tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219594492024-02-18T15:49:52.517+02:00Doc's TalkAn attempt is made to share the truth regarding issues concerning Israel and her right to exist as a Jewish nation. This blog has expanded to present information about radical Islam and its potential impact upon Israel and the West. Yes, I do mix in a bit of opinion from time to time.GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.comBlogger35025125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-78239520468671670972014-08-15T19:45:00.003+03:002014-08-15T19:45:47.820+03:00Leaping Into a Brighter Future<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">Nurit Greenger </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">LEAP is the </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;">acronym for </span><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">L</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">eadership, <b>E</b>xcellence,
<b>A</b>ccelerating, <b>P</b>otential. (</span><a href="http://www.leapfoundation.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.leapfoundation.com/</span></a><span style="color: black;">)</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">Seven years ago Dr.
Bill Dorfman – Dr. Bill as he is known to all – started LEAP, an incredible
youth program its goal is to teach children and teenagers life skills, designed
to help them become successful in life. During the seven days program duration,
the participants, from all over the world, go through a life changing experience
and receive the skills needed to succeed in any professions they may choose.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/Dr.-Bill-Dorfman-%e2%80%93-Dr.-Bill-photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Dr. Bill Dorfman – Dr. Bill as known to all-photo Orly Halevy " height="313" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fDr.-Bill-Dorfman-%25E2%2580%2593-Dr.-Bill-photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" width="470" /></a>
Dr. Bill Dorfman – Dr. Bill as known to all-photo Orly Halevy</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">One participant,
Madisen, told me that the program gave her much confidence and has improved her
skills a great deal that she has already repeated the course three times.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">This year, for the
first time, six Israeli youths had the privilege to participate in this unique
program.</span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">Here is how this came
about. During a private dinner event, at Dina and Fred Leeds home, Orly Halevy,
a humanitarian who spends much of her free time helping not only the Los
Angeles community but also the Jewish and Israeli community, overheard Dr. Bill
speaking about his program and how it was lacking the participation of children
and teenagers from Israel.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">Orly knows the director
of American Friends of Jaffa Institute, which provides services in Israel to
over 4,000 at-risk children and families each year (</span></span><a href="http://www.jaffainstitute.org/american-friends-of-the-jaffa-institute/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.jaffainstitute.org/american-friends-of-the-jaffa-institute/</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">); she also sits on
the Board of American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA)
(<a href="http://www.afmda.org/" target="_blank">http://www.afmda.org/</a>), an organization in which Dr. Bill is a member of the
Executive Board and who will be honored in October 23, 2014 at the
organization’s annual gala. Orly put two and two together and made the
connection to arrange and bring six Israeli youths to participate in LEAP’s
July 2014 program.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">Dr. Bill with Paul Guerin,
AFMDA Chairman of the Board of the Western Region and his wife Vera, committed
to bring the Israeli youths to participate in the LEAP program. Orly then
called the director of Friends of Jaffa Institute, who, in return, selected the
six youths who had answered the participation’s mandatory requirements, among
which, sufficient command of the English language. The end result was that six
Israeli youths from Tel Aviv, Ramat Hagolan (Golan Heights), Bat-Yam, Beit
Shemesh and Jaffa were selected to take a life leap with LEAP.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/The-Israeli-participants-in-FMDA-shrits-with-Dr.-Bill-first-RIGHT-Paul-Gruerin-CENTER-and-first-on-LEFT-director-of-American-Friends-of-Jaffa-Institute-photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="The Israeli participants in FMDA shrits with Dr. Bill first RIGHT, Paul Gruerin CENTER and first on LEFT-director of American Friends of Jaffa Institute-photo Orly Halevy" height="229" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fThe-Israeli-participants-in-FMDA-shrits-with-Dr.-Bill-first-RIGHT-Paul-Gruerin-CENTER-and-first-on-LEFT-director-of-American-Friends-of-Jaffa-Institute-photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" width="470" /></a>
The Israeli participants in FMDA shrits with Dr. Bill first RIGHT,
Paul Gruerin CENTER and first on LEFT-director of American Friends of
Jaffa Institute-photo Orly Halevy</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">Now that LEAP has
added Israeli youths to its growing international list of participants, let us
hope that next year a larger group of Israeli youths will graduate LEAP.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">In the LEAP program
100 different coaches and mentors, in the fields of science, medicine, arts,
business and finance, teach the students how to conduct an interview and what
and how to ask questions.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;"><div style="width: 470px;">
<a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/The-seminar-hall-at-UCLA-photo-Nurit-Greenger.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="The seminar hall at UCLA-photo Nurit Greenger" height="352" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fThe-seminar-hall-at-UCLA-photo-Nurit-Greenger.jpg" width="470" /></a>
The seminar hall at UCLA-photo Nurit Greenger</div>
<div style="width: 470px;">
<a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/Paul-Guerin-coaches-participants-photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Paul Guerin coaches participants-photo Orly Halevy" height="313" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fPaul-Guerin-coaches-participants-photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" width="470" /></a>
Paul Guerin coaches participants-photo Orly Halevy</div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">Applying to become a
LEAP coach is hardly easy; this year only one out of four applicants was accepted.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">The LEAP course takes
place each year and is becoming the “in program” for ambitious and motivated youths
who follow LEAP’s cool moto: “The helpless could care less about the clueless.”
As Paula, a LEAP coach with a Master’s Degree in Industrial Psychology summed
it up: “the coolest thing with LEAP is that it is building the leaders of the
next generation.” For LEAP a leader means the one who takes actions beyond
oneself.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">The next LEAP course will
take place during July 9<sup>th</sup> to July 18<sup>th</sup>, 2015 for ages
15-to-24. For more information please visit: </span></span><a href="http://www.leapfoundation.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.leapfoundation.com/</span></span></a></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;">I may add, a society
lacking the appropriate and proper leadership is a failed society.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/LEAP-Poster.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="LEAP poster-photo Nurit Greenger" height="626" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fLEAP-Poster.jpg" width="470" /></a>
LEAP poster-photo Nurit Greenger</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-4913272015248293312014-08-15T19:20:00.004+03:002014-08-15T19:20:52.576+03:00Morsi’s wife threatens to publish letters from Hillary Clinton, exposing “special relationship” between Muslim Brotherhood and Obama Administration<span class="meta-author"><span class="meta-inner">
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/author/raymond-ibrahim" rel="author" title="Posts by Raymond Ibrahim">Raymond Ibrahim</a> </span></span><span class="meta-comments"><span class="meta-inner">
</span>
</span>
<br />
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/clinton-morsi.jpg"><img alt="Hillary Clinton, Mohammed Morsi" class="size-medium wp-image-51641 alignleft" height="232" src="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/clinton-morsi-300x232.jpg" width="300" /></a>The
wife of former Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi is the latest Muslim
Brotherhood “insider” to threaten to expose the special relationship
between Morsi and the Obama administration—a relationship the latter
insists never existed.<br />
Nagla Mahmoud, Morsi’s wife, is reportedly angry at some statements
recently made by Hillary Clinton, including that Morsi was “naïve” and
“unfit for Egypt’s presidency,” as <a href="http://www.dostor.org/657973">reported</a> by Arabic media.<br />
In the words of <a href="http://www.elmogaz.com/node/174824">El-Mogaz News</a>,
Morsi’s wife “is threatening to expose the special relationship between
her husband and Hillary Clinton, after the latter attacked the ousted
[president], calling him a simpleton who was unfit for the presidency.
Sources close to Nagla confirmed that she has threatened to publish the
letters exchanged between Morsi and Hillary.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The report continues by saying that Nagla accuses Hillary of
denouncing her former close ally, the Brotherhood’s Morsi, in an effort
to foster better relations with his successor, Egypt’s current
president, Sisi—even though, as Nagla laments, “he [Morsi] was faithful
to the American administration.”<br />
Earlier, the son of Khairat al-Shatter—another top ranking
Brotherhood member who was arrested during the June 2013 revolution that
ousted Morsi—<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcD3DyrbkPw">made similar assertions</a>, threatening to expose documents that would “undermine his [U.S. president Obama’s] political future and land him in prison.”<br />
Despite all these similar threats from Brotherhood insiders, and
despite all the other evidence, the Obama administration insists that
its <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/obama-admin-supports-egyptian-people-by-supporting-brotherhood-terrorists/">relationship</a> with the Muslim Brotherhood was no more special than its relationships to other Egyptian parties.<br />
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-38996004686708810302014-08-15T19:18:00.002+03:002014-08-15T19:18:40.229+03:00Islamic State to Yazidis: “Either you convert to Islam or we slaughter you”<span class="meta-author"><span class="meta-inner">
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/author/samir" rel="author" title="Posts by Robert Spencer">Robert Spencer</a> </span></span><span class="meta-comments"><span class="meta-inner">
</span>
</span>
<br />
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Yazidisrefugees2.jpg"><img alt="Yazidisrefugees2" class="size-medium wp-image-57142 alignleft" height="199" src="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Yazidisrefugees2-300x199.jpg" width="300" /></a>The
Yazidis are not among those considered to be “People of the Book,” and
so conversion to Islam or death are their only options under Islamic
law. There should be a public discussion of this law in light of
generally accepted norms of human rights, but there won’t be, because
that would be “Islamophobic.”<br />
“Iraq: We’re fleeing because jihadists told us – Convert to Islam or we slaughter you,” by Jonathan Rugman, <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/iraq-were-fleeing-because-jihadists-told-us--convert-to-islam-or-we-slaughter-you-9668760.html" target="_blank">London Evening Standard</a>, August 14, 2014:<br />
<blockquote>
They are camped on classroom floors and amid the concrete shells of unfinished buildings.<br />
They are wholly reliant on the generosity of local people, their lives reduced to no more than the clothes on their backs.<br />
They are the survivors of an ancient religious minority which many in the West had never even heard of until about a week ago.<br />
The plight of Iraq’s Yazidis has triggered air drops and talk of humanitarian intervention by Britain and America.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
And although US Special Forces now reckon the numbers still trapped
on Mount Sinjar are fewer than previously thought, the stories of those
who have escaped are horrific.<br />
Nofa Barakat walked for 15 miles carrying Ayman, her two-month-old
son, in searing heat. She explained to me that when her own breast milk
ran out she kept him alive by having a mountain goat suckle him instead.<br />
I found her towards the end of her journey, crossing the bridge from
Syria into Iraq over the River Habur. Thousands like her escaped by
walking down the north face of Sinjar into Syria, escorted by Kurdish
fighters. The Syria-Iraq frontier is now such a blurred line on the map
that if they keep walking they can cross back into Iraq further north.<br />
“I saw two mothers bury their children,” Nofa told me. “I was not
able to produce my own milk because there was no food or water. We came
here because the terrorists said, ‘Either you convert to Islam or we
slaughter you’.”<br />
Camped in the same school was Ido Suleyman, who told me jihadists had
shot dead his wife and two sons as the family fled. He was clinging to
Araz, his only child to escape. “We don’t want Iraq and Iraq doesn’t
want us,” he said. “We want to go to Europe. We can’t live in a Muslim
country any more.”<br />
I was told the father of a girl called Nesma had been beheaded and her mother killed.<br />
Jihadists who have declared an Islamic state regard the Yazidis as
devil-worshippers and have shown them even less mercy than Christians
who fled earlier.<br />
Suleyman Murat, trapped on Sinjar for 12 days, told me he had seen 33
unburied bodies on the mountain. He and his family survived by fighting
for places on an Iraqi military helicopter, one of just three to fly
rescue missions after one that was top-heavy with refugees crashed on
Tuesday.<br />
Bulldozers are levelling fields to build four new refugee camps for
the thousands of Yazidis still expected to migrate further north.<br />
The UN reckons 1.2 million Iraqis have been displaced from their
homes since January —but it is the fate of one of Iraq’s least-known
minorities which has made the world sit up and take notice.</blockquote>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-81124061361670271652014-08-15T19:16:00.000+03:002014-08-15T19:16:16.717+03:00Max Steinberg z”l <div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">According to his
close friends </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Max Steinberg was a very special young man. He shined in
his honesty, his love for others and his responsibilities for man and country; his
smile was his brand name.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/Max.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Max Steinberg z"l" height="470" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fMax.jpg" width="470" /></a>
Max Steinberg z”l </span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="color: black;">Last night, to a house full, at the Saban Theatre, in Los
Angeles, the community held a memorial service for Max, who made the ultimate
sacrifice to defend the State of Israel when fighting in Gaza. Max was killed in
the Solid-Rock-Protective Edge War.<a name='more'></a></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="color: black;"><div id="ecxattachment_321434" style="width: 470px;">
<a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/R-Evie-and-Stuart-Steinberg-Israel-consul-General-David-Siegel-MK-Dov-Lipman-Photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="R-Evie and Stuart Steinberg, Israel consul General David Siegel, MK Dov Lipman-Photo-Orly Halevy" height="331" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fR-Evie-and-Stuart-Steinberg-Israel-consul-General-David-Siegel-MK-Dov-Lipman-Photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" width="470" /></a>
R-Evie and Stuart Steinberg, Israel consul General David Siegel, MK Dov Lipman, Consul Danny Gadot-Photo-Orly Halevy</div>
<div id="ecxattachment_321436" style="width: 470px;">
<a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/Bible-signed-by-PM-Netanyahu-given-to-the-bereaving-family-Photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Bible signed by PM Netanyahu given to the bereaving family-Photo Orly Halevy" height="312" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fBible-signed-by-PM-Netanyahu-given-to-the-bereaving-family-Photo-Orly-Halevy.jpg" width="470" /></a>
Bible signed by PM Netanyahu given to the bereaving family-Photo Orly Halevy</div>
</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Max was an American Jewish young man who saw his calling
to serve in the IDF in the elite Golani Brigade. He was a marksman and exceptionally
good soldier. From the stories his friends, his sister Paige, his brother Jake
and his parents </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span>Evelyn (</span></span><span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="color: black;">Evie) and Stuart told through-out the night I got to know
much about Max. I almost feel I know him. We have lost a good young man, we
have lost a hero. </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2014/08/Max1.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Max Steinberg z"l" height="236" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.timesofisrael.com%2fblogs%2fuploads%2f2014%2f08%2fMax1.jpg" width="370" /></a>
Max Steinberg z”l</span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span><div style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="color: black;">I send Max a prayer and ask Max to continue watching over
us from the heavens. May Max’s soul be blessed for eternity.</span></span></div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-23607951544584775512014-08-14T22:05:00.001+03:002014-08-14T22:05:22.925+03:00 The Third Gaza War<div class="ecxsans-serif">
<b> A briefing by Efraim Inbar<br />
</b></div>
<div class="ecxsans-serif">
<b><a href="http://www.meforum.org/4775/third-gaza-war" target="_blank">http://www.meforum.org/4775/third-gaza-war</a></b></div>
<div class="ecxsans-serif">
<br /></div>
<blockquote>
Middle East authority Efraim Inbar, Shillman/Ginsburg Writing Fellow
at the Middle East Forum and professor of political science at Bar-Ilan
University in Israel, is director of its Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for
Strategic Studies. He briefed the Middle East Forum in a conference call
on August 12, 2014.<br />
</blockquote>
Israel's goal in the current confrontation was to restore long term
calm to its cities and villages by debilitating Hamas's terror
infrastructure (or "mowing the grass" as this strategy is commonly
known) through the destruction of its rocket launchers, production
facilities and terror tunnels. While a temporary truce hangs in the
balance, Israeli society, which overwhelmingly unified behind Operation
Protective Edge, continues to be resilient and ready to carry on the
fight against this deadly enemy. Should the Cairo negotiations collapse,
the war will escalate and Israel will exact a higher price from Hamas.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
While due to budgetary constraints untrained reservists lacked
sufficient armored personnel carriers and anti-missile systems for
tanks, Israeli soldiers prevailed in each encounter with Hamas fighters
who were more combat-ready than in 2009. Likewise, Israeli troops,
though untrained in subterranean military warfare, dealt effectively
with the tunnel problem.<br />
Egypt, a key regional actor pursuing its national interest, considers
Hamas a terrorist organization and is likely to collaborate with Israel
in curbing its military potential. President Sisi's recent visit to
Moscow underscores Washington's misguided policy of seeking to involve
Turkey and Qatar in ceasefire negotiations. Indeed, the Obama
administration's estrangement from the Sisi regime may well restore the
old Russian-Egyptian alliance, thus reversing four decades of close
US-Egyptian collaboration established by Anwar Sadat and Henry
Kissinger.<br />
Hamas's unyielding demands in the Cairo negotiations indicate that
the organization hasn't been hit hard enough. A hudna, temporary truce
under Islamic law, is the most that even a weakened Hamas could
entertain; and while the extent of Palestinian support for the
organization makes its complete destruction unlikely, damaging its
military wing by capturing and killing its leaders remains a viable
option. Ensuring that Hamas's violence is unequivocally defeated is
critical because any failure of Israel's deterrent posture will have
wide ranging implications not only for Palestinian-Israeli relations but
for the entire Middle East. Whichever side proves more resilient will
win the third Gaza war.<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Summary account by Marilyn Stern, Associate Fellow with the Middle East Forum</i><br />
</blockquote>
<span style="display: block;"></span><div class="ecxsans-serif">
<br /></div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-8875316878855873032014-08-13T20:31:00.002+03:002014-08-13T20:31:37.160+03:00We Are Israel<div class="author">
By <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/g_murphy_donovan">G. Murphy Donovan</a></div>
<div class="article_body">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">“We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/God">God</a> we are efficient."</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><img alt="" src="http://www.americanthinker.com/images/bucket/2014-08/192928_5_.png" style="height: 147px; margin: 5px; width: 200px;" /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><strong>Golda Meir as a girl</strong></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Almost
every news report on the latest Palestinian war leads with comparative
casualties; Israeli victims number in the tens while Arabs number in the
hundreds. Such stories never fail to report on the percent of women and
children injured as if Hamas tactics played <a href="http://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/29/terrorism-israelgaza-context/">no role </a>in the predictable collateral damage of urban warfare.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Back
in the day when Communism was a Soviet monopoly, Joseph Stalin is
alleged to have said; “One death is a tragedy; a million is just a
statistic.” Stalin was, if nothing else, a realist. He knew that
numbers, like much statistical evidence, are just as malleable as
anecdotal evidence. Objectivity, like truth, is also peculiar to the eye
of the beholder. Military disciplines and sciences are no
exception. All wars produce statistics, yet for the most part, battle
numbers are most useful as propaganda. Take comparative casualties, the
full metal jacket of statistics, a weaponized statistic if there ever
were one.</span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Somehow,
for media apologists, Palestinians terrorists firing from population
shields should be immune from counter-battery fire. We are led to
believe that the “disproportionate” number of Palestinian dead or
wounded is evidence somehow that Israeli defensive reactions are
“excessive.” Israel is thought to have forfeited the moral high ground.
