Islam. The Greatest Murder Machine in History

 Mike Konrad, AMERICAN THINKER  May 31, 2014

When one thinks of mass murder, Hitler comes to mind. If not Hitler, then Tojo, Stalin, or Mao. Credit is given to the 20th-century totalitarians as the worst species of tyranny to have ever arisen. However, the alarming truth is that Islam has killed more than any of these, and may surpass all of them combined in numbers and cruelty.
The enormity of the slaughters of the “religion of peace” are so far beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale. When one looks beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind, bar none.
The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. – Will Durant, as quoted on Daniel Pipes site.
Conservative estimates place the number at 80 million dead Indians.
According to some calculations, the Indian (subcontinent) population decreased by 80 million between 1000 (conquest of Afghanistan) and 1525 (end of Delhi Sultanate). – Koenrad Elst as quoted on Daniel Pipes site
80 Million?! The conquistadors’ crimes pale into insignificance at that number. No wonder Hitler admired Islam as a fighting religion. He stood in awe of Islam, whose butchery even he did not surpass.
Over 110 Million Blacks were killed by Islam.

Iran Threatens to Annihilate Israel if U.S. Attacks

Senior Iranian commander says that any American attack on Iran will result in “the annihilation of the Israeli regime”.

By Elad Benari, Canada

Iranian Armed Forces march in Tehran

Reuters

A senior Iranian commander threatened on Friday that any American attack on Iran will result in “the annihilation of the Israeli regime”.
“They know that aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran would mean annihilation of Tel Aviv and spread of war into the United States,” the commander, Massoud Jazayeri, was quoted by the Fars news agency as having said.
His remarks came after U.S. President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that there is an opportunity to resolve disputes over Iran’s nuclear energy program but reiterated that Washington reserves “all options” against Iran, alluding to military action.
Jazayeri described Obama’s remarks as “childish dreams which may not come true”.
“Had the U.S. and its allies the capability to attack Iran they would not hesitate a moment to carry out their barbaric act; and, of course, it is surprising that Obama is not embarrassed to rehash his empty words,” he said.

U.S. Citizen Abu Hurayra al-Amriki Carries Out Suicide Bombing in Syria

 David Wood

Imagine what would happen if we were allowed to have open, honest discussions about Islam without being called "racists" or "Islamophobes." If we were free to seriously discuss Muhammad's teachings about jihad, and whether an eternity of deflowering virgins awaits martyrs, and whether Muhammad is truly a prophet, Abu Hurayra al-Amriki may not have gone to Syria to wage jihad. Instead, we're told to keep our mouths shut, even as Americans head to Syria seeking martyrdom.

Politicians and reporters who protect Islam from criticism are defending jihad.

Tweet announcing the "martyrdom" of Abu Hurayra al-Amriki

European Elections: "No to Europe, Yes to Europe"

Soeren Kern

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4333/european-elections

"I have a dreadful feeling in my bones that future historians may write of the May 2014 elections: 'This was the wake-up call from which Europe failed to wake up.'" — Timothy Garten Ash, The Guardian.

Anti-establishment parties from both the left and the right won big in the 28-nation European Parliament elections that ended on May 25.
Riding a wave of voter discontent over the existing political order in Europe, the electoral victories—especially those by euro-skeptic politicians in major EU countries such as Britain, France and Germany—mark a clear turning point in the debate over the future of the European Union.
The surge of anti-EU parties represents an important blow to the legitimacy of plans by the European establishment to transform the continent into a United States of Europe.

Palestinians: BDS Activists Are Troublemakers, Criminals

Khaled Abu Toameh

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4334/palestinians-bds-trial

The Palestinian Authority's move against the BDS activists shows that it considers the movement a threat to Palestinian interests.
A Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah explained that BDS and its followers make the Palestinians appear as if they are all radicals who are only interested in boycotting and delegitimizing Israel.
"No, we do not support the boycott of Israel." — Mahmoud Abbas, President, Palestinian Authority.

At university campuses in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe, they are hailed as heroes campaigning for Palestinian rights. But in Ramallah, ironically, activists belonging to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] movement are seen by the Palestinian Authority [PA] as trouble-makers and law-breakers.

EU Brags About Pouring $ Billions into Failed Terrorist Entity

At a time when a wide swath of its members are in dire financial condition, the EU Commission boasted about its latest €200 million infusion into the PA and the Potemkin Village Agency, UNRWA.

By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

European Union Commission announced another huge infusion of cash for the PA and UNRWA

The European Union issued an astounding press release on Wednesday, May 28. At a time when a wide swath of its members are in dire financial condition, the EU Commission boasted about its latest €200 million infusion into the Palestinian Authority and the Potemkin Village Agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Marine Le Pen Shopping for Allies at the EU Parliament in Brussels Part 3

Nidra Poller

American banking authorities are threatening to slap a 10 billion dollar fine on France’s top bank, BNP Paribas, accused of handling transactions in dollars from 2002-9 for customers from Iran, Cuba, and Sudan, in violation of an American embargo. What does this have to do with the Front National? Would an anti-Islamization party be shocked by the Iranian ties of our flagship bank? Or perhaps the Front National, sworn enemy of Big Finance, will be pleased to see a money-grubbing bank get its fingers slapped and its stockholders deprived of one year’s dividends?
Probably not. Marine Le Pen accuses the United States of imposing sanctions to prevent French companies from trading with Iran the better to allow American companies to prepare a bright commercial future there. At the same time she accuses France of joining the US in a veritable war on Iran. 

