Islamic jihad fire 200 rockets towards Israel - Christine Douglass-Williams

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by Christine Douglass-Williams

Each time Israel has given up land in efforts toward peace, land which it captured in defensive wars, its jihadist neighbors betrayed agreements and were instead, further emboldened.

Renewed fighting has escalated in Gaza: “approximately 200 rockets have been fired by Gaza militants towards Israel over the course of a few hours…In response, the IDF says it has carried out airstrikes on more than 30 militant targets in Gaza, including rocket launcher sites and other military compounds used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”

There’s nothing new about flareups in Gaza. The jihadist war against Israel began in 1948 and will continue until the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Hamas and Fatah accept Israel’s right to exist, which they will never do. Each of these jihadist organizations aim to obliterate Israel in accordance with their charters, despite the ongoing lies and propaganda about: the Palestinian leadership making efforts toward a two-state solution, the so-called Israeli “occupation”, Israel “apartheid” etc.

The well-known declaration, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”, is an ongoing mantra which fixates on obliterating Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Each time Israel has given up land in efforts toward peace, land which it captured in defensive wars, its jihadist neighbors betrayed agreements and were instead, further emboldened.

Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, was loudly praising violent riots along the Gaza-Israel border in late March, “as tens of thousands of Palestinians massed along the border on the first anniversary of the “Great March of Return”.  Sinwar declared: “we want to bomb Tel Aviv.” Islamic Jihad is also now vowing to strike major Israeli cities. Intentions do not get clearer than that.

Such recent disturbing news does not stop there: with aid from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hizballah has now built a new missile manufacturing facility in Beirut. Despite all, in early April, Israel again embarked on futile efforts toward peace, by negotiating an agreement with Hamas. Part of the agreement included an easing of “the restrictions on the fishing area and gradually open the Gaza crossings to allow additional goods through.” Meanwhile, Deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri emphasized that a Hamas-Israel agreement “is not a peace agreement”.

Appeasement of jihadists has never worked and will never work. It emboldens jihadist bullies.


“2 wounded as Gaza militants fire 200 rockets towards Israel: IDF”, by Andrew Carey, CNN, May 4, 2019:

Jerusalem (CNN)Approximately 200 rockets have been fired by Gaza militants towards Israel over the course of a few hours on Saturday, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The Iron Dome aerial defense system intercepted dozens of the incoming rockets, the IDF added.
Two Israelis have been wounded, including an 80-year old woman in the city of Kiryat Gat, about twenty miles from Gaza, injured by shrapnel to her head and legs, according to Israel’s emergency response service, Magen David Adom.
In response, the IDF says it has carried out airstrikes on more than 30 militant targets in Gaza, including rocket launcher sites and other military compounds used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health says one person has died as a result of the Israeli strikes, and seven others have been wounded.
Israel has also announced that it is closing the two border crossings between Israel and Gaza, as well as closing the Gaza fishing zone in light of the rocket fire.
The announcement came from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). The fishing zone was restricted to 6 nautical miles earlier this week following a rocket fired from Gaza that landed off the coast of Israel.
There was no specific date for when the crossings and the fishing zone would reopen.
Saturday’s rocket barrage comes less than a day after two militants from Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, were killed in an Israeli strike on Hamas posts in Gaza.
Israel launched airstrikes Friday after two Israeli soldiers were wounded by sniper fire along the Gaza border….

Christine Douglass-Williams

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/05/flareup-in-gaza-hamas-and-islamic-jihad-fire-200-rockets-towards-israel

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The ideological overlap between the Muslim Brotherhood and jihad violence - Christine Douglass-Williams

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by Christine Douglass-Williams

It is very good news that “Donald Trump’s administration is considering joining the countries that have already outlawed the group as a terrorist organization

The five countries where the the Muslim Brotherhood maintains an open jihad “terror-linked presence” in trying to achieve a caliphate is: Turkey, Qatar, Iraq, Sudan and the Palestinian Territories in Israel.    “There is significant Islamist ideological overlap between the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and some of the globe’s most murderous jihadi groups — the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda.”  It is critical for Westerners to understand this point, and also that Muslim Brotherhood (MB) linked groups are operational across the West, not only in those five countries where they are more emboldened and linked up with their violent counterparts.