Jews protecting their homes are yet again portrayed as villains.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Never
mind the tortured history of Israeli patience or what Jewish casualties
might have been if Israel did not maintain a competent defense. If
Israel could not defend itself, the price to be paid is another
holocaust.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Never
mind that Gaza was given back to the Arabs in what turns out to be
naïve quest for peace. Never mind that Hamas uses hospitals, mosques,
and residential neighborhoods as weapons depots, launch pads, and entry
points for infiltration tunnels. Never mind that Hamas has used the aid
and good will of NGO’s and naïve Western supporters to purchase those
rockets and fund those tunnels. Never mind that Israeli doctors and
hospitals frequently treat Muslim victims in wars that Israel does not
initiate. And never mind that Fatah and Hamas are just the most recent
examples of the many local and global terrorist organizations with a
Palestinian lineage. Let’s leave these facts aside for the moment and
speak just about comparative competence.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Jews
anywhere, Israelis in particular, are very good at what they do.
Indeed, global Jewry is arguably the most successful ethnic/religious
minority on the planet. Where Jews live, they make enormous
contributions to commerce, literature, science, music, art, and
education. Muslims, in contrast, one-fourth of the world’s citizens,
desiccate in a kind of cultural desert that has persisted since Roman
times. Beheading is again one of the faces of Islam. Contemporary
achievement and cultural gaps that separate Muslim from Jew are vast by
any measure.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">And
now, of necessity, Jews are also very adept at the world’s oldest
profession. The stereotype about Jews being good at everything but
contact sports has been laid to rest, yet again in Gaza. Since 1947,
Jews have proven themselves to be able soldiers in what, if statistics
like population matter, has always been a lopsided conflict, David
versus Goliath if you will.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Israeli
military efficiency in concert with Arab incompetence alone accounts
for disproportionate casualties today, yesterday, and for the indefinite
future. There has never been any moral equivalence between the way the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) fight and the abject savagery of historical
Jihadists or contemporary Islamists. The Jewish David is every bit the
moral superior of the Muslim Goliath.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Indeed,
while Israel defends itself yet again, the Muslim world writhes in the
anguish of medieval religious genocide -- in East Africa, Libya, Syria,
Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Indeed, Islamism is advancing globally.
Press and politician alike whine and anguish over mice in Gaza while
Jihadist elephants rampage. Any fair observer need only load the word
“beheading” into their search engine to know the gulf between
contemporary Jewish culture and bestial Islamic imperialism.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.americanthinker.com/images/bucket/2014-08/192929_5_.png" style="height: 281px; width: 400px;" /> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><strong>A girl beheaded</strong></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Horrid
videos and ‘selfies’ now taunt the West, a clinical forecast of what
awaits Jews, infidels, apostates -- Americans and Europeans. Muslims may
represent a fourth of humanity, but at the same time Islam seems to
sport 90% of humanity’s dysfunction. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">In
Europe, the traditional hubs of anti-Semitism (France, Spain, Germany,
Ireland, and Scandinavia) are now energized too by Muslim immigrants and
Islamism. Jewish victims in Europe, a world away, are blamed for a
global social pathology that has nothing to do with Jews, least of all
Israel. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Alas,
the Obama administration and his uniquely inept national security and
foreign policy teams have supported a cascade of regime changes in the
Muslim world, from North Africa, to South Asia and now most perilously
in the Levant. Imprudence and appeasement has liberated the dogs of
Muslim hell.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">The
so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) rampages through the
created chaos in the Levant, a barbarian nightmare that has nothing to
do with Jews and everything to do with American and European policy
blunders. And now with the Arab and Muslim world aflame; a confederacy
of the clueless in Washington and Brussels are picking a new fight with
Russia too; a diversion to be sure.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Mister
Obama may not be a Koran-thumping zealot, yet surely he creates as much
suffering as any rabid Islamist. And just as surely, the Obama national
security team is a milquetoast ‘ally’ of Israel.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Nonetheless,
America should send Bibi Netanyahu and the IDF a thank you note and a
case of champagne sometime soon. Here’s what David has done to Goliath
in the past few days.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">The
IDF has put a bullet through the ears of any ‘two-state’ solution.
Hamas has been exposed as an unreliable partner for even the likes of
Fatah, say nothing of Israel. The Palestinian unity and statehood
chimera is the real collateral damage from recent fighting.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">The
generals in Cairo have been alienated too. Closure of the Israel border
might be inconvenient. Closure of the Egyptian border could be fatal
for Gaza. Egypt has decades of bad blood with the Muslim Brotherhood.
General el-Sisi is not likely to tolerate an <em>al ikhwan </em>stepchild, a terrorist state, on Egypt’s northern border. Hamas may have done a lot more than <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/hamas-learns-it-has-few-friends-latest-war-israel-n174236">shoot itself </a>in the foot this time.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Hamas,
Fatah, and global Islamism may still have friends in the Media, New
York, Brussels, and Washington, but allies that count, local
coreligionists, now including the most populous nation in Arabia, appear
to be fed up with the idea of “Palestine.” <em>Ins’allah</em>!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">The
West has been on the wrong side of history since New York was attacked
by a Saudi/Arab terror team. Clearly the tactical response of remote air
strikes, small wars, and appeasement has failed. Islamists are on the
march while free-world allies dither. Europe and America are now
perilously close to being on the wrong side of civilization too.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Israel
has thrown itself again into the breach, a solitary beacon of courage
beset by a nest of vipers. Israel again rises to be the 21st Century
metaphor for the Gates of Vienna. Would that America, Europe, and the
rest of the civilized world see the example in the most recent Jewish
struggle? Religious or political fascism cannot be appeased; it must be
defeated in detail at the points of origin, those dark tunnels that
riddle the Muslim body politic.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Sponsor
states like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Turkey, and Iran must
be confronted. Without external ideological/ material support and
sanctuary, groups like al Qaeda, Hizb’allah, Hamas, and ISIS would be
impossible. Terror is the symptom, cancerous religion abetted by fascist
politics in the <em>Ummah</em> is the disease.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Barack
Obama tells us that he is seeking a solution where there are “no
victors and no vanquished.” Hard to believe such vapidity coming from
the mouth of a man who presumes to lead the civilized world. The
historical and real-politic naiveté of such banalities defies
explanation.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">There is no substitute for victory. We are with Israel -- or we are done!</span></span><br />
<em><span style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">This
essay is dedicated to the late Col Jeffery Barrie, USA. Barrie was a
graduate of the Citadel, a varsity lineman, a combat veteran, a military
attaché in Moscow, an iconoclast, and a Jew -- and lifelong friend to
the author.</span></span></em></div>
<br /><b>Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/we_are_israel.html</b> at August 13, 2014 - 12:30:59 PM CDT
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-23529811846721968102014-08-13T15:42:00.003+03:002014-08-13T15:42:49.413+03:00IDF Details Hamas's Use of Civilian Areas as Missile Bases<span> <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/detail/deroy-murdock">DEROY MURDOCK</a></span>
<br />
The tactically adroit Israel Defense Forces are doing an ever-better job of fighting the <em>information</em> war.
Throughout Operation Protective Edge, IDF maps, graphics, videos, and
other communications tools have illustrated Hamas's consistent and
routine transformation of civilian areas into launch pads for some 3,000
rockets blasted wildly into Israel. The IDF also has informed the world
about its leaflets, phone calls, and text messages that urge Gazans to
seek shelter before Israel neutralizes Hamas's hostile-fire <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/node/385139/print#" title="Click to Continue > by TicTaCoupon">INSTALLATIONS<img border="0" src="http://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png" /></a>.<br />
As the debate roars on about the current war between Israel and
Hamas, these IDF materials arm Israel's friends, challenge its
open-minded critics, and embarrass its enemies.<br />
IDF now has created an outstanding <u><a href="http://acdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Hamas-Urban-Warfare-Tactics.pdf?utm_source=Hamas+Urban+Warfare+Tactics&utm_campaign=Hamas+Urban+Warfare+Tactics&utm_medium=email">document</a></u> that resembles an unsealed indictment against Hamas - a State Department-<u><a href="http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm">designated</a></u> foreign terrorist organization.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
"Hamas War Tactics: Attacks from Civilian Centers," is an apparent
PowerPoint presentation by the IDF's Military-Strategic Information
Section. Its subtitle says it all: "Evidence of Hamas' Violations of
International Law through Use of Civilian Facilities and Densely
Populated Areas for Terror."<br />
These slides detail Hamas's rocket blasts from mosques, schools,
power plants, and even hospitals. Beyond maps, photos, and text, this
presentation includes links to declassified footage from IDF drones and
aircraft. Multiple IDF videos and broadcast-news stories show how these
militant-Islamic murderers literally commit war crimes by firing from
civilian areas in Gaza into civilian areas in Israel, all while refusing
to wear uniforms.<br />
Has anyone ever waved the Geneva Convention at Hamas? If Israel is held to Geneva standards, why isn't Hamas?<br />
<img border="0" src="http://c9.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/pic_corner_08112014_IDFmap.jpg" style="vertical-align: top;" width="400" /><br />
In just one example of this phenomenon, an IDF map shows how Hamas fired a rocket from <em>inside</em> the
El' Azhar Islamic College on July 8 at 2:44 a.m. The projectile soared
over the border and then exploded in an Israeli town called Ofakim.<br />
Imagine your sleep being disturbed by <em>that</em>.<br />
"Hamas' tactics flagrantly violate international law and the most
basic of moral precepts," the document concludes. "Given these tactics,
the ultimate responsibility for the damage done to civilians as well as
the civilian infrastructure of Gaza lies with Hamas."<br />
With this document and others, IDF has shown the world, including the
United States, how a military force can use timely operational
information and intelligence to sway - and, one hopes, capture -
international opinion. Such PR would have served the Pentagon well
during the Iraq War and even now in Afghanistan.<br />
Among the very few things that keep this IDF presentation from being a model document is that it is undated. <em>Every</em> document
should be dated, always and everywhere, especially if one seeks
credibility among journalists and other professional communicators. To
the untrained eye, the IDF's fine work could be confused with something
about Hamas's misdeeds from one, five or even seven years ago, when it
took over Gaza and began pummeling Israel with missiles. It would be sad
if the mere absence of a date on this PowerPoint led people to
disregard it as old news.<br />
Also, it would be wise for Israel to use English as well as metric
measurements in all of its English-language materials. The more friends
Israel has in America, the better. Sparing Americans the inconvenience
of converting kilometers into miles is worth the trouble. Measurements
using both systems should appear side by side. Everybody wins!<br />
But these are comparative quibbles.<br />
"Hamas War Tactics: Attacks from Civilian Centers" is a high-quality
communications effort in its own right. More important, it is a deeply
disturbing guide to the evils of Hamas - the formidable and relentless
cancer that annoyingly is affixed to Israel.<br />
A version of this piece previously appeared on <b><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/" target="_blank" title="blocked::http://www.nationalreview.com/">National Review Online.</a></b><br />
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<div class="ThumbImgLeft">
<img alt="" src="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20120815_page_2012_200_murdock2_square.jpg" /></div>
National
Review Online contributing editor Deroy Murdock is a
Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor. His column, "This Opinion Just
In...," frequently appears in the <em>New York Post, Washington Times</em>, and <em>Orange County Register</em>, among other papers across America.<br />
<br />
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br />Read more: <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/idf-details-hamass-use-of-civilian-areas-as-missile-bases?f=must_reads#ixzz3AH8sVy4M" style="color: #003399;">Family Security Matters</a> <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/idf-details-hamass-use-of-civilian-areas-as-missile-bases?f=must_reads#ixzz3AH8sVy4M" style="color: #003399;">http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/idf-details-hamass-use-of-civilian-areas-as-missile-bases?f=must_reads#ixzz3AH8sVy4M</a>
<br />Under Creative Commons License: <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0" style="color: #003399;">Attribution</a></div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-39378984901323930552014-08-13T15:41:00.000+03:002014-08-13T15:41:06.458+03:00World Ignores Christian Exodus from Islamic World<span> <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/detail/raymond-ibrahim">RAYMOND IBRAHIM</a></span>
<small>August 13, 2014</small>
<br />
While the world fixates on the conflict between Israel and
Hamas-and while most mainstream media demonize Israel for trying to
survive amid a sea of Arab-Islamic hostility-similar or worse tragedies
continue to go virtually ignored.<br />
<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/_admin/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/620-1.jpg"><img border="0" height="293" src="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/_admin/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/620-1.jpg" style="vertical-align: top;" title="620 (1)" width="432" /></a><br />
Christian refugees, who fled or were expelled from Mosul, crowd around a truck distributing food aid.<br />
One of the most ancient Christian communities in the world, that of
Iraq-which already had been decimated over the last decade, by Islamic
forces unleashed after the ousting of Saddam Hussein-has now been wiped
out entirely by the new "caliphate," the so-called Islamic State,
formerly known by the acronym "ISIS."<br />
As <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/convert-pay-tax-die-islamic-state-warns-christians-181415698--business.html?soc_src=mediacontentsharebuttons">Reuters</a> reported:<br />
<blockquote>
Islamist insurgents have issued an ultimatum to northern Iraq's
dwindling Christian population to either convert to Islam, pay a
religious levy or face death, according to a statement distributed in
the militant-controlled city of Mosul....<br />
It said Christians who wanted to remain in the "caliphate" that the
Islamic State declared this month in parts of Iraq and Syria must agree
to abide by terms of a "dhimma" contract-a historic practice under which
non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return for a special levy
known as "jizya."<br />
"We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract-involving
payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the
sword," the announcement said.<br />
</blockquote>
The amount of <em>jizya</em>-money demanded was $450 a month, an exorbitant sum for Iraq.<br />
Hours after the demand for jizya was made, Islamists began <a href="http://www.qenshrin.com/details.php?id=35341#.U9AKDfmSxqW">painting the letter "n" on Christian homes in Mosul</a>-in Arabic, Christians are known as "Nasara," or "Nazarenes"-signaling them out for the slaughter to come.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Most Christians have since fled. A one-minute video in Arabic of their exodus appears <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=868502626513196&set=vb.100000604016240&type=2&theater">here</a>-women
and children weeping as they flee their homes-a video that will not be
shown by any Western mainstream media outlet, busy as they are depicting
instead nonstop images of Palestinian women and children.<br />
The Syrian Orthodox bishop of Mosul said that what is happening to the Christians of Mosul is nothing less than "<a href="http://arabic.rt.com/prg/telecast/700106-%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%99?%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%B7%C3%98%C2%B1%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%99?-%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%98%C2%B1%C3%98%C2%A8%C3%99?%C3%99?%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%AF%C3%99?%C3%99?%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%B3-%C3%98%C2%AA%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%AC%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%B1-%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%B3%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%AD%C3%99?-%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%99?%C3%99?%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%B5%C3%99?-%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%B9%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%98%C2%AF%C3%99?-%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%A5%C3%98%C2%A8%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%98%C2%AF%C3%98%C2%A9-%C3%99?%C3%99?%C3%99?-%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%B3%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%B9-%C3%98%C2%A8%C3%98%C2%AD%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%98%C2%AF%C3%98%C2%AB-%C3%99?%C3%98%C2%AA%C3%99?-%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%99?-%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%98%C2%BA%C3%98%C2%AA%C3%98%C2%B5%C3%98%C2%A7%C3%98%C2%A8/">genocide</a>...
