J-Street was paid by Obama administration to promote Iran deal - Ari Soffer

by Ari Soffer

Liberal Jewish group received $576,000 to advocate for Iran nuclear deal, belying its 'pro-Israel' pretensions.

J-Street received more than half a million dollars to advocate for the Obama administration's controversial nuclear deal with Iran, it has been revealed.

The liberal Jewish group, which bills itself as "pro-Israel and pro-peace" but which critics say takes solely anti-Israel stances, was paid the money by the White House's main surrogate organization for selling the deal.

The Ploughshares Fund was named in an explosive New York Times profile of Obama aid Ben Rhodes, in which the President's chief spin doctor listed the central groups responsible for creating an "echo chamber" in order to promote the deal, even when the White House's official line didn't jibe with the facts.

According to Associated Press, the group's 2015 annual report details several organizations which received substantial funds to peddle the official White House line on the nuclear deal. Among them was National Public Radio (NPR), which received a $100,000 grant to promote "national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran's nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security."

Other grantees included: The Arms Control Association ($282,500); the Brookings Institution ($225,000); and the Atlantic Council ($182,500), who "received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work," according to AP.

The National Iranian American Council received more than $281,000, while Princeton University received a $70,000 grant to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian's "analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran's nuclear program."

But the largest recipient of Obama administration funding was J-Street, a group which has been closely cultivated by the current White House and is viewed by many as its mouthpiece in the American Jewish community.

According to The Ploughshares Fund's annual report, J-Street was paid $576,500 to advocate for the deal - something it did ferociously, in spite of the opposition from the majority of the pro-Israel community in the US.

J-Street's dogged support for the Iran deal came despite the fact that the vast majority of Israelis, including those on the left with whom J-Street claims to align, were strongly opposed - a fact seized upon by the group's critics as proof it consistently acts against the State of Israel's interests.


Ari Soffer

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/212592#.V0C3_OSzdds

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

Hillary and the FBI - Bruce Thornton

by Bruce Thornton

Yet another milestone on the road to tyranny.

Beneath the drama of the primaries the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s home-brew server keeps humming along, though one wouldn’t know it from the cursory coverage by the mainstream media. It’s not that there isn’t anything new to report. Romanian hacker Guccifer claims he got into Clinton’s server with ease, and the Kremlin asserts it’s in possession of 20,000 of her emails. Hillary’s standard verbal brush-off––“it’s a routine security inquiry” ––was exploded by FBI Director James Comey’s laconic “I don’t even know what that means . . . We’re conducting an investigation. That’s what we do.” But these new developments are dismissed by Democrats with increasingly desperate rationalizations and lies, and Republicans haven’t yet worked through the seven stages of grief over Donald Trump’s ascendancy, leaving little time to mine this scandal for electoral gold. 

The Republicans need to get on with it. Sometime soon the FBI will release its report, and just based on what’s leaked so far, Clinton should be indicted for mishandling classified material. But “should ain’t is,” as my old man used to say. There are several scenarios that can follow the report, and most will reveal just how we have fallen from the fundamental principle of representative government going back to ancient Athens: equality before the law.

In the first scenario, the FBI recommends an indictment. Supporters of this view cite the institutional culture and professionalism of the FBI, which will be angry if after spending so many thousands of man-hours Clinton gets to walk. There is talk of mass resignations, similar to the 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre,” when the Attorney General and Deputy AG resigned after Richard Nixon fired the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate break-ins. Others cite the professional integrity of James Comey as the rock upon which their hopes rest. If undercut by the Attorney General, he too will resign, creating a storm of negative publicity for Clinton and the Democrats. In 2004, Comey threatened to resign when White House aides pressured the hospitalized AG John Ashcroft to overrule Comey’s refusal to certify the legality of important aspects of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. A few years later in Congressional testimony Comey stoutly defended the independence of the Department of Justice.

I hope this estimation [of] Comey’s integrity is true, but when it comes to political appointees, we should take George Orwell’s attitude towards saints: guilty till proven innocent. The political rewards of not recommending an indictment would be huge for Comey if Hillary is elected president. Career FBI employees will have to make painful financial and career calculations about the effects of resignation. There are any number of ways the Bureau could spin such a recommendation in a way to let Hillary off the hook: no proof of intent, evidence of carelessness but not criminality, or throwing some staffers and aides under the bus. I believe there are men and women of principle in the FBI who can face these consequences and do the right thing. But we won’t know for sure until the time comes.

If resignations don’t follow a failure to recommend indictment, Hillary will reap a huge publicity windfall. She will crow about the “vast right-wing conspiracy” being thwarted by the integrity of the FBI. Her campaign will cite the months spent, the 150 agents on the case, and all the interrogations that turned up nothing. No matter how much scolding from the Bureau, she will trumpet her vindication as proof that the Republican Party has hounded her for 25 years because she’s a woman who cares for the little guy.

In the next scenario, Comey recommends an indictment, and AG Loretta Lynch demurs. Her recent suit against North Carolina for its law mandating that public restrooms be differentiated by biological sex is evidence of her progressive prejudices and disrespect for the separation of powers and federalism. Her interpretation of the Civil Rights Act’s language about discrimination on the basis of sex as justifying her suit is fatuous, and usurps the law-making power of Congress. No Congressman in 1964 believed that “sex” meant anything other than biological sex. Lynch is a “living Constitution” acolyte who feels justified in “interpreting” the language of law to suit ideological and political prejudices. Her public statements against state voting requirements and her support of Obama’s abuse of executive orders are revealing of the same tendencies.  

