Imagine a Boston Bombing Every Week

Noah Beck

I empathize with the victims of the Boston bombing; they were killed, maimed, injured, and/or forever traumatized only because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  As they gathered to compete in or watch the marathon underway, they were -- like all terrorism victims -- the epitome of innocent.
But imagine if this happened again next week, at a pizzeria, killing 15 diners.  And again, a week later, on a bus, killing 19 passengers.  Then at a discotheque, killing 21 teens.  Then at a church, killing 11 worshipers.  And so on, with a new bombing terrorizing us almost every week.
Israelis don't have to imagine; they just have to remember.  Between 1995 and 2005, each year saw an average of 14 suicide bombings, murdering 66 victims.  Two thousand two was the worst year, with 47 bombings that slaughtered 238 people.  That's almost one Boston bombing every week.  Adjusted for population differences, Israel's victims in 2002 amounted to the equivalent of three 9/11s in one year.  And these bombing statistics don't include all of the shootings, stabbings, and other violent attacks by Palestinian extremists during those years.

Why? The Self-Destructive Importation of Muslims

SHARI GOODMAN April 25, 2013

It was only a few months ago that a prominent mosque in Arlington, Virginia hosted a controversial imam who urged immigrant Muslims in the United States to wage war for Islam.
"The enemies of Allah are lining up. The question for us is, are we lining [up] or are we afraid because they may call us terrorists?" Shaker Elsayed told a crowd of Ethiopian Muslims during a lecture at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. (Daily Caller 2/26/13)
Americans should be outraged. Prior to 1965 we were primarily a Judeo-Christian country with a controlled immigration policy that placed priority upon skilled immigrants from Europe. We sought immigrants who would be an asset to America. Our then policy had a criteria and standards in place that immigrants were required to meet before gaining entry.

MK Dr. Arieh Eldad‏

Arieh Eldad, the brightest of the bright in Israel's politics, regrettably is departing from politics. The Israelis are not politically wise enough to read him and understand that no one in the Knesset is a better defender of their country and their interests than Eldad.  Here is my translation of this lengthy interview with nrg.Ma'artiv: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/461/152.html?hp=1&cat=404&loc=20

Bye, bye but bit goodbye: MK Arieh Eldad departs from the Knesset to cut trees, to write a book on the problems of the Right's vision or head the IAEA [International Atomic Energy]? Until he returns to the Knesset, former MK has many plans.

A stormy interview by Sari Makover-Blikoc

Just like MK Ahmed Tibi, Aryeh Eldad also managed to juggle, in an astonishing agility between two very different diametrically opposed areas: politics and medicine. In one corner he burned the Palestinian flag and led street battles with police in the Amona outpost and in the other corner he treated terrorists wounded in the Department of Plastic Surgery.

What a doctor doing in politics?

"In the Knesset I was engaged in preventive medicine. I prevented the establishment of the Palestinian state. When the Israeli governments sent the army to fire on empty lots instead of going to an all-out war with the Arabs, I thought that even if I perform one other skin graft on a badly burnt skin, I will not prevent the next victim from coming into my department . After we took in more than 3,000 wounded in the intifada, I understood that it is impossible to stop this terrible wave of terrorism in the operation room.

"Suicide bombers arrive to my department and it was completely abnormal. If I saw may patient walking down the street with a backpack and inside it a bomb, I'd get a gun and shoot him. But if I did not succeed in killing him, but only to wound him, I would have rushed to the hospital to save him . this is not normal. The reality of life here is not normal. This frustration prompted me to leave the hospital and to join the Knesset."

The Secretary's Epiphany

Shoshana Bryen

As a U.S. senator, Chuck Hagel went to great lengths to assure people he was not the "Senator from Israel," and HE seemed surprised when people objected to his remark, "The political reality is ... that the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here."  It was never clear who should have been offended -- Jews and/or Israelis, or the colleagues Hagel implied were "intimidated" or were in fact "Senators from Israel." 

It is that same Chuck Hagel -- now secretary of defense -- who is in Israel to conclude details of a proposed U.S. arms package including the KC135 refueling aircraft and Osprey V22 transport aircraft.  The Osprey had not previously been released for sale abroad.  And the KC135 had been denied to Israel by the Bush administration for fear it would appear that the U.S. was encouraging Israel to consider an attack on Iran.  The Obama administration is selling it for precisely that reason.  "Iran presents a threat in its nuclear program and Israel will make the decisions that Israel must make to protect itself and defend itself," Hagel said.