A Most Discreet Israeli Intervention in Syria

Jonathan Spyer
The Jerusalem Post

http://www.meforum.org/3835/a-most-discreet-israeli-intervention-in-syria

Since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Israeli officials have observed events to the north with caution and concern. The concern has derived from the presence of anti-Israel paramilitary and terrorist elements on both sides of the fighting lines in Syria.
The caution, meanwhile, relates to the very deep aversion felt in the Israeli system toward the possibility of Israel's being sucked in to the morass of the Syrian war. Israel's Lebanon experience has left a deep institutional memory warning against overly ambitious incursions into the affairs of neighboring states.
Nevertheless, evidence is emerging of an increasing, though still modest Israeli involvement in events beyond the separation of forces line on the Golan Heights.
The least ambiguous evidence of Israeli activity related to Syria is the series of air raids against weapons convoys headed for Lebanon. These have been attributed by foreign media to Israel, and were carried out to prevent the transfer of certain weapons systems from Syria to Hizballah.

How the Media Distorts Radical Islam's Record

Phyllis Chesler

We have all suffered the glaring omissions, false moral equivalencies, and unfair and unbalanced reporting in the formerly distinguished mainstream media venues. This media has absolutely refused to write about Islamic Jihad-terrorism in a truthful way. 

The politically correct fearfulness that they will be condemned as unfashionable and Islamophobic--and perhaps sued and bombed by defenders of the “religion of peace,”-- has turned them overly cautious and even cowardly.

Not all Muslims are terrorists; many are the first victims of Islamism. Many Muslims and ex-Muslims have risked their lives and limbs to protest Muslim-on-Muslim and Muslim-men-on-Muslim-women atrocities.

Shimon Peres' Legacy

Caroline Glick


On June 10, the Knesset will elect President Shimon Peres’s successor. As he departs the President’s Residence at the end of June, the media will provide saturation coverage of his final days and tell us over and over that Peres is the greatest statesman in Jewish history. His personal gravitas is Israel’s single most important asset in the world, they will say as they warn of our bleak future without him.

The upcoming Peres-is-a-Superhero festival will just be the latest of the narcissistic, tasteless celebrations of this man, always choreographed expertly by Peres and his retinue of media groupies.

Like his 80th and 85th birthdays, Peres’s 90th birthday celebration went on for a month. As the serving president, his last two monthlong benders cost the taxpayers millions of shekels and broke the budget of the President’s Residence.

All were replete with international celebrity guests like Nelson Mandela, Bono and Bill Clinton whom the press drooled over.

Hyperventilating reporters paused between drinks to mournfully note that after Peres leaves office, the parties will end and the A-listers will stop visiting.

Islam’s Long History of Intolerance and Violence

Alan Caruba

I keep wondering why, here in the United States where three thousand died in a 2001 attack on the Twin Towers by terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda, we continue to be told that we must exercise sensitivity and tolerance for a “religion”, Islam, that worldwide is perpetrating not just violence, but a concerted attack on morality in general and Western civilization in particular.

There are more than a billion Muslims worldwide and surely many of them are personally opposed to what is being done in their name. Unfortunately, Islam has a long history of the violence being perpetrated and the general silence of Muslims must be interpreted as consent or the fear of speaking out. By contrast, anywhere anything is said, written or done that offends Muslims brings cries of outrage and demands for apologies.

Throughout the Middle East, in Africa, in Europe, Russia, India and China, just in recent times the evidence of the Islamic war on the right of non-Muslims to practice their faith is everywhere.

Continuing Correspondece with NYTimes Public Editor

My Right Word

I received this response to my compaint*

Dear Mr. Medad, After having looked into this article, we see that Mr. Mackey engages in reasonable discussion of the ammunition the soldier used in the incident. Certainly it would have helped clarity if there was some mention of that earlier in the piece but overall, our office is satisfied with the way the article was handled.
Best,Jonah BromwichOffice of the Public EditorThe New York Times

I sent back this reaction:

Dear Mr. Jonah Bromwich

Office of the Public Editor

The New York Times

Thank you for your response to my complaint regarding the May 28 post of Robert Mackey, “Israel Suspends Soldier in West Bank Shooting Investigation”, but I do not think you adequately address my concerns that there was less than a “reasonable discussion” therein and for sure, your point that “[c]ertainly it would have helped clarity if he had written it differently and that is the point.  While your office may have been “satisfied with the way the article was handled”, I think there is another opinion  which must be considered.

His opening lead-in is blunt and forceful and sets the tone:

Maine Le Pen Shopping for Allies at the EU Parliament in Brussels Part 2

Nidra Poller

Maine Le Pen Shopping for Allies at the EU Parliament in Brussels Part 2

I endured a seven-hour TV marathon yesterday, beginning with Marine Le Pen’s press conference at the EU Parliament press center in Brussels, hopping from station to station, from newscast to debate, and ending with a 2-hour documentary on the Front National.