With such a record of partisanship, it is very likely that she will refuse to indict Clinton. Or, if the bad publicity of such a decision would be too intense before the election, she could draw out the deliberation process for months, and then refuse after Hillary’s sworn in. Or if Hillary didn’t win, I could easily see Obama granting her a preemptive pardon before he left office, just as Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon in September 1974. There could be blowback, but Obama would be off to six-figure speaking gigs and an eight-figure advance for his memoirs. 

If this scenario unfolds, make sure to remember some of the culprits: those Republican Senators who confirmed Loretta Lynch as Attorney General. Whether they confirmed her out of fear of being called racist and sexist, or a sincere belief in her qualifications, or a gesture of bipartisan comity, their confirmation will share some blame for Hillary escaping legal and political accountability for sacrificing this country’s security to her ambition.

But the worst consequence of Hillary’s disregard for the law will be the blow to the foundational principle of representative government. Politics began 2500 years ago when power was based not on men because of their wealth, charisma, or prestigious ancestors, but on laws that applied equally to all citizens. Power was no longer a personal possession, but belonged to the body of citizens, to be used by them according to transparent rules and procedures that limited the scope of such power and held those who used it accountable. This same fundamental principle animated the Founders who, as John Adams put it, created “a government of laws, and not men,” for all men are vulnerable to the temptation to abuse power.

This principle of divided, distributed, and accountable power that men use, not own, is the greatest protector of our freedom, for it protects us from tyranny, which Aristotle defined as

that arbitrary power of an individual which is responsible to no one, and governs all alike, whether equals or betters, with a view to its own advantage, not to that of its subjects, and therefore against their will. No freeman willingly endures such a government.

We have already drawn closer to such tyrannical power. From government agencies like the EPA and the IRS, which are responsible to no one, arbitrarily abusing their power against the will of the citizens; to progressives like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who recognize no limits to their will and bend the law to suit their personal ambitions and ideological dogma. For all their talk of “equality,” they live in the world of Animal Farm, where “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The Constitution, the rules of the State Department, the laws governing the handling of classified material, none of these apply to Hillary. Letting her get away with this outrage will be, like Obama’s disregard for the law, yet another milestone on the road to tyranny.


Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262867/hillary-and-fbi-bruce-thornton

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

Iran: 'Israel Should Be Wiped Off The Earth' - Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

by Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

How post-sanction Iran is publicly threatening Israel’s existence with impunity.

The Iranian regime has been escalating the advancement of its ballistic missile program ever since the nuclear agreement went into effect in January 2016. Some of Iran’s dangerous ballistic missiles can carry multiple warheads.

In the last four months, Iran has launched ballistic missiles several times. Some of these missiles had a phrase "Israel should be wiped off the Earth” written on them in Hebrew.

The Iranian regime is increasingly provoking other countries in the region and has made it clear that the ballistic missiles are aimed at targeting other nations. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of Iran’s Aerospace forces, said to FARS news agency (Iran’s state-controlled media outlet) that “Iran has built missiles that can hit targets at 2,000 Km. They are designed to hit Israel at such a distance.” He added that Islamic countries have surrounded Israel and “its [Israel’s] life is short. So it will collapse in any given war – long before a missile is even fired.”

This week, an Iranian general acknowledged that Iran has recently launched ballistic missiles again. This means that Iran has breached the nuclear deal and UN resolutions for the third time in the last four months.

Although President Obama and the Iranian regime argue that Iran’s launching of ballistic missiles is not violating anything, the UN resolutions and the nuclear agreement indicate otherwise.

The United Nations Security Council resolution (section 3 of Annex B of resolution 2231, 2015) is crystal clear. The resolution “calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

The second United Nations Security Council resolution 1929 states “Iran shall not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology, and that States shall take all necessary measures to prevent the transfer of technology or technical assistance to Iran related to such activities.”

In addition, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Agreement (JCPOA) of the nuclear agreement between P5+1 and Iran states that Iran should not undertake any ballistic missiles activity “until the date eight years after the JCPOA Adoption Day or until the date on which the IAEA submits a report confirming the Broader Conclusion, whichever is earlier.”

But the Iranian leaders have breached both the resolutions and the nuclear agreement several times. Intriguingly, Iran has become more empowered to act militarily since the nuclear agreement.  Iran has repeatedly test-fired, long-range ballistic missiles and laser-guided surface-to-surface missiles. In October and November, just after the nuclear deal was reached, Iran tested a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads.

In March, Iran again test-fired two ballistic missiles. More recently and for the third time, the Iranian government fired a test missile two weeks ago with an accuracy of 25 feet, which is characterized as "zero error," according to the Brig. Gen. Ali Abdollahi, the Iranian military's deputy chief of staff, and Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

The range of existing Iranian ballistic missiles has grown from 500 miles to over 2,000 kilometers (roughly 1,250 miles), which can easily reach Eastern Europe, as well as countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Yemen.

The five members of the UN Security Council have not reacted forcefully or taken the appropriate measures to hold the Iranian government accountable for the violations.

Although according to a report obtained by the Associated Press, the launches are "destabilizing and provocative" and that the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile and Qiam-1 short-range ballistic missile fired by Iran are "inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons," President Obama has trivialized the issue, failing to hold Iran accountable, and only responding with more rhetoric.

For example, even though Iranian generals have admitted launching ballistic missiles, the White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this week that they are “still trying to get to the bottom of what exactly transpired.” This is a classic approach to avoid dealing with the real issue.

Obama has stopped short of calling Iran’s actions violations of UN Security Council resolutions. Unfortunately, President Obama will continue to overlook Iran’s aggressive actions, including ballistic missile launches and the detention of U.S. sailors by the Iranian forces, until he leaves office. He desires that his crowning foreign policy “success” (the nuclear agreement) remain intact.

