Will US policy changes hinder Israel’s war on terror?

By YONAH JEREMY BOB

05/27/2013 

Obama's speech last week in which he set out more conservative US standards for targeted killings, may mean that Israel will once again find itself alone in its aggressive approach to fighting terror.

US President Obama at Boston memorial service, April 18, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Ready or not, Israel’s relatively free hands in conducting its war on terror may finally be tied.
Since September 11, 2001, the United States’s much more aggressive approach to combating terror has often provided Israel with a blanket of immunity. Even as many groups and states criticized Israel for targeting killings and for the death of civilians during military operations, the impact of the criticism was always attenuated by Israel’s ability to quickly point out examples of recent US targeted killings and of large civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Details of Peres' Diplomacy

My Right Word

The summary of President Peres' diplomacy today, having met with King Abdullah II of Jordan 

the two leaders discussed ways to revive peace negotiations in the region and means to overcome obstacles facing the peace process.  King Abdullah and President Peres stressed that the two-state solution is the only viable solution to end the conflict, achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israelis and enhance security and stability in the region. King Abdullah also highlighted the importance of the Arab peace initiative to realize a just and comprehensive peace in the region.
President Peres stressed that it is time to promote peace and help build a better future for coming generations and thanked King Abdullah for his efforts to promote peace.  The two leaders hailed the US administration's efforts, led by US Secretary of State John Kerry, to revive the peace process.

That came from Yair Zivan – International Media Coordinator, Office of the President of Israel.

Some of his words:

Media and Mr. Peres-please read-again

Basic Law: The President of the State

Note: having formatting problems, click here to read entire law 

http://knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/basic12_eng.htm

 

Status
1. A President shall stand at the head of the State.
 
Place of residence.
2. The place of residence of the President of the State shall be Jerusalem.
 
Election and period of tenure
3. (a) The President of the State shall be elected by the Knesset for seven 
years.
(b) The President will serve for one term only.
...
Functions and powers
11.
(a) The President of the State -
(1) shall sign every Law, other than a Law relating to its powers;
(2) shall take action to achieve the formation of a Government and shall 
receive the resignation of the Government in accordance with Law;
(3) shall receive from the Government a report on its meetings;
(4) shall accredit the diplomatic representatives of the State, shall 
receive the credentials of diplomatic representatives sent to Israel by 
foreign states, shall empower the consular representatives of the State and 
shall confirm the appointments of consular representatives sent to Israel by 
foreign states;
(5) shall sign such conventions with foreign states as have been ratified by 
the Knesset;
(6) shall carry out every function assigned to him by Law in connection with 
the appointment and removal from office of judges and other office-holder's.
 
(b) The President of the State shall have power to pardon offenders and to 
lighten penalties by the reduction or commutation thereof.
(c) The President of the State shall carry out every other function and have 
every other power assigned to him by Law.
 
...
Departure for abroad
18. The President of the State shall not leave the territory of the State 
save with the sanction of the Government.
 
--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

Is Radical Islam Normative Islam?

Michael Brown 

I am sometimes criticized for using the term “radical Islam” when describing acts of Islamic terror, the argument being that this is really normative Islam. In contrast, the more peaceful expression of the faith is understood to be a liberalized, non-representative form of Islam. Could this criticism be valid?

Writing from Australia, CultureWatch commentator Bill Muehlenberg asked, “So how many more 9/11’s do we need before we wake up? How many more Bali bombings? How many more attempted beheadings like in London today [namely, May 23^rd]? When will we wake up and realise that Islam is in fact a political ideology which has always been spread by the edge of the sword?

“When will we believe the words of Muhammad? When will we believe the Koran? When will we believe the hadith? When will we take them at their word when they tell us they intend to kill us? When will we understand that they want to see the entire world under submission to Islam and sharia law?”

Has he overstated his case?

The Collective Blood Libel Against the Jews

Nurit Greenger

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same; blood libel is one of those 'things'.

blood libel, which is also accusation, is in fact false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays. Historically, these claims—alongside those of well poisoning and desecration—have been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.

One such notorious blood libel took place in Kiev, in the Russian Empire; it is a case that went on trial in 1913 and became known as the Beilis Trial or the Beilis Affair. A Ukrainian Jew named Menahem Mendel Beilis was accused of murder for the purpose of a religious ritual of a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy and the case sparked an international outrage.

The Warrior's Tale

Sultan Knish

The warrior's tale is a simple enough thing. Strong as steel, but fragile as chance. It is the wind in his soul and the wall we build around ourselves to tell us who we are.