The Press Conference: a triumphant Marine Le Pen at the center and in the lead, flanked by Geert Wilders (PVV Netherlands), Harald Wilimsky (FPÖ Austria), Gerald Annemans (Vlaams Belang, Belgium), and Mateo Salvini (Northern League, Italy). Certain that her victory in France’s European elections has radically changed the face of Europe—“nothing will ever be the same”—she is supremely confident that she’ll find the two missing nationalities to complete her group and exert a strong influence in the EU Parliament as in domestic politics. The prospect is appetizing: if she can form a 7-nation group, she’ll get an operating budget of as much as 4 million euros, plus countless privileges and facilities. It’s not exactly equivalent to a seat on the UN Security Council, it will have little or no effect on the sluggish workings of the EU Parliament, but it will be hard cash and a sounding board to boost her French presidential ambitions.

The press conference was—theoretically—broadcast on the all-news BFM TV… except that they slipped coverage as soon as Geert Wilders began to speak… in English. I zapped, finally caught up with the event on France 24 / English in time to hear the last words of Wilders’ contribution. Then Wilinsky started to speak in German. No translation. And I haven’t been able to find a video of the entire press conference online.

The "You Didn't Do That" Society

Sultan Knish blog
First Elliot Rodger murdered his three roommates with a knife, hammer and machete. Then he shot eight people, three of them fatally, and tried to run over several others in his car.

After the bodies were taken away, everyone on television agreed that it was the fault of the guns.

Rodger had been in therapy since he was eight and was seeing therapists every day in high school. He had a history of making violent threats and the police had already gotten involved. He was on multiple prescription medications and had therapists whom he alerted to his plans by sending them his manifesto.

A therapist reacted by notifying his mother who drove out personally. By then even more people were dead.

In a country where a little boy with a pop tart chewed in the shape of a gun triggers immediate action, the professionals who cashed in on the killer’s wealthy family were in no hurry to call the police. One even reassured his mother while the shootings were going on that it wasn’t him.

So it was clearly the fault of the guns. Guns that Elliot Rodger bought with $5,000 from his family. The BMW he used to commit some of the attacks was given to him by his mother.

Bennett: First Gush Etzion, Then All of Judea and Samaria

Jewish Home Chairman declares he will continue to promote his annexation plan. "The world won't accept it, but we do."
By Ido Ben Porat and Elad Benari

First Publish: 5/30/2014

Naftali Bennett

Flash 90

Economy Minister and Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett declared on Thursday that he will continue to promote his plan to have Israel annex Judea and Samaria.
Speaking at the launching of a new Jewish Home-affiliated student organization at the Bar Ilan University, Bennett said he would promote the plan so that Gush Etzion will be annexed first - with the rest of Judea and Samaria to follow.
"Seeing as the Palestinians went with a unilateral move, I believe, and I put it forward in two meetings with the Prime Minister, that the plan will be applied in stages: First Gush Etzion. It’s about time. We have to apply Israeli law to Gush Etzion and then to Ariel and Ma'ale Adumim and the Jordan Valley, and then the all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,” said Bennett.

Salafism: An Egoistic Alternative for Muslims

Raymond Ibrahim

Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, vice president of Egypt’s Salafi party – the nation’s premiere Islamist party since the Muslim Brotherhood was banned – recently issued a controversial fatwa, or Islamic decree.
Burhami’s earlier fatwas include banning Muslim cab drivers and bus drivers from transporting Coptic Christian priests to their churches, which he depicted as “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar”; banning Mother’s Day as a Western innovation; and insisting that Muslims cannot apostatize from Islam – a phenomenon often in the news.   Indeed, Burhami was author to some of Egypt’s most controversial fatwas in 2012.
Now, according to Dr. Burhami, a pediatrician by training, if a Muslim husband ever finds it expedient to abandon his wife to rapists in order to save his own life, he is permitted to do so.  
This should not be surprising, considering that Burhami earlier insisted that, although a Muslim man may marry non-Muslim women, specifically Christians and Jews, he must hate them – and show them that he hates them – because they are “infidels,” even while he may enjoy them sexually.
In this most recent fatwa – that husbands are permitted to be cowards and forsake their sexually assaulted wives in self-interest – the Salafi cleric relied on qiyas, or analogy, based on the rulings of a prominent twelfth-century jurist.  According to Imam ‘Az bin Abdul Salaam, a Muslim should abandon his possessions (for example, to robbers) if so doing would safeguard his life.

NYT caves to Muslims, forces ad to modify use of “Islamist”

creeping
via Proving Our Point :: The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

A full-page ad by the Investigative Project on Terrorism in Wednesday’s New York Times, followed by a prominent ad Thursday on the Times‘ website, is generating attention and controversy.

That’s no surprise.

The ad called for the end of a prohibition on references to jihad and radical Islam in government publications and programs. It cited several examples of terrorist attacks motivated by radical Islamist ideology, and showed how organized groups try to bully anyone who calls attention to the connection. To do so, they argue, is inherently bigoted and blames all Muslims for the actions of a relative few.