President Obama is concerned that holding Iran accountable for these violations might force the Iranian leaders to abandon the nuclear deal, marking his failure. The Iranian regime exploits Obama’s weakness. Iranian leaders will be launching more ballistic missiles and acting more aggressively and provocatively, as they see no one holding them accountable for their violations.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist, author, business advisor and public speaker, is president of the International American Council and serves on the board of the Harvard International Review (Harvard University).  Harvard-educated, Rafizadeh grew up most of his life in Muslim countries (both Sunni and Shiites nations). He is the author of the memoir “A God Who Hates Women” and the upcoming memoir “The Renegade.” Dr. Rafizadeh can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu. Follow him at @Dr_Rafizadeh.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262915/iran-israel-should-be-wiped-earth-dr-majid-rafizadeh

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

Danon defeats UN ban on Israel exhibit - Uzi Baruch

by Uzi Baruch

Ambassador hails 'a clear victory for Israeli truth,' as UN folds on censoring Zionist exhibit on Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

Danny Danon with the exhibit

Perry Bindelglass

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon's campaign to lift the ban on an Israeli exhibit has paid off, as after initially blocking the exhibit and later partially allowing it in April, the UN has now folded, allowing it to be shown in its entirety at UN headquarters in New York.

The exhibit, a joint initiative by the Israeli Mission to the UN and pro-Israel non-profit StandWithUs, presents information about Zionism, Jerusalem and Arab Israelis. It notes that "Zionism is the liberation movement of the Jewish people, who sought to overcome 1,900 years of oppression and regain self-determination in their indigenous homeland."

Danon held a protest when the exhibit was censored in early April, and hours later the UN abruptly reversed course, giving the okay for the display on Zionism – but not the displays on the Jewish people's historic connection to Jerusalem and Israel’s treatment of minority populations.

The Israeli Mission continued its diplomatic struggle for the last two months, and this week the display was finally presented in its entirety, including the sections the UN had sought to censor.

"We stood firm that the exhibit on Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the state of Israel, be displayed at the UN," said Danon. "It is not possible to censor a significant part of the history and the values of the Jewish nation."

The exhibit was displayed at the UN headquarters in New York, visible to diplomats from around the world as well as visitors to the building.

"I am very proud that we stood our ground and achieved a clear victory for the Israeli truth. The days are over when they will try to censor our heritage and demand that we hide the special place of Jerusalem in the history of the Jewish nation and the state of Israel," added Danon.

The exhibits that had been censored can be seen below.

Courtesy: Israeli Mission to the UN


Uzi Baruch

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/212596#.V0DPsuSzdds

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

DoJ diverts millions of dollars from housing fund to activist groups - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

DoJ "incentivizes" the donations by giving the banks a $2 tax credit for every dollar they give to the fund.  What a nice, cozy little scheme, eh?

The Department of Justice has diverted tens of millions of dollars slated for victims of the 2008 housing meltdown to groups politically and ideologically allied with the Obama administration.

According to Rep. Sean Duffy, chairman of the House Financial Oversight Committee, the money comes from billions in penalties paid by big banks.  DoJ diverts about 3% of the cash to registered counseling groups who are supposed to advise consumers.  Most of the groups are connected to liberal activist organizations.

Daily Caller:

“The first objective of a settlement is to make sure that we have victims who are made whole,” Duffy said, referring to millions of Americans who lost their homes during the meltdown that led to the Great Recession of 2009. “If you’re diverting money away from victims and sending it to third-party activist groups, you have victims who are being harmed not just once, but a second time.”
Justice officials were long able to “skim 3 percent of any settlement money into their own account to for the most part spend it the way they see fit,” Duffy told participants in the media briefing hosted by the Cause of Action Institute, a nonprofit legal watchdog group.

Which groups are the benficiary of this slush fund? 

Among the political activist groups favored favored by the settlements is La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic activist organization that routinely supports Democratic candidates and causes. Cecilia Munoz, a La Raza senior vice president, was appointed by Obama in 2012 to head the White House Domestic Policy Council.
La Raza is flush with money, reporting in 2013 to the IRS assets of $55 million. Janet Murguia, the group’s president and CEO was paid $417,000 that year, according to the group’s IRS tax return. Even so, La Raza is slated to receive at least $1 million from the Bank of America settlement and $500,000 from the Citigroup settlement.
Lisa Navarrete a spokeswoman for La Raza told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the group is one of 37 certified housing counseling agencies approved by HUD since 1998 during the Clinton administration. She said La Raza would pocket about 10 percent of the funds and the balance will go to local groups affiliated with La Raza to provide counseling for distressed Hispanic homeowners.
The Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA) is also slated to receive $50,000 from the Bank of America settlement, according to Cause of Action.
In an oversight committee hearing held Thursday, Duffy said Justice officials in 2013 did not require mandatory donations to third party groups when it announced a record $13 billion mortgage bank settlement with J.P. Morgan Chase.
The rules apparently changed in July 2014, because as part of a $7 billion settlement with Citigroup, Justice officials “required a minimum of $10 million in donations to HUD-approved housing counseling agencies,” Duffy said.
A February 2016 independent monitor report about a Bank of America settlement, obtained by TheDCNF, showed that $125 million had been “donated” by the bank in 2014 to 147 “community” groups and “housing counseling agencies.”

DoJ "incentivizes" the donations by giving the banks a $2 tax credit for every dollar they give to the fund.  What a nice, cozy little scheme, eh?

Hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled to political allies should be illegal and unconstitutional.  It is certainly unethical.  When executive departments can make up their own rules and use money received outside the appropriations process in any way they choose, we have a government that's out of control.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/doj_diverts_millions_of_dollars_from_housing_fund_to_activist_groups_.html

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

VIDEO: Anti-Semitism in Britain's Labour Party - Gatestone

by Gatestone

Rotting from the head down

Anti-Semitism isn't new to the UK Labour Party, and its recent anti-Semitic outbursts shouldn't surprise anyone. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has ordered an "independent inquiry" into the party's anti-Semitism. Douglas Murray, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Gatestone Institute, explains in the video below how Labour's anti-Semitism problem starts at top of the party, and why this inquiry won't solve anything.




This is the first installment in Gatestone's new video series, produced with the help of our friends at TheRebel.media.

Gatestone

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8083/video-antisemitism-britain-labour-party

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

A week of ordinary French anti-Semitism - Giulio Meotti

by Giulio Meotti

“Death to Israel” resonates in the boulevards as in the suburbs.

September 1972, Munich’s Olympic Village, “31” block. Some of the Israeli athletes were Holocaust survivors. The Black September Palestinian terrorists took them hostage demanding the release of 234 terrorists in the Israeli jails. But Black September was not there for an exchange or negotiation, what they wanted the killing of Jews, the young representatives of the Israeli people hosted by the nation which once planned the Holocaust. 

The Olympic Village was located a few kilometers from Dachau.

The Cannes Film Festival has now hosted “Munich: A Palestinian Story” by the Lebanese filmmaker of Palestinian origin Narsi Hajjaj. Ilana Romano, widow of Yossef Romano, who was murdered in the massacre, has refused to cooperate with this film because the director insisted on defining as “freedom fighters” the Black September terrorists who killed her husband, while the murdered Israelis are called “representatives of an occupying country”.

A year ago, it emerged that at least one of the athletes, Yossef Romano, was castrated bythe  Palestinian kidnappers in front of his companions. Hajjaj, however, called the massacre not a terrorist act, but an “international incident”. 

Roger Cukierman, president of the Council of Jewish Organizations in France, voiced “anxiety and deep concern” over the viewing in a letter to Cannes Film Festival President Pierre Lescure and French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay.

Resoundingly ghastly is the fact that the Cannes Festival agreed to host and commercialize this anti-Semitic movie.

But this has been a week of ordinary French anti-Semitism.

France just supported a Unesco resolution denying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount. The UN cultural body’s resolution made mention of “Occupied Palestine” and omitted any mention of historic Jewish ties to Judaism’s most holy site, referring to the flashpoint site only by its Muslim name.

Meanwhile, France is sponsoring a “peace initiative” and forcing it down Israel’s throat.

This week, Iran is hosting its second annual Holocaust Cartoon Competition. Along with Iran, which country sent the largest cartoonists’ delegation? No one else but France, of course, before most of Islamic countries entered the arena.

France, the country from where 47,000 Jews have left for Israel since 2000. In the last three years, from 2013 to 2015, almost 20,000 French Jews immigrated to Israel.

France, the country where Jews have been gunned down in schools and supermarkets.

France, the country where the cry “Death to Israel” resonates in the boulevards as in the suburbs.

What is happening in France shows the same smirk of complacency and abandonment that they so calmly exhibited during the treasonous French Vichy government.


Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18907#.V0C8quSzdds

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

Clinton campaign has committed the stupidest blunder of the presidential race yet - Thomas Lifson

by Thomas Lifson

The Clinton campaign has said something so outrageous that the prime minister of a faithful ally is demanding an apology, as is the foreign minister of another, and two domestic ethnic voting blocs are up in arms.

The media are protecting the Clinton campaign, as usual.  According to the mainstream narrative, voters are supposed to believe that Donald Trump presents a mortal danger to American foreign policy because of a penchant to say stupid and reckless things.  Yet it is the Clinton campaign that has said something so outrageous that the prime minister of a faithful ally is demanding an apology, as is the foreign minister of another, and two domestic ethnic voting blocs are up in arms.

It all began a week ago yesterday, when Bill Clinton said something outrageous at a Clinton campaign rally in New Jersey:

Former US President Bill Clinton said that Poland and Hungary “have now decided Democracy is too much trouble, therefore “they want Putin-like leadership.”
The former US President was speaking about the Central European countries to offer some comparison to Republican candidate and Hillary’s potential rival Donald Trump. “Just give me an authoritarian dictatorship and keep the foreigners out, sound familiar?”, Clinton said. Hungary and Poland would not be free today without the United States and the long cold war, he insisted.

The insult to the democratically elected governments that are defending their borders from uncontrolled Muslim invaders may have gone unnoted by the domestic media, but in Hungary and Poland, they sparked outrage.  In Poland:

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton should apologize to the Poles for having said they think “democracy is too much trouble” and want to have an “authoritarian dictatorship,” Poland’s prime minister said Wednesday.
Beata Szydlo called Clinton’s words “unjustified and simply unfair.”
“With all due respect, and without using coarse words (Clinton) exaggerated and should apologize to us,” she told Polish state radio on Wednesday. (snip)
The head of Poland’s conservative ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said Clinton is misinformed.
“If someone says there is no democracy in Poland today, that means he should have a medical test,” he said.

And in Hungary:

Not even a former President of the United States can allow himself to insult the Hungarian people, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs has said in response to former US President Bill Clinton’s claims that Poland and Hungary “have now decided democracy is too much trouble, therefore “they want Putin-like leadership.”
In a statement sent to the state news agency MTI, Mr. Szijjártó wrote that contrary to Bill Clinton’s claims, Hungary’s freedom was delivered by Hungarian people and not the United States, with tens of thousands of Hungarians sacrificing their lives for Hungarian freedom. “To underestimate the freedom struggle of the Hungarian people in such a way is unacceptable”, the foreign minister said.

