The State Department Should Restrain Itself on Response to Israeli Kidnappings

Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn

The State Department’s demand that Israel “exercise restraint” in its search for the Hamas kidnappers makes a mockery of President Obama’s pledge two years ago that he “will always have Israel’s back.”
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki declared on June 20 that the Obama Administration is “urging all parties to exercise restraint and avoid steps that could destabilize the situation.”
That phrase “all parties” was a thin veneer of even-handedness. Everyone knows the call for “restraint” was aimed at Israel. In fact, Psaki made her slant clear in her very next words, expressing “concern” that two Palestinian Arabs were shot dead by Israeli troops. Psaki did not exhibit any “concern” for the Israeli soldiers at whom those Arabs were throwing rocks and firebombs.
This attempt by the Administration to tie Israel’s hands in its search for the kidnappers is just the latest in a series of indications that President Obama is trying to avoid siding with Israel against Hamas.

An Ocean of Failure

Sultan Knish
 

"This was the moment," Barack Obama had told the cheering audience in St. Paul, Minnesota. "When we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war."

St. Paul has an Ocean Street. It has an Ocean Spa and Salon. It even has an Oceanaire Seafood Room.

It does not however have an ocean. But with ObamaCare an unpopular subsidized failure, the few new jobs around being confined to a local McDonald's and Al Qaeda taking over Iraq; Obama has nothing left to do but to go back to his old promise of defeating the rise of the ocean.

With Al Qaeda pressing in on Baghdad, Obama ruled out air strikes. He did however order the Department of Defense to assign a senior official to the vital task of fighting mislabeled seafood.

The names of the victims

Caroline Glick

Three families in Israel are in agony. On June 12, when their sons Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrah and Gil-Ad Shaer were kidnapped by Islamic savages, the Fraenkels, Yifrahs and Shaers entered a new world where every breath they take is filled with devastating guilt – that they breathe free while their sons suffer unknown miseries.

Every moment that passes is filled with crushed hope that they will get word that their sons are free, and then the word doesn’t come. And it doesn’t come the next moment, or the next.

And so they will live, in agony, until this ordeal has ended.

Our hearts go out to these families. Our prayers are continuously directed towards them. And in a profound sense that is uniquely Israeli, the people of Israel share their pain. With this pain comes a sincere and overpowering desire to do something to bring the captive teenagers home.

What can be done?

Israel's new eastern front

While Iran is on the rise, radical sub-state actors are also emerging, with whom peace is impossible and deterrence is difficult.

By Ari Shavit

 

Once upon a time, there was an eastern front. Many years ago – 20? 30? – Israel faced a strategic threat from the east. The hostile Iraqi Baath party and the hostile Syrian Baath party led seemingly modern nation-states with seemingly modern armies rich in soldiers, tanks and missiles.
Fear of war in the east or the northeast forced Israel to maintain a strong army, live in constant preparedness and hold onto commanding territory in the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.
Over the past few decades, however, the eastern front has dissolved. First, U.S. President George H.W. Bush defeated Iraq, then his son, President George W. Bush, dismantled Iraq. First the Syrian army grew rusty, then the Syrian army fell apart.
The Arab Spring brought new winds of freedom and hope. Many good people concluded that Israel no longer needed a large army or commanding territory or a life of constant preparedness. Fear of the next war, which had a deep impact on every aspect of our lives, was replaced by a comfortable and understandable feeling that our global situation had never been better.

Wake Up to Reality: Palestinian Authority a Terrorist Organization

While some argue that freedom of speech is sacred, it seems the only freedom of speech the PA allows is the one that incites terrorism.

By Mudar Zahran

While Israel prays for the safe return of three Israel teenagers kidnapped by terrorists last week, although Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas tepidly defended the search for the teens -- comments for which many Palestinians attacked him -- the official PA daily wrote that "Israel itself is behind the 'kidnapping'," alleging that the three boys were soldiers when in fact they were students, two in high school, and the kidnappings were celebrated by people, glorifying the kidnappers and passing out sweets.
The Fatah Facebook page then published a cartoon showing the three kidnapped teenagers as rats bearing the star of David with the caption "The Master Stroke".
Keep in mind that the PA exerts extreme monitoring and control over social media used by Palestinians in the West Bank. A Palestinian man was jailed for six months for "liking" an anti-PA post on Facebook. The PA, therefore, is fully responsible for encouraging the celebrations of the kidnappings over Palestinian social media.