In the West,  however, the MB is busy telling people that violence has nothing to do with Islam. Muslim Brotherhood operatives on Western soil look very different than how they appear in the five identified countries. In democracies, they operate under a mainstream veneer and appear to be assimilated and friendly toward the West. However, they are not. They are very manipulative and among their many stealth tactics, they routinely drive the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s “Islamophobia” agenda as a means to shut down free speech–the cornerstone of Western democracy.
They hide their goals behind a victimology subterfuge, with an aim to achieve a caliphate, “by changing existing governments and societies from within“. This goal is well documented.

It is very good news that “Donald Trump’s administration is considering joining the countries that have already outlawed the group as a terrorist organization: Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Syria.” All Muslim Brotherhood linked groups need to be marginalized and dismantled. They have already overtaken the “anti-racism” industry and have branded an us-versus-them mentality into Western democracies; all the while wielding the “islamophobia” battering ram wherever they go. They cleverly ignore however the atrocities committed by their violent co-religionists and they reel in Leftists to help them.


“5 Countries Where Muslim Brotherhood Operates to Establish Global Caliphate”, Edwin Mora,  Breitbart, May 2, 2019:

There is significant Islamist ideological overlap between the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and some of the globe’s most murderous jihadi groups — the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda, Breitbart News learned from the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
All three groups maintain a shared goal of establishing an Islamic global caliphate. However, MB has the advantage of being “one of the oldest and broadest-reaching Islamist organizations in modern times,” the non-governmental organization (NGO) noted in its Muslim Brotherhood profile, citing data from various governments and news reports.
According to CEP, MB itself or some of its affiliated groups maintain an active presence in at least 18 countries primarily located across the Muslim world, namely in the Middle East and Africa.
Given its global reach, it appears the Brotherhood is closer to achieving its goal of bringing about a caliphate, by changing existing governments and societies from within, than groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.
At one point or another, American congressional hearings and federal terrorism trials have linked MB to U.S.-based Islamic groups such as Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Muslim Students Association (MSA), North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and the Hamas-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Analysts such as Lorenzo Vidino of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism argue that over time some of those American groups have shed their links to MB.
Nevertheless, an MB manifesto, dubbed “Explanatory Memorandum On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” and presented by the FBI as evidence in a U.S. federal case against Hamas financing, explicitly claimed that it is a “civilization jihadist” group responsible for Muslims to “present Islam as a civilization alternative, and support[ing] the global Islamic State wherever it is.”
This meant that the Brotherhood’s “work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions,” CEP explained.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering joining the countries that have already outlawed the group as a terrorist organization: Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Syria. While some of the countries that house MB branches have designated the group a terrorist organization, some openly support it, namely U.S allies Turkey and Qatar.
The following are five countries where MB maintains a terror-linked presence:
Turkey:
Following Egyptian MB President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster, Turkey has long served as a hub for the MB international organization, granting asylum to members who were expelled and even providing the Egyptian branch with weapons and intelligence, CEP noted. Furthermore, Turkey allowed the organization to regroup on its soil to ultimately strengthen the group whose birthplace is Egypt.
Qatar……

Christine Douglass-Williams

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/05/the-ideological-overlap-between-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-jihad-violence

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The Monroe Doctrine for Venezuela - Jiri Valenta

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by Jiri Valenta

Today, we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well." — National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, Miami, Florida April 17, 2019.

• "It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord." — President James Monroe, 1823.
• "The destinies of our nations will not be dictated by foreign powers; they will be shaped by the people who call this hemisphere home. Today, we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well." — National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, Miami, Florida April 17, 2019.
• "The movement for freedom in Venezuela reveals that the twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere..." — President Donald Trump, Feb. 19, 2019, Florida International University.
• At the same time, it is probably a good idea to keep an eye on the Ukraine, where Putin has been offering around fast-tracked Russian passports, as he did prior to his invasions of Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, and Crimea in 2014. It is probably advisable for the US to help the Ukrainians reinforce their defenses there, especially around the city of Mariupol.
• It might also help to explain to the American people what is at stake for the Western Hemisphere in Venezuela....

Under no circumstances should the Russians be allowed to bring in more troops, planes or war materiel into Venezuela by air or sea. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro in Moscow, on July 2, 2013. (Image source: kremlin.ru)

In his speech to Bay of Pigs veterans in Miami, Florida on April 17, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton explained the Trump administration's measures against Venezuela, which he said should serve as a warning to Russia and others offering military assistance to the regime of the dictator Nicolás Maduro:

"This incredible region [Latin America] must remain free from internal despotism and external domination... The destinies of our nations will not be dictated by foreign powers; they will be shaped by the people who call this hemisphere home. Today, we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well."