While the mainstream media are protecting the campaign, ethnic media in the American Hungarian and Polish communities (there are an estimated 10 million Polish-Americans, with significant numbers in swing states Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania as well as deep blue Illinois) are not observing the omerta.  And yesterday, Hillary Clinton faced a demonstration of Polish-Americans in her home town of Park Ridge, Illinois.  Raheem Kassam reports in Breitbart:

A large group of Polish-American protesters descended on a Hillary Clinton rally in her hometown of Park Ridge, Illinois to demonstrate against “offensive” comments made by Bill Clinton about the state of Polish and Hungarian democracy.
Following the international furore caused by Mr. Clinton – who said “democracy is too much trouble” for Poland, and that the country wants an “authoritarian dictatorship” – a group of Polish-Americans descended on a Hillary campaign stop to demand “no more Clintons!” on Thursday.
The group carried signs that read “Hands Off Polish Democracy” and “Poland: Leader In Freedom And Democracy”.

The demonstration was covered by Chicago-based Polish-language cable channel Polonia:

Picture courtesy of Darek Kuczborski on Facebook

Richard Baehr wonders if Bill Clinton is losing his political touch.  He has now created a problem for Hillary, and the Trump campaign is not likely to remain as silent on the issue as ABC-NBC-CBS-NYT.

Hat tip: Richard Baehr


Thomas Lifson

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/clinton_campaign_has_committed_the_stupidest_blunder_of_the_presidential_race_yet.html

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

Erdoğan's Self-Indulgence - Daniel Pipes

by Daniel Pipes

One watches with morbid fascination as a skilled, once-restrained politician loses all sense of proportion

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Republic of Turkey's brilliant if evil president, so dominates his country's political scene that he can afford a bit of self-indulgence. And so he does just that. Consider the two dominant themes of Turkish public life at present:

• Refusing to change the anti-terrorism laws to comply with demands by the European Union: If Erdoğan would make this meaningless semantic concession (he could still arrest anyone he wants, just on a different charge), he would win the gigantic benefit of visa-free travel for 75 million Turks to the EU's Schengen Zone, a benefit that would potentially solve everything from his Kurdish to his Syrian refugee problem.
• Changing the constitution to change a parliamentary democracy into a presidential system: Erdoğan has been obsessed with this transformation for years even though, already enjoying all the powers the constitution might grant him, and more, he has no need for it.

One watches with morbid fascination as a skilled, once-restrained politician loses all sense of proportion as his power grows, reaching the point where vanity drives his demand for these constitutional and anti-terrorism baubles.

This is no minor matter but points to Erdoğan's likely political demise as he edges toward making one error and one enemy too many. (May 20, 2016)


Daniel Pipes

Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2016/05/erdogan-self-indulgence

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US tells European banks trade with Iran is okay - AP and Israel Hayom Staff

by AP and Israel Hayom Staff

U.S. secretary of state, EU's foreign policy chief reiterate assurances that instating ties with once-embargoed Iranian banks will not result in sanctions • "We won't stand in the way of permitted business activity with Iran," they say in joint statement.

The United States and its partners in the Iran nuclear talks are trying anew to convince European banks and businesses that now-legal trade with the Islamic republic will not be subject to sanctions.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, and the European Union's foreign policy chief said in a joint statement Thursday that Iran deserves the sanctions relief it is due under the landmark nuclear deal signed in July 2015. 

"This includes the re-engagement of European banks and businesses in Iran," they said in a statement after meeting in Brussels.

"We will not stand in the way of permitted business activity with Iran, and we will not stand in the way of international firms or financial institutions engaging with Iran, as long as they follow all applicable laws," the statement said.

Iran has complained that U.S. sanctions that remain on the country are preventing it from receiving the full benefits of the deal, under which it agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The U.S. maintains it has met its obligations, but has been trying to convince foreign firms that some trade with Iran is now legal.

Thursday's statement was the latest of several attempts by the U.S. to encourage European financial institutions and other firms to take advantage of opportunities afforded by the easing of sanctions. Kerry and other top U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, have tried to assure foreign banks that transactions with Iran that do not involve still-sanctioned entities are not illegal under U.S. rules.

But many European and Asian banks are still balking at doing business with Iran due to non-nuclear U.S. sanctions that remain. Those sanctions relate to Iran's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, human rights record and testing of ballistic missiles.

They are also concerned that the relief offered by the Obama administration may be rescinded by the next U.S. president. They want assurances in writing that deals they may make or coordinate with Iran will not punished.

The U.S. has been reluctant to offer this blanket assurance and officials have pointed out that it cannot force private companies to do business with Iran, particularly because of other concerns such as its antipathy toward Israel and poor banking regulations. Nonetheless, some Iranian officials have threatened to pull out of the nuclear deal for what they say are violations by the U.S.

Thursday's statement sought to ease those complaints, noting that the U.S. and European countries are "exploring possible areas of cooperation with Iran, including the use of export credits to facilitate trade, project financing and investment in Iran."

"Our governments have provided extensive guidance on the scope of sanctions lifted and those that remain in place and will continue to do so," it said. The statement added that foreign businesses may be more assured by changes in Iranian government behavior.

AP and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=33801

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

Combating Anti-Israelism and Boycotts - Malcolm Lowe

by Malcolm Lowe

Regarding the anti-Israel activists themselves, however, defensive strategies are ineffective. These people have no intention whatsoever to be fair; they treat information offered on behalf of Israel with derision. To deter them and drive them off, one must use strategies that fall under the rubric "This is going to hurt you more than us!"