Those critical of the ad cast it as anti-Muslim and Islamophobic.

That, too, is no surprise. If anything, it reinforces the ad’s message.

Iran's Strategy to Develop Nuclear Weapons

Harold Rhode and Joseph Raskas

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4328/iran-nuclear-strategy

Western concessions have therefore only bolstered the determinations of the Iranians to maintain their nuclear program until they can run out the clock on negotiations and achieve their goal of acquiring nuclear capability. But it is we in the West who are eagerly allowing them to do so.

When the Iranians, then one of the most advanced and mightiest empires on earth, were conquered in 636 CE by what they deemed one of the most primitive peoples on earth – the Muslim Arabs – they felt deeply shamed. Ancient Persian descriptions reportedly refer to Arabs as "rodent eaters and lizard eaters."[1]
At that time, Iranians, also known as Persians, who had ruled over countless ethnic and religious nationalities for more than 1,110 years, may have felt superior to the nomads inhabiting the border areas of their vast empire.
It was these desert nomads, however, the Muslim Arabs, who, within 100 years after the death of their prophet, Muhammad, in 632 CE, transformed the Middle East into today's Arab World – except for Iran.

The Daily Tip

New figures: Iran will bust through caps on energy exports for 7th month in a row, as State Dept. pressed for response Unprecedented Palestinian political arrangement coalesces as leader for consensus government announced AFP: Syrian army "rains barrel bombs" on Syrian civilians in new wave of attacks Saudi Arabia slams Hezbollah with financial sanctions in latest move to consolidate regional blocs

 

New figures published late Thursday indicate that Iran will bust through caps on crude exports set by the interim Joint Plan of Action (JPA) for the seventh month in a row - with the exported amounts in May, ostensibly limited to 1 million barrels per day (bpd), actually increasing over April's output - as the State Department was pressed for the second time in three days on how the administration is addressing the Iranian violations.

'Islamic Movement in Israel serving as front for Hamas activities at Temple Mount'

JPOST.COM STAFF

Shin Bet nabs senior Hamas operative who tells interrogators about secrets of organization, including sources of funding, activities in Israel.

Palestinian protesters react during clashes with police on the Temple Mount [file]. Photo: Ammar Awad/Reuters

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced Thursday that a senior Hamas operative, who was arrested at the Allenby Bridge last month, revealed during his interrogation that Hamas uses the Islamic Movement in Israel as a front to advance its activities and goals in Jerusalem.
The operative, Mahmoud Toama, is a member of Hamas's General Shura Council, headed by Khaled Mashaal, which is the body responsible for making all of the organization's policy decisions in all fields, including military decisions, according to the Shin Bet.

Related:

• Palestinians riot on Temple Mount as Jews gather at Wall for Jerusalem Day
• Abbas taps Hamdallah to form Fatah-Hamas unity government

Hamas uses the Islamic Movement to transfer money to projects in Jerusalem, such as paying for Arab youths to remain constantly on the Temple Mount in the guise of religious students in order to prevent Jewish pilgrimage to the holy site, Toama told the Shin Bet.

How to Lose a War

Douglas Murray
May 29, 2014 

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4331/new-york-times-terrorism

Among the bizarre aspects of the New York Times story was that it relied for its sources on Muslims who had been questioned while in jail. Should people imprisoned for breaking the law be deemed entirely reliable witnesses?
Although the Times would presumably be content with the NYPD infiltration of drug cartels, its recruitment of American Muslims is called "racist" and deserving of full front-page treatment.
One way media could help is to correct the lies of groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR].

For some years now the swiftest path to a Pulitzer Prize has been well-known. Notwithstanding at least one distinguished recent winner, it remains that there is only one sure-fire way to get to the attention of the Pulitzer judging committee – and that is to severely and irreparably damage American national security.

From Brunei to Boko Haram: Merely Deflection

Raheel Raza
May 29, 2014 

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4332/boko-haram-abduction

Boko Haram's members justify their acts in the name of Islam, and Muslim leaders are intimidated into silence. Add to this a hatred for the West and its values, and you have an explosive combination of violence and faith being pushed upon innocent civilians.
Inaction on the part of both Nigeria's government and global powers has led to this latest horrific act of abduction.
Muslims globally cannot remain under the illusion that because they put out press releases or say that Boko Haram is "not Muslim," they can distance themselves from these crimes. If they do not openly condemn Boko Haram and similar groups such as the Taliban or the Muslim Brotherhood, they are by default supporting those causes.

Recently, on a radio panel about Islamic sharia law featuring two academics from American universities -- a Muslim Professor of Islamic Studies and a Christian professor of Religious Studies -- it was frustrating trying to keep the conversation on track.
Both professors were preoccupied with "The Golden Age of Islam" and "How Christianity went through a similar crises" and other similarly irrelevant information. The real focus should have been: "What is happening in the name of Islam today and what do we do about the atrocities being perpetrated in the name of sharia as we speak?"