Fiddling while the Middle East burns

Everybody knows that our problem is neither Abbas nor Sara Netanyahu’s new garden furniture, but rather the government’s inability to see one step ahead.

By Yoel Marcus | Jun. 27, 2014 

 

Here we are, nearly at the start of Ramadan, and as promised the Israel Defense Forces has begun withdrawing its elite units from the territory of the Palestinian Authority, so as not to spoil the holiday for its inhabitants. Our soldiers return empty-handed, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz declared that fear for the lives of the abducted teens is growing. That was the reverse of his previous declarations, according to which the army’s working hypothesis is that they are still alive.
Defense correspondents have their own way of describing such situations. Writing in Haaretz, Amos Harel spoke of lowering the expectations for the operation. And Ron Ben-Yishai, at Ynet, wrote that the search for the teens has been put in the hands of the intelligence services, and that “could even take years.”

Daniel Silva & AMIT, What They Have In Common

Nurit Greenger 

On Wednesday, July 23, 2014, at the Olympic Collection, in Los Angeles, we invite you to meet the author Daniel Silva, receive a signed copy of his newest book, The Heist, hear the Q & A, moderated by Rabbi David Wople, and learn a great deal about AMIT that is building Israel, one child at the time.

The Invitation

AMIT, with over 100 schools all over the country, enables Israel’s youth to realize their potential and strengthens Israeli society by educating and nurturing children from diverse backgrounds within a framework of academic excellence, Jewish values and Zionist ideals. (http://www.amitchildren.org/missions/)

Amit is helping launching the author Daniel Silva brand new book The Heist. This title will be released on July 15, 2014.

Why Daniel, the Heist and AMIT?

Shin Bet reveals identity of two main suspected kidnappers

YAAKOV LAPPIN

06/26/2014 

Hamas in Hebron members Marwan Quasma, 29, and Amar Abu Eisha, 32, are the kidnappers, intelligence agency says; both men became wanted as soon as security forces learned of the kidnapping, Shin Bet says.

Wanted for kidnapping: (left to right) Marwan Quasma and Amar Abu Eisha Photo: Courtesy

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Thursday the identity of two of the main terrorists involved in the kidnapping of three Israeli youths this month.

The intelligence agency named Marwan Quasma and Amar Abu Eisha both Hamas men from Hebron, as the two principal suspects behind the kidnapping, adding that both men became wanted as soon as security forces learned of the kidnapping.

"Since then, the Shin Bet and IDF have been carrying out a wide-scale search aimed at capturing the wanted suspects. The first aim is to track down the location of the abducted youths," the Shin Bet stated.

Marwan Quasma, 29, has been arrested in the past for Hamas-related activity. He was arrested aged 18, and carried out a ten month prison sentence. After his release, he was arrested another four times, and on some occasions, placed under administrative detention. When questioned in 2010, he confessed to being recruited to Hamas's military wing in Hebron in 2009, taking part in military training in caves in the Hebron area, and obtaining raw materials for the assembly of bombs. He also took part in the recruitment of other Palestinian youths to Hamas.

Energy: Reversal of Fortune: The Fate of Oil

David Archibald

 
We noted in this article that a Shell Oil geologist by the name of King Hubbert in 1956 correctly predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970, which it duly did.  It has been said that this is the most successful economic prediction ever made.
Hubbert used a technique called the logistic decline plot to make his prediction.  Well, if that technique worked then, what can it tell us about the likely fate of the tight oil boom?
There are four main tight oil basins and formations in the lower 48, and a few minor ones that are currently producing 3.5 million barrels per day, equating to 40% of U.S. oil production.  The four main basins and formations are the Permian, Bakken, Eagle Ford, and Niobrara, as shown in this map produced by the Energy Information Agency (EIA):