Terrorism Without a Motive

Sultan Knish

Means, opportunity and motive are the three crucial elements of investigating a crime and establishing the guilt of its perpetrator. Means and opportunity tell us how the crime could have been committed while motive tells us why it was committed. Many crimes cannot be narrowed down by motive until a suspect is on the scene; but acts of terrorism can be. Almost anyone might be responsible for a random killing; but political killings are carried out by those who subscribe to common beliefs.

Eliminate motive from terrorism and it becomes no different than investigating a random killing. If investigators are not allowed to profile potential terrorists based on shared beliefs rooted in violence, that makes it harder to catch terrorists after an act of terror and incredibly difficult before the act of terror takes place.

The roadblock isn't only technical; it's conceptual. Investigations consist of connecting the dots. If you can't conceive of a connection, then the investigation is stuck. If you can't make the leap from A to B or add two to two and get four, then you are dependent on lucky breaks. And lucky breaks go both ways. Sometimes investigators get lucky and other times the terrorists get lucky. 

Common Sense About the Syrian Mess

Barry Rubin

"I know what the world thinks of us, we are Communists, and of course I have said very clearly that we are not Communists; very clearly."              --Fidel Castro, 1959

U.S. policy toward Syria has changed but it is too late. A senior State Department official said at the meeting just concluded of opposition groups: "We have to help the moderates, people like [Chief of Staff of the Free Syrian Army] Salim Idris….” 

This is what I proposed two years ago but I have to admit that I almost never saw anyone else who suggested that the strategy should be to help the non-Islamists with money, weapons, and diplomatic support.

Islamism in Texas

Pamela Geller

Neena Nejad, a Los Angeles-based producer, has been working for almost two years now on a film documentary about Amina and Sarah Said, the two Muslim girls in Texas who were murdered by their father in an Islamic honor killing on New Year's Eve 2008. Nejad and her team have been working with many people and have uncovered some provocative new information about the girls' father, Yaser Said -- information that has never been revealed in public before. 

Nejad and her crew just returned to Los Angeles from Texas. While they were in the Dallas area, they visited every place that at some point had been important in the lives of Amina and Sarah, and they talked to many, many people. Most of those people had never before talked to the media. Said Nejad: "It was such an emotional week talking to these people and getting to know Amina and Sarah better."

The Beginning of the End for Hezbollah

Michael J. Totten

The Middle East taught me pessimism. Much of the region goes in circles instead of progressing, and I’ve seen one country after another circle the drain.
Optimism is very American. It’s not exclusively American, and of course we have our own setbacks and failures, but things have generally trended toward the better in American life since the nation was founded.

The Middle East, though, teaches another way of looking at history’s trajectory. My own naïve optimism was dashed on the rocks in Lebanon and Iraq and hasn’t recovered. I never even bothered with optimism in Egypt. There’s nothing there to be optimistic about.

And I rarely meet anybody who actually lives over there who isn’t a pessimist. Expecting the best while everyone around you is expecting the worst is a difficult thing to pull off. It probably isn’t advisable even to try.

Hamas Celebrates Erdogan Gaza Trip As End of U.S. Hegemony

 TheTower.org Staff

Hamas is hailing the announcement by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he will defy requests from the U.S. not to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in late May. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is celebrating the trip as marking the end of American hegemony:

In a brief statement from Doha, a copy of which was received by the Palestinian Information Centre, Haniyeh said: “We welcome the visit of the Turkish Prime Minister and we appreciate this attitude, which shows the nobility of Turkey’s leadership and people, and shows its embrace of and support for the Palestinian cause.” He stressed that the visit confirmed the time of American domination has ended.

Erdogan is traveling to the Gaza Strip over the repeated objections of State Department officials.

La Cour d’appel de Versailles (OLP c/ Alstom et Veolia) conclut que l’occupation par Israël n’est pas illégale

 DREUX

Voici une étude que les amis d’Israël doivent conserver soigneusement dans leurs archives. La France n’est pas neutre dans le conflit, et cet arrêt de la Cour revêt une importance toute particulière.

On the int'l law front, French court finds that Israeli "occupation" is not illegal and orders PLO/PA to pay court costs to Alsthom, Veolia, & another firm involved in building the Jerusalem tram line. Court costs add up to 90,000 euros.

Veolia et Alstom ont construit, suite à un appel d’offre, le Tramway de Jérusalem qui traverse la ville jusqu’à l’est, jusque dans les territoires que revendiquent l’OLP et l’Autorité Palestinienne.

