Dangerous Times: Still Missing the Strategic Meaning of Benghazi

by James Lewis


Strategy comes before tactics. Strategic goals dictate tactical actions. Today we are allowed to talk about the obvious tactical lies and malfeasances that the Obama administration blew in our faces in the Benghazi fiasco and its aftermath, but not about its strategic meaning. But Obama’s secret policies have also been exposed to public view with the Benghazi fiasco. It is now clear that since Obama came to power, the U.S. government has overturned all the fundamental values that have characterized American policy from Thomas Jefferson onward. Under Obama we have secretly joined the terrorist side in the Jihad War. That is the strategic meaning of Benghazi.

In any other administration that would be unbelievable, but consider the facts.

1) 500 million dollars in arms to al-Qaeda in Syria.

Intelligence analyst Clare Lopez and a group of distinguished retired military and intelligence experts released a statement last week that was quickly covered up by the media. It was too dangerous to headline. In Britain the Daily Mail made it a one-day headline story, but it deserves to be repeated until we truly understand it.

“The Citizens Commission on Benghazi, a self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented -- if the U.S. hadn't been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier.
'The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,' Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline.
She blamed the Obama administration for tacitly approving the diversion of half of a billion dollars of Qatari arms shipment to al-Qaeda-linked militants.”

Now stay with that for a minute. The United States government gave half a billion dollar in armaments to murderous al-Qaeda butchers who kill Christian children in Syria and Kenya in the name of Allah. Read the full report here. (Major h/t to Accuracy in Media).

But this undoubted crime against humanity is not the first policy perversion this administration has committed. Remember, this is a fundamental strategic and moral switch for the United States government. The half-billion dollars of arms to al-Qaeda rebels in Syria is part of Obama’s lifelong pattern of behavior. Conservatives now have an accurate understanding of who Obama really is, who his real friends are, how he was brought up and indoctrinated, and how he came to power through the Illinois Democrat Machine. It all adds up to an amazingly consistent picture of this administration. (But never expect liberals to admit it.)

2) Active collusion with the fanatical Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood sect in overthrowing the foremost pillar of stability in the Middle East, the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak, who was literally told by Obama to resign, in public. The Moobs have a favorite slogan: “Our only ambition is to die in the way of Allah.” What do you suppose they mean by that?

No informed Egyptian doubts this anymore: They see Obama as a ruthless enabler of an Islamofascist sect. The so-called “Arab Spring” demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo were run by one Walid Ghoneim, who used social media from a loft apartment in Manhattan to organize the demonstrations (as reported by the sacred New York Times). Ghoneim was the Google Vice President for Sales in North Africa -- and apparently the not-evil Google folks didn’t mind Ghoneim’s taking a few months off work, to whip up riots in Cairo.

Obama put killing pressure on Hosni Mubarak, who in his eighties was trying to control the inevitable succession struggle. Mubarak himself followed Anwar Sadat, the first heroic Arab leader to make peace with Israel, a peace that has now lasted for forty years. It is still the only formal peace agreement that has brought stability to the chronically unstable Middle East.

Obama deliberately undermined Hosni Mubarak, and Bill Ayers was even reported to be agitating against Mubarak in collusion with the Hamas gang in Gaza. It was widely understood that after the fall of Mubarak, the best organized political movement in Egypt was… the Muslim Brotherhood. And yet, it was the MB’s who assassinated Anwar Sadat for making peace with Israel. The Moobs now pretend to have become “moderate,” just like the radical left pretends in this country. It is a lie, as Egyptians found out very quickly when Moob honcho Muhammed Morsi took over and started to sabotage the Egyptian judiciary and police.

The most encouraging development in the phony Arab Spring was that Egypt itself rebelled against a reactionary Islamofascist putsch. The “Arab Spring” was always a pure media fabrication. Today the Muslim Brotherhood is being put through massive public trials in Egypt, while it continues to try to sabotage Egypt by stirring up riots from their safe haven in Gaza. Egypt has now closed many of the smuggling tunnels to Gaza, to bottle up the remaining fanatical leadership. It was a very close call for Egypt, but genuinely moderate people took a fierce stand against the radicals. Egyptians understand the Moobs. Americans don’t. The Obama media will not tell you this, needless to say. (You can follow the Egyptian media in English on MEMRI.org.)

3) The same story is revealed by a huge money trail from the Moobs to big Democrats including the Clinton and Carter presidential centers. Hillary’s closest sidekick Huma Abedin comes from an MB family -- everything comes down to family and tribe in the Arab world -- and edited a Muslim Sisterhood magazine before her present role in the Hillary campaign. Huma was Hillary’s closest aide as Secretary of State, and therefore privy to numerous secrets. You can bet that Mohammed Morsi in Egypt knew all about the inner workings of Hillary’s State Department. Hillary was in charge during the Benghazi debacle. Just connect the dots.

Some of the money flow to Democrats from radical Muslim sources may be technically legal, but its corrupting influence on the Clintons, Carter, and Obama is all over the public record. That money trail started around the time of the Arab Oil Crisis of 1973, which made the theocratic Gulf sheikhs fabulously rich, and easily able to buy power and influence in Europe and America. That is also the time when European nations started to import millions of Muslims from Pakistan and other nations controlled by the Wahhabi theocracy of Saudi Arabia. Today even Europe’s corrupt politicians must know how suicidal that has been. But in Europe, the voters have lost the power to defeat the unelected European Union, which has frank contempt for the people. What a great model for America to follow, right?