not to mention the slaughters and rapes not being reported... Forcing
more than a thousand Christian families out of Mosul, and turning
Christian churches into Muslim mosques, is equivalent to genocide." Of
course, the word genocide means to kill or make extinct a people.<br />
Others were not as lucky to flee. According to Iraqi human rights
activist Hena Edward, a great many older and disabled Iraqis, unable to
pay the jizya or join the exodus, have <a href="http://www.linga.org/international-news/NjY2MA">opted to convert to Islam</a>.<br />
Meanwhile, the jihadis continue destroying churches and other ancient
Christian holy sites in the name of their religion, and murdering any
Christians they can find. Among other acts, they <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/isis-torches-1800-old-mosul-church-expelling-christians-194750912.html">torched an 1800 year old church in Mosul</a>, stormed a fourth century monastery-formerly one of Iraq's best known Christian landmarks-and <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/jihadists-seize-iraq-monastery-005850871.html">expelling its resident monks</a>.<br />
Most recently, in Syrian regions under the Islamic State's control, <a href="http://www.vieinter.com/themiddleeast/isis-crucifies-8-christians-in-syria-for-apostasy-from-islam/">eight Christians were reportedly crucified</a>.<br />
The Islamic State's call for Christians to pay <em>jizya</em> is not simply about money. It is about subjugation. Most Western media reporting on this recent call for <em>jizya</em> have failed to explain the accompanying <em>dhimma</em> contract Christians must also abide by. According to the Islamic State, "We offer them [Christians] three choices: Islam; <em>the dhimma contract</em>-involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword."<br />
The "dhimma contract" is a reference to the Conditions of Omar, an
Islamic text attributed to the caliph of the same name that forces
Christians to live according to third class citizen status.<br />
In fact, several months back, when the Islamic State was still called
"ISIS," it applied the Conditions of Omar on the Christian minorities
of Raqqa, Syria. The Islamic group had <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26366197">issued a directive</a><br />
<blockquote>
citing the Islamic concept of "dhimma", [which] requires Christians
in the city to pay tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in
exchange for their safety. It says <em>Christians must not make
renovations to churches, display crosses or other religious symbols
outside churches, ring church bells or pray in public. Christians must
not carry arms, and must follow other rules</em> imposed by ISIS... "If
they reject, they are subject to being legitimate targets, and nothing
will remain between them and ISIS other than the sword," the statement
said [emphasis added].<br />
</blockquote>
The persecution and exodus of Christians is hardly limited to Iraq. In 2011, the <a href="http://in.christiantoday.com/articles/christians-could-disappear-from-iraq-and-afghanistan/6919.htm">U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom</a> noted:
"The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it's
increasing year by year." In our lifetime alone "Christians might
disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt," all Muslim
majority nations.<br />
Under Saddam Hussein, and before the 2003 U.S. "liberation" of Iraq,
more than a million Christians lived in Iraq; Mosul had some 60,000
Christians. Today there are reportedly none thanks to the new Muslim
"caliphate."<br />
In Egypt, some <a href="http://www.christiannewstoday.com/Christian_News_Report_900171.html">100,000 Christian Copts</a> fled their homeland soon after the "Arab Spring." But even before that, the Coptic Orthodox Church lamented the "<a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3761/guest-column-egypt-christians-distraught">repeated incidents of displacement of Copts from their homes</a>,
whether by force or threat. Displacements began in Ameriya [62
Christian families evicted], then they stretched to Dahshur [120
Christian families evicted], and today terror and threats have reached
the hearts and souls of our Coptic children in Sinai."<br />
In late 2012, it was reported that the <a href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/32561?idnews=32561&lan=eng#.UYbwY7WTioN">last Christian in the city of Homs</a>, Syria-which had a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-plight-of-syrias-christians-we-left-homs-because-they-were-trying-to-kill-us-8274710.html">Christian population of some 80,000 before jihadis</a> came-was
murdered. An escaped teenage Syrian girl said: "We left because they
were trying to kill us... because we were Christians.... Those who were
our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went
through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of
our house."<br />
In the African nation of Mali, after a 2012 Islamic coup, as many as <a href="http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=15403&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CatholicWorldNewsFeatureStories+%28Catholic+World+News+%28on+CatholicCulture.org%29%29">200,000 Christians fled</a>. According to reports, "<a href="http://www.christiantoday.com/article/appeal.for.christians.in.mali/29908.htm">the church in Mali faces being eradicated</a>,"
especially in the north "where rebels want to establish an independent
Islamist state and drive Christians out... there have been house to
house searches for Christians who might be in hiding, church and
Christian property has been looted or destroyed, and people tortured
into revealing any Christian relatives." At least one pastor was
beheaded.<br />
One can go on and on:<br />
<ul>
<li>In Ethiopia, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/thousands-christians-displaced-ethiopia-muslim-extremists-torch-churches-homes-2057387870/#ixzz2SSF8T1xb">thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes</a> when "Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes."</li>
<li>In the Ivory Coast-where Christians have been crucified-Islamic rebels "<a href="http://www.assistnews.net/STORIES/2012/s12080114.htm">massacred hundreds and displaced tens of thousands</a>" of Christians.</li>
<li>In Libya, Islamic rebels forced <a href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Islamists-chase-nuns-from-Libya,-people-pray-for-their-return-27021.html">several Christian nun orders</a> serving the sick and needy since 1921 to flee and killed several Coptic Christians, causing that community also to flee.</li>
<li>In Muslim-majority northern Nigeria, where hardly a Sunday passes
without a church bombing, Christians are fleeing by the thousands; one
region has been emptied of <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Islamist-violence-drives-nearly-95-per-cent-of-Christians-from-Nigerian-state.html">95% of its Christian population</a>.</li>
<li>In Pakistan, after a Christian child was falsely accused of
desecrating a Koran and Muslims went on an anti-Christian rampage, an
entire Christian village-men, women, and children-<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/30/fearful-pakistani-christians-make-home-in-forest/">was forced to flee into the nearby woods,</a> where they built a church, to permanently reside there.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Despite all these atrocities, exoduses, and even genocides, the
mainstream media seems to spend every available moment airing images of
displaced Palestinians and demonizing Israel for trying to defend
itself. Yet Israel does not kill Palestinians because of their religion
or any other personal aspects. It does so in the context of being
rocketed and trying to defend itself from terrorism.<br />
On the other hand, all the crimes being committed by Muslims against
Christians are simply motivated by religious hate, because the
Christians are Christian.<br />
It is to the mainstream media's great shame that those who slaughter,
behead, crucify, and displace people for no other reason than because
they are Christian, rarely if ever get media coverage, while a nation
such as Israel, which kills only in the context of self-defense, and not
out of religious bigotry, is constantly demonized.<br />
<div class="AuthorBio" style="clear: both; padding-top: 10px;">
<div class="ThumbImgLeft">
<img alt="" src="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20120215_raymond_ibrahim.jpg" /></div>
<b><em>Raymond Ibrahim</em></b><b><em> </em></b><em>is a widely published author, public speaker, and Middle East and Islam expert. His books </em>include <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621570258/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1621570258&linkCode=as2&tag=uhurnetw-20"><u>Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians</u></a><em> </em>(2013) <em>and<em> </em></em><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/books/the-al-qaeda-reader"><u>The Al Qaeda Reader</u></a><em> </em>(2007). <b><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/" target="_blank">RaymondIbrahim.com</a></b><br />
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br />Read more: <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/world-ignores-christian-exodus-from-islamic-world?f=must_reads#ixzz3AH8SEkR7" style="color: #003399;">Family Security Matters</a> <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/world-ignores-christian-exodus-from-islamic-world?f=must_reads#ixzz3AH8SEkR7" style="color: #003399;">http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/world-ignores-christian-exodus-from-islamic-world?f=must_reads#ixzz3AH8SEkR7</a>
<br />Under Creative Commons License: <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0" style="color: #003399;">Attribution</a></div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-66768895134293976102014-08-13T15:38:00.001+03:002014-08-13T15:38:23.285+03:00Hezbollah official: New tunnels dug in Gaza every hour<div class="normal14" style="padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 0px;">
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Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim
Qassem says Israel destroyed only 30 of over 3,000 tunnels in Gaza •
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal condemns Israel, says it
has no right to self-defense because "it is an occupier."</div>
</span></div>
<div class="normal">
<a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=19427">Daniel Siryoti </a></div>
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Hezbollah Deputy
Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem
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Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim
Qassem said Tuesday that Israel's Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza
Strip was ineffective and barely put a dent in Hamas' tunnel
infrastructure.</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Speaking on Hezbollah-run television station
Al-Manar, Qassem said, "The Israeli prime minister was proud of
destroying more than 30 tunnels, but in Gaza, there are more than 3,000
tunnels and a new tunnel is dug every hour."</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
He also addressed Palestinian criticism of
Hezbollah for not getting involved in the conflict by firing rockets at
northern Israel. </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
"Such an undertaking would work against the
Palestinians, drawing international criticism and justifying Israel's
continued aggression," he said. </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
In Gaza, officials are still determining the
scope of the damage from the campaign. Some believe it will take years
for Gaza to recover from the devastation. </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
"Thousands of buildings were destroyed," Gaza
Civilian Emergency Services spokesman Ashraf al-Kudra told Israel Hayom.
"The electricity, drinking water and sewage infrastructure has been
almost entirely destroyed. What has not been destroyed has been severely
damaged and is on the brink of collapse."</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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He estimated the damage to be about $6
billion, and added that it was still not clear whether the new school
year will begin in Gaza this fall. </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Meanwhile, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud
al-Faisal strongly condemn Israel's military actions over the last month
and justified Hamas rocket fire, saying, "As we see, Israel does not
shy away from taking its terror to any level, with total disregard to
any laws, rules, religious edicts or humanitarian considerations to
achieve its goals."<br /><br />
</div>
<br /><em>Credit: Reuters</em><br /><br />Speaking at a meeting of
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah, Faisal said that, as
an "occupying force," Israel has no right to self-defense and must
"realize that peace is the only solution for its survival."
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
A statement signed by the representatives at
the meeting says, "Israel should immediately cease its aggression
against the Palestinian people and shoulder political and legal
responsibility for war crimes."</div>
</span> </div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-88292127830246239262014-08-13T15:36:00.000+03:002014-08-13T15:36:02.059+03:00Tension mounts as clock ticks down on Gaza cease-fire<div class="normal14" style="padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 0px;">
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With
72-hour cease-fire set to expire at midnight Wednesday, Cairo talks
reach a decisive stage • Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon: Fighting may
break out again; we must be alert and ready • Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman: Israel must take the initiative, finish the story.</div>
</div>
<div class="normal">
<a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=19419">Daniel Siryoti, Mati Tuchfeld and Lilach Shoval</a></div>
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Defense Minister Moshe
Ya'alon visits a Navy ship in Ashdod, Tuesday
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With the latest 72-hour cease-fire set to
expire at midnight Wednesday, the only certainty about what will follow
is uncertainty. </div>
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According to Israeli officials, the ongoing
cease-fire talks in Cairo have hit a stalemate, and Israel's political
echelon is prepared for the possibility that fighting in Gaza will
resume after the 72-hour cease-fire ends.</div>
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A cabinet meeting that had been scheduled for
Tuesday afternoon was canceled. However, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu did meet with heads of coalition parties on Tuesday to update
them on developments in Cairo, or lack thereof.</div>
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"Hamas is negotiating like someone who has nothing to lose," a senior Israeli political official said Tuesday.</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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During a visit to a Navy base in Ashdod on
Tuesday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said. "I don't know if we will
reach an agreement by midnight on Wednesday. I don't know if we need to
extend the negotiations. It could be that fighting will break out once
again. We have to be alert and ready," Ya'alon said.</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
In a Channel 2 interview on Tuesday, Finance Minister Yair Lapid said hostilities might resume on Wednesday night.</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
"It won't be the same fighting, because we
will strike much harder," Lapid warned. "This is an attempt to achieve
quiet for residents of the south, and all options are on the table --
Operation Protective Edge is not over." </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Lapid said the gaps in the Cairo talks remain wide. According to Lapid, Hamas is getting weaker with each passing day.</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
"[Hamas is] a murderous terrorist organization
that seeks to kill Jewish children in Nahal Oz, Sderot and everywhere
else," Lapid said. "Until we ensure security, we won't stop."</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
During a visit to southern Israel on Wednesday
morning, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, "Israel cannot allow a
war of attrition."</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Lieberman said Israel must "take the
initiative, even if it means a significant escalation. Finish the story
in the shortest time possible."</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Israeli officials said Israel would not make
concessions to Hamas in the Cairo talks, but would distinguish between
security-related issues and other matters. Israel is apparently not
opposed to an Egyptian proposal for Hamas to receive third-party funding
to pay salaries to civil servants in Gaza. Israel is also not opposed
to allowing commercial goods to pass through the Kerem Shalom crossing
and increasing aid to the people of Gaza, as long as Israel retains
supervision of the crossing. </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Israel will not intervene on the issue of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, Israeli officials said.</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
However, Israel opposes the establishment of a
seaport and an airport in Gaza. It also will not release Palestinian
prisoners, except perhaps for several dozen fighters captured in recent
weeks during Operation Protective Edge.</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
As for the Palestinian intentions, there were
conflicting reports on Tuesday, perhaps stemming from internal disputes
within the Palestinian negotiating delegation in Cairo. While
representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza are interested in a
long-term cease-fire agreement, and are willing to extend the current
72-hour cease-fire by a day or two to reach such an agreement,
representatives of Palestinian groups abroad, particularly from Hamas,
are insisting that the current cease-fire not be extended and that
rocket fire at Israel be resumed, if necessary. A Hamas official was
quoted as saying that the group was "prepared for prolonged fighting" if
its demands were not met. </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
According to a report by the Lebanese Al
Mayadeen news outlet, a key issue that remains to be solved is Israel's
demand for the remains of soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin to be
returned. Hamas official Muhammad Nazal said Hamas would not tie this
issue to the cease-fire talks. </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
"Israel has gotten used to receiving its
demands without giving anything in return," Nazal said. "We won't agree
to discuss the return of bodies in the cease-fire talks. On this issue,
there will be separate negotiations."</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Lieberman said on Wednesday that he would not
support any cease-fire agreement that does not include the return of the
remains of Shaul and Goldin. The foreign minister threatened that if
Hamas did not give back the remains of the soldiers, it would receive
the bodies of Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders in
Gaza instead.</div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Palestinian sources on Tuesday accused Egypt
of thwarting progress in the cease-fire talks, as a way of putting
pressure on Hamas to withdraw some of its demands regarding the Rafah
crossing. </div>
<div align="left" dir="ltr">
Yet there were also optimistic Palestinian
reports on Tuesday. Deputy Hamas political office chief Moussa Abu
Marzouk wrote on his Facebook page that the Cairo talks were moving "in a
positive direction." And an Islamic Jihad official said, "A final
agreement on a permanent cease-fire and the lifting of the blockade of
the Gaza Strip will be achieved by Wednesday."</div>
<div align="left">
According to Arab media reports, Israel has agreed to
gradually expand the Gaza fishing zone. It will also reportedly allow
construction materials into Gaza, under international supervision. Also,
the number of trucks carrying goods into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom
crossing will reportedly be doubled and 5,000 Palestinians per month
will be allowed to travel from Gaza to the West Bank, via the Erez
crossing.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Hamas said at least five Palestinians were
killed on Wednesday morning in northern Gaza when unexploded Israeli
ordnance detonated as sappers tried to defuse it.</div>
</span> </div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-62131746978852173242014-08-13T11:33:00.000+03:002014-08-13T11:33:23.721+03:00The Romance of the Fall<a href="http://sultanknish.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/the-romance-of-fall.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews+%28from+NY+to+Israel+Sultan+Reveals+The+Stories+Behind+the+News%29"><em>Sultan Knish blog</em></a><br />
Robin Williams is the keyword of the hour. Seeing the rash of stories
about him, you might think that he went out at the high point of his
career. And yet those same people couldn't be bothered to actually watch
the movies he was starring in.<br /><br />The closest he came to a starring
role in the last few years was Old Dogs. It made less than $50 million.
Before that there was License to Wed. A handful of people saw that.<br /><br />Last year he was back on television. And the show he was on was cancelled after its first season.<br /><br />The
same public eating up Robin Williams stories now was bored and
disinterested. A week ago, it wouldn't have paid attention to Robin
Williams if he had paid them to. It didn't go to see his movies. It
didn't watch his TV show.<br /><br />Now that he committed suicide, it temporarily can't get enough of him.<br /><br />History
is speedily rewritten to put him at the center of everything. And yet
how many of those same people turning him into the trending topic of
everything tuned in to the series finale of The Crazy Ones? The ratings
say that not a whole lot of people did.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />What makes Robin Williams
suddenly so fascinating and compelling is that he killed himself. It's
not just that he's dead. It's that he died tragically. It's that he took
his own life.<br /><br />Lauren Bacall, an arguably greater star, isn't
picking up the same headlines. She didn't kill herself. There's no
terribly compelling backstory of drugs, depression and failed marriages
to pick over as the cause of her death. <br /><br />She just died.<br /><br />If
Robin Williams had died of natural causes, he would have lingered
briefly in the news before being shouldered aside by a pop star's
outfit. It's his self-destruction that makes his story a magnet for a
society that is destroying itself.<br /><br />It's one thing to slow down to
gawk at a car accident, but it's another thing to do it while your own
car is crashing into a concrete barrier.<br /><br />The society that can't
get enough of a man who killed himself is killing itself in much the
same ways. It suffers from impulse control problems, it's addictions are
out of control, it ricochets wildly between frenzied pleasure seeking
and deep depression. It has no hope for the future but is constantly
cracking jokes.<br /><br />Robin Williams was on a streak in the nineties. Then his career died in the oughts.<br /><br />I'm
not particularly familiar with what was going on in his personal life,
but one obvious metric is that he passed the fifty mark. He was now
officially old. Within a few years the career of an actor who had
regularly been starring in big movies was gone.<br /><br />Our society
doesn't like getting old. Many of the people mourning Williams are
really mourning their own youth. They're marking dates on a calendar,
scrolling back to see when Good Morning Vietnam or even Good Will
Hunting came out and wondering if so much time could have really passed.<br /><br />But
the society of the cliff, the one that is slowing down to gawk as his
body is being wheeled into an ambulance while their car is going over
the cliff, finds the instinct of self-destruction compelling. In feeling
sorry for him, they are really feeling sorry for themselves.<br /><br />And
that is the new role of fame, to embody not the hopeful and the
vibrant, but the destructive. To entertain the people and then to die
for the people. To distract the audience from its own mortality.<br /><br />The
compelling stories are no longer on screen, they are off screen. Movies
and television are becoming the background for the reality dramas of
fame. Audiences are less interested in cinematic evocations of hope, in
the dramas of morality and heroism. They prefer the real life dramas of
people made famous making fools of themselves in public until they
either leave the stage or die.<br /><br />Robin Williams never left the stage.<br /><br />This
isn't about Robin Williams, who was after all someone's father and
someone's husband. Our country is run, politically and culturally, by
men and women who make him seem like the soul of rectitude. They just
don't announce it on stage. Or when they do, like David Carr or Barack
Obama, they spin it as part of their upward trajectory. But there is no
upward trajectory.<br /><br />Our society is dying because we traded the
virtues of character for fake inspiration. And fake inspiration is
ridiculously cheap and ridiculously worthless. It asks nothing of people
and it gives them nothing.<br /><br />Robin Williams mimed that kind of
inspiration in countless movies. And he wasn't the only one. What Obama
offered America was the same empty hopeless hope, the invocation of an
artificial inspiration created through tone and expression, but that
asked nothing of our character.<br /><br />Deep down everyone can sense the
hollowness. It's what leads them to stop and gawk. The crowds who want
inspiration are really looking for something darker. They want a hope to
save them from themselves. They want some inspiration that will prevent
them from seeing who they really are. And if they can't have that, they
want an excuse for their deaths and the death of their society.<br /><br />Actors
understand better than anyone that there is no escaping from ourselves.