Before there were cities or nations, and railways and airports, computers and telephones-- the tale was told around campfires. Acted out in pantomime, dressed up in animal furs and cave paintings. But the tale was the same. The people were confronted with a threat and they called upon the best and strongest of their men to go out and fight it. These were their warriors. What they did in the face of that threat is the tale.

The tale has many variations. Sometimes there are many warriors, sometimes only a handful. They march into the village of the enemy in triumph, or they make a last stand on a rocky outcropping, spending the last of their heart's blood to buy time they will never know. There is the weak man who becomes strong, the strong man who becomes weak, the woman who mourns the man who will never return, and the man who goes off to battle with nothing to lose. These tales have been told countless times in the ages of men, and they will be told again for as long as men endure.

The New, Improved Axis of Jihad

Clare M. Lopez

Two years into the seismic shift that brought the forces of Islamic jihad and Sharia law to power in country after country in the Middle East and North Africa -- with the astonishing and extensive assistance from the U.S. -- Iran, Hizballah and al-Qa'eda apparently judge that the U.S. and its Western allies still need another nudge to ensure their complete retreat from "Muslim" lands. That nudge, according to independent, reliable and mutually-corroborating sources, has now been prepared by this Axis.

Indicators and warnings continue to grow concerning the resurgence of an "Axis of Jihad" comprised of Iran, Hizballah, and al-Qa'eda. This axis is not new: its three actors, both national and sub-national, have been working together in an operational terror alliance for over two decades. Still, so many seem unaware not just of this alliance, but of the ideological bonds that brought them together in Khartoum, Sudan, in the early 1990s and have kept them together to the current day. The bond is as old as Islam, and includes the commitment to jihad [war in the name of Islam] and Islamic Shariah law; the threat is to all free and democratic societies which stand in the way of global Islamic government and the forcible application of Islamic Shariah Law.

U.S.: Israel's Prosperity a Problem

Shoshana Bryen

Under the circumstances, the U.S. would do better to tell the Palestinians there is no deal to be had unless they -- both the Fatah and Hamas -- demonstrably accommodate the reality that Israel is a legitimate, permanent part of the region. Otherwise, it is for Israel to determine how best to defend itself from those "challenges over the horizon."

At first blush, it might have sounded like praise, but it wasn't. Before meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Secretary of State John Kerry pronounced Israel's prosperity an impediment to "peace" with the Palestinians. "I think there is an opportunity [for peace], but for many reasons it's not on the tips of everyone's tongue. People in Israel aren't waking up every day and wondering if tomorrow there will be peace because there is a sense of security and a sense of accomplishment and of prosperity."

Friday Afternoon Roundup - Orwell Lives

Sultan Knish

ORWELL LIVES

Witnesses claim it took London police 20 minutes to show up and stop the two Muslim killers. But when it comes to something truly serious, like protecting Muslims from elderly British women, then the coppers were on the case.

“An 85-year-old woman has this afternoon been arrested after abuse was hurled at Muslims outside Gillingham Mosque. The pensioner was handcuffed and taken away in a van by officers attending the Canterbury Street mosque for Friday prayers."

Note the "attending the prayers" part. And lest you get too mouthy on social media about it, there's a warning for you.

"A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said, “People should stop and think about what they say on social media before making statements as the consequences could be serious.”

NOT A BLOODY THING

Scholars of Islam like Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson insisted that the gruesome murder of a British soldier by two Muslims shouting “Allah Akbar” and quoting the Koran had nothing to do with Islam.

However Imam Omar Bakri Muhammad, who influenced Mujaheed Adebowale, the London beheader, disagrees saying, “Under Islam this can be justified”,

And what are Imam Omar Bakri Muhammad’s thoughts on the human life of non-Muslim civilians?

“We don’t make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity.”

May 24, 2013 UN ignores real oppression because it is obsessed with the “poor” Palestinians

Ted Belman

[These are the words of Simon Deng, once a Sudanese slave. He is addressing the Durban Conference in NY in 2011.]
I want to thank the organizers of this conference, The Perils of Global Intolerance. It is a great honor for me and it is a privilege really to be among today’s distinguished speakers.
I came here as a friend of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I came to protest this Durban conference which is based on a set of lies. It is organized by nations who are themselves are guilty of the worst kind of oppression.
It will not help the victims of racism. It will only isolate and target the Jewish state. It is a tool of the enemies of Israel.

Obama: “best way to prevent violent extremism is to work with the Muslim American community”

creeping

“… – which has consistently rejected terrorism”

The only thing the Muslim American community does consistently is cry Islamophobia, blame America and Americans, file frivolous lawsuits, defend accused and convicted Muslim terrorists, and aggressively fight against banning sharia law. They refuse to reject Hamas, Hizbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist organizations and working with the American Muslim Brotherhood helped us into the position we are in.
Obama and his Muslim brothers keep insisting that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam so just how can this old and failed approach help? via Jihad Watch.