The Marcellus and Haynesville are shale gas basins. 
The EIA also provides the data for the analysis here.  There is enough data to determine how much oil each area will ultimately produce and the rate and the year of peak production.  This is a table of the results:

Disinformation and Truth

Israel has one mean to use and that is the TRUTH

By Nurit Greenger | June 25, 2014

Disinformation, is false information, or deliberately misleading information, often put out as propaganda and that is what the Arabs, headed by Mahmoud Abbas-Abu Mazen, and their cohorts, the anti-Semites of all sort and their cohorts are using to delegitimize and demonize Israel.

Israel has got ONE effective tool to use, that is the truth and it must use it offensively.

Ryan Mervin, claims that Israel is the world’s first modern indigenous state. Ryan is a Métis from Paddle Prairie Metis settlement in Canada. His father, Mervin Bellerose, co-authored the Métis Settlements Act of 1989, which was passed by the Alberta legislature in 1990 and cemented the Métis’ land rights. Ryan founded Canadians for Accountability, a native rights advocacy group, and he is an organizer and participant in the Idle No More movement in Calgary. And he is a Zionist who visits Israel frequently. (http://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-the-worlds-first-modern-indigenous-state/)

Turkey’s High-Risk Power Play

Caroline Glick

For most Westerners, Turkey is a hard nut to crack.

How can you understand a state sponsor of terrorism that is also a member of NATO?

How can you explain Turkey’s facilitation of Kurdish independence in Iraq in light of Turkey’s hundred-year opposition to Kurdish independence?

What is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan trying to accomplish here?

Is he nuts?


On the terrorism support front, today Turkey vies with Iran for the title of leading state sponsor of terrorism.

First there is Hamas.

Last week an Israeli security official told the media that the abduction of Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah was organized and directed by Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas commander operating out of Turkey.

Turkey has welcomed Hamas to its territory and served as its chief booster to the West since the jihadist terror group won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. Erdogan has played a key role in getting the EU to view Hamas as a legitimate actor, despite its avowedly genocidal goals.

ISIS Imposes Jizya on Christians, Rapes Women Who Cannot Pay

The Qur'an orders Muslims to violently subjugate Christians and Jews, and to fight them until they pay jizya (tribute money paid in order to acknowledge one's inferiority).

Qur’an 9:29—Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Yet everyone is shocked when Muslims actually do what the Qur'an says.

Christianity Today—The nightmare continues for Christians living in ISIS-controlled areas as militants exact brutal punishment for those who fall short of their strict and violent interpretation of Islam.

The AINA news agency is reporting that an Assyrian mother and daughter were raped by militants in Mosul after saying they did not have the money to pay the jizya poll tax for non-Muslims.

The rapes were carried out in front of the father who was so traumatised that he committed suicide, reports Dr Sallama Al Khafaji, a member of the Iraq High Commission for Human Rights.

ISIS has demanded that all non-Muslims pay the jizya tax and abide by strict Sharia regulations.

"The Christians have told me that they cannot pay this tax and they say 'what am I to do, shall I kill myself?'" Dr Al Khafaji told AINA.

Islamic Values vs. Judeo-Christian Values

Nonie Darwish On June 26, 2014

My dear friend Ali Sina mentioned in his most recent article that a Muslim professor, Hossein Askari, believes that Western nations lead the World in “Islamic values” and that most Muslim nations practice the least Islamic values. I have heard such nonsense before from some Muslims, some of whom were my relatives. I will never forget the strange look on my Christian American husband’s face when an elderly Muslim man visiting from Egypt told him: “You are such a fine young man, you have the character of a true Muslim.”
It is not unusual for Muslims to describe non-Muslims whom they perceive as good as having “Islamic values.” Many Christians in Egypt have to suffer hearing comments by Muslims such as: “You are so good, you must convert to Islam, you have the character of a true Muslim.”