• Up to now, most of the anti-boycott activity has been basically defensive. It assumes that Israel can be vindicated by providing relevant information.
• So there are two principal questions. What activities are best carried out by government itself and what are best delegated to private organizations? And should organizations specialize in particular strategies or can a given single organization draw upon all the available strategies?

An earlier article defined and classified various strategies for combating both boycotts directed against Israel other kinds of hostile activity. Not discussed, however, were questions about who or what bodies should be implementing which strategies.

Such questions have become more acute, now that the Israeli government has designated substantial means for defending Israel from boycotts. We shall consider these questions after briefly reviewing the range of available strategies.

Kinds of Strategy

Up to now, most of the anti-boycott activity has been basically defensive. It assumes that Israel can be vindicated by providing relevant information. Either one complains that the anti-Israel activists are misrepresenting reality, by lying or omitting relevant facts or whatever. Or one complains that there are other countries that obviously deserve to be targeted in the alleged respects, but Israel alone is picked out for criticism and attack. Both strategies fall under the rubric "It's not fair!" They are so familiar as to need no further elaboration here.

Unfortunately, such strategies are of limited utility: they work only with institutions that are obliged to be fair. Thus misleading reports in foreign media can be combated if those media are committed to standards of fair reporting. Likewise, foreign governments and parliaments can be held to standards laid down in their own legislation. Much excellent work is being done in both regards, often by organizations making the most of limited means (see the list in the earlier article). This sort of work is also essential for keeping Israel's friends on board, reassuring them that the accusations against Israel are undeserved.

Regarding the anti-Israel activists themselves, however, defensive strategies are ineffective. These people have no intention whatsoever to be fair; they treat information offered on behalf of Israel with derision. To deter them and drive them off, one must use strategies that fall under the rubric "This is going to hurt you more than us!" There are at least five ways of making such people feel uncomfortable and even miserable, as we shall see. Four of those strategies were already detailed in the previous article and here we shall add a fifth: Delegitimization. Let us review them, each in turn.

1. Lawfare. We are all familiar with Lawfare as misuse of the law to attack Israel, such as attempts to ambush Israeli officials with lawsuits in foreign countries. However, the pioneer in the study of Lawfare, Charles Dunlap (2001) insisted correctly that the term has to be defined more generally as "the use of the law in the pursuit of war." That is, Lawfare has its proper uses as well as its anti-Israel abuses. France, despite its complicated relationship to Israel, deserves credit for introducing anti-boycott legislation already in 2003, under which various assaults on Israel and Israeli products have been prosecuted successfully. Now the United States, including many individual states, and the United Kingdom have followed suit. But even without laws specifically banning boycotts, existing laws in many countries provide opportunities to punish anti-Israel activists, as the Israeli organization Shurat HaDin has shown.
   
   
2. Counter-Boycotts. The previous article gave examples of how boycotters were quickly defeated by a boycott directed against them (as, for instance, by customers of a Swedish supermarket chain that decided no longer to stock Israeli products). Most conveniently, many boycott initiatives include the publication of comprehensive lists of people who have signed on to the boycott, telling us all whom to retaliate against. Regarding anti-Israel activities on campus, there is an organization, Canary Mission, that is patiently compiling a prosopography (a comparative biography) of those activists – whether teachers or students – on campus after campus. Canary Mission does not overtly call to make the lives of such people difficult, but it certainly facilitates counter-boycotts. It has noted with satisfaction cases where students decided to leave anti-Israel groups and delete all reference to them from their résumés, for fear of harming their prospects of employment.
   
   
3. Delegitimization. Why just complain about the unfair delegitimization of Israel and Israelis? The offenders, too, can be targets of delegitimization. Indeed, this is one offensive strategy that has frequently been used. For instance, a list of filmmakers calling for boycotts of Israel was widely derided as consisting mainly of obscure backstage technicians and only two well-known names. (The list was, on the other hand, most useful for counter-boycott purposes, as every film today ends with scores of credits in which all those obscure individuals are included.) Academics can be derided if – as is often the case – they belong to low-level institutions that issue degrees with comical titles; unfavourable reviews of their publications can be sought out and made widely known. When some performer calls for a cultural boycott of Israel, a list of far more famous performers who have appeared in Israel can be produced, letting one deride the obnoxious individual as a second-rate sideman or has-been who is desperate for publicity. And so on.
   
   
4. Digging up Dirt. Just as antisemitism is a symptom of sick individuals, anti-Israelism is frequently a symptom of institutions that are infected by corruption or even in a state of terminal decline. So one strategy, when an institution goes on an anti-Israeli track, is to start investigating what else is wrong with the institution and attack it from that angle. If this is done often enough, moreover, institutions will get wary and hesitate to become anti-Israel in the first place, for fear of attracting unwelcome attention.
   
   
5. Self-Harming. Anti-Israelism is not just a symptom of declining institutions, it can also accelerate the decline. Consider those churches, like the PCUSA, the United Church of Christ and the British Methodists, whose foolish leadership has endorsed boycotts directed at Israel. They were already losing membership year in, year out. There were already frictions between individual parishes and the haughty hierarchy. Instead of begging their leaders to leave Israel alone, they can be told: "Your agitation about Palestine brings the Palestinians no benefits and leaves Israelis unaffected; you merely increase dissention in your parishes and encourage fresh defections. You are engaged in pure self-harming."
   

Who Should Do What?

Until recently, the greater part of anti-boycott activity was carried out by private initiatives whose scarcity of funds was matched by tireless devotion to the cause. This author recently visited one of those organizations, which has created a valuable archive on the internet and whose interventions have had a real impact in foreign countries. When he expressed appreciation of so much achieved in such small premises, he was told: "We could move to a larger office, but we prefer to use the money on an extra researcher."