L’OLP considère que l’Etat d’Israël occupe illégalement le territoire palestinien et poursuit une colonisation juive illégale par la construction du tramway qui est ainsi elle-même illicite.

Les arguments juridiques de l’OLP démontés un après l’autre

L’organisation de libération de la Palestine s’est donc lancée dans un long procès qui vient de se terminer devant la Cour d’appel de Versailles, le 13 mars 2013, par une déculottée foudroyante donc les conclusions qui dérangent ont été passées totalement sous silence par ces grands médias chargés de vous informer en toute indépendance.

L’occupation du territoire palestinien n’est pas illégale

L’OLP s’appuie sur le Droit international et considère que l’Etat d’Israël occupe illégalement le territoire palestinien et qu’il poursuit une colonisation juive illégale. La construction du tramway est ainsi elle-même illicite. En appui, l’OLP invoque la violation de plusieurs textes :

FBI purge at request of U.S. Islamist groups hampered probe into Boston bombers

creeping 
 
via Blind Eye: Conciliatory FBI policies toward Islamism hampered probe into Boston bombers – Washington Times.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s failure to recognize political Islam as a driver of jihadist terrorism is partly to blame for the FBI not identifying one of the Boston Marathon bombers in 2011 as a security risk, according to U.S. officials and private counterterrorism analysts.

The FBI revealed last week that it was warned by a foreign government in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed Friday, was tied to “radical Islam” but the FBI was unable to confirm the links.

SEE RELATED: Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s last words on phone during shootout: ‘Mama, I love you’

“The fact is religion has been expunged from counterterrorism training,” said Sebastian Gorka, a counterterrorism specialist with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The FBI can’t talk about Islam and they can’t talk about jihad.”

Added Patrick S. Poole, another counterterrorism specialist, about FBI policies on Islam: “I have zero doubt it affected their investigation of Tsarnaev.”

American Stealth Colonialism

Nurit Greenger
 

Unlike the proverbial mindset, besides good friendship, good and fair economics and military cooperation and exchange, Israel does not need America. In many aspects it is just the opposite.

So you know, it is Israel's, efficient beyond belief, regional and global intelligence network that is America's primary source of information on Islamic Jihad that is intensifying by the day.

PA vows to continue paying salaries to prisoners - among them terrorists

PA Deputy Minister:

"Salaries and allowances to Palestinian prisoners  

will not be stopped, whatever the cost may be.  

The prisoners are our joy."

Head of Prisoners' Club:

"When salaries are paid  to those working  

in government offices and institutions,

they will also be paid to the prisoners."

 http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8857

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

In recent months, both PA Deputy Minister of Prisoners' Affairs and the head of the Prisoners' Club have reiterated that prisoners' salaries are high priority for the PA and are treated and paid like all salaries to PA civil servants.

Palestinian Media Watch's reports on the PA's payment of salaries to prisoners, among them terrorists, have generated debates in both Norway and the UK.

The PA Deputy Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Ziyad Abu Ein responded to the possibility of losing donor funding due to PMW reports exposing these payments. He stressed that "the prisoners are our joy":

"If the assistance and the financial support to the PA are stopped, the [payment] of salaries (rawatib) and allowances (mukhassasat) to Palestinian prisoners will not be stopped, whatever the cost may be. The prisoners are our joy. We will sacrifice everything for them and continue to provide for their families."

What’s in a Name: Is Associated Press Laundering Islamism?‏

Barry Rubin

Political leaders and government officials are paid for trying to avoid, mitigate, or manage damage to their countries. Experts and journalists are supposed to warn about them and explain the dangers. This isn't happening. Instead, language is being used to define threats down to the minimum by speaking of revolutionary, anti-American, antisemitic forces quite willing to use terrorism when it suits them into moderates.

The latest step toward making it impossible to understand the world is a decision of the Associated Press, the world’s biggest source of news for English-language mass media. AP's new step, however, does not launder all Islamism nor does it outlaw the word “Islamism.”

We should remember, however, that use of this word--the description of the world's most important revolutionary movement today--is already outlawed not only for U.S. government officials in public but also in their internal writing.) In AP's case, you can still use the word Islamism but not in connection with saying that this is intrinsically a bad, extremist or dangerous thing. So it becomes a broad label like liberal, conservative, social democratic, Christian democratic, etc. In other words, Islamism is defined not as a radical threat but as a full-spectrum movement.

Don't Fall Into the Boston Immigration Trap

Jessica Zuckerman

April 24, 2013

FBI/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom

As the country continues to reel over the attacks in Boston last week, some in Washington quickly looked for ways to use the attacks to justify their political goals on border security and immigration reform.