How can educated Muslims professors make ridiculous claims like that Ireland “leads the world in Islamic values as Muslim states lag”? Islamic logic, in that case, says, if Irish people have noses, eyes, arms and legs like Muslims then they must be Muslim. This twisted logic wants to hide the truth: that many Muslims no longer want to live under Islamic values, but since that is considered apostasy in Islam, the only way out is to claim life in the land of the Great Satan is really equal to living the true Islamic life.

Why the Arab World Is Lost in an Emotional Nakba, and How We Keep It There

By ignoring the honor-shame dynamic in Arab political culture, is the West keeping itself from making headway toward peace?

By Richard Landes|June 24, 2014

Anthropologists and legal historians have long identified certain tribal cultures—warrior, nomadic—with a specific set of honor codes whose violation brings debilitating shame. The individual who fails to take revenge on the killer of a clansman brings shame upon himself (makes him a woman) and weakens his clan, inviting more open aggression. In World War II, the United States sought the help of anthropologists like Ruth Benedict to explain the play of honor and shame in driving Japanese military behavior, resulting in both intelligence victories in the Pacific Theater and her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword . Taking her lead, the great classicist E.R. Dodds analyzed the millennium-long shift in Greek culture from a “shame” culture to a “guilt” culture in his Greeks and the Irrational , where he contrasted a world in which fame and reputation, rather than conscience and fear of divine retribution, drive men to act.

Bennett: PA President Abbas is a 'mega terrorist'

JPOST.COM STAFF

Economy Minister decries PA's transfer of monthly stipends to terrorists in Israeli prisons, applauds Security Cabinet's decision to block the funds.

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas (L) and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett Photo: REUTERS

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett told Israel Radio on Thursday morning that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a "mega terrorist" for aiding Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons with the monthly transfer of funds.
Bennett stressed that by transferring Palestinian Authority funds terrorist prisoners, the PA was supporting the murder of Jews.

Related:

• Liberman: US aid funds Palestinian Authority stipends for killers of Americans

At the moment, the Palestinian Authority transfers monthly stipends to Palestinian prisoners who have been involved in terrorism, Bennett said, with some stipends reaching NIS12,000 a month.
Bennett stated that in light of the situation, the Security Cabinet has voted to block funds from reaching Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Sharia and Human Rights

by creeping
via UTT Blog: Sharia and Human Rights.
The primary focal point for this week’s daily articles on Sharia (Islamic Law) is to get readers to digest the reality that when Islamic Leaders speak, their words must be translated into what Islamic Law would have them mean. The phrase “Human Rights” is no exception.
To put it as simply and as factually as possible, when Islamic Leaders say “Human Rights” they mean the “Imposition of Islamic Law.”
In 1990, the leadership of the entire Muslim world – at the Head of State and King level – signed the Cairo Declaration. In summary, the Cairo Declaration states the Islamic world agrees with the International Declaration of Human Rights insofar as (1) it does not contradict Sharia, and (2) the Muslim world only understands Human Rights as the Sharia defines it.
In 1993, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) – now calling themselves the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – served the Cairo Declaration as a formal document to the United Nations. This means that at the Head of State and King level, the entire Muslim World has officially defined “Human Rights” as the imposition of Sharia since 1993.
The last two articles in the Cairo Declaration read:
“Article 24: All rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah. Article 25: The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles in this Declaration.”

Breaking Down The Enemy

Rabbi Major Fishel Jacobs

Presently, Israel is in the throes of yet another unimaginable heinous terrorist crime. Specifically, the cold-blooded kidnapping of three innocent high school students, one of whom also holds American citizenship.
At this time, it is fitting to revisit the subject of the treatment of convicted Islamic terrorists in Israel Prison Service (I.P.S.). As an ex-Israel prison officer, who has also published a book on that subject, I’ve written my thoughts on this topic on numerous occasions.
There is a pointedly critical relevance between the conditions of terrorists in the I.P.S. and the horrific abduction of harmless teenage youth. It is a two-fold issue.
First. Israel is presently expending unlimited amounts of money and manpower searching for these boys. A house-to-house, cave-to-cave - every nook and cranny -- search is now underway in suspected areas of concealment throughout Israel. To date (June 22), a few local Arabs have been killed when they inexplicably attempted to impede this search and rescue mission.