What does Israel’s Arab minority really think?

Alexander Yakobson

The Israel Democracy Institute’s annual survey reveals a gulf between the sentiments of many Israeli Arabs and the radical discourse of their leaders.

The Israel Democracy Institute’s ‘Israeli Democracy Index 2012’ – an annual comprehensive survey of the mood of Israeli society, widely considered one of the most authoritative in the field – provides some fascinating data about attitudes among Arab-Israelis regarding Israeli democracy and the state itself. The findings (not significantly different to previous years) certainly reflect a critical attitude towards the Israeli reality and government policies. But they also reflect something else: a huge gap between the responses of Arab-Israelis and the typical discourse of the Arab elite in the country; between opinion at the base and rhetoric amongst the political leadership of this community.

Findings

Before setting out the findings, we must ask how reliable they are. It is sometimes suggested that the relatively positive results of these kinds of surveys reflect the reluctance of Arab participants to express their views with full candor and their desire to appease the establishment or the Jewish majority.

Obama's Head-in-the-Sand Speech About Terrorism

Barry Rubin

President Barack Obama’s speech at the National Defense University, “The Future of Our Fight against Terrorism” is a remarkable exercise in wishful thinking and denial. Here is basically what he says: the only strategic threat to the United States is posed by terrorists carrying out terrorist attacks.

In the 6400 words used by Obama, Islam only constitutes three of them and most interestingly in all three the word is used to deny that the United States is at war with Islam. In fact, that is what President George Bush said precisely almost a dozen years ago, after September 11. Yet why have not hundreds of such denials had the least bit of effect on the course of that war?

In fact, to prove that the United States is not at war with Islam, the Obama Administration has sided with political Islam throughout the Middle East, to the extent that some Muslims think Obama is doing damage to Islam, their kind of Islam.

And how has the fight against al-Qaida resulted in a policy that has, however inadvertently, armed al-Qaida, as in Libya and Syria?

Once again, I will try to explain the essence of Obama strategy, a simple point that many people seem unable to grasp:

Obama views al-Qaida a threat because it wants to attack America directly with terrorism. But all other Islamist groups are not a threat. In fact, they can be used to stop al-Qaida.

"Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative"

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

"Israel Hayom", May 24, 2013, http://bit.ly/1aeS8gj

President Obama's foreign policy and national security teams reflect the worldview of the Atlantic Council, a prestigious, Washington-based multilateralism-driven think tank.  

Secretaries of State, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton have advocated engagement - rather than confrontation - with rogue regimes.  They were members of a tiny group that believed - until the recent atrocities in Syria - that Bashar Assad was a generous, constructive leader, a reformer and a man of his word. Kerry was a frequent flyer to Damascus, dining with Assad and his wife, considering Hafez and Bashar Assad partners for peace. Kerry and Clinton have implemented much of the Atlantic Council's policy recommendations, demonstrating fealty to the UN, participating in several of the Council's seminars and receiving special awards from the Council.  Upon the eruption of the recent violence on the Arab Street, they were staunch Arab-Springers, who believed that the mobs in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain were Facebook demonstrators, the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi and MLK, transitioning from tyranny to democracy.

Rand Paul’s Bold Stand Against Arming Islamist Syrian Rebels

Joseph Klein

On May 21, 2013, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 to arm “vetted elements of the Syrian opposition” against the government of Bashar al-Assad. This provision was part of a bill co-sponsored by the committee chairman, Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), and ranking member of the committee, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee). Hailed by its supporters as an overwhelming bipartisan show of support for the Syrian opposition, the bill, entitled “The Syria Transition Support Act,” now goes to the floor of the Senate where its fate is uncertain. Nor is the position of the Obama administration on directly arming the Syrian opposition very clear at this moment. Up to this time, the administration has proceeded cautiously.

“The time to act and turn the tide against Assad is now,” Senator Menendez said at a hearing on his bill. “The United States must play a role in tipping the scales toward opposition groups and working to build a free and democratic Syria.”

Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), along with Democratic Senators Chris Murphy (Connecticut) and Tom Udall (New Mexico) voted against the bill. Senator Paul’s proposed amendments striking the bill’s weapons provision and ruling out the authorization of the use of military force in Syria were rejected.

Senator Paul tried to introduce a dose of reality into the committee deliberations on the bill, but the bill steamrolled ahead anyway. “This is an important moment,” Senator Paul warned. “You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It’s an irony you cannot overcome.”