It's the audience that is fooled. It's the audience that wants to
believe in inspiration and immortality, and when the belief dies, it
weeps over the corpse of the performer, tastes his despair and then
moves on.<br /><br />Character means making difficult decisions and taking
responsibility for them. It's not something that our society does
anymore. Too many of us have diseases or are victims or somehow
disadvantaged. Character is individualistic. It asks us to walk the only
path of escape from our own flaws by taking responsibility for them. <br /><br />The
alternative is the romance of the fall. The car headed for the concrete
barrier. The society of the cliff pointing and laughing even while it's
waiting to fall. Crowds begging for fake inspiration and dying as
eternal victims because no one ever taught them how to choose life.<br /><br />Each
generation is called upon to take responsibility for its own choices.
The failure to take responsibility is the death drive. Those who refuse
to take responsibility are choosing death and the willingness to die
attracts them. It embodies the death drive that their beliefs naturally
lead to.<br /><br />They romanticize death because they have chosen to
abdicate their lives. Their deaths are a slow thing and may take
generations to complete. It is a choice that they can always undo. The
romance of the fall always ends in shadow. The end of character is also
the death of the soul and the society. <br />
<div class="ecxblogger-post-footer">
Daniel
Greenfield is a New York City based writer and blogger and a Shillman
Journalism Fellow of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.</div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-10565347003673930032014-08-13T10:04:00.002+03:002014-08-13T10:04:53.339+03:00Jihadis on Robin Williams: “hope this one burns in the hottest lake of fire”This is the culture you expect to negotiate? You are a fool, ignorant or anti-western values-wake up!!<br />
<br />
<span class="fullpost"><span class="meta-author"><span class="meta-inner">
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/author/samir" rel="author" title="Posts by Robert Spencer">Robert Spencer</a> </span></span><span class="meta-comments"><span class="meta-inner"> </span></span></span><br />
<span class="fullpost"><span class="meta-comments"><span class="meta-inner"> </span>
</span>
</span><br />
They’re still angry about his jihad routine. So here it is, in tribute to him.<br />
“Jihadis Slam Robin William [sic] for Stand-up Routine from 2002,” by Mangala Dilip, <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.in/jihadis-slam-robin-william-stand-routine-2002-606646" target="_blank">International Business Times</a>, August 12, 2014:<br />
<blockquote>
Veteran actor and comedian Robin Williams, 63, was found
dead in his California home by the Marin County Police, shortly after
they responded to an emergency call around noon, local time, CNN
reported.<br />
He is said to have taken his own life and according to his media
representative Mara Buxbaum, is said to have “been battling severe
depression of late”.<br />
David Itzkoff of the New York Times released a statement from Williams’ wife Susan Schneider on Tuesday morning.<br />
Robin Williams died this morning, his publicist confirms.
Statement from his wife Susan Schneider: pic.twitter.com/YS0WbTd3oO<br />
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) August 11, 2014<br />
While the world mourned his loss by sharing and retweeting his best
performances, there were a few who actively celebrated the untimely
death.<br />
“#RobinWilliams hanged himself? SubhanAllah what blessing Islam is.
Verily, Allah guards us from depression. Hell, what an evil
destination.” Posted Abdullah, aka Mujahid4life.<br />
In reply to Adbullah’s next tweet wishing Williams would burn in
hell, Yusuf Nidal Rahman posted, “@mujahid4life how can any kafir rest
it peace, hope this one burns in the hottest lake of fire.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
“@Alansarialjanab he committed suicide, cross dressed for a living
and defames our religion may Allah give him what he deserves in the
akhira” posted Abu Hamzah AlNabilsi.<br />
Since his death, a video of Williams performing the routine has
garnered much attention, with fans and haters retweeting and sharing it
much fervour. This incessant circulation of the video has led more and
more Jihadis to write vindictive comments against Williams.<br />
“And now your dead with all the fame and riches… Suicide. Let see what you find with your lord.<br />
In islam the person who commits suicide will have that scenario looped
until the day of judgement and he is for hell,” Mohammed Al Farsi
commented on the video.<br />
“Rot in your useless regret when the angel of death snatched your
soul and when you saw that the promise of Allah is true. Have happy time
meeting munkar and nakeer. Who is laughing now?” posted Midrashim
Madeeq<br />
This hate comes in retalliation to the jokes Williams’ made on Jihad
during “Live on Broadway”, his fourth HBO stand-up special in 2002. A
few excerpts from the routine goes: <br />
“One of the fundamental things is in a Jihad…. And if you are in a
Jihad and you kill an infidel which, I’m sad to say, is all of us and
you yourself die… you go to heaven and you are greeted by dark-haired
virgins. Now everyone who’s ever been with one virgin is going… “I don’t
know…””<br />
“Recently, there was a article in the New York Times, a Koran scholar
said: “The actual translation is not dark-haired virgins, but crystal
clear raisins.” Slight difference in interpretation, really. It’s like
instead of “Thy shall not kill” is “Thy shall not wear a kilt”.”<br />
“Imagine some guy blows himself up, goes to the gates of Heaven: –
Where are my bitches? – Here are your raisins. Or Virgils going: “You
got a pretty face!””<br />
“Osama Bin Laden goes to the gates of Heaven, there’s George
Washington going: “How dare you defy that what we created” and gets
violent on his ass. other members of the Congress start kicking the shit
outta him. Ossama: “Where are the virgins?” ” Virginians, you
asshole!””</blockquote>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-66003465107735972412014-08-13T10:02:00.003+03:002014-08-13T10:02:17.514+03:00White House: U.S. is not at war with the Islamic State<span class="meta-author"><span class="meta-inner">
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/author/samir" rel="author" title="Posts by Robert Spencer">Robert Spencer</a> </span></span><span class="meta-comments"><span class="meta-inner">
</span>
</span>
<br />
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Obama3.jpg"><img alt="Obama3" class="size-medium wp-image-57025 alignleft" height="225" src="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Obama3-300x225.jpg" width="300" /></a>“Right
now, ISIL’s primary focus is consolidating territory in the Middle East
region to establish their own Islamic State.” Yes, but they have made
it abundantly clear that that is not their only goal, and that they
desire ultimately to strike inside the United States. We are not at war
with them, but they most assuredly are at war with us.<br />
“Airstrikes in Iraq: What You Need to Know,” by Ben Rhodes, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/08/11/airstrikes-iraq-what-you-need-know" target="_blank">White House Blog</a>, August 11, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):<br />
<blockquote>
President Obama has authorized the U.S. military to execute targeted airstrikes in Iraq.<br />
The President takes no decision more seriously than the use of
military force. So it’s worth taking a few minutes to make sure you
understand exactly what is happening in Iraq right now, who is involved,
and why we are taking action. Here are a few answers to some key
questions Americans may be asking:…<br />
7. Is ISIL more dangerous than al-Qaeda right now?<br />
While both are terrorist forces, they have different ambitions.
Al-Qaeda’s principal ambition is to launch attacks against the west and
U.S. homeland. That’s the direct threat that we have taken direct action
against for many years. Right now, ISIL’s primary focus is
consolidating territory in the Middle East region to establish their own
Islamic State. So they’re different organizations with different
objectives.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
8. Are we at war with ISIL? Will we be sending troops back to Iraq?<br />
No. There is no U.S. military solution to the larger situation in
Iraq. The United States’ chief goals are to protect our personnel and
facilities, and to prevent a potential act of genocide. That is the
scope of these operations. As the President said, we will support Iraqis
as they take the fight to these terrorists, but no American combat
troops will be returning to fight in Iraq.<br />
9. What’s our plan moving forward?<br />
We will protect our citizens, and we will work with Iraqis and the
international community to address the humanitarian crisis facing the
Yezidi people.<br />
As we carry out that mission, we will pursue a strategy that empowers
Iraqi leaders to come together, forge an inclusive government, and
build security forces that can fight back against threats like ISIL. The
Iraqi people have named a new President, a new Speaker of Parliament,
and a new Prime Minister–an important step towards forming a government
that can unite communities in Iraq. The U.S. will work with this new
government and other countries in the region on a broader
counterterrorism strategy moving forward.</blockquote>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-67707688117410778512014-08-13T07:07:00.001+03:002014-08-13T07:07:16.018+03:00How Hamas Wields Gaza’s Casualties as Propaganda<div class="article-sub-headline">
<div class="article-meta">
<ul class="article-authors">
<li class="article-author">
<span class="byline"><a href="http://time.com/author/steven-stotsky/" itemprop="author">Steven Stotsky</a></span>
</li>
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<img alt="Israeli airstrike on Gaza" data-loaded="true" height="260" itemprop="image" src="http://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/452672798.jpg?w=1100" width="400" />
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<span class="caption">Smoke rises from a building following the Israeli attacks in Gaza City on July 25, 2014. </span>
<span class="credit">Anadolu Agency—Getty Images</span>
</figcaption>
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<h2 class="article-excerpt" itemprop="alternativeHeadline">
The
terrorist group casts Israel’s military as indiscriminate and civilian
deaths as disproportionate, but Hamas-affiliated fatality figures should
be viewed with suspicion</h2>
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</aside>An
informational battle of competing messages directed at international
audiences parallels the military fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Accompanying a barrage of wrenching images are Palestinian fatality
statistics alleging disproportionate numbers of non-combatants. These
figures are crucial because they form the basis of accusations that
Israel uses excessive and indiscriminate force.<br />
<aside class="right-rail-module rr-partner" data-name="rr-partner"><div class="read-more-list">
<a class="read-more-partner-article" data-event="rr-partner" href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/nba-counter-sues-donald-sterling-antitrust-case-n179131?cid=par-time_20140813" target="_blank"><span><br /></span></a></div>
</aside>Hamas,
the terrorist group controlling Gaza, endeavors to turn Israel’s
military superiority to its own advantage by portraying the Israeli
response to intense rocket and mortar fire as <a href="http://time.com/2982215/israel-gaza-casualties/">disproportionate</a>
and indiscriminate. In doing so, it hopes to turn public opinion
against the Jewish state, as well as bolster its own standing at the
expense of the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority in the West
Bank.<br />
<aside class="right-rail-module rr-mag" data-name="rr-mag"><br /></aside>Fatality
figures provided by Hamas and other groups should be viewed with
suspicion. Not only do Israeli figures cast doubt on claims that the
vast majority of fatalities are non-combatants, but a careful review of
Palestinian sources also raises doubts.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Analyses of the <a href="http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=84&Itemid=236" target="_blank">casualties</a>
listed in the daily reports published by the Palestinian Center for
Human Rights, a Gaza-based organization operating under Hamas rule,
indicate that young males ages 17 to 30 make up a large portion of the
fatalities, and a particularly noticeable spike occurs between males
ages 21 to 27, a pattern consistent with the age distribution typically
found among combatants and military conscripts. Palestinian sources
attempt to conceal this discrepancy with their public message by
labeling most of these young men as civilians. Only a minority is
identified as members of armed groups. As a result, the PCHR calculates
civilian fatalities at 82% as of July 26. PCHR provides the most
detailed casualty reports of the various Palestinian agencies from Gaza
that provide figures to the media and to international organizations
like the UN. Its figures closely match those of the Hamas-run Gazan
Health Ministry and other groups.<br />
We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures
occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in
January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities
were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The
media and international organizations tended to side with the
Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard
Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures
along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a
year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister
Fathi Hammad enumerated <a href="http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2010/November/middleeast_November13.xml&section=middleeast&col=" target="_blank">Hamas fatalities</a> at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of <a href="http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_print=1&x_context=7&x_issue=76&x_article=1952" target="_blank">709</a> and about three times higher than the figure of <a href="http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5786:weekly-report-on-israeli-human-rights-violations-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territory&catid=84:weekly-2009&Itemid=183" target="_blank">236 combatants</a>
provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially,
playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to
reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and
disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low
number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on,
Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own
constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the
Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.<br />
Scrutiny of Palestinian figures in the current conflict reveals a
spike in fatalities among males ages 21 to 27 and an over-representation
from ages 17 to 30. Data gleaned from the daily reports of the PCHR
show that from July 8, the start of Israel’s “Operation Protective
Edge,” through July 26, 404 out of 915 fatalities tallied from daily
reports in which the ages were identified occurred among males ages 17
to 30, comprising 44% of all fatalities among a group representing about
10% of Gazans.<br />
Expanding the age range from 17 to 39 and including those identified
as combatants whose ages were not given increases that number to 551
fatalities, or 57% of all fatalities, even though this group represents
less than one-sixth of Gazans. By contrast, adult female fatalities were
less than 10% of total fatalities for a group that comprises a quarter
of the total population.<br />
Children, here defined as those under age 17, represented 194 of
fatalities, 20% of the total. Any child fatality is a tragedy, but it is
important to note that children make up over half the population of
Gaza.<br />
Despite the discrepancies noted, the substantial number of civilian
fatalities leaves room for further scrutiny. In seeking an alternate
explanation for the excess of young male fatalities, it might be posited
that this reflects some behavioral feature of this group separate from
combat-related activities. However, the shape of the fatality
demographic makes this unlikely. What feature would explain the sharp
increase from age 17, peaking at ages 22 to 25 and then declining
rapidly after age 30?<br />
A more plausible explanation is that the age demographic of the
fatalities reflects the relative involvement of different age bands in
hostilities. Of course, some of those in the most represented age-bands
aren’t combatants. However, balancing that, Palestinian and Israeli
sources confirm that a portion of the fatalities over age 40 were senior
Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives targeted by Israel.<br />
Furthermore, this overall breakdown of the number of fatalities
doesn’t address important issues like the portion of female and children
casualties who were family members of targeted combatants who failed to
heed Israeli evacuation warnings or were perhaps intimidated into
remaining as “human shields.”<br />
The demographic analysis of the fatalities in the Gaza conflict has
limitations. It can’t identify who is or isn’t a combatant. But the
spike in fatalities among males starting in their late teens and peaking
in their early to mid-twenties, and the divergence of the pattern of
fatalities from the demographic pattern of the population, raises
considerable doubt about claims that as many as 75% or more of the
fatalities are non-combatants. In light of evidence—provided by groups
that monitor Arabic language media (like the Middle East Media Research
Institute)—that Hamas has instructed Gazans to describe anyone killed as
a civilian, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.607331" target="_blank">journalists</a> have a responsibility to convey this uncertainty to their audiences and not <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/21/mounting-gaza-death-toll-after-two-weeks-of-israeli-operations-leads-to-intensified-diplomatic-efforts/" target="_blank">present</a> <a href="http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/07/in-gaza-diplomacy-intensifies-as-death-toll-grows-105259.html" target="_blank">figures</a> provided by Hamas and Hamas-affiliated sources as unqualified fact.<br />
<em>Steven Stotsky is a senior analyst with The Committee for
Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a U.S.-based
group that monitors the news media for what it considers to be
anti-Israel bias.</em><br />
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-84294499275912681052014-08-13T07:03:00.004+03:002014-08-13T07:03:47.004+03:00Foreign reporters condemn Hamas' censorship policy in Gaza <span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"><b>FPA statement 'protests
methods by Hamas against journalists in Gaza', cites Hamas attempts to
create a 'blacklist' of reporters.</b> </span>
<br /><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4557775,00.html"><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">Yitzhak Benhorin </span></a>
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<td bgcolor="white"><span style="font-family: David; font-size: small;">Published: </span>
</td><td bgcolor="white"><span style="font-family: David; font-size: small;">/ </span><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0%2c7340%2cL-3082%2c00.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5f5f5f; font-family: David; font-size: small;"><u>Israel
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<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">WASHINGTON - The Foreign Press
Association (FPA) released a statement Monday condemning censorship by
Hamas in the Gaza Strip in attempts to ensure that reports put the terrorist
organization in positive light over the course of Operation Protective
Edge. </span>
<br />
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">In response, Israel has apologized
for such incidents, calling them a mistake and warning the organization
that Hamas was using reporters as human shields. The Government Press Office
(GPO) also stressed that Israel can't be responsible for the safety of
journalists in the Gaza Strip saying, "The city of Gaza and the surrounding
areas are a battleground."</span>
<a name='more'></a><br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">Since foreign reporters exited
the Gaza Strip during a lull in fighting, several reports have surfaced
showing footage that they had been afraid to show while in Gaza, but the
FPA's comments are the first such claims from an official organization.
</span>
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
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<td bgcolor="white"><span style="font-family: David; font-size: small;">This France 24 report aired
after journalists left Gaza and shows children gathered around a rocket
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<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">"The FPA protests in the
strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods
employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting
international journalists in Gaza over the past month," read the statement.
</span>
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: x-small;"><b>Related stories:</b></span>
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2c7340%2cL-4556016%2c00.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: David; font-size: x-small;"><b><u>Foreign
journalists reveal Hamas' false front</u></b></span></a><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">
</span>
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2c7340%2cL-4555419%2c00.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: David; font-size: x-small;"><b><u>WATCH:
Reports show Gaza militants firing rockets in civilian areas</u></b></span></a><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">
</span>
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2c7340%2cL-4555756%2c00.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: David; font-size: x-small;"><b><u>'Smashing
a peanut with a hammer': Foreign journalists on int'l coverage of Gaza
fighting</u></b></span></a><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">According to members of the
organization, which comprises of some 500 journalists from 32 different
countries, Hamas pressured and threatened reporters, preventing them from
giving viewers and readers an, "objective picture from the ground."
