40,000 Yazidis stranded on mountain as Islamic State jihadists threaten death

Robert Spencer
“The Kurdish minority Yazidis have long been regarded as devil worshippers by Sunni jihadists who have targeted them since the US invasion. As the extremists’ latest and most potent incarnation, the Islamic State, has steadily conquered Iraq’s north, the small, self-contained community has been especially vulnerable.” But despite the UNICEF hand-wringing in this story, the international human rights community is unlikely to take any significant action. To take such action would require an all-out war against the Islamic State, and no one wants that or is in a position to undertake it.
An update on this story. “40,000 Iraqis stranded on mountain as Isis jihadists threaten death,” by Martin Chulov, the Guardian, August 6, 2014:

Tens of thousands of members of one of Iraq’s oldest minorities have been stranded on a mountain in the country’s north-west, facing slaughter at the hands of jihadists surrounding them below if they flee, or death by dehydration if they stay.
UN groups say at least 40,000 members of the Yazidi sect, many of them women and children, have taken refuge in nine locations on Mount Sinjar, a craggy mile-high ridge line identified in local legend as the final resting place of Noah’s ark.
At least 130,000 more people, many from the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, have fled to Dohuk, in the Kurdish north, or to Erbil, where regional authorities have been struggling since June to deal with one of the biggest and most rapid refugee movements in decades.
Sinjar itself has been all but emptied of its 300,000 residents since jihadists stormed the city late on Saturday – but an estimated 25,000 people remain. “We are being told to convert, or to lose our heads,” said Khuldoon Atyas, who has stayed behind to guard his family’s crops. “There is no one coming to help.”
Another man, who is hiding in the mountains and identified himself as Nafi’ee, said: “Food is low, ammunition is low and so is water. We have one piece of bread to share between 10 people. We have to walk 2km (1.2 miles) to get water. There were some air strikes yesterday (against the jihadists). But they have made no difference.”
At least 500 Yazidis, among them 40 children, have been killed in the past week, local officials say. Many more have received direct threats, either from the advancing militants, or members of nearby Sunni communities allied with them. “They were our neighbours and now they are our killers,” said Mr Atyas.

Caliph Ibrahim's Brutal Moment

Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times

http://www.meforum.org/4769/isis-caliph-ibrahim

After an absence of 90 years, the ancient institution of the caliphate roared back into existence on the first day of Ramadan in the year 1435 of the Hegira, equivalent to June 29, 2014. This astonishing revival symbolically culminates the Islamist surge that began forty years ago. A Western analogy might be declaring the restoration of the Hapsburg Empire, which traced its legitimacy to ancient Rome.
Whence comes this audacious move? Can the caliphate last? What will its impact be?
For starters, a quick review of the caliphate (from the Arabic khilafa, meaning "succession"): according to canonical Muslim history, it originated in 632 CE, on the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, then spontaneously developed, filling the nascent Muslim community's need for a temporal leader. The caliph became Muhammad's non-prophetic heir. After the first four caliphs, the office became dynastic.
From the start, followers disagreed whether the caliph should be the most able and pious Muslim or the closest relative of Muhammad; the resulting division came to define the Sunni and Shi'i branches of Islam, respectively, causing the profound schism that still endures.

“With Clear Eyes”

I will be posting less frequently now that the war is over – updating my readers often but not necessarily daily on the anticipated negotiations in Cairo and other matters of importance for Israel.

 

But for today, having stepped back for 24 hours plus now to assess the situation and gather information, I want to focus in this posting on how I see our current situation. And to make a couple of pertinent comments:

 

Wishful thinking is an indulgence we cannot permit ourselves now.  What is necessary is to look at the broader picture with eyes wide open.  And to recognize that there is no perfect solution to our very difficult and complex situation.