Big Oil corruption started among black leaders in this country in 1970s as well. Obama’s favorite hero is Malcolm X, who was assassinated by Elijah Muhammed of the Black Muslims. Jeremiah Wright started as a Muslim -- which makes him a traitor to Islam today, and therefore ready for the hatchet.

Eurosocialism is of course much admired by our leftist geniuses at the New York Times.

A similar big money trail has gone to Tony Blair, the UK Labour (socialist) leader for a dozen years, who has just said out loud that yes, violent Islamism is something for us to worry about. (Thanks, Tony!). We know that Blair accepted money from Libya’s Gaddafi to release the terrorist who brought down a civilian airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. But that is only a small fraction of pervasive oil corruption in the Eurocracy.

4) We can never forget that it was Jimmy Carter who enabled the rise of the first big Islamofascist state, Khomeinist Iran, in 1978. That act of presidential malfeasance led directly to a million deaths in the Iran-Iraq war. The story told by Carter and his guru Zbig Brzezinski is that the U.S. Government simply had not read Khomeini’s voluminous writings about his martyrdom war theology. As if the CIA can’t hire a couple of translators to figure out what this Hitlerine Khomeini was all about. After a year of “America held hostage” as our diplomats were kept imprisoned by Khomeini’s fanatics, you can bet that the Carter administration knew all about Khomeini. Their denial is a lie.

Today we have seen decades of Carter’s open adoration of radical Islam. There is no longer a shred of doubt about his perverse sympathies for killer regimes. And now we can plainly see that Obama has actually enabled the mullahs’ rush to nuclear weapons. The fact that Valerie Jarrett was born in Khomeinist Iran and grew up in that kind of family is just another sign of radical Islamists penetration of this administration, at the very highest level.

5) It was the rise of the ancient and fanatical war theocracy in Iran that convinced characters like Osama Bin Laden that the time was ripe for reactionary Islamists to take over the whole Muslim world. We know what Bin Laden achieved on 9/11/01. Today, contrary to Obama’s election time lies about Benghazi, al-Qaeda is expanding explosively in Africa and the Middle East. The Malaysian Airlines plane that somehow disappeared recently may well have carried a terrorist bomb.

Today, Jihad War is in its fourth decade, given that it started with Jimmy Carter’s surrender to Khomeini in 1978-9.

In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood actually won power with Obama’s active collusion, until the Moobs scared the daylights out of ordinary Egyptians, who came out in force to cheer the army’s takeover led by General Al Sisi. Today, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt are seeing huge civil conflict, precisely because of Obama’s idea of community organizing in the Middle East. This administration has made things worse, and at least 100,000 people have died as a result. Does the phrase “crime against humanity” ring any bells?

6) Obama’s closest “friend” in the Middle East is said to be Turkey’s increasingly dictatorial Recip Erdogan, who peddles another throwback ideology to the horrific past, called “neo-Ottomanism.” The Ottoman Empire controlled huge territories for four centuries in the cruelest way possible, before it broke down at the end of World War I. I have met Bulgarians who still have nightmares about the Ottoman Empire in Bulgaria, which ended around 1920. Some people don’t forget what happened to their grandparents and great-grandparents. Today the most famous crime of the late Ottomans is the Armenian Genocide, which Obama has failed to even call by its proper name: A planned mass murder of vast numbers of Armenian Christians by Djemal Pasha, solely because of their faith and ethnicity. John Kerry might even call that “an apartheid regime.”

Needless to say, Turkey itself is now in another uproar as major conflict is breaking out between the two big Islamist parties. Obama’s good friend Erdogan is looking shaky, having been exposed for a truly heroic scale of family corruption. But hey, you gotta love your friends, right?

7) The NATO invasion of Libya was a clear violation of international law. When Mr. Obama was asked on TV about the need for Congressional approval of the Libyan invasion, he simply laughed. As the ACORN Manual puts it, in politics “only might is right.” (That was of course a Nazi slogan.)

NATO bombing in collusion with Libya’s al-Qaeda gangs destabilized the relatively sane regime of Muammar Gaddafi, who had actually surrendered his nuclear arms program to the Bush Administration. Bush and Cheney were desperate to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons and ICBMs to suicidal groups like the Iranians. Obama reversed that policy. He has actually enabled Iran’s nuclear program, and lately he openly surrendered to Iran in Geneva. The mullahs couldn’t stop laughing. Now the Saudis are now reported to be buying their own nukes and missiles, because they are fifty miles across the Gulf from Iran’s missiles. Obama has therefore actively enabled a nuclear arms race in the Gulf. The facts are clear.

In sum, this administration has purposely made the world much, much worse. In Syria, for example, the al-Qaida-linked, U.S.-supported rebels can now steal chemical weapons from Assad. Putin’s invasion of Crimea and the Ukraine is a direct result of Obama’s perverse policy objectives: After all, if the U.S. can simply knock over Libya for no rational reason at all, why can’t Russia steal a march on the Ukraine? Today, China is snatching mineral-rich ocean territories claimed by Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. All those thug regimes got the signal from Obama’s obsequious bows, and now they feel free to act on it. In response, Japan is now interested in nuclear weapons to defend against a nasty-sounding China.

There is more to this perverse story, much more. You can research it on the web.

The biggest point is that the Big Benghazi Lie was not just a tactical Obama effort to cover up the explosive rise of el-Qaeda in the Muslim world. Killing Osama did not kill his ideology; it never does. Those lies and abuses of military command responsibility came from deliberate, long-term policy decisions -- involving not just Obama, but very likely also the Clintons, all the way back to Jimmy Carter. The corporate media are of course in complete collusion with Obama’s program. A forty-year policy led by the Left to favor Islamic fascism is not, repeat not, an accident.

We need to clean up our political mess, and the hypercorrupt media must be rejected by their audiences if we are ever to regain our self-respect as a nation.

A grossly immoral foreign policy may not be an impeachable offense. The Constitution defines those as “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Our whole political/media class wants nothing to do with impeaching the first president elected for the color of his skin. Impeachment is not the big issue. It will not stop a perverse and perverted policy, any more than Clintonism was stopped by Bill’s impeachment.

The United States is now clearly colluding with the same murderous enemies who slit the throats of American and United airlines flight attendants with razor utility knives, following the Muslim ritual slaughter technique practiced on the ‘Eid holiday, which Obama likes so much. Obama was taught in a Muslim school in Jakarta, Indonesia, until age ten. He knows what the ‘Eid animal sacrifice means. After the Indonesian civil war between Muslims, the Communist Party, and the Army, there isn’t much Obama hasn’t known from childhood onward. He is a very hardened and ruthless manipulator.

Impeachment is now in the air. But this is not a personal matter. Obama himself is as much the product of the American radical left as he is its enabler. Today Obama might as well go back to Hawaii forever and play on the beach: The damage to the integrity and truthworthiness of the United States has been done.

The most important single thing is for the American people and the world to be fully informed of the perverse and immoral policies of this administration. We must face the truth. Once the truth is out, let the people decide.


James Lewis

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/dangerous_times_still_missing_the_strategic_meaning_of_benghazi.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Caroline Glick: Life Under the Obama Doctrine

by Caroline Glick


Originally published by the Jerusalem Post.

For most commentators, President Barack Obama’s biggest achievement in his four-nation tour of Asia was the enhanced defense treaty he signed with Philippine President Benigno Aquino. The pact permits US forces to operate on Philippine military bases and sets the conditions for joint training of US and Philippine forces, among other things.

There are two problems with the treaty, however.

And they reflect the basic problem with US foreign policy generally, five-and-a-half years into the Obama presidency.

First, there is the reason that the treaty became necessary.

The Philippines has been under attack by China since 2012 when China seized the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. Despite its mutual defense treaty with Manila, Washington did nothing.

This non-response emboldened China still further.

And today China is threatening the Second Thomas Shoal, another Philippine possession.
So, too, late last year China extended its Air Defense Identification Zone to include Japanese and South Korean airspace. The US responded to the aggressive move by recommending that its allies comply with China’s dictates.

The administration’s top priority in all these cases, as well as in the case of Beijing’s challenge to Japan’s control over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, has been to avoid conflicts with China.

But American timidity and refusal to abide by US treaty obligations to the Philippines and Japan have had the opposite effect.

By not responding to Chinese aggression, far from moderating China’s behavior, the Obama administration emboldened it. And in so doing, it destroyed the US’s deterrent posture in Asia. As China’s increasingly belligerent behavior has made clear, Obama’s attempt to appease China was perceived in Beijing as a green light for further aggression, because the Chinese correctly determined that Obama would never make them pay a price for seizing territory and otherwise harming America’s Asian allies.

Under these circumstances, Obama had no choice but to sign an enhanced defense treaty with the Philippines.

Far from calming the situation, though, the treaty increases the chance of war between China and its neighbors. No one, least of all China’s leadership, is fooled by Obama’s whiny insistence that the defense pact isn’t directed against China. And now China, already itching for more confrontations, will feel compelled to respond strongly.

This brings us to the second problem with the Obama administration’s new assertiveness in Asia. It simply isn’t credible.

On Wednesday, The Hill reported that due to Obama’s cuts in defense spending, for four months in 2015, the US will have no aircraft carriers in Asia. In other words, even as Obama’s rhetoric signals a renewed US military commitment to its allies, Obama’s defense cuts empty his pledges of substance.

We already know Obama lacks the will to confront China. And his decision to downsize the US military ensures the US will lack good options for confronting it in the coming years.

During his joint press conference in Manila on Monday with Aquino, Ed Henry from Fox News asked Obama to explain his foreign policy doctrine.

“What do you think the Obama Doctrine is in terms of what your guiding principle is on all of these crises and how you answer those critics who say they think the doctrine is weakness.”

Obama responded with his signature peevishness.

Before launching into a 900-word assault on a series of straw men to whom he attributed positions that at best distorted and at worst willfully misrepresented the positions of his critics, Obama muttered, “Well, Ed, I doubt that I’m going to have time to lay out my entire foreign policy doctrine.”

One thing that Obama did have the time do was signal to the Philippines that the US is no longer a reliable ally. After touting the new defense pact in one sentence, Obama proceeded to explain in the next that his administration cannot be expected to honor any commitment to defend the Philippines militarily.

Obama’s bloviations demonstrated why Henry’s question was so important.

For five-and-a-half years, Obama has not given a straightforward presentation of his foreign policy.

Instead, he has tailored his foreign policy statements to what he thinks the public wishes to hear.

So for instance, in responding to Henry, Obama sounded an isolationist note, attacking imaginary critics for their automatic rush to arms in all circumstances.

Beyond being a gross mischaracterization of his critics, Obama’s remarks ignored the inconvenient fact that he sent US forces on a NATO mission to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya without congressional authorization.

No Republicans forced his hand. Since 2004, Gaddafi had posed no threat to US interests.
And in the aftermath of Obama’s unauthorized war in Libya, the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in Benghazi.

Al-Qaida and other jihadist groups that benefited from NATO’s operation have taken over large swathes of the country and sunk it into ungovernable chaos. And the chaos and jihad in Libya has spread out to much of northern Africa, bringing death, forcible conversion, torture, arms proliferation and terror in its wake.

Although Obama’s 900-word rant obscured rather than explained his foreign policy doctrine, the Obama Doctrine is easily understood from his actual policies – including his military adventure in Libya.

If Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy doctrine was “Peace through strength,” Obama’s doctrine can be summed up in two sentences: “Speak loudly and carry no stick.” And “Be good to your enemies and bad to your allies.”

The defense treaty with the Philippines, like Obama’s bluster in Ukraine and Syria, is a sterling example of the first part of his doctrine.

And Obama’s obsequious policies toward China, Russia and Iran on the one hand, and his coldness toward Japan, South Korea, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Israel on the other hand demonstrate the validity of the second part of his doctrine.

The reason that Obama has not shared his own doctrine with the American people is not because he can’t explain it in the course of one speech. It is because he knows that they won’t accept it.

For their part, the American people seem to have him figured out. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll published on Wednesday, Obama’s approval rating for his handling of foreign policy is at an all-time low. Only 38 percent of Americans approve of his handling of foreign policy and 53% disapprove.

The same poll gave respondents two foreign policy doctrines and asked them to choose the one they preferred.

The first was, “We need a president who will present an image of America that has a more open approach and is willing to negotiate with friend and foe alike.”

The second was, “We need a president who will present an image of strength that shows America’s willingness to confront our enemies and stand up for our principles.”

Thirty-nine percent preferred the first policy course and 55% the second one. These numbers are nearly identical to the approval numbers for Obama’s foreign policy.

The problem for dissatisfied Americans as well as for endangered US allies is that it is highly unlikely that Obama will respond to rising disapproval of his actions abroad by changing course.

For America’s allies this reality requires them to carve out their own courses the best they can.

In Israel’s case, this involves first and foremost taking a less idealistic and more mercenary view of the world. This means not shrinking away from opportunities with the likes of Russia and China when they arise. And certainly it means not automatically siding with the Obama administration against them.

The Obama administration is reportedly angry with Israel for refusing to join America in scolding Russia for its aggression in Ukraine. But it is far from clear that the Obama White House offers Jerusalem a better option. To date, Obama has repaid Israel for its willingness to toe his line by undermining its core interests, publicly attacking it and seeking to subvert the elected government.

Israel has no interest in getting on Russia’s bad side in order to placate the Obama administration.

Nor is there any reason for Israel to obey the Obama administration’s demands for belligerent rhetoric when the next step of the Obama White House would doubtless be to turn around and castigate the “Israel lobby” for allegedly pushing the US toward war.

The same goes for China. There is no reason for Israel to jump into conflict with the growing Asian power. While Secretary of State John Kerry is egging on the Europeans to expand their trade war against Israel, China is assiduously expanding its trade with Israel. According to the Economy Ministry, next year Asia will surpass the US as Israel’s largest trading partner.

Then, of course, there is Iran. Out of loyalty and basic trust in the US’s strategic sanity, for the past decade, Israel has been willing to play second fiddle to the US in contending with Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program. This was never a wise policy, but at least under the Bush administration it was an understandable mistake.

Since his first days in office, Obama has signaled clearly through his deeds that he had absolutely no interest in blocking Iran’s nuclear progress. On the contrary, Obama’s policies in the Middle East have consistently involved strengthening and legitimizing the Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood at the expense of Israel and the less radical Sunni Arab states.

Out of habit, and in the hopes that something would change, Israel pretended away this reality and continued to follow Washington’s lead, limiting its goals to covert operations against Iran – that Obama leaked to the media – and lobbying Congress for sanctions that never had any chance of blocking Iran’s race to the nuclear finishing line.

Certainly since last November, when Obama signed his nuclear surrender to Iran, Israel has had no excuse for following the US’s lead on Iran. The deal’s sole effect is to enable Iran to become a nuclear power and a regional hegemon.

And so Israel must ignore it. Every day that Israel does not set back Iran’s nuclear progress brings Israel closer to being the subject of nuclear blackmail, Iranian-backed terrorism, and even nuclear Armageddon.

Obama may hide his doctrine behind petulance, populist canards and straw men, but it is clear enough. And that means that as far as Israel is concerned, its goal of securing its survival and prosperity for at least the next two-and-a-half years requires Jerusalem to act on its own and in the face of White House opposition.

It isn’t pleasant to defy the American president.

It isn’t easy. But in light of the Obama Doctrine, defying the White House is required to preserve the freedom of the Jewish people.


Caroline Glick

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/life-under-the-obama-doctrine/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

State Dept. Targets ‘Extremist Jewish’ Settlers in Terrorism Report

by Joseph Klein

 

The U.S. State Department has just released its 2013 report on terrorism around the globe, including a whole section devoted to “Israel, West Bank, and Gaza” as part of a broader chapter on the Middle East and North Africa. Coming on the heels of Secretary of State John Kerry’s despicable claim that Israel could turn into an apartheid state, his State Department’s report treated random criminal acts, mostly vandalism, by some Jewish settlers as being on the same level as rocket launchings, suicide bombing and other acts of real terrorism by Hamas, Hezbollah and other jihadist groups. For the Obama administration, Jewish settler attacks that damage Palestinian property are morally equivalent with jihadist attacks aimed at killing Jews and Christians.

Israel’s minister of communications and home front defense, Gilad Erdan, got it right when he said that the State Department report was making “a gross, incorrect generalization” in essentially equating acts of vandalism with murder. “We are not talking about acts of murder; this is graffiti. There is a difference between murder and destruction of property,” he said.

The small minority of Jewish settlers who drew the ire of the State Department have participated in what has become known as “price tag” attacks. The State Department report defined “price tag” attacks as “property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups in retaliation for activity they deemed to be anti-settlement.” The report expressly linked the words “extremist” and “Jewish” to describe the group of settlers involved in the attacks, while the Obama administration considers it too politically incorrect to identify those committing acts of terror in the name of jihad as Muslims.

The report conceded that Israeli police had set up special units to pursue the price tag cases and that the government had given authorities broader powers to act against the perpetrators. However, relying on the United Nations and unnamed non-governmental organizations as its sources, the report charged that the attacks by settlers “were largely unprosecuted.”

The report identified two specific examples of such attacks – both aimed at Christians, not Muslims. They involved graffiti on gravestones in a Christian Orthodox cemetery and the firebombing of a monastery. The report then cited the pro-Palestinian United Nations Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs as the source for claiming that there were “399 attacks by extremist Israeli settlers that resulted in Palestinian injuries or property damage.” The report added that “Violent extremists, including Israeli settlers, vandalized five mosques and three churches in Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to data compiled by the UN.” There was no analysis of the data compiled by the UN or explanation of where the data came from.

With Christians being murdered and persecuted by Arabs throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the chapter of the State Department report dealing with that violence-prone part of the world chose to emphasize alleged Jewish settler price tag attacks against Christian, as well as Muslim, targets. The only other anti-Christian incident highlighted by the report involved assaults on Christian Coptic Churches in Benghazi, Libya and damage to a major Sufi shrine. The report actually went out of its way to praise Jordan for hosting conferences “highlighting challenges facing Arab Christians and the importance of religious tolerance.”

Why no highlighting of the gunmen who seized the Christian village of Sadad in Syria and murdered 46 people, including 14 women and two children? How about the attacks on Egypt’s Coptic Christians and their churches by Muslim Brotherhood supporters, including the murder of a ten year old girl as she was leaving church and an eight year old girl at a Christian wedding? Why didn’t these murders of little children leaving a church and attending a Christian wedding make the State Department report, but some graffiti allegedly placed on gravestones in an Orthodox Christian cemetery by Jewish settlers did manage to make the cut?

Why is the Muslim Brotherhood mentioned only a couple of times in the chapter of the report dealing with the Middle East and North Africa, and then only as a victim of the post-Morsi Egyptian government crack-down? The State Department report said there was no proof presented that substantiated the Muslim Brotherhood’s direct involvement in the terrorist attacks that followed Morsi’s removal. Is the State Department under President Obama so much in the Muslim Brotherhood camp that they ignore evidence right under their noses showing a spike in acts of violence against Coptic Christians after Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took power, and then even more so after Morsi was removed and his supporters called for revenge? Or are they simply incapable of putting 2 and 2 together?

What do you expect from an administration whose ambassador to Egypt spoke favorably last year about the Muslim Brotherhood? The Obama administration’s love fest with the Muslim Brotherhood continued earlier this year when a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood was a guest at a meeting in the White House with President Obama.

It’s easy for the Obama administration to pick on Jewish settlers for committing isolated acts of vandalism and destruction, including of Christian sites. However, Muslim atrocities that spill the blood of Christians get hardly a mention at all. Instead, we are spoon-fed taquia (lies) by the State Department about Muslim concern for the “challenges facing Arab Christians and the importance of religious tolerance,” and the further lie that the Palestinian Authority “has taken significant steps to ensure that official institutions in the West Bank that fall under its control do not create content that leads to incitement to violence.” Did anyone at the State Department bother to review any of the hateful content broadcast on official Palestinian Authority outlets, including children’s programs, before writing such pro-Palestinian propaganda?

None of this discussion is intended to excuse the settlers’ price tag attacks. Such crimes committed by anyone, against anyone, are inexcusable and should be punished. Israel itself has not shied away from branding price tag attacks as a form of terrorism. Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said that such attacks constitute acts “against Israel and Zionism.” (Emphasis added) She added that “As a society we must marginalize them, and as a country, we must deal with them seriously and severely and bring them to justice.”

However, there needs to be some sense of proportion, which is sorely lacking in the State Department’s 2013 terrorism report. Price tag attacks against primarily property are not on par with the targeting of innocent civilians for death, as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and other shadowy jihadist groups do as a matter of course with rocket and mortar fire and bombings. The Obama administration apparently does not see the difference, which is consistent with its anti-Israel, pro-Islam and pro-Palestinian bias.

Joseph Klein

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/state-dept-targets-extremist-jewish-settlers-in-terrorism-report/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Who are you, Mahmoud Abbas?

by Yoram Ettinger

Unlike Western policymakers and public-opinion molders, Arab leaders never doubted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' core ideology. Therefore, they deny him adequate financial support while the Arab oil-producing countries provide Egypt multibillion dollar assistance. Similarly, during the 1980s, Saudi Arabia provided Afghanistan's Muslim rebels a billion dollars in annual aid, while extending Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yassir Arafat a mere $100 million annual aid, which was cut off following Arafat's and Abbas' August 1990 betrayal of Kuwait, when they collaborated with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's invasion of the sheikhdom. Moreover, Arab countries did not support the PLO and Hamas during their grand confrontations with Israel: the first and second intifadas, the Lebanon War and the series of wars in Gaza.

 

The Arab attitude toward Abbas is driven by Abbas' track record of intra-Arab subversion and terrorism. For example, during the late 1950s, Abbas and Arafat fled Egypt for subversion and terrorism, committed as key Muslim Brotherhood activists. In 1966, they fled Syria to Jordan, following their murdering a number of Syrian intelligence officers. In 1970, they were expelled from Jordan to Lebanon, following their attempt to topple Jordan's Hashemite regime, which ignited a brutal civil war. By 1975, they plundered large parts of southern Lebanon, aiming to overthrow the central regime in Beirut, which triggered the Syrian invasion of Lebanon, a series of civil wars and the destruction of Lebanon. In 1990, Palestinian intelligence cells in Kuwait and Palestinian battalions in Iraq facilitated Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, which since 1960 was the preferred safe haven for 300,000 Palestinian relatives and allies of Arafat and Abbas. As a result of that egregious betrayal, Kuwait expelled over 200,000 Palestinians. No Arab leader protested that expulsion!

While Egypt is cracking down on Hamas and its affiliates, Abbas -- an ally of Saddam, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela -- provides Hamas with a vital tailwind.

 

On March 15, 2013, Abbas, the Russian-speaking graduate of KGB courses and Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, the former steward of PLO ties with the ruthless communist regimes, and (since 1993) the lead PLO negotiator with Hamas, told the Russian TV: "As far as I'm concerned there is no difference between the policies of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas." The frequent attempts to form the PLO-Hamas axis are based on their common strategic goal, while maintaining their tactical differences. Abbas' strategic goal -- the eradication of the Jewish state -- and tactics -- gradually, via diplomacy and terrorism -- are specified by the 2009 Fatah platform and the PLO's 1974 Phased, Step-by-Step Plan and 1964 Covenant. Both terror organizations are chaired by Abbas, who -- according to the 1993 Oslo Accord -- derives his power as the chairman of the Palestinian Authority from the PLO, which is the highest Palestinian authority! Fatah was established in 1959 and the PLO in 1964, before Israel reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria and before the establishment of the first Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria. Thus, the strategic goal of Abbas has been directed at pre-1967 Israel: Galilee, Negev, Tel Aviv and the coastal plain and Jerusalem. Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly that "occupation" began in 1948, not in 1967!

 

Abbas highlights the claim of return to the "1948 occupied areas," which explains his insistence to represent and release Israeli Arab terrorists. Being a devout Muslim, and a former top Muslim Brotherhood activist, Abbas emphasizes the principles of waqf -- the supposed divinely ordained Muslim right over any area previously controlled by Muslims -- and Hudaybiyyah, which considers agreements concluded with "infidels" a pragmatic, provisional stage to be breached on the way to bringing the enemy to submission and not to peaceful coexistence.

 

To achieve the strategic goal, Abbas has spoken softly, while carrying a horrendous stick of hate education in schools, mosques and media, brainwashing Palestinian society and running the most effective production line of terrorists. One's education is the most authentic reflection of one's values, ideology and strategic goal. Hence, the popularity of the anti-Semitic "Mein Kampf" and "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" on the Palestinian Street. Hence, the Abbas-driven Palestinian conventional wisdom: It's not the size -- but the existence -- of the Jewish state.

 

The central role played by terrorism in shaping Abbas' worldview is highlighted by his demand to release Palestinian terrorists who deliberately and systematically murdered, maimed and intimidated Israeli civilians; by providing monthly allowances to families of terrorists; and by naming streets, squares and soccer tournaments after terrorists.

Germany and Japan were transformed from hateful -- to peaceful -- countries by uprooting hate education and terror regimes, not by engaging and funding them.

 

Should the U.S. taxpayer continue funding the hate education system of Abbas, who caused the flight of Christians from the Bethlehem area, and who is known as "Mr. 20%" for his corruption?

Should Israel accept Abbas in view of the ferocity of Hamas' terrorism? Only if Jack the Ripper's vicious style made the Boston Strangler an acceptable member of society!

Yoram Ettinger

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=8253

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Pace Max Boot

by Peter Wehner


Here are five words I’m reluctant to write: I disagree with Max Boot.

In this case, however, I do. My views are much more in line with what Jonathan wrote here.
To be sure, I don’t disagree with Max on everything. I don’t disagree with his list of Obama foreign-policy blunders. I agree with him that (a) Republicans may not profit politically from investigating the events surrounding the deadly attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and (b) the public has been mostly indifferent to the story so far. I’m also confident that this story won’t help a GOP nominee defeat Hillary Clinton (assuming she’s the Democratic nominee). But the politics of this isn’t really the point, is it? The point is that a public trust has been violated; and laws may have been, too. On the latter, we need to wait and see. But what we know right now goes well beyond what Max calls “the same old Washington spinning that every administration engages in.”

What has occurred is not spinning; it is at minimum lying about the central role the White House played in misleading the American people in a terrorist attack that killed four Americans. And it now looks like there was an effort to cover up the White House’s role by intentionally hiding incriminating evidence from Congress by ignoring a subpoena.

Is that really just “the same old Washington spinning”?

An offense doesn’t have to be impeachable to be serious. And it’s impossible to say just how serious this matter is at this point without further investigation. Which is what Republicans are calling for. 
 
If those in the White House, including the president, repeatedly lied about what they knew weeks and months after they knew it, and if the administration covered up what they knew by ignoring a congressional subpoena, those actions actually do qualify as “real issues.”

Republicans shouldn’t obsess about attacks that occurred in Benghazi or prejudge things. But at this point, based on the revelations of this week, it strikes me as odd to argue how insignificant and what a distraction this story is. There are a lot of scandals, including even a two-bit burglary that seemed inconsequential before they were fully investigated.

Max is right. We’re not talking about Watergate. But we’re not talking about nothing, either.


Peter Wehner

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/05/02/pace-max-boot-benghazi/

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Free Press Challenged in the Middle East and in Washington, D.C.

by Michael Curtis



On May 1, 2014 Freedom House issued its latest Freedom of the Press report of 2013, assessing the degree of media freedom in 197 countries and territories in the calendar year. By chance, a few days earlier on April 29, 2014 a previously undisclosed email that had been sent on September 14, 2012 by Ben Rhodes, the deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications for President Barack Obama, to Susan Rice, then American Ambassador to the United Nations, was revealed.

The email was only made public after the NGO Judicial Watch asked for documents relating to the terrorist attack on September 11, 2012 on the U.S. Compound in Benghazi, Libya that led to the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others. That email gave talking points to Rice for her forthcoming Sunday five television appearances explaining the nature of the attack.

In spite of evidence to the contrary that the responsible party was an al Qaeda affiliated group, the key point by Rhodes was that Rice should “underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video, (a You Tube video that demeaned the Prophet Mohammed), and not a broader failure of policy.” With the revealing of his email it became clear that, in order not to hinder President Obama in the campaign for re-election in November, or perhaps to help the future electoral ambitions of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the White House had manipulated messages and information about the Benghazi attack to suggest it had been caused by a mob protest over the video, not by a well-planned terrorist attack.

Obvious political and partisan views will resound about the Obama administration’s disregard of the rule of law or its failure to adhere to legal obligations to provide information, or even about some inner conspiracy to protect the president. What is undeniable is the White House manipulation of information for political advantage, and the consequent misleading and obstruction of journalists.

In the Freedom House (FH) report an overall assessment is made of the ways in which pressure can be placed on the flow of independent information and the ability of all news outlets to operate freely. Among the issues covered are the degree of partisan control over news content and political influences on reporting and access to information. Following this general concept, the U.S. Congress has the obligation to mount investigations to ascertain why relevant documents were not made available to it when it began investigating the Benghazi attack.

The FH report does not of course directly address the Obama administration but it does indicate that the United States suffered a decline in press freedom. The given reasons were government attempts to control official information flows, particularly concerning national security-related issues, the legal harassment of journalists with regard to protection of sources, targeted wiretapping of media outlets, and surveillance of communications data by the National Security Agency.

The decline in press freedom, as Freedom House shows, is an increasing problem in a considerable part of the world. In its survey of the 197 countries, the FH report by using scores to 23 methodological questions rated the degree of media freedom, the control over the content of news, the physical harassment of journalists, the suppressing of sensitive stories, and the constraints on online news and social media.

The results were disappointing. States, partly because of economic crisis, have been adopting restrictive policies aimed at punishing and silencing journalists and impeding the free flow of information. Global press freedom has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade. Only 1 in 7 people live in a land with a totally free press. A total of 63 countries (32%), or 14 % of the world’s population, were rated free; 68 (35%) were rated partly free, and 66 (33%), or 44% of the world’s population, were rated not free. The worst countries were Belarus, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Some countries in the European Union particularly Greece and Spain, showed a deterioration of press freedom, and the worst were Croatia, Hungary, and Romania. Other countries in Europe, including Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Netherlands, were among the best in the world.

The findings of the report on Middle East countries are not surprising. Only one country, Israel, is rated as having a free press. Four others, Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, and Kuwait, are rated as partly free, and the other14 are rated as not free. The worst five are, in order, Iran, Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This means that only 2 % of the region’s people (Israelis) live in free media environments, 14 % in partly free, and 84 % in territories designated as not free,

In the Middle East, gains in freedom had been made for a while in the Arab Spring in countries like Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. But then conditions deteriorated. In Libya, journalists were threatened, kidnapped, and even killed. Penal and civil codes were used to bring defamation charges against them. In Egypt, military authorities closed both television and print outlets, and targeted and arrested local and foreign journalists. In Tunisia, the number of legal cases, relating to libel laws, increased against journalists, and very high license renewal fees threatened to undermine independent radio stations.

Israel was by far the best country in the region for freedom with its free and pluralistic press. The report did indicate challenges that remain there: military censorship; gag orders to restrict coverage; some limits on freedom of movement of journalists. Obviously no one is perfect, and the report emphasized that in Israel there were no serious legal charges and fewer reported cases of physical attacks or harassment against journalists.

All this is a message to journalists covering the Middle East. Not surprisingly, most of them make their base in Israel. Now that they have accurate information, can one expect more stories from them about the real degree of freedom in the countries they cover?


Michael Curtis is author of Jews, Antisemitism, and the Middle East.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/free_press_challenged_in_the_middle_east_and_in_washington_dc.html

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Arab Writers call for Learning from Israel’s Technology, Democracy and Morality

by Ariel ben Solomon

Despite the fact that the Arab media often uses harsh and insulting rhetoric describing Israel or Jews, occasional articles by their intellectuals praise Israel for its achievements.

Lawmakers gather for a session in the Knesset. Photo: REUTERS

Despite the fact that the Arab media often uses harsh and insulting rhetoric describing Israel or Jews, occasional articles by their intellectuals praise Israel for its achievements.

Such articles mainly compliment Israel for its hi-tech and urge Arab countries to learn from it, explains a new report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which compiled these types of pieces over the past year.

Abdullah Bakheet, a Saudi columnist, tweeted last April that unlike the Arabs, “the Jews help create civilization and are not [merely] consuming it.”

“The culture [whose technology] we use to communicate, whose air conditioners we sleep under, whose hospitals we are treated in, and whose cement roofs we pray under, is the culture of the Jews and the Crusaders,” he said.