US Assistant Secretary of State gave incorrect testimony to Congress

about PA salaries to terrorists,

disregarding Palestinian Media Watch's  explicit documentation 

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11582

  

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

In testimony to Congress, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson, defended the Palestinian Authority practice of paying salaries to terrorists in prison saying "they have to provide for the families." [April 29, 2014]

Click to view

Palestinian Media Watch has documented repeatedly that this is not correct. According to PA law and in practice the PA does not give stipends to terrorist prisoners' families but salaries to the terrorist prisoners themselves. PMW has already reported that the PA Minister of Prisoners vocally rejected the claim that the payments are social welfare aid to the prisoners' families, stressing instead that the prisoners receive salaries "out of esteem." [WAFA, the official PA news agency, Dec. 27, 2012, see full quote below] This was likewise corroborated by Chairman of the PA-funded Prisoners' Club Qadura Fares when he announced that the PA had decided on a final version of the law, "which considers payments made to prisoners 'salaries,' (Arabic: ratib) to which no other term applies." [Al-Quds Internet edition, Dec. 27, 2012]

Israel's Defense Establishment Unmoved by Palestinian Unity Agreement

YAAKOV LAPPIN May 29, 2014

Despite the fanfare surrounding the unity agreement between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, Israel's defense establishment remains unmoved, and Israeli security officials have expressed doubt that the deal will result in tangible changes on the ground.
Currently, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces coordinate security activities, enabling more effective counter-riot and counter-terrorism activities.
The coordination is based on the premise that stability in the West Bank serves both Israel and the PA, irrespective of diplomatic clashes between them and the status of the peace process.
The Fatah-Hamas unity agreement, brokered in April, led to a collapse of peace talks, and to a diplomatic clash between Jerusalem and Ramallah, but on the ground, the IDF and the Palestinian Authority's security forces continue to cooperate with one another.
"So long as there are no changes on the ground, the agreement does not matter from a security perspective," a senior Israeli defense source said in recent days.

Obama is, quite literally, unbelievable

LAWRENCE SELLIN, PHD 

For Barack Obama speeches are not just motivational instruments or representations of a desired state of affairs, but feats of political transubstantiation, where, if he utters them, words become reality.
It is a behavior not dissimilar to Adolf Hitler maneuvering imaginary German divisions from his Berlin bunker while Russian troops rampage throughout the city above him.
Delusional is the only term that I can muster to describe the chasm that exists between the words Obama uses and the differing reality into which they are dispensed.
In politics and foreign policy, words have power if they are truthful and followed by corresponding actions. When they lack authenticity, however, words degenerate into the coarse tools of a con artist, receptive only to the cynical or the equally delusional.
It is as if Obama is following the George Burns axiom, the key to success is sincerity, if you can fake that, then you've got it made.
Case in point was his 2014 commencement speech at West Point, which was little more than a collection of false assumptions and imaginary accomplishments.

FYI: Islamic Fatwa: Husbands Should Abandon Wives to Rapists in Self-Interest

Raymond Ibrahim 
Islam permits Muslim husbands to abandon their wives to rapists in order to save their own lives—so says Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, vice president of Egypt’s Salafi party, the nation’s premiere Islamist party since the Muslim Brotherhood was banned.
Burhami’s fatwa, or Islamic decree, is not altogether surprising. Earlier the Salafi sheikh said that, although a Muslim man may marry non-Muslim women, specifically Christians and Jews, he must hate them—and show them that he hates them—because they are “infidels” (even as he enjoys them sexually).

ndeed, the many fatwas of Dr. Burhami, a pediatrician by training, include banning Muslim cab and bus drivers from transporting Coptic Christian priests to their churches, which he depicted as “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar”; permitting marriage to minor girls; banning Mother’s Day—“even if it saddens your mother”—as a Western innovation; and insisting that Muslims cannot apostatize from Islam—a phenomenon often in the news.

Obama’s Absurd West Point Speech

Robert Spencer
Barack Obama gave the commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday, and piled absurdity upon absurdity.
“For the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America, at home and abroad, remains terrorism,” he said, but steadfastly refrained throughout his speech from explaining the source of that terrorism threat, much less its ideological foundation or goal. This is, of course, the President who in October 2011 placed off-limits any investigation of the beliefs, motives and goals of jihad terrorists, overseeing the scrubbing of all counter-terror training materials of all mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism.

Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole declared at that time that he had “recently directed all components of the Department of Justice to re-evaluate their training efforts in a range of areas, from community outreach to national security.” This “reevaluation” removed all references to Islam in connection with any examination of Islamic jihad terror activity.

Obama Is Bypassing Congress Again. This Time It's Going to Cost You.

Nicolas Loris and Nicole Rusenko

Next week, the Obama administration is planning to unveil a climate action plan that it intends to implement without legislative approval. It’s a creative approach to governing, not unlike other executive actions President Obama has taken to bypass Congress.
When lawmakers refused to pass cap-and-trade legislation, Obama announced there was more than one way to skin the cat. Through climate plans, executive orders and regulatory action, he directed his agencies to find ways to curb the country’s carbon dioxide output and commit to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is the Environmental Protection Agency, which will release its carbon-dioxide regulations for existing power plants on Monday. The plan will drive up energy prices for American families and businesses without making a dent in global temperatures.
Our infographic explains what it means for jobs, incomes and the states hurt most.