 

With all the above in mind, I do believe that stopping the war at this point – and heading towards negotiations in Cairo - is probably the best solution for Israel at present.  I write this fully aware of the fact that some strenuously disagree with me and believe Hamas must be taken out.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

Experts or Ideologues? Double Standards: War Crimes, Collective Punishment, Human Shields, Abducted Soldiers

The references for this article are available here. Double Standards: War Crimes, Collective Punishment, Human Shields, Abducted Soldiers War crimes Human rights and international law are based on universal norms. The application of those norms and the appropriation of this language to support narrow interests or ideological objectives, violate this universality. In this section, we provide evidence of HRW’s consistent double standards and disproportionate focus on allegations against Israel.

Hugh Hewitt and Edward Klein Vs the Clintons’ and the Obamas’

Nurit Greenger 
 

Hugh Hewitt is an American lawyer, academic, author and a conservative radio talk show, in Los Angeles on AM 870 and to whom I love listening whenever possible. Edward Klein is an American bestselling author who, recently has published the book Blood Feud about Clintons’ and the Obamas’.

Yesterday, at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, surrounded by beautiful the lush green garden, in Yorba Linda, California, in front of a large audience, Hugh Hewitt and Edward [Ed] Klein got together for a live radio program following by a Q and A session.

I was there and I report of a set of photos.

Don’t Rebuild Gaza

Want to solve a part of the Arab-Israel conflict? Then don't rebuild Gaza...

By: Shalom Bear

 

Published: August 6th, 2014

 

We’ve seen this movie before. Hamas attacks Israel, Israel fights back. Israel destroys Gaza. International community rebuilds Gaza. Hamas attacks Israel…
It’s always the same thing, and everyone chooses to ignore the lessons each time.
It’s time the international community stops rebuilding Gaza. You’re wasting your taxpayer’s money and donations.
President Obama did everything in his power to save the Hamas Jihadis, I don’t know why, except that he and the State Department want them as the legitimate representatives of the Gazan people.
But Hamas is evil. Hamas is Jihadi, like ISIS and Al Qaida.
And as long as evil like Hamas exists, an evil that vows to destroy Israel, this cycle will simply play out again.

World Ignores Christian Exodus from Islamic World

Raymond Ibrahim
August 6, 2014

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4572/christian-exodus-islamic-world

"They were trying to kill us... because we were Christians." — Teenage girl from Homs, Syria.
There have been house-to-house searches in Mali for Christians who might be in hiding, and people tortured into revealing Christian relatives. At least one pastor was beheaded.
It is to the media's shame that those who slaughter, behead, crucify and displace people for no other reason than that they are Christian rarely get media coverage, while Israel, which kills only in the context of trying to defend itself from rocket attacks and terrorism, and not out of religious bigotry, is constantly demonized.
Paying jizya [special poll tax for non-Muslims] is not only about money. It is about subjugation.

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.

Understanding Gaza: The Knife and the Bomb

Michael Widlanski
 

Maps show Gaza is built like a dagger, but a closer look reveals a ticking bomb.
It is a patchwork of labyrinthine alleys lined with booby-trapped buildings and smugglers' tunnels built under the main streets laced with enough explosives to throw huge battle tanks several feet into the sky. 
Much of this is not completely new.
Since Biblical times Gaza has been a lethal weapon, the coastal attack route from Egypt into Asia. It was the base of sea-faring Philistines, non-Arab idol worshipers who died many centuries ago, after fighting Israelites like Samson, Saul, and David.
In modern times, Gaza was the favored invasion corridor of Egypt's corpulent and corrupt King Farouk (1948) and the svelte and deadly pan-Arab demagogue Gamal Abdul-Nasser who pushed Farouk from power but treated Gaza just like him -- as a springboard for personal and national ambitions, herding refugees into closed camps.
Farouk and Abdul-Nasser exploited refugees, pointing them at Israel like daggers.

Israel’s War on Hamas: The Next Stage

Arnold Steinberg On August 6, 2014

Bill Buckley regretted his column indicting Israel’s invasion of Jenin, because that Israeli “massacre” of Palestinians  in 2002 never occurred.  Indeed, to limit Palestinian casualties, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) had lost many soldiers going door to door.  Even Bill was seduced by the mainstream media, which relied on graphic footage, some doctored, and on bogus numbers.
Absent Iron Dome (which, incidentally, like many Israeli military achievements will tutor our Pentagon with real-time validation), we would see horrible images of mass Israeli casualties.  Do we need to quantify the deaths and injuries that would have occurred in Israel without the intercepts? Even such horror would not satiate the European street thugs, not all Muslims, who yearn for another Kristallnacht.  That’s because, contrary to leftist mythology, the dispute involving tiny Israel is not a real estate squabble to be resolved by Donald Trump, so “land for peace” doesn’t work.
In 1999, I sat down with Ariel Sharon to discuss running a campaign in Israel the following year against a national referendum to give the Golan Heights back to Syria. It was an ill-advised Bill Clinton plan, endorsed by then-Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak, that had to be scuttled.  Clearly, it was painful for Sharon, who became prime minister in 2001, to uproot nearly ten thousand Israeli settlers and leave Gaza.  But he did, against his political base and against  Bibi Netanyahu.  In return, Gaza, which could have become a model for the “two-state solution,” became a terrorist base for launching thousands of rockets.

The Media’s Role in Hamas’ War Strategy

Policy, Politics & Culture

AFP/Getty Images

The Gaza War The Media’s Role in Hamas’ War Strategy Richard Landes
 
Hamas’ PR strategy can only work if international news media follows the script, whether willingly or under coercion.

In this most recent exchange of hostilities between Hamas and Israel, a number of commentators have noted Hamas’ unusual war tactics. Jeffrey Goldberg asks, “Is Hamas Trying to Get Gazans Killed?” Even Mahmoud Abbas queried, “What are you trying to achieve by sending rockets?” As Bob Schieffer put it with a touch of euphemism:

In the Middle East, the Palestinian people find themselves in the grip of a terrorist group that has embarked on a strategy to get its own children killed in order to build sympathy for its cause—a strategy that might actually be working, at least in some quarters.

The dark strategy has even inspired Israeli Children for Peace to appeal to Palestinian children and a Francophone Israeli to reach out to a bereaved Palestinian mother.
It appears to some, like Michael Oren, that Hamas deliberately maximizes its own people’s suffering for PR. To others, such a strategy would be so base and unthinkable, that they consider the very suggestion of it “racist and reprehensible.” Hamas’ Khaled Mashaal officially denies that Hamas engages in such a heinous policy, even as other Palestinian Jihadis brag about media-assured benefits derived from their own civilians’ deaths. And now, the IDF has possession of a Hamas training manual that advises its combatants to use civilian shields.

CNN has two Israel-haters debate on Israel: no pro-Israel voices allowed

Robert Spencer 
Beinart’s The Crisis of Zionism “is, as countless reviewers have already noted, an Israel-bashing-fest….Israel is blamed everywhere in this book, often thoughtlessly.” For his part, Reza Aslan never saw a genocidal hater of Israel he didn’t like: he is a Board member of a lobbying group for the bloodthirsty and genocidally antisemitic Iranian regime; tried to pass off Iran’s fanatically anti-Semitic former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a liberal reformer; called on the U.S. Government to negotiate with Ahmadinejad himself, as well as with the jihad terror group Hamas; praised the jihad terror group Hizballah as “the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon”; and praised also the anti-Semitic, misogynist, Islamic supremacist Muslim Brotherhood.

The UNRWA is Hamas

Sultan Knish blog
The UNRWA is on the front lines of the Hamas War in Gaza. In the headlines, its schools are forever being fired on or found to be stockpiling rockets. If individual Gazans are being used as human shields, the UNRWA often seems as if it is one big organizational human shield.

But the UNRWA isn't Hamas' human shield. The UNRWA is Hamas.

The "UN" part of the UNRWA, the blue logos and symbols, fool us into thinking of it as an international humanitarian organization. But the UNRWA in Gaza functions as a large Palestinian Arab organization with a smattering of foreign supervisory staff.

And those foreign staffers often tend to leave during a conflict.

The UNRWA is not an international organization operating in the Middle East. Effectively it's a local Arab Muslim organization funded and regulated internationally. Since the UNRWA classifies 80% of Gazans as "refugees", it administers the biggest welfare state in the world on their behalf. Like the Palestinian Authority, the UNRWA's welfare state is run locally and funded internationally.

The empty spaces in Gaza

Alan M. Dershowitz

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4580/gaza-population-density

How many times have you heard on television or read in the media that the Gaza Strip is "the most densely populated area in the world"? Repeating this statement, however, does not make it true. There are dense parts of Gaza, especially Gaza City, Beit Hanoun and Khan Younis, but there are far less dense areas in Gaza between these cities. Just look at Google Earth, or this population density map.

(Image source: Peace Now)

The fact that these sparsely populated areas exist in the Gaza Strip raise several important moral questions: First, why don't the media show the relatively open areas of the Gaza Strip? Why do they only show the densely populated cities? There are several possible reasons. There is no fighting going on in the sparsely populated areas, so showing them would be boring. But that's precisely the point—to show areas from which Hamas could be firing rockets and building tunnels but has chosen not to. Or perhaps the reason the media doesn't show these areas is that Hamas won't let them. That too would be a story worth reporting.

THERE ARE NO SURPRISES HERE FOR THOSE OF US WHO SAW IT COMING

Look who's in the White House!

Arif Alikhan - Assistant Secretary for Policy Development

for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Mohammed Elibiary - Homeland Security Adviser

Rashad Hussain - Special Envoy to the (OIC)

Organization of the Islamic Conference

Salam al-Marayati - Obama Adviser -
founder Muslim Public Affairs Council
and its current executive director

Imam Mohamed Magid - Obama's Sharia Czar -
Islamic Society of North America

Eboo Patel - Advisory Council on Faith-Based
Neighborhood Partnerships
This is flat out scary!!!!
 

Fox's Judge Jeanine Interviews Emerson: Hamas Gets Away With Murder

by Steve Emerson  - Investigative Project on Terrorism

Interview on Fox News

IDF Operation Data: 25 Gaza terrorists held, 3,356 rockets fired: 475 (14%) landed in Gaza by mistake‏

IDF Spokesperson Up to Date Figures - Operation Protective Edge
August 5, 2014
Location : Tel Aviv
 
Up to Date Figures – Operation Protective Edge
3,356 rockets fired at Israel
2,303 hit Israel
356 intended at IDF forces operating in Gaza
116 of which hit populated areas (3.45%)
578 were intercepted by Iron Dome
475 landed within the Gaza Strip
 
Prior to the operation, the IDF estimated the Gaza rockets arsenal at 
approximately 10,000 rockets. 1/3 of which were fired at Israel, and an 
additional 1/3 was demolished by the IDF.
 
Geographic Breakdown
69.4% fired from the northern Gaza Strip
12.9% fired from the central Gaza Strip
17.3% fired from the southern Gaza Strip
597 rockets were launched from civilian facilities abused by terrorists 
(18%)
Approx. 260 launched from educational facilities (schools)
Approx. 127 launched from cemeteries
Approx. 160 launched from religious sites
Approx. 50 launched from hospitals

Gaza is Playground of Rich Arabs

John Rossomando

A confidential State Department cable from February 2006 describes former Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who founded Al-Jazeera by a royal decree in 1996, as a "a big friend of Hamas." He notably pledged $400 million to Hamas's cash-strapped government in Gaza during an October 2012 state visit. (Qatar, Iran and Hamas are part of the Muslim Brotherhood network - Islamic Shia sect)

Back in 2006, Al-Thani gave $50 million to the then Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Al-Thani may have abdicated in 2013 in favor of his son, but the change has not lessened Qatar 's financial commitment to Hamas. Qatar's Prime Minister Abdullah bin Naser bin Khalifa Al Thani announced in June that Qatar would give Hamas $60 million to pay the salaries of its civil servants in Gaza. (Many of them are Hamas affiliated terrorists)