</span>
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<br />
<span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">"In several cases, foreign
reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned
over stories or information they have reported through their news media
or by means of social media," said the FPA statement. </span>
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<br />
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<td bgcolor="white">
<br />
<table align="center">
<tbody>
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<td>
<br />
<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="center">
</div>
<br />
<br />
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<td><br /></td></tr>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="sf_send_0" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="sf_embed_0" target="_blank"></a>
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="white"><span style="font-family: David; font-size: small;">This report aired in India
showing a rocket launcher being assembled and wired to fire remotely.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">The organization also said in
the statement that Hamas has been trying to, "put in place a 'vetting'
procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific
journalists. Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA." </span>
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<br />
<span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;">Monday's statement is the first
time the group has criticized Hamas' treatment of the foreign media, though
the FPA has condemned Israel for several incidents including during Operation
Protective Edge when they released a statement accusing the IDF of firing
at Al Jazeera's headquarters in the Gaza Strip. </span>
<br />
<div align="right">
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</div>
<br /><span style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"> </span>
<a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2c7340%2cL-4557775%2c00.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: David; font-size: medium;"><u>http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4557775,00.html</u></span></a></div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-81890750798336123342014-08-13T06:59:00.002+03:002014-08-13T06:59:16.696+03:00Gaza construction funding ‘incorrectly’ handled by non-staff UN personnel, report finds<div class="article-info">
<div>
<div itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
By <span itemprop="name"><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/archive/george-russell" itemprop="url" rel="author"> George Russell</a></span></div>
<time datetime="2014-08-11T11:58-04:00" itemprop="datePublished" pubdate=""></time></div>
</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody">
<div class="m">
<img alt="gazatunnel.jpg" height="225" itemprop="image" src="http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/U.S./876/493/gazatunnel.jpg?ve=1&tl=1" width="400" />
<div class="caption">
<div itemprop="sourceOrganization" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
An
Israeli army officer gives journalists a tour, Friday, July 25, 2014,
of a tunnel allegedly used by Palestinian militants for cross-border
attacks, at the Israel-Gaza Border. A network of tunnels Palestinian
militants have dug from Gaza to Israel, dubbed "lower Gaza" by the
Israeli military, is taking center stage in the latest war between Hamas
and Israel. (AP Photo/Jack Guez, Pool)<span class="source" itemprop="name">AP2014</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<b>See bottom of story for update<span style="color: #ed1c24;"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #ed1c24;">EXCLUSIVE:</span></b><span style="color: #ed1c24;"> </span> While
controversy continues to swirl around the huge Hamas tunnel network in
Gaza, an internal United Nations audit report reveals that a U.N.
Development Program office that funds and monitors spending on
construction in the territory allowed at least five non-staff contract
employees to handle “core” procurement processes that only staffers are
supposed to handle, including those for ordering up “significant” civil
construction activities.<br />
Moreover, the report says, of the UNDP office: “the Office was not
monitoring and recording actual work” performed by these individuals and
other contract employees handling “core” functions, and the terms of
reference for their employment “did not include specifications for
services provided to particular projects” — in other words, were
relatively undefined.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
At the same time, the office’s internal financial tracking system — a
UNDP-wide system known as Atlas — was improperly recording at least $8
million worth of civil construction spending at far less than its full
value, a practice that UNDP auditors noted could keep the activity under
the radar of higher-level U.N. officials who must approve purchase
orders above defined cost threshold levels.<br />
Moreover, the Palestinian program office was not properly keeping
track of expenditures or receipts in the financial system. The auditors
noted that in a sampling of 41 payment vouchers, 12 purchase orders did
not have receipts recorded in the system. “This practice,” the report
noted, “increases the risk of paying for goods that are not delivered.”<br />
<blockquote>
The Palestinian program office was not properly keeping track of expenditures or receipts in the financial system.</blockquote>
The same office of the anti-poverty United Nations Development
Program (UNDP) failed to use an electronic funds transfer system with
local banks that would have allowed the UNDP program to “be notified
electronically when any bank transactions take place,” including, as
the report delicately puts it, “transactions not made by UNDP.”<br />
Taken together, the findings in the carefully manicured audit report —
which was vetted by UNDP management at the affected office — point to a
possible black hole in the supervision of civil construction, and
perhaps other programs in Gaza and the other Palestinian territories for
at least a year before the current explosion of terrorism.<br />
The report adds a new level of potential credibility to Israeli
accusations that internationally-managed relief supplies to Gaza were
diverted into construction of the elaborate and highly-engineered
tunnels under the territory that were used by Hamas terrorists to launch
and coordinate rocket attacks and incursions into Israel that
dramatically escalated in March.<br />
The audit report itself calls the performance of core jobs by
contract staffers a “critical” lapse, where “prompt action is required
to ensure that UNDP is not exposed to high risks. Failure to take action
could result in major negative consequences for UNDP.”<br />
The main purpose of the UNDP program, based in Jerusalem and like all
U.N. activities operating under diplomatic immunity from any national
authorities, was to provide funding and support for what the document
chastely calls “another U.N. entity” that coordinates the world
organization’s activity in Gaza.<br />
That “entity” is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or
UNRWA, which has been accused for years — and especially during the last
major Israeli military response to Palestinian terrorist attacks from
Gaza in 2009 — of allowing Hamas to divert humanitarian supplies to its
own military purposes. UNWRA has some 13,000 employees in Gaza, the
overwhelming majority of them local Palestinians.<br />
The watchdog report on the UNDP office, formally known as the UNDP
Program of Assistance to the Palestinian People, covered all of 2013 —
the period immediately leading up to the current explosion of Hamas
rocket attacks and Israeli’s now-suspended counter-incursion.<br />
The document, produced by UNDP’s Office of Audit and Investigations,
does not offer anything like full insight into the irregular pattern of
activities surrounding the Palestinian program, although it clearly
indicates that there are more areas of concern.<br />
Among other things, it notes that 43 people beyond the five
specifically mentioned as “examples’ are also “incorrectly” providing
“core functions” while operating on service contracts, without
specifying their activities.<br />
The entire tally of non-staffers performing “core” functions
represents about one-quarter of the 187 service contract holders listed
as part of the program, which spent $90 million in 2013.<br />
The UNDP offices’ activities cover not only Gaza, but East Jerusalem and a large amount of the West Bank.<br />
They also had an additional point of potential vulnerability. Unlike
UNDP offices in some other sensitive locales — or places where local
skills are not available — the Palestinian program of assistance during
all of 2013 (and for six months previously), had no provisions in place
for what is called “direct implementation.”<br />
That is a method of work meaning that UNDP itself, without any
cooperating partners, would be not only a funding agency and manager,
but would also be “accountable for achieving project results,” as the
report puts it. Direct implementation is used when local partners are
not believed capable of providing the needed skills, or where
possibilities of financial mismanagement or other risks are deemed to be
high.<br />
The alternative is called “national implementation,” meaning that
projects are carried out “in cooperation with national counterparts,”
which in this case means Palestinian civil authorities — in a government
that includes Hamas.<br />
According to the audit report, the UNDP Palestinian program’s “direct
implementation” authorization expired on June 30, 2012, and “the office
did not seek its renewal until March 2014” — roughly around the time
that Hamas commenced its latest large-scale rocket assault on Israel.<br />
Moreover, that authorization still did not exist at the time the
report was written; based on internal evidence, apparently in June. (The
document was finalized in early July, and posted on UNDP’s website over
the past weekend.) It says only that “management is following with
Headquarters” to get direct implementation renewed “as soon as
possible.”<br />
Questions from Fox News concerning the report, sent to UNDP
headquarters over the weekend, had not been answered before this article
was published.<br />
<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/interactive/2014/08/11/undp-audit-report/" target="_blank">CLICK HERE FOR THE REPORT </a><br />
For their part, and despite the “critical” alarm bells set off by
auditors, the managers of the UNDP program claim in the document that
they were doing nothing inappropriate in their use of the service
contracts in whatever functions the holders filled, and said what they
had done “has been subject to review by several Headquarters missions.”<br />
However, they then agreed to “review job descriptions and terms of
reference to ensure better clarity on the purpose of positions and
whether they serve projects or core functions.”<br />
The review, however, is not slated for completion until September.<br />
<b>UPDATE</b><br />
UNDP responded to questions from Fox News late Monday to declare that
“the 48 people on service contracts are not fulfilling core functions
but a number of project staff needed to have their job descriptions
enhanced in order to clarify what project tasks they were carrying out.”
The organization did not reply directly, however, to a question from
Fox News about which specific projects the staff were working on.
Instead, it declared that “many people fulfilling the same or other
functions were shifted from project to project without fully updating
the specific tasks under their terms of reference.”<br />
The U.N. organization also said that the lapse in its Palestinian
support office’s mandate to use “direct implementation” in its
projects—an authorization in place since 1978—was due to “an internal
miscommunication between two different units on requesting the renewal.
As soon as the audit report identified this delay, action was taken
immediately, and a request for renewal was submitted and the approval
has been obtained.”<br />
In explanation of its lack of electronic banking transfers, UNDP told
Fox News that “the electronic banking interface is not mandatory” for
its offices, and cited the Democratic Republic of Congo—which has been
torn apart for years by a vicious civil war—as an example of where
“electronic banking interfaces are not used because they are not
operational or up to standard”—conditions that did not apply to its
Jerusalem office, according to UNDP’s own audit.<br />
As to whether a review of the situation in the Palestinian office
would be completed by September, UNDP replied that delays beyond
September “are possible in light of the current crisis in the Gaza
Strip.”<br />
<i>George Russell is editor-at-large of Fox News and can be found on Twitter:</i><a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgeRussell"><i>@GeorgeRussell</i></a><i> or on </i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/george.russell"><i>Facebook.com/George Russell</i></a><br />
</div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-29715218972140639282014-08-12T14:52:00.000+03:002014-08-12T14:52:02.729+03:00COP: The Gases of Life are Not Pollutants <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/viv_forbes">Viv Forbes</a>
<br />
<div class="article_body">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Our atmosphere contains the four gases of life – nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and carbon dioxide.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Nitrogen
is the most abundant gas-of-life in the atmosphere (78%). It is an
essential building block of amino acids present in all proteins. It is a
very stable, unreactive gas, but micro-organisms in the soil and some
plants are able to extract nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it
available to growing plants. Lightning also manages to oxidize some
atmospheric nitrogen.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Oxygen
is the second most abundant gas-of-life in the atmosphere (21%). Every
animal absorbs oxygen with every breath, using it to fuel bodily
digestion of the foods animals eat. This process builds bodies and
provides the energy of muscles. In the great oxygen cycle, plants
extract oxygen from carbon dioxide and exhale it to the atmosphere for
animals to breathe.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Water
vapor is the third most abundant gas-of-life in the atmosphere (varies
up to 5%). Water vapor is part of the great water cycle, where water is
evaporated into the atmosphere from salty seas, surface water, and
plants. Rain and snow return it to the surface supply of fresh water.
No animals, plants, or sea creatures could exist without water. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Water
vapor is the most effective “greenhouse gas” in the atmosphere, with
far more effect than carbon dioxide. It reduces incoming solar
radiation by day and reduces surface cooling at night. Water is also a
global temperature stabilizer – heat is transferred from oceans and land
as latent heat by evaporation, forming clouds that often cool the
surface. </span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Finally,
carbon dioxide is the least abundant gas-of-life in the atmosphere
(0.04%) – just a trace, but a vitally important trace. No plants could
exist on Earth without carbon dioxide, and no animals could exist
without plants. Plants extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to
form proteins, sugars, and carbohydrates, and animals add essential
minerals to turn these into protein, fat, sinews, and bones. The carbon
from carbon dioxide is the building block for all life on Earth, for
every bit of organic material, and for every carbon fuel – oil, gas, and
coal. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Carbon
dioxide is a “greenhouse gas” that tends to retain some surface
warmth, but there is no evidence in ancient or modern temperature
records to suggest that carbon dioxide is a dominant factor controlling
global temperature.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">None
of these natural gases is toxic to life under any feasible atmospheric
conditions, but all can be toxic above certain levels. For carbon
dioxide, toxic effects on humans don’t even begin until it is fifty
times the present atmospheric level – our exhaled breath is 100 times
current levels in the atmosphere. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">No
thinking person could class any of these gases as an atmospheric
pollutant – they are all naturally occurring, non-toxic, essential gases
of life. Together they make up 95% of the human body, which is
effectively 68% carbon dioxide. So if carbon dioxide is a pollutant,
the human body is badly polluted.</span></span></div>
<br /><b>Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/the_gases_of_life_are_not_pollutants.html</b> at August 12, 2014 - 06:51:24 AM CDT
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-31784990860398107952014-08-12T14:48:00.004+03:002014-08-12T14:48:54.291+03:00The Real "Siege" of the Gaza Strip<b><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/author/Khaled+Abu+Toameh">Khaled Abu Toameh</a><br />
August 12, 2014 </b>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0;">
<b><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4599/siege-of-gaza">http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4599/siege-of-gaza</a></b></div>
<blockquote class="content_preface">
Egypt has not only turned Gaza
into an "open-air prison." It has prevented the delivery of humanitarian
aid to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip before and during the war.<br />
Last year, more than 100 Muslim scholars signed a petition accusing
Egypt and Arab countries of participating in the siege of Gaza by
keeping Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza closed and preventing
medical and humanitarian aid.<br />
Egypt does not want anyone to talk about its blockade of Gaza. At the
cease-fire discussions taking place in Cairo, the Palestinians have
been asked not to talk about the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and
Egypt.<br />
The Egyptians want the world to blame only Israel for the "siege" on
the Gaza Strip, and turn it into an Israeli, and not an Egyptian,
problem.<br />
While Egypt continues to impose strict restrictions, hundreds of
trucks of food and basic supplies — and ambulances and medical staff
from Israel — are being transported into Gaza through border crossings
with Israel.<br />
Whatever is ultimately decided, Hamas's leaders will find ways to smuggle weapons into Gaza: their goal is to destroy Israel.<br />
<a name='more'></a></blockquote>
Recent calls for lifting the "siege" on the Gaza Strip have ignored
that Hamas's main demand, even more than for an airport or seaport, is
that Egypt reopen the Rafah border crossing, the Palestinians' only
gateway to the Arab world.<br />
Hamas wants open borders because it wants to pursue its ultimate goal
of "liberating all Palestine, from the river to the sea." Now that it
has lost most of its smuggling tunnels as a result of Egyptian military
operations, Hamas is searching for other ways to bring weapons into the
Gaza Strip.<br />
Hamas's leaders know that their chances of getting an airport or a
seaport are extremely low. In the past, material brought into Gaza has
included mainly weapons, cement taken to build attack-tunnels into
Israel, and dual-use material.<br />
Much of this was either brought into Gaza through smuggling tunnels,
or else through Egypt's Rafah terminal, along its Gaza border which is
nearly nine miles [14 km] long.<br />
Egypt's Rafah terminal with Gaza, however, has been closed most of
the time since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in July 2007,
while border crossings with Israel, such as Kerem Shalom and Erez, have
remained open.<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin-bottom: 5px; max-width: 600px;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid black; max-width: 600px;"><img border="0" height="393" src="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/pics/large/628.jpg" width="600" /><div style="font-size: 85%; margin: 4px 6px;">
The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, January 2009. (Source: International Transport Workers' Federation)</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
Even during the current Operation Protective Edge, the Egyptians
rejected demands to reopen the Rafah terminal indefinitely. In the first
two weeks of the war, the Egyptians did open the terminal briefly – but
only to allow Egyptians citizens and some foreigners trapped in the
Gaza Strip to leave.<br />
Facing increased criticism at home and in the Arab world, the
Egyptian authorities also permitted some wounded Palestinians to cross
through the terminal for medical treatment in Egyptian hospitals.<br />
Egypt has not only turned the Gaza Strip into an "open air prison."