Quick Hits:

IDF: Only rubber bullets were fired in Beitunia incident

Israel Defense Forces communications unit soldier suspended, reportedly fired rubber bullets without authorization, but did not aim at rioters • Soldier summoned to give testimony to Military Investigative Police, as probe continues.

Lilach Shoval, Israel Hayom Staff and Reuters

An image from the video that purportedly shows the shooting deaths of two Palestinians in Beitunia on May 15 | Photo credit: Defense for Children International Palestine website

Following a Haaretz report detailing the suspension of an Israel Defense Forces soldier in relation to the May 15 clashes in the West Bank town of Beitunia in which two Palestinian youths were killed, IDF officials said on Wednesday that the soldier in question was firing rubber bullets, not live bullets, and was not aiming at rioters, but at a nearby wall.

ISIS Committing Atrocities Against Civilian Population in Northern Syria

Jonathan Spyer

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) marching in Raqqa, Syria.

PJmedia, 27/5.  Co-authored with Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi
(WARNING: contains graphic images.)
Evidence is mounting that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is systematically committing atrocities in eastern and northern Syria, its areas of control.
While individual incidents of brutality have been well-documented, the near-impossibility of on-the-spot reporting in the area controlled by the organization has made it difficult to build a general description of the situation there. However, as more and more witnesses come forward, the picture is gradually becoming clearer.
Public executions are a regular weekly occurrence in Raqqa city, the provincial capital controlled by ISIS. In a number of verified cases, the bodies of executed people have been “crucified” — placed on crosses in public areas after execution by other means, supposedly to act as a deterrent to others. (Note: at least one crucifixion of a living victim by an Islamist group has occurred recently, in Yemen. Video here.)
ISIS invoked Qur’an 5:33 in a case of two people being crucified in Raqqa for supposedly carrying out an IED attack against ISIS. The Quran passage stipulates that, among a number of punishments, those who “wage war on God and His Messenger” may be crucified.

Cal Poly: Free speech under attack in academia

Robert Spencer  
 
On May 13, I spoke at Cal Poly — California Polytechnic State University — in San Luis Obispo, California. (In the video above, the event starts at 8:19.) The event was preceded by the usual Muslim Students Association grievance-mongering and bogus claim of victimhood status, with an article in the campus newspaper complaining about my imminent appearance, making wild claims about what would happen if I spoke, and asking that the event be canceled. Student Nate Honeycutt and the Cal Poly College Republicans stood firm, however, even under heavy pressure from a Professor of Religious Studies (who did not have the courage to attend the event, after promising to do so) to cancel.
Now Honeycutt has written a superb letter to Cal Poly’s Mustang News, about the event and how the freedom of speech is under fire where it should be most honored: in our nation’s universities.
“Letter to the editor: Free speech under attack in academia,” by Nate Honeycutt, Mustang News, May 26, 2014:

On behalf of the Cal Poly College Republicans (CPCR), I’d like to put to rest accusations made over the last couple weeks against our club and our recent speaker.

FURTHER INSIGHT INTO GLOBAL AND ARAB MUSLIM OPINION STRUCTURES: STATISTICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE 2013 PEW REPORT “THE WORLD’S MUSLIMS”

  Arno Tausch

Taliban religious police beating a woman in Kabul filmed by RAWA on August 26, 2001.

This article reevaluates the April 2013 PEW data on “The World’s Muslims” covering 23 countries and comprising at least 56.6 percent of the total global Muslim population. It presents population-weighted estimates of the 18 PEW indicators for the entire adult Muslim population in these 23 countries. The article also presents a UNDP type Index of Muslim Tolerance (Index of the emancipation of Muslim publics from authoritarian and Islamist thought patterns), which is based on 18 sub-indicators of the PEW study. Kazakhstan, Albania, and Bosnia are the best performers, while Afghanistan, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories are at the bottom. Gender issues and human rights should receive a top priority regarding the EU membership perspectives for Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Turkey.

TURKEY’S TWISTS AND TURNS ON SYRIA

 Semra Sevi

Syrian refugee center on the Turkish border 50 miles from Aleppo, Syria (August 2012).

Since 2008, Turkey has gone from supporting the Bashar al-Asad regime, to encouraging Asad to undertake democratic reforms, to shifting to a policy of regime change (RC)–a full 180-degree turn in less than three years. Given Turkey’s twists and turns, is it possible for Turkey to reverse course again, as Asad consolidates his victories on the ground, and effectively switch sides in the interest of reestablishing its economic links with Syria? This article will analyze each stage of Turkey’s Syria policy from 2008-2013 and provide recommendations for the future.

INTRODUCTION

Since 2011, over 100,000 dead[1]–including more than 10,000 children[2]–and nine million displaced,[3] the Syrian civil war has left the international community paralyzed. It has mutated into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional hegemony.[4]  Other regional sponsors of the contending parties include Qatar, Turkey, Russia, and now Hizballah and al-Qa’ida.[5] The United Nations Security Council is tied into knots with Russia and China vying to veto any resolution to intervene in Syria. Since no one has legal authority or the political will to intervene, the Syrian civil war throws into question the future of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine.[6] Should R2P now be relegated to history, as a doctrine of the 1990s with no future in this century?