On both sides of the aisle, politicians and commentators were quick to assert that the fact that the two suspected bombers were immigrants was reason enough to call for changes to everything, from border security and stricter background checks to amnesty.

It’s unfortunate that people are trying to spin the tragic events in Boston to advance their legislative agendas, but it’s also falling into an emotional trap—the Boston attackers should not be the focus of this immigration debate.
Thus far, the emotional and political arguments haven’t made much sense. A couple of key facts:

Boston Bombing Lesson: Ban Niqabs and Burqas

DANIEL PIPES April 24, 2013

The Tsarnaev brothers pulled off their terrorist attack with great skill but made a fatal mistake in letting their faces and bodies be seen at a heavily photographed international sporting event. This meant that multiple images of them were available for a massive law enforcement squad to comb over and, after three days, identify them by name and appearance.

This rapid identification was not unprecedented - the London police had done likewise in the July 2005 suicide bombings but because none of the four perpetrators survived that attack, that was more a theoretical achievement than a practical one. To the best of my knowledge, the Tsarnaevs were the first terrorists to be tracked down via still and video pictures.

In retrospect, the brothers should not have exposed their appearances. But how to avoid doing so? Hoodies leave the face exposed. Ski masks arouse suspicion in temperate weather, as do Halloween masks all but one night a year, and stocking masks at any time.

Men in women’s clothing: public outcry ensues after a criminal was forced to march in women’s clothing

Dr. Raz Zimmt

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The women’s protest in Marivan

       Men in women’s clothing: public outcry ensues after a criminal was forced to march in women’s clothing

A massive public outcry emerged after internal security forces dressed a Kurdish man in women’s clothing and marched him in the streets of his home town. The young man, who was convicted of assault by a court in the north Iranian city of Marivan (Kurdistan Province), was forced to march in the streets of the city in traditional Kurdish women’s apparel. To protest the humiliating punishment, which was defined by activists for women’s rights as an offense to women in general and Kurdish women in particular, the Marivan Women’s Association organized a demonstration in the streets of the city.

State Department, Clinton to blame for Benghazi security, GOP report concludes

 

 

Interim congressional report cites management failures in enduring Libya mission secured before attack

 

UPDATED 19:11 PM EDT, DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — An interim report released Tuesday by House Republicans faults the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for security deficiencies at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, prior to last September's deadly terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Senior State Department officials, including Clinton, approved reductions in security at the facilities in Benghazi, according to the report by GOP members of five House committees. The report cites an April 19, 2012, cable bearing Clinton's signature acknowledging a March 28, 2012, request from then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz for more security, yet allowing further reductions. The report does not include actual copies of the cables or other internal correspondence that Republicans cite to support their findings.

Why Muslims Kill

Sultan Knish

The murderer is the new celebrity. He emerges out of nowhere with a rags to mass murder story, and is swiftly accorded all the trappings of fame. Reporters track down anyone who knew him to learn about his childhood and his main influences. Relatives and friends both contribute fuzzy anecdotes, mostly indistinguishable from the ones they would present if he were competing on American Idol or running for president.

The disaffected form fan clubs around him. The experts discuss what his rise to fame means. Books are written about him and then perhaps a movie. And then it ends and begins all over again.

The Tsernaev brothers, the living one and the dead one, are already receiving that treatment. Like most murderers they have already become more famous than their victims. More famous than the rescuers. The original Tamerlane is better known than any of his countless victims. The new one is already eclipsing his victims. Before long one of those Chechen bards whose videos he tagged into his playlist on YouTube will write a ballad about the Boston massacre and the circle will be complete.

Colorado: Saudi Muslim’s got university prayer room, now want kuffars out

creeping
Mini-mosques for foreign Saudi Muslim students on college campuses across the U.S. via Muslim students seek changes to prayer room – The Scribe – University of Colorado. h/t halal

In order to meet the religious needs and obligations of students, a room in the Kramer Library was converted into an ad hoc prayer space in Spring 2012.

Foreign, Muslim, Saudi students that is.

According to a sign posted outside multipurpose Room 318, located east of the rear staircase on the third floor the library, the space has been converted into “a room for study, meditation, reflection, and prayer.” It is available on a first-come, first-serve basis, and each student is limited to 30 minutes.

Efforts to allocate a prayer space for Muslim students to conduct their five mandatory daily prayers were started by student Zaina Abukhdeir.

Abukhdeir, a mathematics and secondary education major, is the chair of the UCCS branch of the Muslim Student Alliance.