The heart of the Monroe Doctrine can be illustrated by President James Monroe's declaration in 1823:

"It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord."

With a conflict now erupting in Venezuela, the American people clearly need to understand the relevance of the Venezuelan crisis to them, and why they should support it.

Here, therefore, is a short history of the milestone document drafted in 1823 by then Secretary of State and future president, John Quincey Adams, with input from former presidents James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

The document was delivered in an 1823 annual message to Congress by our 5^th president, James Monroe. His message -- not called the "Monroe Doctrine" until 1850 -- began by addressing the geopolitical ambitions in America of European tyrants ruling Russia, France and Spain. His greatest concern, as is among U.S. President Donald J. Trump's today, was Russia. Tsar Alexander I's 1821 ukaz [edict] was claiming all the coastal territory of the American Pacific Northwest down to the 51st parallel, today's State of Oregon, and was prohibiting non-Russian shipping in these regions.

America was still too weak to enforce its interests in the Western Hemisphere. Fortunately, America did have friendly support from Britain, with her then powerful Royal Navy, which helped to contain the Russian bear.

The first president to invoke the Monroe Doctrine by name was Abraham Lincoln. As America's Civil War continued to rage, a new threat had already opened south of the Texas border. Reform-minded Benito Juárez, the president of a new Mexican republic created in 1858, was fighting not only Mexican conservatives, but the troops of France's emperor, Napoleon III, to whom Mexico owed a considerable debt.

Napoleon III, apparently desiring to re-establish a monarchy in the Western Hemisphere, had created a Mexican throne for an Austrian archduke, Ferdinand Maximilian, and Confederate emissaries to the "Emperor" Maximilian were inquiring about a possible alliance.

Lincoln responded with covert military and economic aid for Juárez, the legitimate President of Mexico. Meanwhile Juárez dispatched agents across the U.S. to court capitalists, arms dealers and editors -- and even established "Monroe Doctrine Societies."

Finally, Lincoln deployed Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Philip Sheridan secretly to fight the French at the Mexican-Texas border. By 1867, the French units, evidently discouraged, began to withdraw. Maximilian was captured and shot. Juárez had prevailed.

In 1904, several other European powers -- Germany, Italy and the UK -- blockaded Venezuela and fired at its coast, evidently as part of an effort to collect an enormous foreign debt. Meanwhile, under President Cipriano Castro, a leader similar to today's Nicolás Maduro, chaos reigned and Venezuelans starved. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine against the extra-hemispheric powers. President Theodore Roosevelt sent in the U.S. fleet -- all of 50 ships. He then helped to negotiate and settle Venezuela's debts by using 30% of the country's customs duties until they were fully paid.

Roosevelt also added a "corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine: he proclaimed the right of the United States to exercise 'an international police power' to curb glaring and 'chronic wrongdoing.' The U.S. Marines were subsequently sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in 1911, and Haiti in 1915. It was a move designed ostensibly to keep the Europeans out, but also to protect U.S. business interests. Other Latin American nations seem to have viewed these interventions with misgivings: for many years, relations between the "great Colossus of the North" and its southern neighbors remained strained.

Then came a course correction. Another Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), recognized that the Monroe Doctrine was framed to protect the Americas from extra-hemispheric threats, not to police Latin neighbors. To enhance stability, he placed an emphasis on trade, cooperation and good neighboring.

The improved relations that resulted from the return to the doctrine's original meaning helped FDR prepare Latin America and the Organization of American States (OAS) for the rising threat of Nazi Germany. In 1940, the Monroe Doctrine came to include the collective right of self-defense at the "Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics" in Havana.

The same year, FDR emphasized Monroe Doctrine in his presidential campaign, and in 1941, he extended the Monroe Doctrine "... eastward into the middle of the Atlantic." He also announced that it encompassed Greenland, then owned by Denmark, but at the time temporarily occupied by the U.S. : "We are applying to Denmark what might be called a carrying out of the Monroe Doctrine..."

Originating with FDR came an extended and more broadly defined Monroe Doctrine – one of taking the war across the Atlantic to the enemy, and rescuing an old ally, Britain, and with her Western Europe. The U.S. even made a temporary alliance with the Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party, Joseph Stalin, to block the ability of Germany's Führer, Adolf Hitler, to advance to the east.