All this could be changed by the Israeli government decision (June 2015) to allocate 100 million shekels to combating boycotts. The private organization just mentioned, for example, could do fresh wonders with a small fraction of that sum.

So there are two principal questions. What activities are best carried out by government itself and what are best delegated to private organizations? And should organizations specialize in particular strategies or can a given single organization draw upon all the available strategies?

The answer to the second question is a simple one: organizations have to specialize because certain combinations of strategies cannot be pursued without embarrassment. In particular, one and the same organization can hardly both plead the unfairness of boycotts and simultaneously pursue counter-boycotts; these tasks have to be separated.

Thus, in particular, government officials should rarely be involved in counter-boycotts at all. Of course, they are entitled to refuse to meet people involved in anti-Israel activity and, if the case is persuasive enough, to refuse them entry to the country. But these are rights of the government officials anywhere.

This does not mean, however, that government cannot foster counter-boycotts indirectly. For instance, government can compile and publish accurate data on who is involved in boycotts, leaving it to others to use the data as they please. In the case of the Swedish supermarkets, as the earlier article noted, the Ambassador of Israel merely informed all the locals on his mailing list, who then took the matter into their own hands. This case provides the model.

Government can also take a lesson from several European governments, which allocate funds to church-based and humanitarian organizations that, according to their names, are engaged in relieving worldwide famine, poverty and disease. These organizations, as NGO Monitor has widely documented, then pass on immense sums to NGOs that have nothing to do with those noble aims but are agitating politically on behalf of the Palestinians. Likewise, Israeli government money could trickle through one or more cut-outs to organizations that do what government must abstain from.

Digging up Dirt is basically a similar case. An exception might be if personnel within the hostile entity volunteered to supply information to government representatives. Yet in this case, too, government may be on firmer ground if it passes the information on to others who know how to exploit it. It can also find ways to finance those who are engaged in researching the inner workings of hostile entities, as any such project may require a year or more in order to figure out what is going on.

Self-Harming, on the other hand, is a strategy that purports to rescue a hostile entity from self-destruction by weaning it off its anti-Israel agenda. So anyone can use it and those public officials who are well-trained in adopting hypocritical stances might be as good at it as anybody else.

Delegitimization permits greater flexibility. That a person maligned responds by attacking the credentials of the maligners is often regarded as only natural. The same indulgence is accorded to the official representatives of a maligned country.

The most important point about Lawfare is that it is necessarily expensive. Cases may go to appeal and thence to a Supreme Court, so they can go on for years with expenses piling up. They may be won, but without refund of costs. Or they may be lost on a technicality, with costs awarded to the accused. Lawfare is thus eminently a matter for government finance, since government can afford to take losses that would bankrupt private organizations.

Still, the pursuit of justice in the courts of a foreign country is rarely appropriate for government itself. Perhaps the way is for government to support the general budget of relevant private organizations on such conditions as: an organization must have a proven record of success and it should consult government lawyers before pursuing individual cases.

The author would welcome suggestions about strategies that he may have overlooked. But even if there be more, the above discussion may provide sufficient guidelines for discerning how and by whom they would best be employed.

Malcolm Lowe is a Welsh scholar specialized in Greek philosophy, the New Testament and interfaith relations.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8070/combating-israel-boycotts

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

Israel, Gaza and "Proportionality" - Louis René Beres

by Louis René Beres

The obligations of proportionality require that no side employ any level of force that is greater than what is needed to achieve a legitimate political and operational objective.

• It appears that several major Palestinian terror groups have begun to prepare for mega-terror attacks on Israel.
• The authoritative rules of war do not equate "proportionality" with how many people die in each side of a conflict. In war, no side is ever required to respond to aggression with only the equivalent measure of force. Rather, the obligations of proportionality require that no side employ any level of force that is greater than what is needed to achieve a legitimate political and operational objective.
• Under pertinent international law, the use of one's own people as "human shields" -- because such firing from populated areas is intended to deter Israeli reprisals, or to elicit injuries to Palestinian civilians -- represents a codified war crime. More specifically, this crime is known as "perfidy." This is plainly an attempt to make the IDF appear murderous when it is compelled to retaliate, but it is simply a Palestinian manipulation of legal responsibility. Under law, those Arab residents who suffer from Israeli retaliations are incurring the consequences of their own government's war crimes.
• International law is not a suicide pact. Instead, it offers a universally binding body of rules and procedures that allows all states to act on behalf of their "inherent right of self-defense."

Already, calls from various directions have begun to condemn Israel for its recent retaliatory strikes in self-defense at Gaza.[1] The carefully-rehearsed refrain is all-too familiar. Gazan terrorists fire rockets and mortars at Israel; then, the world calls upon the Israel Air Force (IAF) not to respond.

Although Israel is plainly the victim in these ritualistic cycles of Arab terror and required Israeli retaliations, the "civilized world" usually comes to the defense of the victimizers. Inexplicably, in the European Union, and even sometimes with the current U.S. president, the Israeli response is reflexively, without thought, described as "excessive" or "disproportionate."

Leaving aside the irony of President Obama's evident sympathies here -- nothing that Israel has done in its own defense even comes close to the indiscriminacy of recent U.S. operations in Afghanistan[2] -- the condemnations are always unfounded. Plainly, Hamas and allied Arab terror groups deliberately fire their rockets from populated areas in Gaza at Israeli civilians. Under pertinent international law, this use of one's own people as "human shields" -- because such firing from populated areas is intended to deter Israeli reprisals, or to elicit injuries to Palestinian civilians -- represents a codified war crime. More specifically, this crime is known as "perfidy."