It has also prevented many activists and countries from delivering
humanitarian and medical aid to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, both
before and during the war.<br />
Egypt does not want anyone to talk about its blockade and other restrictions against the Gaza Strip.<br />
At the cease-fire discussions currently taking place in Cairo between
Israel and Hamas through Egyptian mediators, the Palestinians have been
asked not to talk about Egypt's Rafah border crossing.<br />
The Egyptians want the world to blame only Israel for the "siege" on
the Gaza Strip. They continue to ignore the fact that Hamas's main
demand continues to be the reopening of the Rafah border crossing.<br />
Hamas and the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip have apparently
chosen to comply with the Egyptian demand to remain silent about the
continued closure of the Rafah border crossing.<br />
In fact, the Palestinians seem to have lost any hope that Egypt would
ever agree to the indefinite opening of the terminal. That is why Hamas
is insisting, now more than ever, on an airport and seaport in the Gaza
Strip that would serve as an alternative to the Rafah border crossing.<br />
Palestinian sources said that the Egyptians have encouraged the
Palestinians to insist on their demand regarding an airport and seaport.<br />
When the Egyptians say that they support the Palestinian demand for
lifting the "siege" on the Gaza Strip, they mean that the Palestinians
are entitled to any border crossing except the Rafah terminal. Egypt
would like the Palestinians to have their own airport and seaport so
they would never have to use an Egyptian border crossing with the Gaza
Strip.<br />
Moreover, the Egyptians would like to see the Gaza Strip turned into an Israeli, and not Egyptian, problem.<br />
In an attempt to divert attention from Cairo's responsibility for the blockade, Egypt's Foreign Ministry issued a <a href="http://www.shorouknews.com/news/view.aspx?cdate=10082014&id=4c4a5374-07e5-42f0-b403-88b58d7bd5b2">statement</a> this week calling on Israel to lift the "siege."<br />
"Egypt insists on the lifting of the Israeli siege," the statement
read. "We are continuing our efforts to end the inhumane siege imposed
by Israel on the Gaza Strip."<br />
Today, it is a sign of hypocrisy that Egypt is calling on Israel to lift the "siege" on the Gaza Strip.<br />
The statement, of course, made no reference to Egypt's role in the
"siege." Nor did the ministry mention the tough security measures taken
by Egypt recently, including the destruction of more than 1600 smuggling
tunnels along its shared border with the Gaza Strip over the past year.<br />
In the last three weeks, the Egyptian army destroyed 20 tunnels. This
occurred as the Israel Defense Forces were also targeting tunnels
inside the Gaza Strip.<br />
Yet this has not prevented the Egyptians from continuing with their
efforts to mislead the world about the situation in the Gaza Strip.<br />
Alarmed by growing criticism of Egypt's measures against the Gaza Strip, an Egyptian diplomat <a href="http://www.raialyoum.com/?p=134045">described</a> the allegations as "lies and fabrications."<br />
The Egyptian diplomat's defense of his country came as
representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the
Arab Red Crescent <a href="http://www.elkhabar.com/ar/monde/418560.html">denounced</a> Cairo's refusal to allow humanitarian and medical aid into the Gaza Strip during the war as "unjust and incapacitating."<br />
It also followed a <a href="http://www.gcbs.gov.ps/ar/">call</a> by a
Palestinian foreign ministry committee to reopen the Rafah border
crossing to save the wounded. The committee also condemned the closure
of the Rafah as a "breach of international law and human values."<br />
Last March, the Egyptian authorities deported 62 Western women who
arrived in Cairo to protest against the closure of the Rafah border
crossing. Egyptian Gen. Zakariya Hussein praised the authorities for
deporting the French and Belgian women. "Egypt should not be used as a
gate to other countries such as Libya, Palestine and Sudan," he said.<br />
The anti-Egyptian campaign reached its peak last year, when more than 100 Muslim scholars signed a <a href="https://www.swefonline.com/News/23497">petition</a> warning against the "crime" of keeping the Rafah border crossing shut.<br />
The petition accused Egypt and other Arab countries of participating
in the siege on the Gaza Strip by keeping the Rafah terminal closed and
preventing medical and humanitarian aid, and the destroying the
smuggling tunnels.<br />
It is no secret that Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah Sisi, sees
Hamas, an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood, as a threat to Egypt's
national security.<br />
Last year, a retired Egyptian army general, Sami Hassan, <a href="http://www.dawaalhaq.com/?p=4917">talked</a>
about a plan by Sisi to tighten the siege on the Gaza Strip and bring
down Hamas. Hassan said that Sisi's main goal is to prompt Palestinians
in the Gaza Strip to rise against Hamas. Egypt has allocated $750
million to carry out its plan and bring the Palestinian Authority back
to the Gaza Strip.<br />
According to Palestinian sources, the Egyptians have over the past
few weeks expressed fierce opposition into turning the Rafah terminal
into another official border crossing with the Gaza Strip. The
Egyptians, the sources said, are worried that the reopening of the Rafah
terminal would facilitate terrorist attacks by radical Islamist groups
against Egyptian targets, especially in Sinai.<br />
While the Egyptians continue to impose strict restrictions, hundreds
of trucks of food and basic supplies are being transported into the Gaza
Strip <a href="http://www.cogat.idf.il/901-11564-en/Cogat.aspx">through border crossings with Israel</a>.
This is happening even as even rockets are being launched at the Kerem
Shalom border crossing. A total of 2,772 trucks entered the Gaza Strip
through Kerem Shalom since July 8. Meanwhile, only a few trucks were
allowed to enter through Rafah.<br />
Israel has also allowed ambulances and medical staff into the Gaza
Strip over the past few weeks, while the Egyptian side of the border
crossing has been closed. On August 8, there were a total of 169
ambulance transfers through the Erez border crossing with Israel. In
addition, a total of <a href="http://www.cogat.idf.il/Sip_Storage/FILES/5/4545.pdf">38 medical professionals from Israel</a>
and the West Bank have entered the Gaza Strip over the past two weeks.
The Egyptians did not send even one physician to the Gaza Strip during
the same period.<br />
The Egyptian blockade and severe security measures against the Gaza
Strip, including the closure of the Rafah border crossing, are part of
the reasons why the last war erupted. But the Egyptian authorities do
not want to accept any responsibility. Instead, they are doing their
utmost to shift the blame toward Israel.<br />
Whatever is ultimately decided, Hamas's leaders will find ways to smuggle weapons into Gaza because their outspokenly <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp">main goal</a> is to destroy Israel and the Jews.<br />
<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0;">
<br /></div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-66644298276587568222014-08-12T11:16:00.002+03:002014-08-12T11:16:25.852+03:00Much of the US aid to Yazidis “useless” because it was dropped from 15,000ft without parachutes and exploded on impact<span class="meta-author"><span class="meta-inner">
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/author/samir" rel="author" title="Posts by Robert Spencer">Robert Spencer</a> </span></span><span class="meta-comments"><span class="meta-inner">
</span>
</span>
<br />
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/obama-wide-grin_1548848i.jpg"><img alt="obama wide-grin_1548848i" class="size-medium wp-image-55485 alignleft" height="228" src="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/obama-wide-grin_1548848i-300x228.jpg" width="300" /></a>As
far as the mainstream media is concerned, this doesn’t matter. The only
thing that matters is that Barack Obama is made to appear as if he is
doing something for the Yazidis and against the Islamic State. That he
actually do something effective is not required. “Iraq crisis: ‘It is
death valley. Up to 70 per cent of them are dead,’” by Jonathan Krohn,
the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11024037/Iraq-crisis-It-is-death-valley.-Up-to-70-per-cent-of-them-are-dead.html" target="_blank">Telegraph</a>, August 10, 2014 (thanks to David):<br />
<blockquote>
Mount Sinjar stinks of death. The few Yazidis who have
managed to escape its clutches can tell you why. “Dogs were eating the
bodies of the dead,” said Haji Khedev Haydev, 65, who ran through the
lines of Islamic State jihadists surrounding it.<br />
On Sunday night, I became the first western journalist to reach the
mountains where tens of thousands of Yazidis, a previously obscure
Middle Eastern sect, have been taking refuge from the Islamic State
forces that seized their largest town, Sinjar.<br />
I was on board an Iraqi Army helicopter, and watched as hundreds of
refugees ran towards it to receive one of the few deliveries of aid to
make it to the mountain. The helicopter dropped water and food from its
open gun bays to them as they waited below. General Ahmed Ithwany, who
led the mission, told me: “It is death valley. Up to 70 per cent of them
are dead.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Two American aid flights have also made it to the mountain, where
they have dropped off more than 36,000 meals and 7,000 gallons of
drinking water to help the refugees, and last night two RAF C-130
transport planes were also on the way.<br />
However, Iraqi officials said that much of the US aid had been
“useless” because it was dropped from 15,000ft without parachutes and
exploded on impact….</blockquote>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-69745080816207239612014-08-12T11:13:00.000+03:002014-08-12T11:13:05.450+03:00Iran calls on “Palestinians” in Judea and Samaria to take up arms against Israel<span class="meta-author"><span class="meta-inner">
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/author/samir" rel="author" title="Posts by Robert Spencer">Robert Spencer</a> </span></span><span class="meta-comments"><span class="meta-inner">
</span>
</span>
<br />
<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/300x224xIran-missile-300x224.jpg.pagespeed.ic_.5fimiSc-nP.jpg"><img alt="300x224xIran-missile-300x224.jpg.pagespeed.ic.5fimiSc-nP" class="size-full wp-image-57001 alignleft" height="224" src="http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/300x224xIran-missile-300x224.jpg.pagespeed.ic_.5fimiSc-nP.jpg" width="300" /></a>“We believe the West Bank, too, should be armed just like Gaza…” This will come, if Barack Obama and John Kerry get their way.<br />
“Iran Calls on West Bank Palestinians to Take Up Arms Against Israel, Encourages Violence,” by Joshua Levitt, <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/11/iran-calls-on-west-bank-palestinians-to-take-up-arms-against-israel-encourages-violence/" target="_blank">Algemeiner</a>, August 11, 2014:<br />
<blockquote>
Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri, Deputy Chief of
Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, on Monday called for Palestinian
Arabs living in the Israel’s regions of Judea and Samaria, dubbed the
West Bank, to take up arms against Israel, according to semi-official
state news agency Fars.<br />
Much of the region’s sovereignty is in the hands of the Palestinian
Authority government and its local mayors and city councils, but Israeli
border police behind its security barrier, erected in 2005 to end the
suicide bombing attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis each year since
the Palestinian Intifada began in 2000, continue to be a visible point
of contention.<br />
Rather than work for closer political integration and trust building
projects on each side, the Iranian Army, which has been supplying Hamas,
in Gaza, with Fajr-5 missiles and Ababil drones, is calling for “more
serious fighting in the occupied territories.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Jazzayeri told Fars: “The Palestinian people, especially the youth,
resistance forces and warriors have valuable experiences in fighting the
Zionist enemy and through the spread and expansion of more serious
fighting in the occupied territories, the usurpers and occupiers will
have no option other than leaving these holy occupied territories.”<br />
“The countdown has started for a change in the model of confrontation in the West Bank,” he said.<br />
Fars said the general “noted that the West Bank has high potentials
for confrontation with the occupiers,” and quoting him saying, “This
capability accompanied by other power elements available to the main
owners of the Palestinian territories can return the violated rights of
the Palestinians to them.”<br />
General Jazzayeri reiterated that Iran supports resistance in the
region and it will do its best to get back the righteous rights of the
oppressed people of the world, especially those in the region.<br />
He pointed to the silence of the Arab leaders over the “savage
massacre of the Palestinians” by Israel, and said, “The region would not
have definitely been facing so much turmoil and chaos if the
treacherous and dependent leaders of the region had not existed.”<br />
Fars quoted Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, as
saying, in July, that, “We believe the West Bank, too, should be armed
just like Gaza and those who are interested in the fate of the
Palestinians must work in this respect so that the pains and miseries of
the Palestinian people will be decreased due to their mighty hands and
the weakness of the Zionist enemy.”<br />
Also in July, Commander of Iran’s Basij Force, Brigadier General
Mohammad Reza Naqdi, called on the “resistance groups in Palestine,
Syria and Lebanon to sign a defense treaty to help and support each
other” against Israel. “We ask the resistance forces in Palestine, Syria
and Lebanon to endorse a defense pact so that an attack on any of them
will be an attack on all of them and if the Zionist regime makes an
aggression against any of them, all of them will grow united to confront
it.”</blockquote>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-84490334332966612952014-08-11T21:27:00.002+03:002014-08-11T21:27:18.855+03:00“Forecast Cloudy”
<div>
Before I look at that forecast, let me mention “Kaitana Savta,” which
translates literally as “Camp Grandma” (it sounds better in Hebrew). I am
about to begin Kaitana Savta, which comes every year in August and is truly as
much fun for me as for my grandkids. Starting tomorrow and in days ahead, I will
have two and three kids sleeping here and going out where Savta takes them to
have fun, or staying in to do games and arts and crafts.</div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_blank"><img height="99" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTLynkTk00RNF2bFsajQ7s7dG5se-aWxoe0BpHfOQdODIF2pJwB" width="210" /></a>
<br />
This year especially, this time will help me regain my balance - after weeks
of focusing on the war.
<br />
And so... I will be posting. But less frequently, and perhaps – after
today – with shorter posts.
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
Now, as to that forecast. I use the term cloudy in two regards.
First, the clouds block our vision. And then, they suggest storms
advancing.
<br />
As most of you doubtlessly already know, an Israeli negotiating team is back
in Cairo after Hamas agreed to yet another 72 hour ceasefire. Hamas
leaders had refused to extend the last one because they weren’t happy with the
way negotiations were going. And so, last Friday they began launching
rockets again.
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://bay172.mail.live.com/Handlers/ImageProxy.mvc?bicild=&canary=emEnujxZnMh4vO7u2VQJ3TelLJQZnf9wNXMb%2bRWBL7s%3d0&url=http%3a%2f%2fmarkconn.org%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2014%2f07%2fgaza_rocket.jpg" width="493" /></a>
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><strong>Credit: mikesamerica</strong></span>
<br />
How wearisome, how straining. These rockets startled
many in Israel, as people had just begun to relax and think in terms of
“normal,” and quiet.
<br />
Hamas offered to continue to negotiate, but Israel made
it very clear that we have a policy of not negotiating under fire, and our team
was called home.
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
Then followed a touch-and-go situation, with Hamas reluctant to stop
launching again and Egyptian mediators trying to bring about yet another
ceasefire. Finally Hamas agreed: For another 72 hours. As is the
Hamas norm, there was a barrage of launchings right before the ceasefire was to
begin – they have to get in as much as they can. This is the last
ceasefire, they said. If they are not happy with the results of
negotiations in 72 hours, forget it. They will not only begin launching
again, they will escalate their attacks.
<br />
The ceasefire was called for midnight last night, but the Israeli team was
only sent back to Cairo this morning, after it seemed that the ceasefire was
holding.
<br />
The team: Maj. Gen. (res) Amos Gilad, Director of the
Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Ministry of Defense; Shin Bet chief Yoram
Cohen; Yitzhak Molcho, lawyer and close confident of Netanyahu; Maj.-Gen. Nimrod
Sheffer, head of the IDF’s Planning Directorate; and Yoav Mordechai, Coordinator
of Government Activities in the Territories. <br />
They will concentrate on security issues.<br />
~~~~~~~~~~<br />
Israel wants Hamas disarmed: With rockets in its possession removed and the
means for bringing in more rockets blocked. <br />
Hamas wants to be fully open to the world, permanently and unconditionally:
the blockade at sea must be lifted and all crossings into Gaza must be open.
That’s just a start. They also want a seaport and an international airport.<br />
These demands are mutually exclusive and the odds that they can be reconciled
somehow within 72 hours are zero. The only way to see an extension of the
current ceasefire would be if one or both parties were to significantly
compromise or modify its demands (Heaven forbid that Israel should). <br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
There are some very modest actions being taken – and proposals being made –
in an effort to reconcile demands.
<br />
Egypt, which has kept the Rafah crossing into the Sinai tightly closed for
some while now, opened it in recent days for wounded in Gaza and those with
foreign passports. Rafah is a key element here – would be a key avenue for
opening up Gaza.
<br />
Additionally, Netanyahu has been alluding for some time to the readiness of
some EU countries to lend an assist here, and it turns out that he spoke with
some solid reason. Last week, Britain, Germany and France presented Israel
with a proposal for international supervision of the rehabilitation of Gaza that
would prevent Hamas from re-arming.
<br />
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.609310" target="_blank" title="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.609310"><span style="color: #9b00d3;">http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.609310</span></a>
<br />
It is, however, a long step from making such a proposal to providing Israel
with reassurance that sufficient mechanisms would be in place and that the
international community would persevere in its commitment. We’re talking
about making sure that forbidden armaments do not make their way into Gaza at
all, and that materials needed for reconstruction (yes, including concrete!) do
not fall in the hands of Hamas.
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
Netanyahu has said, and it is certainly true, that the EU is more prepared to
help now because of alarm about radical Islam (and more on this
below).
<br />
But there is another proviso in the offer by the EU nations: They want to
bring Mahmoud Abbas and the PA into the act, either with regard to manning the
crossings or taking some control of Gaza in a more serious way. Obama is
pushing for this as well. This is supposed to be a solution to the problem – and
a segue into new “two state solution” negotiations!. <strong>But it is an
absolute non-starter</strong>.
<br />
Consider the major stumbling blocks here:
<br />
[] Abbas and his Fatah party are solidly in league with Hamas. They are
sitting with Hamas officials, pumped for pro-Hamas Turkey and Qatar to serve
mediator roles in negotiations, failed to criticize Hamas for breaking
ceasefires, and so on. Israel should trust representatives of Fatah to
guard Hamas? This would clearly be a case of assigning the fox to guard the
henhouse.
<br />
[] Abbas and Fatah – the Fatah-dominated PA – are weak and no match for
Hamas. Hamas drove Fatah from Gaza in the first place and has failed to
defeat Fatah in Judea and Samaria only because of an IDF presence. There
is no way Abbas’s people are up to the job, even should they want to do
it.
<br />
I see this entire scenario as totally absurd anyway, as I had mentioned the
other day when I spoke about Abbas trying to ride two horses with one
tuchis. Fatah and Hamas have a unity agreement that Fatah, and Abbas, have
not disavowed. I allude above to “the Fatah-dominated PA” because in
theory the PA now includes Hamas. Sort of. They identify as one when
it’s convenient and separately when that suits.
<br />
Such is the insanity of world diplomacy that all of this is taken seriously.
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
As far as the crossings into Gaza from Israel are concerned, I anticipate
that in due course they will be opened to commercial merchandise. Whatever
authority is checking the crossings from the Gaza side, I cannot imagine a
situation in which Israel would not monitor the flow of goods from our
side.
<br />
Please be aware, Israel has been permitting large quantities of humanitarian
goods into Gaza. (Israel does not pay for these goods, but does permit
them to go in.) <strong>Hundreds of tons of supplies go into Gaza daily:
medical supplies, food products, hygiene products, etc., via the Keren Shalom
crossing.</strong>
<br />
Here is yet one more piece of information that exposes the true cold-blooded
nature of Hamas:
<br />
<strong>The Keren Shalom crossing had to be shut down because of deliberate
shelling of the area by Hamas</strong>. Such is Hamas concern for the
civilians of Gaza.
<br />
<a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/10/deliberate-and-continuous-hamas-rocket-fire-forces-closure-of-gaza-crossing-video/" target="_blank" title="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/10/deliberate-and-continuous-hamas-rocket-fire-forces-closure-of-gaza-crossing-video/"><span style="color: #9b00d3;">http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/10/deliberate-and-continuous-hamas-rocket-fire-forces-closure-of-gaza-crossing-video/</span></a>
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
So, if (when) Hamas begins launching rockets again, what will Israel’s
response be? It’s here that vision is blocked by the clouds.
<br />
We have had several operations over the years fighting Hamas in Gaza (these
operations are not technically referred to as “wars”). In each instance,
Israel has stopped short of taking Hamas out. This is referred to as
“mowing the grass.” There are some very serious thinkers who believe the whole
notion of “solving” the problem with Hamas is not realistic, as the radical
ideology is too ingrained in the populace. They believe – even today - that it
is in Israel’s best interest to increase deterrence from time to time so that
Hamas is reluctant to attack Israel again for some period of years.