Derfner’s Brand of Kool-Aid: You Gonna Believe me or your Lying Eyes?

Richard Landes   


Really didn’t want to do this. Have responded thrice in the Spring of 2008 to Dernfer’s rattling his cage about Al Durah – here, here, and here – and I probably should leave him to rattle in peace. But there’s something about his tone which I think is particularly revealing, and that readers should be aware of when they hear it. It’s the sound of a lethal journalist being denied his foundational myth.And the irony is that, at the end of the article, he concedes major terrain in the argument, even as he maintains his tone of contempt… a little like the naked emperor who, realizing everyone knows he’s naked, continues his charade.

In the following article there is not one substantive argument, only one case where Derfner grapples (unsuccessfully) with the empirical evidence (which I’m beginning to think he hasn’t watched – or watched peremptorily). It’s all about name-calling (when it happens to them, people like Derfner like to use the word “smear,” as in the critics are “Desperately smearing Goldstone“), and circuitous arguments all drawn directly from Charles Enderlin. In some senses, the best parallel to Derfner’s prose is the Vultures, except that Derfner does it in public.

Jerusalem, From Glory to Poverty And Back‏

Nurit Greenger

The vision for Jerusalem is 3000 years old.

---

Jerusalem, From Glory to Poverty and Back

Last week, sponsored by The Jerusalem Foundation, Nir Barkat, that business guy who is the mayor of Jerusalem, visited Los Angeles appearing publically and in private.

From L-Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat with former Beverly Hills mayor William Warren Brie-Photo by Orly Halevy

It is not often that you get a chance to meet the mayor of the holiest city to Jews, the heart of the Jewish nation, a holy city to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

It is not often you get to hear firsthand what is really going on in the city that is so often in the news, and not always good news.

Nir Barkat Jerusalem Mayor Temple Emanuel, Beverly Hills May 2013

  

I went to hear the mayor at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California, an event that was organized by Jill Hoyt, director of The Jerusalem Foundation, West Coast USA and hosted by rabbi Laura Geller. (www.jerusalemfoundation.org)

It is easy to grasp that to manage Jerusalem, the most complicated city in the world, is a job like no other. Managing the city is based on coexistence of large diversity of people. A city that must be kept stable, open to all where all must keep living in it together.

US Naval Academy & the US Muslim Brotherhood Part 2: The Case Of Akbar Ahmed

creeping
via The US Naval Academy And the US Muslim Brotherhood Part 2: The Case Of Akbar Ahmed

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch has identified a second professor at the US Naval Academy who is close to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and where Global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi reportedly serves as a trustee. The GMBDW reported yesterday that Ermin Sinanovic, who is teaching a course at the academy on “Muslim World Affairs”, would also be teaching at two different venues for IIIT. Dr. Sinanovic was not alone however. In September 2008, US media reported that Dr. Akbar Ahmed would be joining the U.S. Naval Academy to fill a new chair for Middle East Studies and would be teaching courses, advising midshipmen and faculty, and assisting in research projects. According to his CV, Dr. Ahmed served as First Distinguished Chair for Middle East/Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy from 2008-2009.

Details of Olmert's peace offer to Palestinians exposed

By AVI ISACHAROFF

 

In interview with Jerusalem Post Group Hebrew magazine, Olmert says he blames Livni and Barak for breakdown of negotiations with Palestinians; magazine obtains map sketched by Abbas with offered Israeli territorial concessions.

Shortly after the dramatic meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and then-prime minister Ehud Olmert at the latter's Jerusalem residence on Tuesday September 16, 2008, the Palestinian entourage returned to Ramallah. Despite the relatively late hour, Abbas’s advisors and the heads of Fatah arrived at his office; they understood the importance of the moment.

Less than an hour earlier, Olmert presented the details of his offer for a peace deal between the nations, an unprecedented Israeli offer to be tendered to a Palestinian leader.

Obama: "The best way to prevent violent extremism is to work with the Muslim American community – which has consistently rejected terrorism"

Robert Spencer

According to Obama in his speech today, "The best way to prevent violent extremism is to work with the Muslim American community – which has consistently rejected terrorism – to identify signs of radicalization, and partner with law enforcement when an individual is drifting towards violence."
The Muslim American community has consistently rejected terrorism? Four separate studies since 1998 have all found that 80% of U.S. mosques were teaching jihad, Islamic supremacism, and hatred and contempt for Jews and Christians. There are no countervailing studies that challenge these results. In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the “extremist ideology.”

Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom’s 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project’s 2008 study. Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule.
And in the summer of 2011 came another study showing that only 19% of mosques in U.S. don’t teach jihad violence and/or Islamic supremacism.
Specifically: