Facebook's War on Freedom of Speech - Douglas Murray

by Douglas Murray

• Facebook is now removing speech that presumably almost everybody might decide is racist -- along with speech that only someone at Facebook decides is "racist."
• The sinister reality of a society in which the expression of majority opinion is being turned into a crime has already been seen across Europe. Just last week came reports of Dutch citizens being visited by the police and warned about posting anti-mass-immigration sentiments on social media.
• In lieu of violence, speech is one of the best ways for people to vent their feelings and frustrations. Remove the right to speak about your frustrations and only violence is left.
• The lid is being put on the pressure cooker at precisely the moment that the heat is being turned up. A true "initiative for civil courage" would explain to both Merkel and Zuckerberg that their policy can have only one possible result.

It was only a few weeks ago that Facebook was forced to back down when caught permitting anti-Israel postings, but censoring equivalent anti-Palestinian postings.

Now one of the most sinister stories of the past year was hardly even reported. In September, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook at a UN development summit in New York. As they sat down, Chancellor Merkel's microphone, still on, recorded Merkel asking Zuckerberg what could be done to stop anti-immigration postings being written on Facebook. She asked if it was something he was working on, and he assured her it was.

At the time, perhaps the most revealing aspect of this exchange was that the German Chancellor -- at the very moment that her country was going through one of the most significant events in its post-war history -- should have been spending any time worrying about how to stop public dislike of her policies being vented on social media. But now it appears that the discussion yielded consequential results.

Last month, Facebook launched what it called an "Initiative for civil courage online," the aim of which, it claims, is to remove "hate speech" from Facebook -- specifically by removing comments that "promote xenophobia." Facebook is working with a unit of the publisher Bertelsmann, which aims to identify and then erase "racist" posts from the site. The work is intended particularly to focus on Facebook users in Germany. At the launch of the new initiative, Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, explained that, "Hate speech has no place in our society -- not even on the internet." She went to say that, "Facebook is not a place for the dissemination of hate speech or incitement to violence." Of course, Facebook can do what it likes on its own website. What is troubling is what this organization of effort and muddled thinking reveals about what is going on in Europe.

The mass movement of millions of people -- from across Africa, the Middle East and further afield -- into Europe has happened in record time and is a huge event in its history. As events in Paris, Cologne and Sweden have shown, it is also by no means a series of events only with positive connotations.

As well as being fearful of the security implications of allowing in millions of people whose identities, beliefs and intentions are unknown and -- in such large numbers -- unknowable, many Europeans are deeply concerned that this movement heralds an irreversible alteration in the fabric of their society. Many Europeans do not want to become a melting pot for the Middle East and Africa, but want to retain something of their own identities and traditions. Apparently, it is not just a minority who feel concern about this. Poll after poll shows a significant majority of the public in each and every European country opposed to immigration at anything like the current rate.

The sinister thing about what Facebook is doing is that it is now removing speech that presumably almost everybody might consider racist -- along with speech that only someone at Facebook decides is "racist."

And it just so happens to turn out that, lo and behold, this idea of "racist" speech appears to include anything critical of the EU's current catastrophic immigration policy.

By deciding that "xenophobic" comment in reaction to the crisis is also "racist," Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people (who, it must be stressed, are opposed to Chancellor Merkel's policies) into "racist" views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as "racist." This is a policy that will do its part in pushing Europe into a disastrous future.

Because even if some of the speech Facebook is so scared of is in some way "xenophobic," there are deep questions as to why such speech should be banned. In lieu of violence, speech is one of the best ways for people to vent their feelings and frustrations. Remove the right to speak about your frustrations, and only violence is left. Weimar Germany -- to give just one example -- was replete with hate-speech laws intended to limit speech the state did not like. These laws did nothing whatsoever to limit the rise of extremism; it only made martyrs out of those it pursued, and persuaded an even larger number of people that the time for talking was over.

The sinister reality of a society in which the expression of majority opinion is being turned into a crime has already been seen across Europe. Just last week, reports from the Netherlands told of Dutch citizens being visited by the police and warned about posting anti-mass-immigration sentiments on Twitter and other social media.

In this toxic mix, Facebook has now -- knowingly or unknowingly -- played its part. The lid is being put on the pressure cooker at precisely the moment that the heat is being turned up. A true "initiative for civil courage" would explain to both Merkel and Zuckerberg that their policy can have only one possible result.

• Follow Douglas Murray on Twitter

Douglas Murray, a British writer, journalist and commentator, is based in London, England.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7371/facebook-freedom-of-speech

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

Using the Left's own tactics against it - Dror Eydar

by Dror Eydar

Hat tip: Jean-Charles Bensoussan

The Israeli Left has made its opinion of democracy very clear: It just gets in the way if they're not in power • That is why the Left is turning to the international community for help and dismissing anyone in Israel who didn't vote "correctly."

A voting booth in 1977, the year the Right rose to power for the first time since the establishment of Israel | Photo credit: Yaakov Saar / GPO

1. Two weeks ago, Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken penned an op-ed that should have sparked more controversy than a thousand radical right-wing campaigns. In the article, titled "Only international pressure will end Israeli apartheid," Schocken concluded, as though it were a given, that Israel is an apartheid state and has been an apartheid state for 50 years. Schocken didn't explain how he arrived at this conclusion, nor did it appear that he cares one iota about the history of apartheid as it played out in South Africa. The falsehood that Israel is an apartheid state was mentioned 23 times in his article, as though it was pure truth. And since Schocken does not think that Israel will be convinced to change its policy (as though it were really up to us), he believes that any of the measures that were taken against the apartheid regime in South Africa are applicable to Israel. He justified Israelis who take action against Israel around the world, though even he admits that Israel's policy was shaped by a "democratically elected government." So how can he justify such things? Simple (this is the rationale that guides many of the leftist organizations): "Any government whose policy is apartheid, which is patently anti-democratic, forfeits the right to make claims in democracy's name." We have the right to remain silent.

I attended a conference at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute this week, where I heard former head of the Civil Service Commission Itzhak Galnoor saying "If the government decided to stop playing by the rules of democracy, then I have too. I choose the radical option." And what is that option? Nonviolent civil rebellion. He justified urging the international community to come in and rescue us, the same way the world rescued other societies from "dark" regimes throughout history -- Japan, Germany, parts of eastern Europe and, of course, South Africa. This to "restore democracy's glory." 

For a moment I felt like I was listening to a dinosaur -- a vestige of the worst parts of the Mapai hegemony. He and Schocken and their gang are trying to dictate to us what democracy is, and if we fail to fall into line, they will call in the "international community" to put things in order around here.

2. Through the years, the Left has become a fanatic religious cult: It has its own heteronomic rules, dictated by some god (they must be, considering that the Left views them as absolute truth), and they outweigh the rules of man and the opinion of the majority. The Left's totalitarianism also comes from the same source: Despite talking ceaselessly about human rights, there are no humans there, only ideas. But Schocken's sentiments, which have been translated and distributed around the world, are far more dangerous. Short of inviting the terrorists of the world to come and butcher us, he said it all. 

In his 1983 book "How Democracies Perish," philosopher Jean Francois Revel spoke about the "industry of blame," a clever mechanism whereby the West has adopted a one-sided view of its own historical guilt. Revel described the clash between the Soviet Union and the West like a soccer game, in which one of the teams -- the West -- restricted itself from going beyond the half court line. Today, the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist movements (as well as parts of Europe) play the role of the Soviet Union in this scenario, while the leftist organizations are helping them fight against Israel. 

And yet, there is one difference: While peace organizations were taking internal action to weaken their own countries' stance against the Soviets, the American and British citizens were able to walk around the streets of their cities without fearing for their safety. The price that the West would pay for internal Soviet support seemed far off. But that is not the case in Israel today. Left wing activists are waging endless campaigns around the world, telling our enemies and our haters that they are indeed justified in hating us. And since Israel's demonic image is growing stronger, because, after all, the evidence of our demonic nature is being presented by some of our own, it is becoming ever more legitimate to murder Jews. Can we honestly say that our enemies care about human rights? 

3. For many years, the veteran elite in Israel did whatever it wanted with the country. The people didn't really intervene, even if they did vote for rival political parties. It is true that the elite has been ousted from government, but in other fields -- academia, the media, the court system, the justice system, culture and art -- are still dominated by the old hegemony. Professor Menachem Mautner demonstrated that since the political upset of 1977 (when the right-wing Likud was elected to replace the left-wing government for the first time since the establishment of the state), the Left has relocated its political battleground from the Knesset to the courthouse. I will add that it is not just there -- the Left has found various ways of bypassing the Israeli democracy. Left wing organizations are the executive branch of this idea: Forcing Israeli society to accept the political dictates of a minority that was once all powerful and is now desperately clinging to positions of power. 

With time, the silent majority began coming out of its coma. The Right learned to emulate the Right's modus operandi. Parallel organizations were established and methods were imitated. The more experience the Right amassed, the more sophisticated these methods became. Now, the same methods that the Left once employed against the IDF and the state, were being employed against the Left itself. Documentation, exposure, counter espionage, campaigns, manipulation of the media and even a growing utilization of the court system. 

A large portion of the leftist organizations' power comes from the fact that they disguise themselves as apolitical, philanthropic and altruistic. After all, they are only concerned with "human rights," not politics. The Right has now exposed them for what they truly are -- political organizations, and in certain cases, even non-humanist political organizations.

For decades the Left has made sure to label its political and ideological rivals as abnormal -- settlers, extreme rightists, messianic Jews, parasite ultra-Orthodox, nationalistic, fascists, neo-Nazis, idol worshippers, grave kissers, and so on. Now the tables have turned a bit. The Left now finds itself in the eye of the storm and is forced to face the delegitimization doled out by its rivals, as they use the Left's own methods against them. The saying "you've made your bed, now lie in it" may very well apply in this case. 

4. In the debate over the memory of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the significance of the murder, in my view, is that violence was used as a tool of political coercion. The murderous violence that Yigal Amir, Rabin's assassin, employed, was enacted against the majority opinion. This is the most fundamental principle of a democratic society. It is not just as Pirkei Avot says, "If it weren't for the fear of government, men would swallow each other alive"; it is imperative to agree on a set of rules in this infrastructure of "fear of government." The majority determines the future while considering the needs of the minority. But on truly big questions, there is no better way to decide than majority rules. The most fateful agreement adopted in Israel since the 1948 War of Independence -- the agreement to divide the land as it was formulated in Oslo -- was adopted by a majority of one vote (dissenters from the opposition). And still, this one vote gave the government the power to pursue a historical, extremely dangerous endeavor. Amir assassinated this principle, without which we have no state -- not one we want to live in or fight for.

In this regard, some leftist organizations are essentially upholding Amir's legacy. They are assassinating the idea of majority rules. And since no decision has been made regarding the future of the state, and the Left's path in the opposition appears long and arduous, a large portion of the what was once the leading elite is turning to the world for assistance. Just like in the first century BCE, the modern day Aristobulus and Hyrcanus are bringing Rome into Jerusalem to decide between them, thereby putting the Jews in danger of losing their independence and sovereignty. This time, it will not happen.

Dror Eydar

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=31597&hp=1

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

A trip along the Gaza border, where Hamas is rebuilding its tunnels - Matan Tzuri

by Matan Tzuri

Tunnel entrances dozens of meters from the fence, fortified Hamas military positions and a cement factory - all is out in the open, right across the Gaza border; MK Yellin: 'We're in a race with Hamas, and we must not lose.'

There is complete silence on the Gaza border these days, but it's mostly because both sides are focused on their work. On the one side of the border, Israel is drilling into the ground in an effort to locate tunnels that cross into Israeli territory, and on the other side Hamas is clearing out areas to dig tunnels.

"We're in a race with Hamas on who will get there first: Israel with a technological development to locate tunnels, or Hamas succeeding in crossing the border and opening an entrance into Israel for the terrorists. That is the big question, and in this race we must not lose," said MK Haim Yellin.
In the wake of the collapse of two tunnels near the border area over the past week, and Hamas' admittance that the tunnel "enterprise" was working at full speed ahead, we left in an armored vehicle for a drive along the Gaza border. MK Haim Yellin (Yesh Atid), a resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz and the former head of the Eshkol Regional Council, joined us on this trip, taken from north to south.
About a year and a half after Operation Protective Edge, Hamas is once again back on its feet, and then some. The line of Hamas military posts is only dozens of meters from the border fence, about 500 meters from one another. These posts are fortified with concrete and sandbags. Opposite the Hamas posts is an IDF pillbox, currently manned by fighters from the Golani Brigade. One facing the other, at loggerheads.

At loggerheads: Hamas military positions facing IDF pillbox (Photo: Roee Idan)

These Hamas posts serve several functions: Primarily, they are there to observe the area. Somewhere around these posts there's a tunnel opening, that God only knows where it ends. Across the border in the central Gaza Strip, we could see a cement factory, near the fence. Right next to it is a levee between two Hamas posts.
There are mounds, at the center of which there is a pit that used to be an entrance to a tunnel which was blown up by the IDF. Hamas is digging again, rebuilding, and preparing for the next round for fighting.
Opposite that, the IDF is operating drills to locate tunnels and conducting tests.

IDF digging, looking for tunnels (Photo: EPA)

Hamas, it would seem, is showing no signs of fear. Its line of military positions along the border is part of its psychological warfare, and a way to send out a message that the organization's fighters are present on the ground.

Hamas fighters are speeding between the posts on motorcycles, patrolling, and providing equipment to the guards at the posts. They're doing all of this in order to get the IDF's attention, in the hopes the IDF lookouts fail to identify their main mission - the digging of tunnels.

Hamas military positions along the border (Photo: Roee Idan)

On the eve of the end of Operation Protective Edge, the IDF declared that if Hamas resumes digging, it would serve as justification for ground operations.
"We've lost the deterrence sooner than expected," Yellin said. "There's a policy for the rocket fire - an IAF strike for every rocket fired. But what about the tunnels? There's no response and no policy. Nor is there a policy for the rest of the threats - like the military posts. They built their positions based on our model, the same size. We can see mounds of dirt, and a factory to manufacture basic materials for iron and concrete. This is what they're using to build the tunnels. This is a completely absurd reality. They can do whatever they want, it's an absurd situation. It's all out in the open, and all of this has been developing over the past six months."

ISIS flag flying next to the Palestinian flag at a military position in central Gaza (Photo: Roee Idan)

And there is one threat that is already dozens of meters away from the fence in the central Gaza Strip: The Islamic State group. Opposite one of the Israeli communities on the Gaza border, a fortified post was erected with a black flag, alongside the Palestinian flag.


Matan Tzuri

Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4762403,00.html

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

When Advisers Hate Israel - Joseph Klein

by Joseph Klein

The dark narrative in Hillary's emails.

Hillary Clinton has tried to portray herself as a steadfast friend of Israel. “I have stood with Israel my entire career,” she wrote in an article appearing last November in The Forward. “As president, I will continue this fight.” She promised that she would “invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.”

Hillary Clinton’s steadfast support for the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran calls into question her stated “personal commitment” to “fighting for Israel.” Peace and security in the region are not enhanced by a loophole ridden deal with a fanatical Islamist regime sworn to Israel’s destruction and to exporting its self-described “Islamic revolution” around the world.

Perhaps even more disturbing is what we have learned so far from the disclosure of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail system, which she recklessly used while serving as Secretary of State. Certain e-mails from her closest advisers that have been made public reveal the barrage of anti-Israel counsel she was receiving.

“These emails seem to demonstrate that a huge segment of her close advisers and confidantes were attacking Israel, condemning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and strategizing how to force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria at all costs,” the Jerusalem Post concluded after reviewing the e-mails.

Moreover, Hillary was not just a passive recipient. In some cases, she indicated an interest in pursuing further the ideas she was receiving.

For example, Anne Marie Slaughter, Hillary Clinton’s director of policy planning from 2009 to 2011, wrote the following to Hillary:

“This may be a crazy idea.... Suppose we launched a ‘Pledge for Palestine’ campaign... Such a campaign among billionaires/multi-millionaires around the world would reflect a strong vote of confidence in the building of a Palestinian state...There would also be a certain shaming effect re Israelis who, would be building settlements in the face of a pledge for peace.”

Why didn’t Hillary Clinton, who professes a lifelong “personal commitment” to “fighting for Israel,” firmly reject such an absurd idea out of hand or simply ignore it? Instead, Clinton actually welcomed the suggestion, writing back to Ms. Slaughter: ““I am very interested- pls flesh out. Thx.”

Thomas Pickering, former US ambassador to Israel during the Reagan administration and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs during President Bill Clinton’s second term, also provided some peculiar e-mail advice to Hillary Clinton regarding the Israeli-Palestinian situation. He would later chair the State Department’s official Benghazi inquiry, which he said had concluded that Clinton performed “responsibly and well.”

In an e-mail dated December 18, 2011, Pickering asked Clinton’s aide Cheryl Mills to forward on to Hillary his bizarre suggestion to encourage behind the scenes Palestinian “peaceful” demonstrations against Israeli “occupation.” The demonstrations should be led by women, he advised.

Citing the protests at Tahrir Square as a model, Pickering suggested “peaceful demonstrations against all aspects of the occupation on the Palestinian sides — roadblocks, land confiscations, new settlement activity, around military government installations and perhaps in Area C which they do not control.”

Pickering further advised against any public role for the United States.  “Most of all the United States, in my view, cannot be seen to have stimulated, encouraged or be the power behind it for reasons you will understand better than anyone,” he warned.

Hillary was interested enough in Pickering’s proposal that she instructed her aide Monica Hanley to “Pls. Print.”

Hillary Clinton’s informal adviser Sidney Blumenthal send her a stream of e-mails offering his anti-Israeli viewpoint. In one memo he sent Clinton, for example, he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “stage managing US Jewish organizations (and neocons, and the religious right, and whomever else he can muster) against the administration.” Clinton had asked Blumenthal for his advice on her upcoming speech to AIPAC.

Blumenthal sent another e-mail to Clinton on May 31, 2010 regarding Israel’s military boarding of one of the Gaza flotilla ships on the way to break Israel’s self-defense blockade. Blumenthal wrote that the Israeli action would have negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy and security as well as causing “the death of the peace process.” Hillary Clinton forwarded Blumenthal’s message to Jake Sullivan, her deputy chief of staff at the State Department, with her note “FYI and itys” (Internet slang for I told you so).

These are just a few samplings of anti-Israel advice that Hillary Clinton was receiving from her trusted advisers while she was Secretary of State. However, still shrouded in secrecy is advice that Muslim Brotherhood-linked Huma Abedin, a key part of Hillary’s inner circle of advisers, both at the State Department and now in her presidential campaign, was communicating to Hillary. She was directly connected with Hillary’s private e-mail system.

Only by having public access to all of Huma Abedin’s e-mail exchanges with her boss can we understand the extent to which Abedin influenced Clinton’s positive attitude towards the Muslim Brotherhood and the Muslim Brotherhood-backed former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.  We already know that Huma Abedin’s mother, with whom Huma worked for years at the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs as assistant editor of its journal before joining the Department of State, served together with Morsi’s wife on the Guidance Bureau of the Muslim Sisterhood.

In her 2014 book Hard Choices, Hillary singled out Morsi for praise. “Morsi helped me negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that holds to this day,” Clinton wrote in a caption under a picture of Clinton and Morsi looking into each other’s eyes during their get together in Cairo. She was referring to ceasefire negotiations that Morsi brokered on behalf of his Hamas buddies in November 2012. All that Hillary’s negotiating partner really accomplished was to give Hamas breathing room to stockpile more sophisticated rockets and build terror tunnels in a lead up to the war that broke out just a month or so after Hillary’s book was published.

Either Hillary Clinton did not do her homework on Morsi before she partnered with him or she simply did not care. Morsi’s hatred for Israel was there for all to see.

For example, Morsi said back in 2010, before becoming Egypt’s president, that the Palestinian Authority was a creation of "the Zionist and American enemies for the sole purpose of opposing the will of the Palestinian people.”  He rejected negotiations as "a waste of time and opportunities" and called instead for “military resistance.” He referred to Israelis as "descendants of apes and pigs."  And, just like Hamas, Morsi rejected Israel’s right to exist:  "The Zionists have no right to the land of Palestine,” Morsi said. “What they took before 1947-8 constitutes plundering, and what they are doing now is a continuation of this plundering. By no means do we recognize their Green Line. The land of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, not to the Zionists."

Hillary Clinton must be judged as a candidate for president of the United States by her actions and by the circle of close advisers she has relied upon, not by her promises made during the campaign. By this standard, Hillary Clinton cannot be trusted to stand by Israel against the mortal enemies surrounding the Jewish state.


Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261728/when-advisers-hate-israel-joseph-klein

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

A (Much) Better Year - Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick

Why Obama is acting with such urgency in his hostility to Israel and attachment to Islam.

 
On Wednesday the U.S. media interrupted its saturation coverage of the presidential primaries to report on President Barack Obama’s visit to a mosque in Maryland. The visit was Obama’s first public one to a mosque in the US since entering the White House seven years ago. The mosque Obama chose to visit demonstrated once again that his views of radical Islam are deeply problematic.

Obama visited the Islamic Society of Baltimore, a mosque with longstanding ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. During Operation Protective Edge, the leaders of the mosque accused Israel of genocide and demanded that the administration end US support for the Jewish state.

According to The Daily Caller, the mosque’s former imam Mohammad Adam el-Sheikh was active in the Islamic American Relief Agency, a charity deemed a terror group in 2004 after the US Treasury Department determined it had transferred funds to Osama bin Laden, Hamas, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

El-Sheikh left the Baltimore mosque to take over the Dar el-Hijra mosque in northern Virginia. He replaced Anwar al-Awlaki as imam after Awlaki moved to Yemen in 2003. In Yemen Awlaki rose to become a senior al-Qaida commander.

Awlaki radicalized many American jihadists both through direct contact and online. He radicalized US Army major Nidal Malik Hasan, and inspired him to carry out the 2009 massacre of 13 US soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood in Texas. Awlaki was killed by a US drone strike in 2011.

In 2010, a member of the Islamic Society of Baltimore was arrested for planning to attack an army recruiting office. According to the Mediaite news portail, the mosque reportedly refused to cooperate with the FBI in its investigation.

Obama’s visit to the radical mosque now is a clear signal of how he intends to spend his last year in office. It tells us that during this period, Obama will adopt ever more extreme positions regarding radical Islam.

Obama’s apologetics for radical Islamists is the flipside of his hostility for Israel. This too is escalating and will continue to rise through the end of his tenure in office.

The US Customs authority’s announcement last week that it will begin enforcing a 20-yearold decision to require goods imported from Judea and Samaria to be labeled “Made in the West Bank,” rather than “Made in Israel,” signals Obama’s intentions. So, too, it is abundantly clear that France’s plan to use the UN Security Council to dictate Israel’s borders was coordinated in advance with the Obama administration.

Part of the reason Obama is acting with such urgency and intensity is that he knows that regardless of who is elected to replace him, the next president will not be as viscerally hostile to Israel or as emotionally attached to Islam as he is.

On the Democratic side, neither candidate is a particularly energetic supporter of Israel or counter- jihad warrior. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s recently released email discussions of Israel with her closest advisers indicate that all of Clinton’s closest counselors are hostile to Israel.

For his part, Vermont’s socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders harbors the far Left’s now standard anti-Israel attitudes. Not only did Sanders – like Clinton – support Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. He boycotted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before the Joint Houses of Congress where Netanyahu laid out Israel’s reasons for opposing the deal. Sanders gave television interviews condemning Netanyahu for making the speech, accusing him of electioneering on the back of the US Congress. Sanders criticized Israel during Operation Protective Edge and supports decreasing US military aid to Israel.

For all their anti-Israel sensibilities, though, neither Clinton nor Sanders gives the impression that they are driven by them as Obama is.

Unlike Obama, neither appear to be animated by their hostility toward Israel. Neither seem to be passionate in their support for Muslim Brotherhood- affiliated groups or in their desire to realign the US away from Israel, from its traditional Arab allies and toward Iran. This lack of passion makes it safe to assume that if elected president, while they will adopt anti-Israel policies, they will not seek out ways to weaken Israel or strengthen its sworn enemies.

On the Republican side, the situation is entirely different. All of the Republican presidential candidates are pro-Israel. To be sure, some are more pro-Israel than others. Sen. Ted Cruz, for instance, is more supportive than his competitors. But all of the Republicans candidates are significantly more supportive of Israel than the Democratic candidates. So it is simply an objective fact that Israel will be better off if a Republican is elected in November no matter who he is and no matter who the Democratic candidate is.

It hasn’t always been this way. And it doesn’t have to remain this way.

Back in 1992 when Bill Clinton was running against George H.W. Bush, if Israel was your issue, you voted for Clinton because he was rightly viewed as more pro-Israel than Bush.

Twenty-four years ago, supporting Israel carried no cost for Clinton. According to Gallup, in 1992, 52 percent of Democrats were pro-Israel.

On the other hand, Bush was probably harmed somewhat for the widespread perception that he was anti-Israel. In 1992, 62% of Republicans were pro-Israel.

Over the past 15 years, the situation has altered considerably.

Today, Republicans are near unanimous in their support for Israel. According to a Gallup poll from February 2015, 83% of Republicans support Israel.

Only 48% of Democrats do. From 2014 to 2015, Democratic support for Israel plunged 10 points.

The cleavage on Israel is particularly acute among partisan elites.

Last summer, pollster Frank Luntz conducted a survey of US elite partisan opinion on Israel. His data were devastating. According to Luntz’s data, 76% of Democratic elite believe that Israel has too much influence over US foreign policy. Only 20% of Republicans do.

Nearly half (47%) of highly educated, wealthy and politically active Democrats think that Israel is a racist country. Thirteen percent of their Republican counterparts agree.

And whereas only 48% of Democrats believe that Israel wants peace, 88% of Republicans believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors.

These trends affect voting habits. According to Luntz, while only 18% of Democrats say they would be more likely to vote for a politician who supports Israel, 31% said they are less likely to vote for a pro-Israel candidate. In contrast, 76% of Republicans say they want their representatives to support Israel.

Forty-five percent of Democrats said they would be more likely to vote for a politician who is critical of Israel and 75% of Republicans said they would be less likely to vote for an anti-Israel candidate.

These data tell us two important things. Today Democratic candidates will gain nothing and may lose significant support if they support Israel.

In contrast, a Republican who opposes Israel will have a hard time getting elected, much less winning a primary.

Partisan sensibilities aren’t the only reason that Israel is will be better off if a Republican wins in November. There is also the issue of policy continuity.

Even though neither Clinton nor Sanders share Obama’s anti-Israel passion, their default position will be to maintain his policies. Traditionally, when an outgoing president is replaced by a successor from his own party, many of his foreign policy advisers stay on to serve his successor.

Moreover, if American voters elect a Democrat to succeed Obama, their decision will rightly be viewed as a vote of confidence in his policies.

Obama has radicalized the Democratic Party in his seven years in office. When Obama was inaugurated, the Blue Dog caucus of conservative Democratic members of the House of Representatives had 54 members. Today only 14 remain.

Obama’s Democratic Party is not Bill Clinton’s party.

A party that isn’t forced to pay a price for its policies isn’t likely to change them. If the Democrats are not defeated in the run for the White House in November, their party will not reassess its shift to radicalism and reconsider its increasingly hostile stance on Israel.

That then brings us to the state of the presidential race following the Iowa caucuses and ahead of next Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire. The Iowa caucuses showed a significant gap in enthusiasm among partisan voters. Participation rates in the Republican caucuses were unprecedented.

Cruz shattered the record for vote getting in the state that saw participation rates up 30% from 2012. On the Democratic side, participation rates were below the 2008 level.

On the Republican side, the three top candidates – Cruz, businessman Donald Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio – are all backed by committed, fervent supporters. On the Democratic side, Clinton’s supporters are reportedly diffident about her. And while Sanders enjoys enthusiastic support from voters under 45, he can’t seem to convince people who actually know what socialism is to support him.

If Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, on the face of it, it is difficult to see his path to victory in the general election. Whereas Obama was elected by hiding his radical positions, Sanders is running openly as a socialist and attacks Obama from the Left. Whether America is a center-right or center-left country, the undisputed truth is that it is a centrist country.

As for Clinton, the likelihood grows by the day that by the general election, her inability to inspire her base will be the least of her problems.

The FBI’s ongoing probe of her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state is devastating her chances of getting elected.

The State Department’s revelation last week that 22 of Clinton’s emails were too classified to be released, even with parts blacked out, makes it impossible to dismiss the prospect that she will be indicted for serious felony offenses. Yet, as Jonah Goldberg argued Wednesday in National Review, with her narrow victory in Iowa, Clinton blocked the opening for a less damaged candidate – like Vice President Joe Biden or former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg – to step into the race.

In other words, the Republican nominee will have an energized base and will face either a legally challenged or openly socialist Democratic opponent.

According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, before Obama visited the Islamic Society of Baltimore, he asked the FBI for its opinion of the mosque. FBI investigators informed Obama of the mosque’s ties to terrorism. They urged him not to confer it with the legitimacy that comes with a presidential visit.

Obama ignored the FBI’s advice.

The next 11 months will be miserable for Israel.

But we should take heart. By all accounts, next year will be better. And judging by the way the presidential race is shaping up, next year may be a much, much better year.


Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261729/much-better-year-caroline-glick

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

The threat of a Super-EMP - Amil Imani

by Amil Imani

The threat is thanks to North Korea, but Iran is reported to have a base just south of the Chinese border.

James Hyde co-authored this two-part article. For part one, click here.

It’s a staggering prediction, something reminiscent of a post-apocalyptic, mega-disaster movie that has the winnowing characters scavenging for anything they can in a desperate search for water and food. But this is no movie, and it isn’t fiction. This frightening estimate has the consensus of the U.S. government, well-known, pro-electric-grid “protectionists” screaming into the winds of congressional resistance, and a number of think tanks that follow this issue closely.

Peter Pry, a former CIA analyst and executive director of the congressionally chartered EMP Commission shared the estimate with Newsmax:

“‘Within 12 months of an EMP attack or a massive solar flare between two-thirds to 90 percent of the U.S. population would perish’ from lack of electricity, Pry said, quoting the conclusions from the EMP Commission's two public reports.”

That’s well beyond a stunning and chilling augury, one that should make Congress take the threat so seriously that it puts aside all else and acts immediately to protect our electric grid. But so far—and we’ve known about the effects of this weapon since the Starfish Prime nuclear test in 1962—it hasn’t generated the kind of legislation that would help prevent an extinction-level event.

In this, the second of two articles about the threat, we discuss how the threat comes from the detonation of a Super-EMP device 300 miles in our exo-atmosphere and right over the center of the United States. Because a Super-EMP is an EMP “device” as opposed to a conventional nuclear weapon, the nuclear yield is far less, while its load of gamma rays is far greater. That is what makes it so utterly destructive. The damage caused by the E1 pulse to our electric infrastructure is complete, long lasting (a decade or more) and incalculable cost-wise. It’s the aftermath of the impact that would open the door wide to the grim reaper carrying an enormous, razor-sharp scythe, especially for city and suburban dwellers.

The gamma rays focused on the center of the country radiate out horizontally, not into the ground. They then form a circular impact on the nation’s entire electric grid depending on its altitude (300 miles up seems optimum).  The E1 wave is an extremely fast electrical pulse that will take out objects dependent upon electrical conductivity, such as many cars (save for those manufactured before 1974), most of the technological gadgets to which we are addicted, and, unfortunately, far too many military assets that will be useless after the attack. Importantly, greater damage is done to such targets when they are powered on at the time the pulse hits the earth.

The truly existential threat of a Super-EMP attack on the U.S. comes courtesy of North Korea, a disgruntled and paranoid rogue state that has been trading nuclear secrets with Iran in a mutual pact to destroy us. As we pointed out in Part One of these two articles, Iran has pulled a brilliant end run around Obama, Kerry and the P5+1, and is reported to have a base just south of the Chinese border. 

Kim Jong Un harbors schizophrenic delusions, chief among them is his belief that an imminent attack is coming from the U.S. and South Korea. Kim, likely with Iran nuclear physicists standing beside him, tested what may have been a hydrogen-based Super-EMP on January 6 of this year. Evidence of its highly efficient and destructive power came in just three words from North Korean news broadcasts. Their experts contend that they will destroy us, “all at once.”

All at once? The phrase struck us like an epiphanic sledge hammer when we read the story on Breitbart: 

“In a commentary feature on its website, North Korea’s state media outlet boasted that its nation’s scientists are in ‘high spirits’ to detonate nuclear weapons capable of destroying America ‘all at once.’”

No nuclear or any other kind of attack could destroy the entire country “all at once” except a Super-EMP with the core component being hydrogen. A thermonuclear bomb is 1,000 times more powerful than the strongest conventional nuclear weapon. But the North Koreans were not acting on their own and the yield from the test was minimized.

At first, the reports from those testing air samples in the area claimed that it wasn’t a hydrogen bomb test. However, retesting had scientists saying that there was evidence of elements decidedly hydrogen in origin, but it was not a major thermonuclear bomb. So what was tested?

We realized when that question arose that the test hadn’t been of a full-blown hydrogen bomb, but a far smaller thermonuclear device that would serve as a Super-EMP weapon possibly developed by the North Koreans and the Iranians working together.

That degree of evil-axis cooperation brings a wintry chill up and down the spines of those of us who have studied this threat in depth. Those doing all they can to get Congress to take action on this issue include: R. James Woolsey, ex-CIA director, and Peter Vincent Pry, who established the EMP Task Force, a site where you’ll find a map detailing the EMP threat from North Korea.

The video highlights how North Korea’s KSM-3 satellite  (already circling the globe) which has, “the capability to deliver a small nuclear warhead to intercontinental ranges–against any nation on Earth.” It’s small enough to put into a faux satellite. The KSM-3 already passes over the U.S. from south to north, instead of west to east. That’s due in part to the absence of a strong missile defense system protecting our southern flank.

There are many other experts worthy of mention, in particular, Frank Gaffney, author of Guilty Knowledge, a book that highlights the U.S. government’s knowledge of the vulnerability of the grid, but willfully neglects to address the threat.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-A.Z.), a member of Congress has been tireless in his efforts to pass a number of bills to fix the problem. He has carried the torch to illuminate the issue in Congress numerous times, including his introduction of HR 2417, the Secure High-Voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act (Shield Act), which has stalled in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The cost to protect the grid is modest at $20 to $30 billion. But there’s an added problem. Some 3,200 utility companies who would have to cooperate are risk averse to pass the cost onto ratepayers. If they did so, the actual cost would be $3.30 per month, according to Testimony of George H. Baker before the Joint Hearing on “The EMP Threat: The State of Preparedness against the Threat of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Event” May 13, 2015. Considering the nature of the threat, that’s a tiny price for a huge problem. A story published by The Hill explains the difficulty of getting serious legislative action to the president’s desk.
A Super-EMP attack or a cyberattack that takes out the grid is extremely serious. It’s made all the more so because the North Koreans are about to test launch another missile. They could very easily be launching a new satellite, this one carrying a Super-EMP device, in which case, if it is detonated over the center of the country, it could leave us in the dark “all at once” for as long as a decade or more.


James Hyde began his journalism career as managing editor of Financial Computing and Analytical Instruments and Computers magazines. He later became managing editor of United States Banker magazine, and won a Jesse H. Neal Award in 1986. Since then he has written one book and two syndicated columns that were circulated worldwide. He is a political analyst and has worked for a number of major political figures.

Amil Imani is an Iranian-American writer, poet, satirist, novelist, essayist, literary translator, public speaker and political analyst who has been writing and speaking out about the danger of radical Islam internationally. He has become a formidable voice in the USA against the danger of global jihad and Islamization of America. He maintains a website at www.amilimani.com. and wrote the book Obama Meets Ahmadinejad and a new thriller Operation Persian Gulf
Amil Imani can be reached at Amil@amilimaniinitiative.com.James Hyde can be reached at James@amilimaniinitiative.com

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18349#.VrYecuazdds

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Is Assad's Russian-backed Offensive a Game-changer in Syria? - Jonathan Spyer

by Jonathan Spyer

Russia hopes to lure Syrian Kurds away from their alliance with the US.

^{Originally published under the title "Precarious Syria Talks Leave Its Future Uncertain."}

The failure of the peace talks was foreseen by most serious analysts on Syria.

UN Special Envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura this week announced the suspension of just-convened peace talks in Geneva intended to resolve the Syrian civil war.

The failure of the talks was predictable and foreseen by most serious analysts on Syria. Diplomacy requires compromise. But the forces of President Bashar Assad, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are advancing in both northern and southern Syria.
The dictator and his allies, as a consequence, see no reason to abandon their core aims or accept a political process leading to a transition of power.
The action of consequence with regard to Syria is taking place on the battlefields of Aleppo, Idlib, Deraa and Quneitra provinces, not in the conference rooms of Geneva and Vienna.

The aim of the regime and its Russian and Iranian allies at present appears to be to destroy the non-Islamic State Sunni Arab rebellion against Assad. This would have the consequence of leaving only three effective protagonists in the war in Syria – Assad, Islamic State and the Kurds in the north.

Moscow is engaged at the moment in the energetic courting of the Kurds. Should Russia, after defeating the non-Islamic State rebels, succeed in tempting the Syrian Kurds away from their current alliance with the US, this would leave Moscow the effective master of the universally approved war against Islamic State in Syria.

Assad, who was facing possible defeat prior to the Russian intervention in September 2015, would be entirely dependent on Moscow and to a lesser extent Tehran for his survival. This would make the Russians and Iranians the decisive element in Syria's future.

The defeat of the non-Islamic State Sunni Arab rebellion is the first stage in this strategy. The main regime and Russian efforts are currently directed toward the remaining heartland of the rebellion in northwest Syria.

But Assad and his allies also appear intent on delivering a death blow to the revolt in the place it was born – Deraa province in the south and its environs. This, incidentally, if achieved in its entirety, would bring Hezbollah and Iran to the area east of Quneitra crossing, facing the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights. It is not by any means certain that the regime will achieve this aim in total. But as of now, Assad and his friends are moving forward.

The first stage following the Russian intervention, and achieved in the dying months of 2015, was to end the rebel threat to the regime enclave in Latakia province. There is no further prospect of the rebels finding their way into the populated areas of this province. The regime has recaptured 35 villages in the northern Latakia countryside.

This achieved, the main fulcrum of the current effort is Aleppo province. Aleppo is the capital of Syria's north. The rebellion's arrival in this city in the late summer of 2012 signaled the point at which it first began to pose a real threat to Assad.

This week, the regime, its Iran-mustered Shi'a militia supporters and Russian air power succeeded in breaking the link between the border town of Azaz and rebel-held eastern Aleppo. This reporter traveled these rebel supply routes from the border when they were first carved out in 2012. They were vital to the maintenance of the rebellion's positions in Aleppo. There is a single link remaining between Turkey and eastern Aleppo – via Idlib province.

The direction of the war is currently in the regime's favor.

But the rebel situation is rapidly deteriorating. The regime also broke a two-year siege on two Shi'ite towns, Nubul and Zahra.

The rebels rushed all available personnel and resources to defend these supply routes. Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaida branch in Syria, sent a convoy of 750 fighters to the area. This proved insufficient.

Further south, a recent regime offensive in Deraa province led to the recapture of the town of Sheikh Maskin, which again cuts the rebels off from key supply lines in a province they once dominated.

So the direction of the war is currently in the regime's favor.

This is due to the Russian air intervention and to Iran's provision of ground fighters from a variety of regional populations aligned with it.

The pattern of events on the ground had a predictable effect on the diplomacy in Geneva.

Any attempt by the regime to claw back the entirety of Syria will lead to overstretch.

All this does not, however, necessarily presage imminent and comprehensive regime and Russian success on the ground. Syrian opposition sources note that the pendulum of the war has swung back and forth many times in the course of the last four years. They hope that fresh efforts from Ankara, Qatar and Saudi Arabia will help to stem regime gains in the weeks ahead.

Perhaps more fundamentally, any attempt by the regime to claw back the entirety of Sunni Arab majority areas or Kurdish majority areas of Syria would lead to the same situation the regime faced in 2012 – namely, overstretch and insufficient forces to effectively hold areas conquered.

But as of now, thanks to the Russian intervention, prospects for rebel victory have been averted and the Assad regime, with its allies, is on the march once more.

Comprehensive eclipse for the non-Islamic State Sunni Arab rebel groups is no longer an impossibility somewhere down the line. This reality at present precludes progress toward a diplomatic solution.

As an old Russian proverb has it: When the guns roar, the muses are silent.
  

Jonathan Spyer is director of the Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.
 
Source: http://www.meforum.org/5834/syria-talks

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Iran demands that US give assurances to Euro banks on sanction penalties - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

Iran is telling President Obama to ignore U.S. law and guarantee Iranian access to European credit and financial services.

Iran is warning the U.S. that there may be a "problem" with implementing the nuclear deal unless the U.S. reassures European banks that they will not be punished for doing business with Tehran.

Reuters:

Iran on Thursday called on the United States to make a clear public pledge that it would not penalize European banks for legitimate trade with the Islamic Republic.

Many foreign banks are cautious about resuming trade with Iran following January's nuclear deal because they fear being caught up in ongoing U.S. sanctions.

"Rebuilding the confidence of the banks that the United States will not re-intervene in their relations with Iran may require some further assurance from the United States," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said at Chatham House in London.

"We don't need any more legalese - we need clear precise assurances that banks can do business with Iran," he said. "I hope that is fast coming because if not it would be a problem of implementation."

Although world powers lifted many crippling sanctions against Iran in return for the country complying with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions, some restrictions remain in place

Washington still prevents U.S. nationals, banks and insurers from trading with Iran and also prohibits any trades with Iran in U.S. dollars from being processed via the U.S. financial system.

This is a significant complication given the dollar's role as the world's main business currency.

European banks are also cautious - with some, including Deutsche Bank, remembering past fines from U.S. regulators for breaking sanctions.

In essence, Iran is telling President Obama to ignore U.S. law and guarantee Iranian access to European credit and financial services.  No problem, I'm sure.  We wouldn't want anything untoward to happen as implementation of the nuclear deal goes forward.

The president cannot unilaterally suspend penalties for violating sanctions.  But when has that sort of thing ever stopped him?  Congress has not repealed any U.S. sanctions on Iran, which means that if European banks do business with Tehran, they should be penalized.  But in order for that to happen, the executive branch must be willing to enforce the law.  Good luck with that.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/iran_demands_that_us_give_assurances_to_euro_banks_on_sanction_penalties.html

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German parents pulling their kids out of 'diverse' schools - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

It's hard to be tolerant of those who hate you.

We know that Germans love to think of themselves as tolerant and multicultural.  But what if those attributes collide with reality?

German parents are yanking their children from so-called "diverse" schools with large refugee populations because they fear that their kids are not getting a decent education.

Breitbart:

According to a detailed report in Sueddeutsche, more and more German families are switching their child’s schooling because of the presence of more and more migrant children who often disrupt class and bully native Germans.
The article tells the story of a typical German family (names have been changed) and a typical German father who like many is eager to prove how tolerant and multicultural he and his family are. His daughter is placed in a school with a majority of the pupils being non Germans.
Yet by the end of his daughters first year in the school the father starts getting concerned the school is giving his daughter special treatment. It is not until he investigates that he realizes she is special because she is the last native German left, the others having one by one transferred to different schools.
The German school system assigns places in schools by location. This method is meant to ensure that within each school district children are able to go to a school close to where they live. The problem has now arisen in neighbourhoods with high migrant populations that more and more parents are transfering their children out of assigned schools because the allocation of resources is going toward things like German language courses and integration and their children are being left out.
German Federal Interior Minister Thomas Maiziere did nothing to calm these fears when back in November he said current school standards would need to be dropped to help integrate more migrants.
Previously only wealthy and gifted children transfered to different schools and only 10 percent of the total pupils would even request a transfer. The trend has been growing in recent years as German school children mirror the ‘white flight’ phenomenon in which native peoples move to escape the migrant fueled transformation of their historical neighbourhoods. One of the effects of the migrant crisis has been to cause rents and property prices to rise in places like Frankfurt and having much the same effect as “white flight.”
“It was a decision of head against heart,” said the father in the story and also told the paper he would be fine for his daughter to go to a more mixed school but not if she was the only German there.

This is only the beginning.  The German people are only now waking up to the reality that the Germany they grew up in is being radically altered.  They will soon be strangers in their own land, bullied by refugees the government is forcing to assimilate.

Of course, not many want to assimilate:

 A video that came out last year shows the attitudes school age migrants often have toward their native German peers and after viewing makes parents choices to move schools seem much more reasonable. The children in the video say Germans, “eat pig meat. I feel disgusted by them to be honest,” and that if all the native Germans would just disappear, “no one would notice.”

It's hard to be tolerant of those who hate you.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/german_parents_pulling_their_kids_out_of_diverse_schools.html

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