While the mass killings, torture, and rape taking place in Syria appear similar to the crimes that took place in the wake of Bosnia’s divisions of ethnicity and religion in the 1990s,[7] the outflow of millions of refugees makes the situation more reminiscent of the Rwandan genocide, as one has not seen anything of this scale since 1994.[8] This aside, the shadows of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya continue to loom over the Syrian dilemma. On the one hand, members of the international community feel the urge to act, on the other hand, fear of failure leaves them inclined to allow events to resolve themselves without military intervention. Though there are compelling arguments on both sides, the international community remains divided, and events largely depend on what regional powers do.

The spineless, irrational restrictions upon Jews praying on their own Temple Mount!

Michael Freund
The Jerusalem Post
 

After several exasperating decades, one of the thorniest and most painful issues on Israel’s public agenda may at last be heading toward a resolution. In a move underlining the national consensus regarding the Temple Mount, Likud MK Miri Regev and Labor MK Hilik Bar have reached across the aisle to prepare a joint bill that would allow Jews to pray at the nation’s holiest site.

The proposed law, which is slated to be submitted soon to the Knesset for approval, would right one of the most glaring wrongs on Israel’s human rights record. It would end discrimination against Jews who wish to commune with their Creator on the Mount without fear of arrest.

Don’t believe the media’s attempts to paint this bill as “controversial.” The only thing controversial about it is that there is a need for such a bill in the first place. Incredibly, despite Supreme Court rulings upholding the right of Jews to freedom of worship on the Temple Mount, the police have never — not once! — allowed this right to be exercised.

Evil is the Motive of Evil

Sultan Knish
Elliot Rodger is only the latest mass murderer whose creepy videos and massive manifesto will be pored over for clues to his state of mind. Rodger is in good company with killers like Osama bin Laden, Anders Behring Breivik and Christopher Dorner who exploited their murderous celebrity by running their mouths and fingers while unloading their deep thoughts on everything.

Osama bin Laden suggested everyone read Jimmy Carter's Palestine as well as Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby. Christopher Dorner regretted missing out on the next season of The Walking Dead. Breivik discussed his favorite video games and Elliot Rodger had to tell us every movie he watched.

Mass murderers act like aspiring celebrities because that's what they are. They want to be famous. They are compulsive narcissists who need everyone to pay attention to them.

Analyzing their manifestos for motive is a waste of time. Rodger, like Dorner, Breivik and Bin Laden, was obsessed with power fantasies. They all killed people to gain power over them and over the larger audience beyond their victims. They wanted to make the rest of the world see them the way they saw themselves. Their videos and manifestos were a pose like everything else about them.

IRS Judgment Day

The untalkative agency comes under scrutiny from a federal judge.

 

The Internal Revenue Service continues to evade questions about its handling of applications for tax-exempt status from groups whose political views conflicted with the Obama Administration's. That may change. A federal judge's ruling will force the agency to defend itself in court and go through discovery on its handling of a slow-tracked application.

In 2009 a Pennsylvania group called Z Street applied to the IRS for tax-exempt status for its mission of educating people about Zionism and other policies related to Israel and the Middle East. In May 2010 the group received a request from the IRS for more information, which it sent. According to Z Street's complaint, two months later the agent in charge of reviewing the application told Z Street's counsel she was holding up the application because of her concerns that the group engaged in advocacy related to the Middle East.

According to the complaint, Agent Diane Gentry said that special attention was given to Israel-related groups and that "these cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization's activities contradict the Administration's public policies." We've since learned that the agency's November 2010 "Be On the Lookout" list also flagged agents to look out for words related to Israel or "inflammatory" references to "disputed territories."

Marine Le Pen is Shopping for Allies at the EU Parliament

Nidra Poller

Follow the story in real time:

Having outdone the major opposition party—UMP—and trounced the governing Socialists in last week’s European elections, Marine Le Pen went off to Brussels today, looking for allies. If she can form a block of at least 25 deputies representing seven different countries, she will drastically improve her chances to influence EU policy while sharing in the perks: funding, chauffeur-driven cars, offices, legislative privileges, etc. The Front National itself has 24 Eurodeputies; the problem is finding the 7 nations. More or less assured of her alliance with Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party, the Austrian FPO, Belgium’s Vlams Blang, she is hard put to find the missing allies. Both UKIP and the Danish People’s Party have ruled out any alliance with the FN. On the other hand, Marine Le Pen can’t risk alliances with blatantly anti-Semitic antidemocratic parties like Golden Dawn, Jobbik, and other minor parties of similar persuasion.

The Pope delivered a A Slap in the Face

Frank Dimant,  CEO,  B’nai Brith Canada

After 1700 years of ongoing harassment, forced conversions, massacres and pogroms, one was looking forward to a different relationship in the 21st century between the Jewish world and Catholicism.
The latest Papal visit has destroyed a great deal of the good work of Vatican II and those who laboured in the fields of building bridges. Each Papal visit to the Holy Land is filled with symbolic gestures and each move is calculated and orchestrated, and this visit was meant to embarrass and berate the Jewish State.
The visit by Pope Francis with his two wingmen, Rabbi Abraham Skovka and Imam Omar Abboud, was all part of the effort to help set the stage for a most severe attack by the Vatican on the Jewish homeland.