PA confirms ploy to continue paying salaries to terrorists and avoid Western donors' criticism

PA government spokesman affirms that  

changing name of PA "Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs"  

into PLO "Authority of Prisoners' Affairs"  

will not affect salaries to prisoners

"[The change] will provide political and legal cover...  

it eliminates arguments...  

that [foreign] aid money [to the PA] is going to the prisoners"

 

"The Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs... 

has third largest monthly budget in the PA...

Over 40 million shekels (12 million dollars) a month, which the PA pays the prisoners, the released prisoners and their families." [Official PA TV, June 11, 2014]

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11822 

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

  

Palestinian Media Watch reported this month that the Palestinian Authority had devised a ploy to avoid criticism from donor countries for its policy of paying salaries to terrorists.

PA government spokesman Ehab Bessaiso has since confirmed this ploy in an interview on official PA TV. Bessaiso explained that the change of "the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs" under the PA into "the Authority of Prisoners' Affairs" under the PLO would "provide political and legal cover" and "eliminate arguments ... that [foreign] aid money [to the PA] is going to the prisoners." Furthermore, when the PA TV host summarized the change by saying, "The [prisoners'] salaries will continue to flow... nothing will harm the prisoners; their rights - under a ministry that became an authority - will remain the same," the government spokesman confirmed that this was correct. [Official PA TV, June 5, 2014] (See longer excerpt below)

 Click to view

It Took Three Mothers to Strengthen the Government’s Spine

Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Published: June 26th, 2014

The mothers of the three kidnapped boys, Iris Yifrach (R), Bat Galim Shaar (C), Rachel Frenkel (L), seen at the Knesset during a meeting with Knesset members, on the 13th day of ongoing searches for them in the Disputed Territories on June 25, 2014.
Photo Credit: Hadas Parush/Flash90

In a stunning slap of the face reversal of what had been the all-out rooting through the rats nests for the kidnapped Israeli teenagers, the Israeli government sent out smoke signals yesterday that it was scaling back its efforts to recover the kidnapped boys. Thank goodness the firm, courageous and principled statements of the mothers of those boys apparently moved the hearts and minds of the decision makers back to where they should have been.

But the initial decision had been made and was already being acted upon.

Why?

Not because all the terrorists have been caught and punished. And certainly not because the boys are home, safe and sound, or at least found. No. Two reasons were given, the second one more likely the real one.

The first reason was that most of what the IDF thought it could find had already been found as far as leads to who the kidnappers are and where the boys are being held. But that means the main objects of the search, in other words, the boys and the actual kidnappers, have not been found. Is that the time to wind down?

As Europe slides into a Dark Age, Jews must review their future‏

Isi Leibler
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5136

Recent developments signal that the prospect of Europe sliding into a new Dark Age is now a horrifying reality. It is as though all the elements negating the open society have been blended into a witches’ brew to undermine Europe’s liberal cultural ethos.

First in line to suffer are the Jews, attacked from all sides, isolated, friendless and unable to adequately defend themselves. Their greatest threat is the rabidly anti-Semitic Muslims supported by anti-Semites from the far Left. This unholy alliance of religious and secular extremists employs radical anti-Israelism as a surrogate for traditional anti-Semitism and is now a fixture at Hezbollah and anti-Israeli demonstrations, where they wave placards and shamelessly accuse Israelis of emulating Nazis.

In contrast to the post-Vatican ll Catholics, most Protestant denominations (other than the evangelicals) have revived their vicious efforts to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state. Spearheaded by the radical World Council of Churches, many are vigorously pressing charges of deicide against the Jewish people and resurrecting replacement theology asserting that by rejecting Christ, Jews are no longer the Chosen People. They also collaborate with the Palestinians in promoting Jesus as a Palestinian rather than a Jew. Some even deny the historical link of Jews with the land of Israel, claiming that Jews are descendants of the Eurasian Khazars who converted to Judaism in the eighth century C.E., and that Palestinians are the truly indigenous people of the region.