"Perfidy" is plainly an attempt to make the IDF appear murderous when it is compelled to retaliate, but it is always simply a Palestinian manipulation of true legal responsibility. Hamas's intent might be to incriminate the Israelis as murderers of Gaza's civilians. Legally, however, the net effect of Arab perfidy in Gaza is to free Israel of all responsibility for Arab harm, even if it is Israeli retaliatory fire that actually injures or kills the Gazan victims. Under law, those Arab residents who suffer from Israeli retaliations are incurring the consequences of their own government's war crimes. Palestinian suffering, which we are surely about to see again in stepped-up, choreographed Arab propaganda videos, remains the direct result of a relentlessly cruel, insensitive, and criminal Hamas leadership.

Significant, too, although never really mentioned, is that this Hamas leadership, similar to the PA and Fatah leadership, often sits safely away from Gaza, tucked away inconspicuously in Qatar. For these markedly unheroic figures, "martyrdom" is allegedly always welcomed and revered, but only as long as this singular honor is actually conferred upon someone else.

Moreover, the authoritative rules of war do not equate "proportionality" with how many people die in each side of a conflict. In war, no side is ever required to respond to aggression with only the equivalent measure of force. Rather, the obligations of proportionality require that no side employ any level of force that is greater than what is needed to achieve a legitimate political and operational objective.

If the rule of proportionality were genuinely about an equivalent number of dead, America's use of atomic weapons against Japanese civilians in August 1945 would represent the greatest single expression of "disproportionality" in human history.

It appears that several major Palestinian terror groups have begun to prepare for mega-terror attacks on Israel. Such attacks, possibly in cooperation with certain allied jihadist factions, could include chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Over time, especially if Iran, undeterred by the July 2015 Vienna Pact, should agree to transfer portions of its residual nuclear materials to terror groups, Israel could then have to face Palestinian-directed nuclear terrorism.

One message is clear. If Israel, pressured by outside forces, allows Palestinian terror from Gaza to continue unopposed, the state could become increasingly vulnerable to even greater forms of Arab aggression.

Also important to keep in mind is that nuclear terror assaults against Israel could be launched from trucks or ships, not only from rockets and missiles.

What about Israel's active defenses? In its most recent defensive operations, Protective Edge and Pillar of Defense, Israel accomplished an impressively high rate of "Iron Dome" interceptions against incoming rockets from Gaza. Still, it would be a mistake to extrapolate from any such relatively limited successes to the vastly more complex hazards of strategic danger from Iran. Should Iran "go nuclear" in ten years or sooner, that still recalcitrant Islamic regime could launch at Israel missiles armed with nuclear warheads.

In its most recent defensive operations, Israel accomplished an impressively high rate of "Iron Dome" interceptions against incoming rockets from Gaza. Still, it would be a mistake to extrapolate from any such relatively limited successes to the vastly more complex hazards of strategic danger from Iran. (Image source: IDF)

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military thinker, already understood -- long before the nuclear age -- that too great a reliance on defense is always misconceived. Today, Arrow, Israel's core ballistic missile defense (BMD) interception system, would require a 100% rate success against offensive nuclear missiles. At the same time, such a rate is impossible to achieve, even if enhanced by Rafael's new laser-based defenses. Israel must therefore continue to rely primarily on deterrence for existential nuclear threats.

Although unacknowledged, Israel has always been willing to keep its essential counterterrorism operations in Gaza consistent with the established rules of humanitarian international law. Palestinian violence, however, has remained in persistent violation of all accepted rules of engagement -- even after Israel painfully "disengaged" from Gaza in 2005.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority still speak indignantly of "the Occupation?" But where, precisely, is this "occupation?" After all their agitated umbrage about Israeli "disproportionality," shouldn't the Palestinians and their allies finally be able to answer that core question? There are no Israelis in Gaza.

International law is not a suicide pact. Instead, it offers a universally binding body of rules and procedures that allows all states to act on behalf of their "inherent right of self-defense."[3] When terrorists groups such as Hamas openly celebrate the "martyrdom" of Palestinian children, and when Hamas leaders unhesitatingly seek their own religious redemption through the mass-murder of Jewish children, unfortunately these terrorists retain no legal right to demand sanctuary.

In response to endless terror attacks from Gaza, Israel, with countless leaflets, phone calls, "knocks on the roof," and other warnings to its attackers, has been acting with an operational restraint unequaled by any other nation and according to binding rules of war. In these obligatory acts of self-defense there has not yet been the slightest evidence of disproportionality.

Louis René Beres is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue University. His just-published new book is titled Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel's Nuclear Strategy.

---

[1] Speaking in Beirut on Channel 10 News, on May 7, 2016, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of "attacking Gaza," continuing: "Unfortunately, the Arab world is silent about the situation in Gaza. ... these actions must be condemned." Cited in Israel National News, "Nasrallah calls for condemnation of Israeli 'Attacks' on Gaza," May 7, 2016. Interesting, too, is that Nasrallah, a Shiite leader, is speaking here in strong support of Sunni Hamas.
[2] See Alissa J. Rubin, "Airstrike Hits Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan," The New York Times, October 3, 2015. This is an account of the October 2015, U.S. destruction of a crowded hospital in the embattled city of Kunduz. The Pentagon confirmed the strike, which it called "collateral damage," and President Obama offered condolences to the victims in what he termed a "tragic incident." Doctors Without Borders was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
[3] See, especially, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

Louis René Beres is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue University. His just-published new book is titled Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel's Nuclear Strategy.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8014/israel-gaza-proportionality

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