Pope Francis chose first to visit with Abu Mazen who is in the midst of forming a National Unity Government between Fatah and Hamas (a recognized international terrorist organization). Also, His Holiness would fly directly into what he calls the Palestinian State and not the Palestinian Authority.
Pope Francis’ dramatic gesture at the security barrier was a paparazzi delight.

COP: Here Are 5 Ways Obama Can Fix His Foreign Policy

Nile Gardiner

President Barack Obama at West Point in 2009. (Photo: LFI/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)

Only some of each president’s speeches are billed as “major,” and today’s is one of them for President Obama. His commencement address at West Point is a “major” foreign policy speech at a time when America’s friends and adversaries are questioning U.S. leadership.
The Obama approach has weakened the world’s superpower, creating a dearth of leadership that is increasingly being filled by hostile, dictatorial nations from Moscow to Beijing. If he is serious about turning around U.S. foreign policy, here are five things the president should do in his West Point address today.

1. Acknowledge the Russian reset is dead.

As Moscow’s invasion of Crimea amply demonstrated, the much-hyped “Russian reset” has been a foreign policy disaster. The Obama administration’s reset, designed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was built on the idea of Russia as a partner with the United States. Supposedly hand in hand, the former rivals would address the major international crises of the day. This initiative, however, will be remembered as one of the biggest foreign policy follies of the modern era — a staggeringly naïve exercise in appeasement that encouraged Moscow at Washington’s expense.
>>> See what the administration should do to show the Kremlin it means business

“Jerusalem”

May 28, 2014

 

“Jerusalem”

 

Today was Yom Yerushalayim - the day marking the reunification of Jerusalem 47 years ago, when, in the course of the Six Day War, we liberated the part of the holy city that had been occupied by the Jordanians. 

 

It is well past sundown here now, so the day of celebration is over in Israel.  A frustrating day for me today, because I was so involved in Legal Grounds work – work that could not wait - that I had not time to do the sort of writing I would have wanted to do.  And yet, I could not let it pass without a mention. 

 

Jerusalem.  This golden city truly is at the center of the world.

 

 

Credit: KeepJerusalem

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu, speaking at Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva today, said (emphasis added):

The Muslim Brotherhood's "Peaceful Conquest"

Valentina Colombo
May 28, 2014

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4299/muslim-brotherhood-peaceful-conquest

"Political and religious terrorism began with the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood..." — Farag Foda, Egyptian intellectual murdered by Islamists in 1992, in Terrorism [al-Irhab]
Islamist movements have different tactics... but their goal is always the same: Get in and impose sharia law to establish an Islamic state.
The problem is not so much the Muslim Brotherhood as the schizophrenia of governments that one day condemn them and the next day work with them.

"What I think is important about the Muslim Brotherhood," British Prime Minister David Cameron said on April 1, while announcing a long-overdue investigation of the activities of Muslim Brotherhood in the UK and its involvement in February's terror attack at the Egyptian resort of Taba, "is that we understand what this organisation is, what it stands for, what its beliefs are in terms of the path of extremism and violent extremism, what its connections are with other groups, what its presence is here in the United Kingdom. Our policies should be informed by a complete picture of that knowledge. It is an important piece of work because we will only get our policy right if we fully understand the true nature of the organisation that we are dealing with."

"The objective, then, is to strike terror into the hearts of God's enemies, who are also the enemies of the advocates of Islam..." — Sayyid Qutb, chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Egyptian Brotherhood's reaction, published on its English website, was immediate:

ROP: “I renounced Islam, so my family think I should die”

Robert Spencer 
Amal Farah insists that this has nothing to do with Islam, and the Telegraph is anxious to corroborate her claim. However, as this article notes, Muhammad commanded: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57), and the alleged “numerous verses in the Koran” that “guarantee freedom of belief” have not prevented all the sects of Islam and all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite, from teaching that apostates should be killed.
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.” There is only disagreement over whether the law applies only to men, or to women also – some authorities hold that apostate women should not be killed, but only imprisoned in their houses until death.

The Almoravids?

My RightWord

If you visit many of the Islamist pro-Al-Aqsa sites, like this one, who can read slogans like this:

مجموعة من القنابل التي ألقيت على المرابطين في المسجد الاقصى المباركA set of bombs dropped on the Almoravids in Al-Aqsa Mosque(Translated by Bing)

Al-Moravids?

Who are they?

The term "Almoravid" comes from the Arabic "al-Murabitun" (المرابطون), which is the plural form of "al-Murabit" - literally meaning "one who is tying" but figuratively meaning "one who is ready for battle at a fortress"... the name was suggested by Ibn Yasin in the "persevering in the fight" sense, to boost morale... Ibn Yasin certainly had the ardor of a puritan zealot; his creed was mainly characterized by a rigid formalism and a strict adherence to the dictates of the Qur'an, and the Orthodox tradition...