<br />
They believe that to try to do more is both unrealistic and would take too
great a toll on Israel.
<br />
People of this persuasion speak of our waging a war of attrition, and not
more, even if Hamas starts launching again: Hamas launches, we bomb from the air
and shell from the sea, until Hamas finally gets tired of doing this.
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
But there is a growing number of Israeli voices calling for a more serious
action.
<br />
There are not only voices inside the government calling for this – I note
Avigdor Lieberman in particular. There is the almost unanimous opinion
that the job is not yet done that has been expressed by frustrated members of
the IDF.
<br />
And now we have a new situation that we did not have before: <strong>pressure
from residents of the south of Israel. This is not something that can be
ignored</strong>.
<br />
These long-suffering residents have endured years of living in shelters when
rockets were launched from Gaza – and they endured with a stoic bravery.
<strong>But when word was released about the Hamas tunnels and the Hamas plans
for massacres of thousands in the south via those tunnels, that was something
else. </strong>A large percentage of these residents fled the south, awaiting
word that it was safe to return. The tunnels were eliminated, a long term
ceasefire was about to be negotiated, and they were told it was time to
return. Turns out that it was not yet safe to return, because Hamas
started launching rockets again. They are irked and are demanding that the
government protect them. And Netanyahu has to pay attention.
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
And then the question is, how serious would the action be? Stay in Gaza
until all terrorist elements are eliminated and then walk away. Stay
permanently? Weaken Hamas much more seriously than we’ve done yet –
including with assassination of some Hamas leaders – without totally taking
Hamas down? The opinions are vastly varied.
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
I recognize that this is a long posting, but would like to touch upon a few
other relevant factors before closing:
<br />
It is said that Hamas is continuing on the road of attacking because it is
desperate – is low on money and feels it has nothing to lose. (And, it should be
noted, since it has had no major “success” in the fighting, it is further
motivated to keep trying.) But what I see is that it is also a more formidable
enemy than was the case previously.
<br />
This has to do in large part with those tunnels. Yes, presumably we
eliminated those that crossed the line into Israel. But a huge network of
tunnels remains: this is where rockets are kept and where many of their leaders
are hidden. A major part of this intricate underground construction is
located under Gaza City. Were our troops to enter there – which they would
have to do in a serious ground operation - they would be set upon by terrorists
literally leaping out of the ground from behind them, either to kill them or to
kidnap them.
<br />
Our marvelously trained troops, all of whom are dear to Israel, are ready to
go. But to send them into this?
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
A confession: When Hamas started sending those rockets our way again at the
end of last week, I thought – Enough! let’s take them down. Israel cannot
tolerate this. And Hezbollah and others to the north are watching.
<br />
But then I thought again. I realized that the launching of rockets
might be a trap, luring us into Gaza City. I realized what the cost might
be.
<br />
This quandary is precisely what the decision makers of Israel must deal
with. And it is possible that some very heavy decisions will have to be
made soon.
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
We speak about fighting the fight against radical Islam for the world.
Perhaps, then, we must do what we must do, with full determination.
<br />
But perhaps there are other avenues that can accomplish what needs to be
done...
<br />
What I am seeing, which makes me hopeful (if I am allowed to say “hopeful” in
such a gruesome context) is that the world is waking up to the horrors of
radical Islam. The absolute horrors of what ISIS is doing in Iraq may have
a quantum effect on how the world sees these matters. Finally.
<br />
<strong>And the world is starting to see that Hamas and ISIS are one and the
same</strong>. Which will bring about growing isolation for Hamas –
already Egypt and Saudi Arabia are arrayed against Hamas, and others will follow
- and a stiffening of the spine of the international community.
<br />
See this very important and articulate TV interview by anti-terrorist Steve
Emerson regarding the fact that Hamas and ISIS are one and the same.
<br />
He says <strong>Obama cannot bomb ISIS in Iraq and support Hamas as a
legitimate entity in Gaza</strong>. He says, what is more, that if
everyone doesn’t wake up, the US will have to contend with ISIS on its own
shores.
<br />
<a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/4508/emerson-interviewed-on-fox-news-justice-with#av651" target="_blank" title="http://www.investigativeproject.org/4508/emerson-interviewed-on-fox-news-justice-with#av651"><span style="color: #9b00d3;">http://www.investigativeproject.org/4508/emerson-interviewed-on-fox-news-justice-with#av651</span></a>
<br />
Share this link broadly, please!
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
And we have this tough statement on the issue as well - may it be a harbinger
of new attitudes:
<br />
<a href="http://teapartyorg.ning.com/video/video/show?id=4301673:Video:3019543&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_video" target="_blank" title="http://teapartyorg.ning.com/video/video/show?id=4301673%3AVideo%3A3019543&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_video"><span style="color: #9b00d3;">http://teapartyorg.ning.com/video/video/show?id=4301673%3AVideo%3A3019543&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_video</span></a>
<br />
~~~~~~~~~~
<br />
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span><strong><span><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="size: +0;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">©
<i>Arlene Kushner</i>.
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material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent
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<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-47096354612905622672014-08-11T16:54:00.002+03:002014-08-11T16:54:29.214+03:00Palestinian Poverty is not a Plague or an Earthquake<b><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/author/Shoshana+Bryen">Shoshana Bryen</a><br />
August 11, 2014 </b>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0;">
<b><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4594/palestinian-poverty">http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4594/palestinian-poverty</a></b></div>
<blockquote class="content_preface">
Israel provides or makes possible
the Palestinian social service budget, and leaves Hamas and Fatah to
steal and/or divert resources to personal or military ends.<br />
But does Palestinian poverty obligate Israel to provide aid to Hamas
and Fatah governments? Warfare against Israel is the best predictor of
Palestinian economic difficulty. The best aid is a job.<br />
Hamas remains in open war with the people best able to employ its
people -- Israel. War has consequences. The "shift in opportunities"
will come…when Hamas makes a shift in its priorities -- and if it can't
or wont, the people of Gaza will continue to suffer at the hands of
their own leaders.</blockquote>
As Hamas resumed rocketing Israel on Friday, one surety was that
Israel's office of "Coordination of Government Activities in the
Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip)" [COGAT] would continue operating
as it has through gruesome acts of terror against Jews, "intifadas,"
rocket attacks and kidnappings through tunnels. COGAT is the facilitator
of international aid to the Palestinians for UNRWA, the Red Cross and
the World Food Program among others; it is also the liaison for the
Palestinians to services provided by Israel, including the provision of
electricity, water and sewage services, and all transit between Israel
and the Gaza Strip.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
During <a href="http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Peace/Humanitarian/Pages/Israeli-humanitarian-aid-continues-10-Jul-2014.aspx">Operation Protective Shield</a>,
more than 4 ½ million liters of diesel fuel for the Gaza power station
and 625,000 liters for UNRWA entered Gaza from Israel. More than 3.5
million liters of fuel, 1.4 million liters of gasoline and 2 tons of
cooking gas entered Gaza as well. While more than 3,000 Hamas rockets
rained on Israel, nearly 2,000 Palestinians entered Israel from Gaza and
1,553 crossed the other way.<br />
It was COGAT that arranged more than once to have the main Gaza power station – which errant <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/07/hamas-rocket-strikes-israeli-power-line-cuts-off-power-to-gaza">Hamas rockets</a>
had put out of service – repaired under Hamas fire to restore power to
more than 110,000 residents of Gaza. In the West Bank, COGAT coordinates
international aid for infrastructure projects including water, sewage,
communications and energy.<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin-bottom: 5px; max-width: 600px;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: 1px solid black; max-width: 600px;"><img border="0" height="331" src="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/pics/large/627.jpg" width="600" /><div style="font-size: 85%; margin: 4px 6px;">
A
truck laden with goods drives from Israel to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom
crossing, August 2014. (Image source: Israel Government Press Office)</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
Israeli-taxpayer funded COGAT ensures that there will be no
widespread hunger or disease among the Palestinians. Israel provides or
makes possible the Palestinian social service budget, and leaves Hamas
and Fatah to steal and/or divert resources to personal or military ends.<br />
The disparity in Israel's (relative) wealth and the Palestinians' (relative) poverty fueled Secretary Kerry's <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-israeli-prosperity-preventing-sense-of-urgency-about-peace/">2013 comment that</a>,
"I think there is an opportunity [for peace], but for many reasons it's
not on the tips of everyone's tongue. People in Israel aren't waking up
every day and wondering if tomorrow there will be peace because there
is a sense of security and a sense of accomplishment and of prosperity."<br />
And the Palestinians do not have that sense of accomplishment and prosperity.<br />
Aside from skirting an old canard by implying that Israel is
uninterested in peace (and morally deficient?) because it is wealthy,
Kerry suggested that a more level economic playing field would be
beneficial. But does Palestinian poverty obligate Israel to provide aid
to the Hamas and Fatah governments? Is COGAT a "guilt offering"?<br />
No.<br />
COGAT is a finger in the dike, but the best aid is a job -- see Maimonides <a href="http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/45907/jewish/Eight-Levels-of-Charity.htm">Eight Levels of Charity</a>
-- and Israel has made provision for Palestinians to work, at least as
long as they do not wage active war on the Jewish State. Post-Oslo
Palestinian employment shows that warfare against Israel is the best
predictor of Palestinian economic difficulty. The timeline, from an
article I <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/palestinian_financial_crisis_looms.html">published </a>in 2012 (with updates), includes:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>1992</b>: 115,600 <a href="http://www.luc.edu/orgs/meea/volume4/FarsakhRevised.doc">Palestinian workers</a> entered Israel every day. Each Palestinian worker is said to support 5-6 people at home.</li>
<li><b>1996</b>: A devastating series of bus bombings, including a
particularly gruesome nail bomb in the center of Tel Aviv, killed more
than 100 Israelis. Palestinian workers in Israel were temporarily
reduced to 63,000.</li>
<li><b>Sept. 1995-Sept. 2002</b>: Despite the interruption in 1996, Palestinian <a href="http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/2106/pid/2254">unemployment</a> decreased from 18.2% to 11%. In mid-2000, 136,000 were working inside Israel -- 40% of all <a href="http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/0503aruri.html">employed Palestinians</a>. Another 5,000 worked in the joint Israeli/Arab run <a href="http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/03/ashton-in-gaza-when-experts-are.html">Erez Industrial Zone</a> in the Gaza Strip. Thousands more worked in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in Israeli-owned businesses.</li>
<li><b>Sept. 30, 2000</b>: Arafat launched the so-called "second
intifada." Begun at the peak of Palestinian economic integration with
Israel, the terrorist war killed more than 1,000 Israelis and wounded
more than 5,600 (comparable U.S. figures would be 40,000 and 224,000).
The number of Palestinians <a href="http://www.luc.edu/orgs/meea/volume4/FarsakhRevised.doc">working in Israel</a> was reduced within six months to 55,000. The Erez Industrial Zone was closed after 11 Israelis were killed there.</li>
<li><b>2005</b>: There was no impediment to independent Palestinian
economic activity at the time Israel removed its presence from the Gaza
Strip. The Palestinian news agency Ma'an waxed ecstatic about <a href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=177711">economic opportunities</a>,
particularly the acquisition of greenhouses and agricultural equipment
the Israelis were leaving behind in a $14-million deal brokered by
then-World Bank President James Wolfensohn.</li>
<li><b>2006</b>: Palestinian looters <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9331863/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/looters-strip-gaza-greenhouses/#.UBKoFnA1f-k">destroyed</a>
the greenhouses almost immediately, and by early 2006, the greenhouses
and the $100 million in annual exports to Europe they had produced were <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/palestinian-militants-ransack-former-gush-katif-greenhouses-1.179788">gone</a>. This was under the rule of Fatah -- Israel's "peace partner."</li>
<li><b>2007</b>: Hamas took control of Gaza after a brief and brutal war
with Fatah and then escalated the rocket war that had begun under Fatah
in 2001. After more than 9,000 increasingly long-range and accurate
rockets and missiles, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in 2008/09.</li>
<li><b>2009</b>: Israel and Egypt instituted the security blockade of
Gaza; the UN has acknowledged the blockade to be a legitimate security
measure. That year, the UN temporarily suspended aid to Hamas for <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/feb/06/gaza-un-aid-hamas">stealing aid supplies</a>.</li>
<li>In <b>2013</b>, after the 2012 Operation Pillar of Fire, the Palestinian news agency <a href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=649586">Ma'an reported</a> more than 100,000 Palestinians were again working daily in Israel, with another 20,000 working in West Bank industries.</li>
</ul>
President Obama has made <a href="http://www.dailysabah.com/americas/2014/08/07/gaza-cannot-survive-if-isolated-obama">economic opportunity in Gaza</a>
a priority. "For the long term, there has to be recognition that Gaza
cannot sustain itself permanently closed off from the world, incapable
of providing some opportunity for jobs and economic growth for the
population who live there. We have to see the shift in opportunities for
the people of Gaza."<br />
But Palestinian poverty is not a plague or an earthquake; it is
intimately related to Palestinian government policy both in the West
Bank and in Gaza. Hamas remains in open war with the country best able
to employ its people -- Israel -- and war has consequences. The "shift
in opportunities" will come only when Hamas makes a shift in its
priorities -- and if it can't or won't, the people of Gaza will continue
to suffer at the hands of their own leaders.<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Magazine.</i><br />
</blockquote>
<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0;">
<br /></div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-17864426354764555572014-08-11T16:53:00.000+03:002014-08-11T16:53:03.293+03:00The 20 Oddest Things People Actually Claim to Believe about the Hamas/Israel Conflict<b>Jeff Ballabon<br />
August 11, 2014 </b>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0 0 10px 0;">
<b><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4591/people-believe-hamas-israel-conflict">http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4591/people-believe-hamas-israel-conflict</a></b></div>
<blockquote class="content_preface">
If you can't trust genocidal terrorists, who can you trust?<br />
Want Peace? Send Hamas more concrete now.<br />
It is a "cycle of violence"... which will end if the Palestinians get more power.</blockquote>
1. <b>Israel started it:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/22/self-defense-or-atrocties-in-gaza/look-carefully-at-who-started-the-current-israel-hamas-conflict" target="_blank">Look Carefully at Who Started the Current Israel-Hamas Conflict</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28371966" target="_blank">What drove Hamas to take on Israel?</a>"</li>
</ul>
2. <b>War Crime -- Israel should have provided Iron Dome to Hamas:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/1/un-condemns-israel-us-not-sharing-iron-dome-hamas/" target="_blank">U.N. condemns Israel, U.S. for not sharing Iron Dome with Hamas</a>"<a name='more'></a></li>
</ul>
3. <b>Israeli conspiracy: Hamas is innocent:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/181596/buzzfeed-gets-a-big-story-wrong" target="_blank">BuzzFeed Gets a Big Story Wrong</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180617/did-israel-say-hamas-didnt-kidnap-its-teens-no" target="_blank">Did Israel Say Hamas Didn't Kidnap Its Teens? No.</a>"</li>
</ul>
4. <b>It is all an Israeli marketing campaign for Iron Dome:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/war-market-iron-dome-201472911136812616.html" target="_blank">A war to market the Iron Dome</a>"</li>
</ul>
5. <b>Hamas: Democratically elected terrorists with hearts of gold:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/middle-east/gaza/59659/understanding-hamas-part-terrorism-part-good-works" target="_blank">Understanding Hamas: part terrorism, part good works</a>"</li>
</ul>
6. <b>Hamas does not want to eradicate Israel; it is just frustrated by the occupation... that ended in 2005:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief005-3.htm" target="_blank">Legal Acrobatics: The Palestinian Claim that Gaza is Still "Occupied" Even After Israel Withdraws</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Is-Gaza-still-occupied" target="_blank">Is Gaza still occupied?</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/07/is-gaza-legally-occupied-by-israel-no.html" target="_blank">Gaza is not occupied by Israel under international law - if you actually read international law</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/01/hamas-leader-admits-gaza-isnt-occupied.html" target="_blank">Hamas leader admits Gaza isn't occupied</a>"</li>
</ul>
7. <b>Want peace? Send Hamas more concrete now:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/384274/legitimizing-hamass-war-criminality-charles-krauthammer" target="_blank">Legitimizing Hamas's War Criminality</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/kill-all-jews-urges-hamas-tv-host/" target="_blank">Kill 'all' Jews, Hamas TV host urges kids</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/24/we-must-massacre-them-hamas-politician-says-palestinians-must-kill-humiliate-and-tax-the-jews/" target="_blank">'We Must Massacre Them': Hamas Politician Says Palestinians Must Kill, Humiliate and Tax the Jews</a>"</li>
</ul>
8. <b>War Crime: Israel has bomb shelters & Gaza doesn't:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0901/01/cnr.03.html" target="_blank">Deadly Sixth Day for Israel and Hamas</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4550733,00.html" target="_blank">Hamas' mega-attack through Gaza terror tunnels exposed</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/07/12/why-gaza-doesnt-have-bomb-shelters-hamas-israel-terrorism/" target="_blank">Why Gaza Doesn't Have Bomb Shelters</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0717/Why-Gaza-doesn-t-have-bomb-shelters-video" target="_blank">Why Gaza doesn't have bomb shelters</a>"</li>
</ul>
9. <b>It is a "cycle of violence"... which will end if the Palestinians get more power:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-moral-clarity-in-gaza/2014/07/17/0adabe0c-0de4-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html" target="_blank">Moral clarity in Gaza</a>"</li>
</ul>
10. <b>No human shields, here... it is just that Gaza is small:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/hillary-hamas-uses-human-shields-because-gaza-is-pretty-small/" target="_blank">Hillary: Hamas Uses Human Shields Because 'Gaza is Pretty Small'</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4580/gaza-population-density" target="_blank">The empty spaces in Gaza</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=2&x_article=2768" target="_blank">Top Nine Gaza Media Myths</a>"</li>
</ul>
11. <b>Apartheid!</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://archive.adl.org/israel/apartheid/behind_the_line.html" target="_blank">Israel and Apartheid: The Big Lie</a>"</li>
</ul>
12. <b>Genocide!</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/douglas-anthony-cooper/genocide-libel-ii_b_1146096.html" target="_blank">Murder by Numbers</a>"</li>
</ul>
13. <b>Hamas: fighting for freedom:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/180382/students-justice-palestine" target="_blank">To the Students for Justice in Palestine, a Letter From an Angry Black Woman</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://jcpa.org/hamas-threat-no-different-from-isis/" target="_blank">The Hamas Threat to the West Is No Different from ISIS</a>"</li>
</ul>
14. <b>PLO + Hamas "Unity Government" = bold step for peace:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/04/how_to_fix_it_jimmy_carter_mary_robinson_israel_palestine_gaza_hamas" target="_blank">How to Fix It: Ending this war in Gaza begins with recognizing Hamas as a legitimate political actor.</a>"</li>
</ul>
15. <b>Just critics of Israeli policies; no anti-Semitism here:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://everydayantisemitism.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">The Everyday Antisemitism Project</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/walter-e-williams/2014/08/05/walter-e-williams-column-western-anti-semitism-rages-again-beleag" target="_blank">Western Anti-Semitism Rages Again Beleaguered Israel</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/world/europe/anger-in-europe-over-the-israeli-gaza-conflict-reverberates-as-anti-semitism.html" target="_blank">Anti-Semitism Rises in Europe Amid Israel-Gaza Conflict</a>"</li>
</ul>
16. <b>Israel - Not a partisan issue:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/161450/democrats-republicans-differ-views-cuba-israel.aspx" target="_blank">Democrats, Republicans Differ Most on Views of Cuba, Israel</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/08/why-dont-more-democrats-support-israel.php" target="_blank">Why Don't More Democrats Support Israel?</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/topic/national-jewish-democratic-council/" target="_blank">Obama's Divide-and-Conquer Strategy on Iran Sanctions</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2011/10/adl-backs-down-on-pro-obama-pledge.html" target="_blank">ADL backs down on pro-Obama pledge</a>"</li>
</ul>
17. <b>They must be good guys; Human Rights is in their name:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html" target="_blank">Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/2010/12/morning_bits_16.html" target="_blank">Right Turn: Morning Bits</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.jpost.com/International/HRW-appoints-alleged-terrorist-to-Mideast-Board" target="_blank">HRW appoints alleged terrorist to Mideast Board</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/25/human-rights-watchs-ken-roth-goes-to-bat-for-hamas-war-crimes/" target="_blank">Human Rights Watch's Ken Roth Goes to Bat for Hamas War Crimes</a>"</li>
</ul>
18. <b>But UNWRA says:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-unrwa-is-hamas.html" target="_blank">The UNRWA is Hamas</a>"</li>
</ul>
19. <b>If you can't trust genocidal terrorists, who can you trust?</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/07/09/Pro-Hamas-Use-Pictures-From-Syria-Haiti-Against-Israel" target="_blank">Palestinians Use Photos from Syria to Smear Israel Online</a>"</li>
</ul>
20. <b>It's the Occupation, stupid:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>"<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/309750/israel-truly-occupying-power-david-french" target="_blank">Is Israel Truly an 'Occupying Power'?</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/07/17/does-the-levy-report-doom-israel/" target="_blank">Does the Levy Report Doom Israel?</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.al-rassooli.com/tiny-israel.html" target="_blank">A Japanese View of the Palestinians</a>"</li>
<li>"<a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-illegal-settlements-myth/" target="_blank">The Illegal-Settlements Myth</a>"</li>
</ul>
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<br /></div>
<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-71950786463631791532014-08-11T16:32:00.000+03:002014-08-11T16:32:08.407+03:00Arab Bank Accused of Helping Reward Hamas Suicide Bombers in Terrorism Case<section class="post-header">
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<a href="http://dailysignal.com/category/security">Security</a><span></span></div>
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<a href="http://dailysignal.com/author/sharyl-attkisson/">
Sharyl Attkisson </a>
<span>/</span>
<a class="twitter-name" href="http://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson">@SharylAttkisson</a>
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<time class="date" datetime="2014-08-11">August 11, 2014</time> <span></span>
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<img alt="" data-minwidth480px="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/afpphotos414586-800x420.jpg" data-minwidth940px="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/afpphotos414586.jpg" src="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/afpphotos414586-385x200.jpg" />
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<div class="caption">
The Sokolow family was shopping in Jerusalem on
when female suicide bomber, Wafa Idris detonated a 22-pound bomb stashed
in her backpack. In this 2002 photo, a Palestinian gun man walks next
women carrying a symbolic coffin of Idris during a remembrance march in
the West Bank town of Bethlehem. (Photo: Newscom)</div>
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Ten years in the making, a landmark terrorism-related case is
set to go to trial this week in New York. It has unearthed shocking
documentation of the formalized network in which Mideast charities
solicited funds to reward the families of Hamas suicide bombers.