In February and March of last year, Kuwaiti writer Omar Altabtabaee published three pro-Israel articles, which explained how Israel gained superiority over the region despite its lack of resources.

“Have you ever asked yourself how the small entity called Israel managed to hold the entire world in its palm? Instead of continually cursing the entire world, have you tried to understand how Israel made all those achievements in all areas?” he wrote.

Israel attracts great Jewish minds from all around the world, said Altabtabaee according to the report, adding in another article that “Israel is an entity that lives beside us, has a climate similar to ours, and if we look a bit further we will discover that this entity has no natural resources – and despite all this, it surpasses us!... This entity knows that education is the basis of society and the basis of its culture and unity.”

Egyptian writer Ali Khamis wrote in the Al-Wafd newspaper during the rule of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi, “Jewish revolutions are scientific and Arab ones are tragic. This is the painful truth and the bitter harvest that we have reaped from the winds of the Arab Spring that tore us apart.”

Iraqi writer Mahdi Majid Abdallah wrote an article, titled “Arabs and Muslims should learn from Israeli morality,” on the Elaph website last year.

“I have suffered and still suffer from emotional complexes I inherited from the Arab and Islamic society in which I have lived for a long time.

[These complexes] planted the idea in the heart of society that the Jews are the most lowly and cowardly people and that no one believes them; that they are traitorous, hypocritical, narcissistic, and strive to corrupt nations and peoples; [that they are] a people that anger Allah, and a jealous and resentful people that does not wish well for mankind.... As time passed, and after I met a group of Jewish men and women up close, the fog lifted and the basic assumptions that were solid facts in my mind crumbled and quickly became lies,” he said, according to MEMRI.

Abdallah goes on to mention that Palestinians get medical treatment in Israel. “Would any Arab country agree to treat Israelis this way? Of course [not].”

He also praised Israeli democracy.

“When you watch sessions of the Israeli Knesset, you can see the freedom that Arab MKs enjoy, [despite] their harsh criticism of the Israeli government and even the entire Israeli regime.”

Ariel ben Solomon

Source: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Arab-writers-call-for-learning-from-Israels-technology-democracy-and-morality-351122

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PM Pushes Legislation Enshrining Israel's Jewish Status

by Shlomo Cesana, Gideon Allon, Edna Adato, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Housing Minister Uri Ariel pledges to push Jewish state legislation forward in current Knesset session • Justice Minister Tzipi Livni: "I have opposed these initiatives in the past and I will do so even if the proposal is coming from the prime minister." 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

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Photo credit: AP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu | Photo credit: AP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he plans to promote legislation that will enshrine the country's status as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

"I will promote a basic law that will define Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. I believe that it is appropriate that the most basic ingredient of our national life will get a constitutional status, similar to other integral ingredients which our regime is founded upon that until today were defined in the Knesset's basic laws," Netanyahu said in a speech in Tel Aviv.

Speaking at the site where Israel's Declaration of Independence was signed, Netanyahu said legislation was necessary. Israel's constitution is not codified in a single document, but a series of foundational "basic laws" describe central tenets of the state, define the roles of various government institutions, and protect civil rights.

"The Declaration of Independence sets, as the cornerstone in the life of the state, the national Jewish identity of the state of Israel," he said. "To my great regret, as we have seen recently, there are those who do not recognize this natural right. They seek to undermine the historic, moral and legal justification for the existence of the state of Israel as the national state of our people."

The "Jewish state" matter emerged as one of the major gaps between the sides in recent talks that broke down. Netanyahu has made it his central demand of the Palestinians to prove they are willing to coexist peacefully with such a state. But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says such an endorsement would undermine the rights of Palestinian refugees and Israel's own Arab minority.

Netanyahu, in his address, pledged that Israel will always "ensure full equality in the personal and social rights of all its citizens - Jews and non-Jews alike - in a Jewish and democratic state."

Addressing the peace process, Netanyahu said, "You cannot be in favor of establishing a Palestinian national state in order to preserve the Jewish character of the state of Israel and at the same time oppose recognition of Israel as a state for the Jewish people."

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who has tasked law professor Ruth Gavison with drafting an alternative to the controversial Jewish state law, came out against the prime minister's statement. "I will not allow [the state's] democratic values to be weakened and to bow to Jewish [values] -- that is the essence of the Declaration of Independence and the basis of our existence," Livni said. "I have opposed these initiatives in the past and I will do so even if the proposal is coming from the prime minister."

Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog (Labor) reacted to Netanyahu's pledge as well, saying, "Labor completely supports a Jewish and democratic Israel. Unfortunately, the political destruction coming from Netanyahu's school will cause us to lose the Jewish majority and to turn Israel into a binational state. This sad fact cannot be hidden behind any law."

Housing Minister Uri Ariel supported Netanyahu's initiative, saying, "We will work to move [the law] forward quickly, in the current Knesset session.

"I am sorry about the justice minister's opposition to this law," he added. "It is inappropriate. The negotiations did not succeed, but she is not to blame."

Coalition Chairman Yariv Levin, who presented the Jewish state bill along with MK Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi), was pleased to hear Netanyahu's announcement. "This is a historic decision that will return Israel to the Zionist path after years of ongoing attacks from the justice system on the basic principles upon which the sate was founded," said Levin.

The legislation promoted by Netanyahu is similar to a bill former MK Avi Dichter (Kadima) put forward in the past, which Livni also opposed.
 

Shlomo Cesana, Gideon Allon, Edna Adato, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=17245

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