capitol Hill panel discussion :

In advance of the November 24 nuclear negotiation deadline between the P5+1, and consistent with FDD’s ongoing assistance to members of Congress, FDD’s Mark Dubowitz took part this morning in an expert briefing on Capitol Hill followed by a testimony in the afternoon before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa.

Mark noted that while administration officials have said they are looking for an agreement that would “dismantle a lot” or “significant” portions of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the terms of a deal could fall short of that. “The more flawed the deal, the more important it will be for Congress to defend the sanctions architecture to maintain economic leverage,” he said.

FDD joined with the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Foreign Policy Initiative to hold a briefing with members of Congress and their staff regarding next Monday’s nuclear negotiation deadline. Mark was joined by Ambassador Eric Edelman, who most recently served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Dr. Ray Takeyh, a former senior advisor on Iran at the State Department, and Olli Heinonen, the former Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Blaise Misztal the director of the Foreign Policy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, moderated the discussion.

· Ambassador Eric Edelman on the current state of negotiations: The US team is talking about the diplomatic acrobatics they are trying to come up with in order to meet Iranian demands. Given its successful track record, why should Iran believe that it should abandon its hardline demands?

· Dr. Ray Takeyh on the White House’s strategy: I believe that the US administration will advocate for a multistage agreement with Iran. In the first stage, sanctions relief comes in the form of presidential waivers. In future stages – if the agreement is being abided by Iran – the administration will then ask Congress for more permanent sanctions relief. Thus, if Congress does not agree to relief, the administration will be able to point to Congress for breaking a successful agreement.

· Olli Heinonen on Iran’s lack of nuclear compliance: Per the latest IAEA report, Iran is already in violation of the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA). Before we even have gotten to the comprehensive agreement, we have Iran violating the interim agreement. Iran is in noncompliance with UN Security Council resolutions and IAEA safeguards agreements. Regardless of a good deal or a bad deal, we are rewarding Iran for its ongoing violations. This is a playbook for future proliferators.

· Mark Dubowitz on the false illusion of sanctions “snapbacks”: If an agreement is eventually reached, what happens after we detect that Iran is in noncompliance? The White House says, we can – in law – “snap-back” the sanctions that were temporary lifted on Iran. However, this may in fact prove virtually ineffective due to the economic realities on the ground and market psychology that will change when sanctions are temporarily lifted in the first place.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), the leading architect of many of the sanctions that Congress has built against Iran, joined our briefing and offered comments:

· Rep. Ted Deutch: Any comprehensive deal or framework agreement with Iran must: (1) close off of all of Iran’s pathways to a bomb; (2) must address Fordo and Natanz; (3) resolve Iran’s history of nuclear work; (4) dismantle [Iran’s] nuclear program; (5) include a robust verification and monitoring regime; (6) restrict Iran’s ability to obtain material used to develop its nuclear program; and (7) be long enough that Iran will not simply “wait it out” until all restrictions are dropped.

· Sen. Mark Kirk: As long as Iran has a nuclear program, we should continue our sanctions regime which would improve the chances for monitoring and verification. Congress needs to see the deal that is being negotiated to determine whether it meets the necessary requirements.

Later in the afternoon, Mark Dubowitz was invited by the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa to testify alongside General Michael Hayden, the former Director of the CIA (and an advisor to FDD) and Karim Sadjadpour, a Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

· General Michael Hayden on US intelligence regarding Iran’s nuclear program: Our knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program is incomplete. As Mark [Dubowitz] points out, we have a lack of knowledge about Iran’s covert nuclear program and its capabilities. Absent an invasive inspection regime, American intelligence cannot provide adequate warning of Iranian nuclear developments.

· Mark Dubowitz on the necessary role of Congress: Regardless of the post-November 24 scenario, Congress has a vital role to play to protect and enhance US economic leverage. The more flawed the nuclear deal, the more important it will be to maintain sanctions as an instrument for Iranian non-compliance. If a comprehensive agreement falls short of important parameters, Congress needs to defend the sanctions architecture in a way that is not overly reliant on mechanisms to re-impose sanctions.

This morning Josh Block of The Israel Project held a briefing from Vienna on the current status of the P5+1 Iran negotiations and prospects for any possible agreement, or form of agreement that might be announced on Monday. As you will hear, Block, a veteran Democratic political operative, is not only dour about the prospects but seriously questioned the objectives of the Administration that appear to diverge from the problems raised by both the UK and France. Moreover, he opined, in response to my question below, Iran implacably resisted all of the commitments in the Plan of Action, continued enrichment and research on advanced centrifuges ,has benefited economically from the lifting of sanctions in the interim agreement and may have in the interim produced enough enriched material to readily achieve nuclear breakout.

My question was:

Given evidence of Iran’s bad behavior seen in violations of the Safeguards Agreement, UN Sanctions and evidence of Advanced Centrifuge Research, do you realistically believe that anything substantive will be agreed upon between the P5+1 and the Islamic Republic’s negotiators by Monday’s deadline other than a set of guiding principles and/or Framework Agreement, if any?

When presidents say Islam is a religion of peace, “the average American thinks this is crap”

It is good to see that this discussion took place at all, as usually it is foreclosed with charges that even to broach it is “Islamophobic.” But as usual, it was held on a quite superficial level, with Michael Gerson throwing out knee-jerk moral equivalence arguments that don’t appear to have been addressed adequately. Neither Gerson nor Abrams appear to have gotten into the actual teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah, and without that, discussions like these will always whirl around in the ether with attempts to compare the virulence of various atrocities and acts of violence, and get nowhere.

“Should Presidents Call Islam a ‘Religion of Peace?’ Two George W. Bush Officials Debate,” by Napp Nazworth, Christian Post, November 21, 2014:

MIAMI BEACH — Two former George W. Bush administration officials, Elliot Abrams and Michael Gerson, debated Monday whether it is appropriate for presidents to call Islam a religion of peace.

What is authentic Islam? Is ISIS an authentic form of Islam, or is it not? I think it’s very important that the United States government shut-up about that question,” Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, declared at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Faith Angle Forum.

It used to annoy me enormously when President [George W.] Bush, for whom I was working, would say, ‘Islam is a religion of peace,’” continued Abrams, who served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser.

Abrams was speaking on a panel, “Religious Conflict and the Future of the Middle East,” with Shadi Hamid, a fellow with the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

The “real response” to Bush, and later President Barack Obama, declaring the Islam is a religion of peace, he said, should be “where is their theology degree from?”

“For American government officials to be telling Muslims, ‘I know real Islam’ … is ridiculous,” he added. “… It would be an outrage about Judaism and Christianity as well. … For government officials who are 99 percent Christians to be trying to find what is authentic in Islam seems to me to be a fool’s errand.”

Abrams’ comments came during the question and answer session and were not part of his prepared remarks. The whole session lasted about three hours and he made similar remarks later in the session in response to another reporter’s question.

When presidents say Islam is a religion of peace, “the average American thinks this is crap,” he said, because the average American reasons that “the only people doing the beheadings are Muslims, so don’t tell me it’s all wonderful.”

It would be better, Abrams continued, for political leaders to ask, “is there something in Islam that has led some Muslims to behave in a way we consider to be terrible? And what’s the debate within Islam?” Because, “that’s a real description of a real problem,” but, “saying ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ isn’t [realistic].”

After those remarks, Gerson asked for the floor to offer a different point of view.

“We do praise Christianity as a religion of peace on Christmas, we do praise Judaism as a religion of courage on Hanukah and other things. We praise Islam. And every president from now on will praise Islam on religious holidays because their are millions of peaceful citizens who hold this view,” he said.

Gerson was a speechwriter for Bush and may have helped craft the statements that Abrams found objectionable. He now works as a columnist for The Washington Post.

Presidential statements about Islam as a peaceful religion is not only proper due to the many peaceful Muslims who are American citizens, Gerson continued, it is also “theologically sophisticated” because presidents should promote the cause of those who hold values consistent with democratic governance, and this is not unique to Islam.

“Every religious tradition,” he said, “has forces of tribalism and violence in its history, background and theology; and, every religious tradition has sources of respect for the other. And you emphasize, as a political leader, one at the expense of the other in the cause of democracy.

“That is a great American tradition that we have done with every religious tradition that comes to the United States — include them as part of a natural enterprise and praise them for their strongly held religious views, and emphasize those portions that are most compatible with those ideals.”

Abrams countered that Islam is different due to its relationship to terrorists. By calling Islam a “religion of peace” after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Abrams said, Bush was “basically lying about the problem,” because, … the terrorists “view themselves as good Muslims.”

“How is that exclusively a problem with Islam?” Gerson responded, then mentioned other religious groups, such as Christians in Nigeria, who commit violence in the name of their faith.

Where?

Part of the role of political leaders, Gerson reiterated, is to acknowledge the parts of every religious tradition that “encourage respect for the other.”

Abrams conceded Gerson’s point but maintained that presidents are not doing that when they call Islam a religion of peace because the presidential statements lack the nuance of Gerson’s argument.

“I think you’re being much more sophisticated than the political statements that have been made, which are blanket statements that say, ‘this has nothing to do with Islam,’” he told Gerson.

“Well, it does have something to do with Islam … even if it is a perversion of it, it has something to do with it, and the sophistication of that statement I think would be interesting to hear from a political leader, but we have not had that.”

A similar debate between actor Ben Affleck and comedian Bill Maher recently gained national attention. Affleck accused Maher of being “gross,” “disgusting” and “racist” for claiming that most Muslims are unsupportive of Democratic norms.

That debate, however, saw both sides paint Islam with broad brushes. The Faith Angle Forum panel, on the other hand, highlighted the complicatedness of the religion and politics issues within Islam and especially in the Middle East.

“It was nice to see Ben Affleck defend Muslims,” said Hamid, an American Muslim, during his prepared remarks. “It was well intentioned and a lot of us were cheering him on because no one defends Muslims in the public sphere. At the same time, Ben Affleck’s analysis was a bit superficial. … I do think Islam is distinctive in how it relates to politics but I don’t think that is necessarily good or bad, I think it just is.”

Islamic State accumulating gold, silver and copper to mint its own currency

The Islamic State is not a state and not Islamic, Obama tells us. But it grounds all its actions in explicit statements of the Qur’an and Sunnah, and is busy accumulating all the ordinary features of a state. Does anyone have the will to stop it in its tracks?

An update on this story. “Islamic State reportedly buying silver, gold as it prepares to issue currency,” by Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy, November 20, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

IRBIL, Iraq — The Islamic State is accumulating gold, silver and copper in markets throughout northern and western Iraq, dealers report, in an apparent effort to stockpile enough precious metal to follow through on a pledge to mint its own currency.

On Nov. 11, the Islamic State’s Beit al Mal, an ancient Islamic term akin to “Department of Treasury,” announced that the group would reintroduce the dinar currency of the Umayyad Caliphate, which ruled an empire that stretched from modern Iran to Spain for much of the seventh and eighth centuries. The announcement – which included images of three types of coins in gold, copper and silver – drew skepticism from experts, who doubted that the Islamic State could arrange a system to mint and issue a modern currency.

But interviews with dealers in precious metals indicate that the Islamic State has begun the complex process of issuing the currency, a reminder that as the best-financed non-state actor in history – with a revenue stream from oil sales and aggressive taxation – it’s been able to install bureaucratic controls over the large swath of territory it’s claimed in Iraq and Syria.