Netanyahu's 'Long War' Doctrine

by Jonathan Spyer
PJ Media
August 5, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/4767/netanyahu-long-war-doctrine

As a number of former senior Israeli officials pointed out in the course of Operation Protective Edge, Jerusalem had only two possible strategic options to choose from as it entered this fight.
The first involved seeking to inflict serious damage on Hamas's military capabilities in an operation limited in scope. The goal of such a course of action would be to achieve deterrence against Hamas. Implicit in this option is that, at its conclusion, the Hamas authority in Gaza would still be in existence — chastened, but alive.
The second, more ambitious option would have been to have pushed on into the Gaza Strip, and to have destroyed the Hamas authority there. This would have resembled Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Israeli forces would have needed to remain in Gaza for months, or years, in order to suppress and destroy the continued guerrilla resistance which Hamas and other Palestinian groups would no doubt have undertaken.
This second option would also have required Israel to re-establish the civil administration in Gaza, taking responsibility for the lives of the 1.8 million residents of the Strip. This is because it would be politically impossible for the Ramallah Palestinian Authority to receive the Gaza Strip on a silver platter, as it were, from the Golani Brigade and its sister units of the Israel Defense Forces.

“And Now?”

I am chagrinned but not exactly shocked by the latest turn of events here. 

 

As Shabbat went out, I had expressed surprise that – following the Friday ceasefire broken almost immediately by Hamas with an attack that included a suicide bombing and the kidnapping of Hadar Goldin – Netanyahu had not ordered a significant escalation of the operation in Gaza. When it was clear that what was happening was that IDF troops were being pulled back, a sense of great unease set in.  It seemed the operation was about to be terminated in a move that many – myself very much included - saw as premature.

 

But no, we were told that it was just a redeployment, because the tunnel phase of the operation was complete.  We were told that the decision of the Security Cabinet was to continue the operation.  What is more, there would be no participation in internationally promoted ceasefires, and we would not be going to Cairo to negotiate: If Hamas cannot be trusted to honor its commitment for a 72 hour ceasefire, there is no point in pursuing negotiations, went the explanation.

Palestinians: United Against Israel

by Khaled Abu Toameh
August 5, 2014

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4575/palestinians-united-against-israel

By strengthening his ties with Hamas, Abbas is burying any chance of a peaceful solution with Israel.

Despite predictions to the contrary, the unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas seems not only alive and well, but stronger than ever.
Over the past month, the two parties have been waging separate wars against Israel - one (Hamas) on the battlefield and the second (Fatah) in the international arena.
At the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, political analysts predicted that the unity agreement that was signed between Hamas and Fatah last April would be one of the war's first victims.
During the war, however, Fatah and Hamas refrained from criticizing each other, as they have been doing ever since they signed the unity agreement.
Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also head of Fatah, took advantage of the war to launch scathing attacks on Israel, accusing it of perpetrating war crimes and genocide.
Nonetheless, Abbas did not criticize Hamas or other Palestinian terror groups for firing rockets and mortars at Israel. Nor did he ever denounce Hamas for breaking several cease-fires with Israel.

IDF withdraws troops from Gaza as cease-fire begins

Gaza terrorists fire rocket salvos at Israel moments before 72-hour truce -- meant to pave way for negotiations over a lasting cease-fire -- goes into effect • IDF says it has accomplished objective of destroying most tunnels, troops redeployed.

News agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

A paratrooper leaves the Gaza Strip

Israel pulled its ground troops out of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and launched a 72-hour cease-fire, mediated by Egypt, as a first step toward negotiations to end the month-long war.

Minutes before the cease-fire started at 8 a.m., Gaza terrorists launched a salvo of rockets, calling them revenge for IDF "massacres." According to the IDF, 17 rockets were launched at Israel's southern and coastal regions, as well as the greater Jerusalem area, right until the truce went into effect.