Thereafter, amidst the long Cold War that followed WWII, the Russians returned to the Americas with a new geopolitical and ideological challenge -- this time to its eastern coast. In the 1960s, as 140 years earlier, the Russians tried to defy the Monroe Doctrine by injecting their communist system into Cuba, followed by Nicaragua and Grenada in the early 1980s.

In 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced at a press conference:

"We consider that the Monroe Doctrine has outlived its time, has outlived itself, has died, so to say, a natural death. Now the remains of this doctrine should best be buried as every dead body is so that it should not poison the air by its decay."

Two years later, President John F. Kennedy discovered that the Soviet Union had quietly built missile-launching sites in Cuba and had secreted almost 42,000 disguised Soviet troops into the island. What followed was the Cuban Missile Crisis, bringing the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war. In August 1962, Kennedy said at a press conference:

"The Monroe Doctrine means what it has meant since President Monroe and John Quincy Adams enunciated it, and that is that we would oppose a foreign power extending its power to the Western Hemisphere, and that is why we oppose what is happening in Cuba today. That is why we have cut off our trade. That is why we worked in the Organization of American States and in other ways to isolate the Communist menace in Cuba."

Supported by the OAS, Kennedy stood up to Khrushchev and encircled the island with a naval and air "quarantine" -- a word less bellicose than "blockade". Mobilizing for a possible invasion, Kennedy was also aware that a military strike at Cuba might inspire Russia to retaliate against West Berlin.

After several tense days of this Doomsday Clock ticking loudly, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the missiles and dismantle its sites. Reciprocally, the United States dismantled several obsolete air and missile bases in Turkey.

As laudable as was Kennedy's courage and iron resolve, the finale was not a clear-cut U.S. victory. Neither he nor subsequent presidents demanded that all Russian military assets be withdrawn from Cuba, as President Trump is now demanding for Venezuela.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter's Administration acknowledged that a Soviet brigade of about 10,000 men was garrisoned in Cuba. Incidentally, it was the Soviet Embassy, and not former U.S. leaders and intelligence officers, who notified the U.S. State Department of a "Soviet military advisory group" that had been in Cuba since 1962.

Kennedy's people, like subsequent administrations, had apparently forgotten about the threat. The issue of the Russians in the Western Hemisphere re-emerged with the growing activities of a brigade that was training Nicaraguan and Grenadan communist guerrillas who had come to power 1979.

On March 11, 1981, President Ronald Reagan evoked the principles, if not the name, of the Monroe Doctrine:

"On this side of the Atlantic we must stand together for the integrity of our hemisphere for the inviolability of its nations, ... and the right of all our citizens to be free from the provocations triggered from outside our sphere for malevolent purposes."

Reagan thus became determined to reverse a Leninist tide in Grenada, Nicaragua and the communist guerrillas in El Salvador and in other regions, such as Angola and Afghanistan.

After Reagan liberated Grenada in 1983, his tactic became not to invade Nicaragua, but instead to arm and support anti-communist guerrillas, later known as Contras, to fight the left-wing Sandinistas there. Reagan, apparently to persuade the Russians to leave, also approved sabotaging some strategic targets there.

In 1990, the Sandinistas lost free elections in Nicaragua. In December 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, largely as a result of Reagan's doctrine and military policies, combined with pressure from radical Russian reformers.

Over the years, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin, while rejecting Bolshevism, has reverted to backing tyrannical, anti-American regimes, seemingly for geopolitical and economic reasons. In Nicaragua, in tainted elections, the Sandinistas also came back to power and have stayed to this day. So have their 21st century "socialist" allies in Venezuela, led by the late Hugo Chávez and now by Maduro.

As Lincoln supported Juárez, the legitimate President of Mexico, Trump has been supporting the democratic and legitimate Venezuelan president, Juan Guaidó. Not only has Maduro become the puppet of extra-hemispheric powers, particularly Russia and China, but he and his allies in Cuba and Nicaragua clearly maintain security ties with Russia and support a tyrannical "socialism" at home. All three, in Ambassador Bolton's words, constitute a "Troika of Terror" as well as a "Troika of Poverty."