Hajj Samir, a gold trader in the city of Fallujah who asked that his full name not be used for security reasons, said that since the announcement, foreign jihadists had been buying all of the gold and silver in the city’s markets.

He said he alone had sold more than 15 pounds of gold to foreigners who were members of the Islamic State. “They said it was for gifts for their wives, but now I know why, and all the traders say the same thing,” he said. “We’ve been making trips to Baghdad to get more, and they buy all of it.”

Osman Ahmed, a 37-year-old gold trader in Mosul, said he’d been selling large amounts of gold and silver in the city, even though he now spent most of his time in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.

“We don’t ask why they’re buying so much,” he said. “But even silver in small shops outside the city is sold out.”

The purchases have reached the point that traders like Ahmed have been traveling between Mosul and the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Suleimaniyah to renew their stocks. The Islamic State buys it all, he said.

Zakaria Ahmed, 33, a Mosul resident who’s no relation to Osman Ahmed and whose brother is an Islamic State official, said he’d been told that the currency project was encountering difficulties because U.S.-led coalition airstrikes had made moving valuables more difficult. The airstrikes also have added to worries that any minting facility could be destroyed from the air.

But he said his understanding was that planning for the currency was proceeding apace. “It is still in an ongoing process to be released,” he said by phone.

The Islamic State’s plans also may be behind a new zeal among the group’s fighters to salvage copper on the battlefield. Marwan al Obeidi, speaking by phone from the Iraqi city of al Qaim, said the need for copper for coins had led to the looting of the copper wiring used in electric transmission cables.

The gold and silver purchases are strange enough, he said. “But what is striking is how elements of the organization have seized power transmission cables and other copper components,” Obeidi said. The fighters are burning the insulation off the cables and harvesting the copper, he said.

Zakaria Ahmed said it was uncertain that residents of Islamic State-controlled areas would embrace the currency. He said residents who were tired of their sons being killed in fighting and already were facing economic uncertainty didn’t see much benefit from the reintroduction of a currency that was last in circulation more than 1,000 years ago.

With doubts high among some people that the Islamic State can outlast the international coalition arrayed against it, Ahmed predicted that “no one will use” the new currency, “even if we assume that it enters the market.”

Still, the accumulation of so much gold, silver and copper has a benefit, he said. It provides a valuable asset “for use by the Islamic State.”

Read more here.

Oklahoma: Muslim attacks Christian with knife, says Muslims need to “step up” beheadings

Where did Stepney get the idea that “more Muslims need to step up to the plate” and behead people? Was it at his local mosque? And what mosque does he go to? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

“Man arrested, accused of slashing man after heated religious conversation,” by Dave Detling, KOCO.com, November 18, 2014 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

On Monday authorities responded to a 911 about an assault in the 1400 block of Northeast 11th Street.

Upon their arrival, officers learned the victim, Jerome Bullock and 54-year-old Jimmy Stepney had been arguing about the Bible and the Quran.

According to the arrest affidavit, Stepney is a Muslim and the Bullock is a Christian.

The report went on to say Stepney had been making comments about beheading people.

“We were watching the news,” said Bullock. “He said he felt like more Muslims need to step up to the plate and do certain thing. He was talking about beheading people.”

Because of the statement, Bullock says he asked Stepney, who’d been staying with the family, to leave.

Stepney complied but eventually came back and started arguing with Bullock.

According to the arrest affidavit, the pair began fighting in the yard after Stepney allegedly punched the victim.

Witnesses told officers that Stepney had a knife and was attempting to stab the victim. That’s when Bullock’s mother, Diane Range, came out with a baseball bat and started swinging at Stepney.

“He was trying to kill my son,” said Range.

Bullock suffered minor cuts from the fight and Stepney was able to walk away.

“I was just trying to pay it forward by helping him out,” said Bullock. “Instead I got a lot of cuts and hurt feelings.”…

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