Interest in the lawsuit is heightened given the current violent outbreak
between Israel and the Palestinians.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The plaintiffs are 300 U.S. nationals who were victims in 24
terrorist attacks between 2000 and 2005 while in Israel. Many were
vacationing. They were caught in the crossfire during the “second
intifada,” or Palestinian uprising.<br />
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_153582" style="width: 680px;">
<a href="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/670px-arab_bank_hq.jpg"><img alt="Photo: Wikimedia" class="size-full wp-image-153582" height="300" src="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/670px-arab_bank_hq.jpg" width="400" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text">
Arab Bank headquarters in Amman, Jordan. (Photo: Wikimedia)</div>
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But instead of a criminal case aimed at the attackers, the lawsuit
goes after the prominent international Arab Bank for allegedly knowingly
providing material support and services to Hamas, a designated
terrorist group. Arab Bank contends it did not knowingly serve
terrorists.<br />
<blockquote class="tweet">
Instead of going after their attackers, terror attack victims are targeting Arab Bank.</blockquote>
Terrorism financing expert Juan Zarate, author of “Treasury’s War,”
told The Daily Signal the litigation is being closely monitored by other
banks, as well as foreign governments and U.S. officials.<br />
“This case raises the question of not only the responsibility of a
bank to know its customer, especially in the Middle East where you have
lots of entangled relationships that may create risk, but also how far
they have to go to interpret the political framework and environment,”
said Zarate, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for terrorist
financing under President George W. Bush.<br />
<strong>Cash Rewards for ‘Martyrs’</strong><br />
New York attorney Mark Sokolow, his wife and two of his teenaged
daughters were shopping at a shoe store in Jerusalem on Jan. 27, 2002,
when Wafa Idris, the first female suicide bomber in the conflict,
detonated a 22-pound bomb stashed in her backpack. The explosion killed
Idris, 28, and one other person and wounded 150 others. Sokolow and his
family were injured—but survived.<br />
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_153583" style="width: 1034px;">
<a href="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/afpphotos412226.jpg"><img alt="Mark Sokolow in a hospital bed in Jerusalem January 28, 2002. Sokolow, 43, a survivor of the September 11 attack on New York's World Trade Center, was a victim to another bombing attack on the junction of Jaffa Road and King George Street in west Jerusalem in which some 40 people were injured and two killed. (Photo: Menahem Kahana/Newscom)" class="wp-image-153583 size-large" height="313" src="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/afpphotos412226-1024x803.jpg" width="400" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text">
Mark
Sokolow in a hospital bed in Jerusalem January 28, 2002. Sokolow, 43, a
survivor of the Sept. 11 attack on New York’s World Trade Center, was a
victim to another bombing attack on the junction of Jaffa Road and King
George Street in west Jerusalem in which some 40 people were injured
and two killed. (Photo: Menahem Kahana/Newscom)</div>
</div>
Documents obtained through discovery reveal an intricate system set
up to reward Idris’ family and other so-called Palestinian “martyrs.”
The network included a charity called the Saudi Committee for the
Support of the Intifada al-Quds, which advertised throughout the West
Bank and Gaza, asking people to contribute to the families of suicide
bombers.<br />
The Saudi Committee allegedly collected millions of dollars from
individuals and organizations globally, including many terrorist
organizations, and funneled the funds through Arab Bank to Hamas and its
operatives, including the families of suicide bombers, prisoners and
other martyrs.<br />
<blockquote class="tweet">
The lawsuit reveals one suicide bomber’s family received a payment of $5,316.</blockquote>
After violent attacks, terrorists and their families were instructed
to bring proof of their identity to branches of Arab Bank, where they
received cash rewards. The lawsuit alleges that Arab Bank served as the
effective paymaster for the claims, knowing that the funds were going to
terrorists.<br />
According to the lawsuit, Idris’ family presented documentation to
Arab Bank and received the equivalent of $5,316. That was a relatively
large sum: five times the average annual income per person in the West
Bank and Gaza.<br />
<strong>Bank Under Scrutiny</strong><br />
Arab Bank largely has withheld comment outside of court but has taken
the position it was not wittingly part of the terrorist financing. It
has acknowledged transferring close to $100 million to Palestinians for
“humanitarian aid” but says it “abhors terrorism” and had no intention
of subsidizing suicide bombers.<br />
One strike against Arab Bank in the upcoming trial is its decision to
withhold documents that the court ordered it to turn over related to
customers such as Hamas and other terrorists and militant groups on the
U.S. list of terrorist organizations.<br />
Arab Bank claimed bank secrecy laws in Jordan, Lebanon and other
countries bar it from turning over the material. But federal courts
ruled the jury may infer guilt or wrongdoing from the bank’s failure to
provide the documents.<br />
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_153586" style="width: 1034px;">
<a href="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/epaphotostwo755924.jpg"><img alt="Israeli emergency personnel inspect the scene of the massive Palestinian suicide bus bombing in western Jerusalem on August 19, 2003. (Photo: Rusty Stewart/Newscom)" class="size-large wp-image-153586" height="267" src="http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/epaphotostwo755924-1024x686.jpg" width="400" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text">
Israeli
emergency personnel inspect the scene of the massive Palestinian
suicide bus bombing in western Jerusalem on Aug. 19, 2003. (Photo: Rusty
Stewart/Newscom)</div>
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Arab Bank has taken issue with a series of pretrial losses it has
suffered in the case so far, claiming the court rulings are
“inconsistent with controlling precedent as well as decisions of other
district courts on key legal issues.”<br />
Several hundred additional victims of terrorism have filed similar
cases against Credit Lyonnais and NatWest, which also claim they
conducted only routine banking activities not intended to promote
terror.<br />
<strong>Far-Reaching Implications</strong><br />
Arab Bank is arguably the most prominent financial institution in
Jordan, an important U.S. ally. This puts the U.S. government in the
position of wanting to support the fight against terrorist financing but
not wanting to disrupt an important international alliance.<br />
Zarate says banks that do business with Arab Bank could be affected.<br />
<blockquote class="tweet">
Did a prominent international bank provide support and services to Hamas?</blockquote>
“Banks with exposure and presence in the U.S. have to concern
themselves with the activities and reputation of their correspondents,”
says Zarate. “If Arab Bank loses the case, it could trigger further
political, regulatory, and enforcement scrutiny from U.S. authorities.”<br />
We contacted a number of top banks to ask what impact the case could
have on their relationship with Arab Bank. Bank of America and Citi
declined comment. JP Morgan, UBS and Wells Fargo didn’t respond.
Deutsche Bank told us, “As standard global policy, the bank reserves the
right to terminate any relationship with any entity when facts emerge
supporting allegations they have violated the law.”<br />
Jury selection for the case begins today.<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21959449.post-21902808635825866642014-08-11T16:29:00.000+03:002014-08-11T16:29:02.947+03:00Spectacularly Wrong<span> <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/detail/alan-caruba">ALAN CARUBA</a></span>
<small>August 11, 2014</small>
<br />
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"A greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum"<br />
The speaker had what one might imagine, given his background, a
better insight into Islam, Muslims, and the Middle East than others who
had preceded him. He said he was seeking "a new beginning" that was
"based on mutual interests and mutual respect" because his nation and
those in the Middle East shared "common principles-principles of justice
and progress, tolerance and dignity of all human beings."<br />
He cited "civilization's debt to Islam" and noted that there were
more than 1,200 mosques in this country. He declared that his nation
would never be "at war with Islam" and he quoted from "the holy Koran"
several times during his speech.<br />
Five years later, noting the Islamic holiday of "Eid-al-Fitr" on July
28, he said "In the United States, Eid also reminds us of the many
achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very
fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy," but
the U.S. did not elect its first Muslim-American congressman until 2007.
No Muslims took part in our founding.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
At one point he cited his nation's "strong bonds with Israel" calling
them "unbreakable." Noting the Holocaust in which six million Jews were
killed, he said that "Threatening Israel with destruction-or repeating
vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong" but that he deemed the
situation of Palestinians "intolerable" adding that "Palestinians must
abandon violence." Noting his opposition to Israeli settlements, he
managed to be on both sides of the issues that divide Israel and its
Palestinian opponents.<br />
Turning his attention to Iran, he noted that "For many years, Iran
has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country", citing
reasons why Iranians felt justified to feel that way. He also pointed
out that Iran "has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence"
against U.S troops and civilians."<br />
"It is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons,
we have reached a decisive point" and that preventing "a nuclear arms
race in the Middle East could lead this region and the world down a
hugely dangerous path" adding that "No single nation should pick and
choose which nations have nuclear weapons." Presumably he was referring
to Israel which would be directly threatened, indeed destroyed, by an
Iranian nuclear weapon.<br />
While noting the "controversy about the promotion of democracy in
recent years" he asserted that "No system of government can or should be
imposed upon one nation by any another" despite the fact that the U.S.
invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq specifically to impose new governments
that would not threaten the U.S. and its interests in the Middle East.<br />
Citing religious freedom, he said that "Islam has a proud tradition
of tolerance" but noted that "Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing
tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of another's"...and
fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions
between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in
Iraq."<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br />On August 7, after ignoring Iraqi and Kurdish requests for military
aid in the form of weapons to fight the Islamic State (IS) for months,
in the wake of its attacks on Christians in Iraq. the potential genocide
of Yezidi men, women and children driven from their homes, and an
attack on Erbil where the U.S. has a consulate and Baghdad where we have
an embassy, he authorized <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/07/statement-president">"targeted military action in Iraq."</a><br />
He concluded by noting that "It is easier to start wars than to end them", but <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">Barack Obama, speaking in Cairo on June 4, 2009</a>,
mere months after having taken office in his first term, said he
believed "We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we
have the courage to make a new beginning..."<br />
His new beginning was demonstrated by withdrawing all U.S. troops
from Iraq and announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2015. The
result of that action, combined with doing nothing as the Islamic State
of Iraq, Syria and the Levant (ISIL) emerged from the Syrian civil war
and severed the northern portion of Iraq, adding it to the portion of
Syria it controls, has left a Middle East that faces a regional war with
a fanatical Sunni Islamist entity.<br />
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that Obama lacked an
understanding of Islam, history, and the Middle East. His Cairo speech
became part of what came to be known as his "apology tour" as he spoke
in other nations, making it clear that he thought the U.S. was the cause
of many problems in the world and that he was endowed with some special
capacity to make things right again at home and abroad.<br />
The irony of the speech is that it was spoken by a man for whom no
leader in the Middle East has any respect, putting the Prime Minister of
Israel and the Supreme Leader of Iran on the same page together. Add to
them the leaders of virtually all other nations. Obama thought he could
dictate to Israel and could charm the Iranians to make concessions. He
was wrong.<br />
Obama was wrong about the Muslims that have been slaughtering
Christians in the Middle East and Africa and he has been largely silent
about it. The leader of the Islamic State that has captured a large
swath of northern Iraq, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/4/pipes-caliph-ibrahims-brutal-moment/">Abu Bakral-Baghdadi</a>,
recently anointed himself "Caliph Ibrahim" and told his fellow Muslims
that jihad "is the duty on Muslims that has been lost for centuries."<br />
Obama was wrong that no nation can impose a system of government on
another when the history of Islam has been its determination to impose
Sharia law wherever it gained power and the history of Communism that
was its imposition in Eastern Europe and elsewhere like Cuba until the
collapse of the Soviet Union freed its subjugated nations, though Cuba
continues to be subject to the Castro dictatorship.<br />
These days, Iran is still playing Obama for a fool while pursuing its
quest to build its own nuclear weapons. The Russian Federation has
seized the Crimea from Ukraine. Latin American nations are dumping their
children into an America that has no real border anymore.<br />
Since he gave that speech in 2009, the Middle East has seen the rise
of the Islamic State stretching from Syria to Iraq. Syria remains
embroiled in a civil war. The Palestinians are again attacking Israel.
Iran is still intent on building its own nuclear weapons. Tunisia,
Egypt, and Libya have removed former dictators and chaos is the order of
the day in Libya.<br />
If you read Barack Obama's Cairo speech from start to finish, you are
likely to conclude that a self-deluded fool gave it, a man determined
to avoid confronting the enemies of mankind until an Islamic-inspired
genocide required it.<br />
© Alan Caruba, 2014<br />
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<em><a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/">FamilySecurityMatters.org</a> </em><em>Contributing Editor </em><em><a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.49/author_detail.asp">Alan Caruba</a></em><em> writes a weekly column, "Warning Signs", posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, and he blogs at </em><em><a href="http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/">http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com</a>. </em><em>His book, </em><em>"<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Right-Answers-Issues-Separating-Fantasy/dp/0936783486">Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy</a>", </em><em>is published by Merrill Press.</em></div>
<br />Read more: <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/spectacularly-wrong?f=must_reads#ixzz3A5dTEao8" style="color: #003399;">Family Security Matters</a> <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/spectacularly-wrong?f=must_reads#ixzz3A5dTEao8" style="color: #003399;">http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/spectacularly-wrong?f=must_reads#ixzz3A5dTEao8</a>
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<span class="fullpost"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss</div>GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028217914514268498noreply@blogger.com0