Russia's successful invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014 appear simply to have whetted Putin's appetite. Now, partly because of enormous investments that Russia and China have made in Venezuela's oil and defense industries, both superpowers are trying to save the Maduro regime by flying in military personnel (as is Russia) and weaponry (from both Russia and China). On April 29^th media reports surfaced of Russian air-defense specialists deployed to Venezuela, evidently "sent to ensure the nation's sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missiles remain a credible deterrent to any U.S. military action..."

Moreover, reports have emerged that Russia recently requested permission from Malta "to use its airspace to fly military aircraft from Syria to Venezuela," and that "two Russian military planes also flew through the airspace of Greece and Cyprus from Syria en route to Venezuela on March 22 and 23."

What else should President Trump do in Venezuela now? Under no circumstances should the Russians be allowed to bring in more troops, planes or war materiel by sea or air. Trump should follow Kennedy's example with a "quarantine" around Venezuela.

In addition, as Ambassador Bolton has said, "all options are on the table."

At the same time, it is probably a good idea to keep an eye on the Ukraine, where Putin has been offering fast-tracked Russian passports, as he did prior to his invasions of Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, and Crimea in 2014. It is also probably advisable for the US to help the Ukrainians reinforce their defenses there, especially around the city of Mariupol.

In addition, it might help to explain to the American people what is at stake for the Western Hemisphere in Venezuela -- like the earlier "Monroe Doctrine Societies" in the United States. Most Americans are possibly not aware that while most statues and busts of Lenin were torn down after the 1989 democratic revolutions in eastern Europe, Maduro had erected a bust of Lenin in Caracas at the 100-year anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in 2017, and sent birthday wishes to Lenin on April 22.

Last month, President Trump announced that, "The movement for freedom in Venezuela reveals that the twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere."

The American people and its "southern brothers" need to know that the Monroe Doctrine protects everyone in the hemisphere -- from their own tyrants as well. As the Marquis de Lafayette noted, the Monroe Doctrine is the "best little bit of paper that God ever permitted any man to give to the world."

Jiri Valenta is a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel. A former tenured professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, he testified at Henry Kissinger's Bi-partisan Commission on Central America in 1983. The author of Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia, 1968, Johns Hopkins, 1991, co-author of Conflict in Nicaragua, Allen and Unwin, 1987, and Grenada and Soviet/Cuban Policy: Internal Crisis and U.S./OECS Intervention, Westview Press, 1987.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14178/venezuela-monroe-doctrine

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Palestinian Leaders and Inconvenient Truths - Khaled Abu Toameh

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by Khaled Abu Toameh

This is the old Palestinian blame game: always make Israel or the U.S. appear responsible for the suffering you inflict on your own people.

• Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas understood that he had made a grave error in calling out his Arab brothers for their tightfistedness. This was a massive mistake because his Arab brothers do not tolerate any form of criticism. For them, Abbas should only be criticizing Israel and the US.
• This is the old Palestinian blame game: always make Israel or the U.S. appear responsible for the suffering you inflict on your own people.
• Like most Palestinians, Abbas is well aware that the Arab states are no longer willing to serve as a cash machine for ingrates. Under the current circumstances, the Palestinians are more likely to succeed in cajoling money from duped Western donors than from their loving brothers. From the Palestinian leaders' point of view, however, this is an inconvenient truth best hidden from their people.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is well aware that the Arab states are no longer willing to serve as a cash machine for ingrates. Under the current circumstances, the Palestinians are more likely to succeed in cajoling money from duped Western donors than from their loving brothers. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

The Arab states continue to lie to the Palestinians. At the last meeting of Arab foreign ministers in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, the Arabs "affirmed their commitment to support the budget of the state of Palestine by activating the resolution of the Arab summit in Tunisia to provide a $100 million safety net [to the Palestinians] each month."

The Arab foreign ministers announced their decision after listening to a speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who complained that his government was facing a financial crisis because of Israeli and US measures.

Abbas was referring to Israel's decision to deduct payments made by the Palestinian Authority (PA) government to families of security prisoners and "martyrs" from tax revenues that Israel collects each month on behalf of the Palestinians.

Earlier this year, the Israeli government announced it is deducting hundreds of millions of shekels from the tax funds it collects on behalf of the Palestinians because of the PA's policy of paying salaries to terrorists and their families. The decision was in accordance with an Israeli law passed in July 2018. Under the law, the payments made by the PA government would automatically be frozen by the Israeli government, in accordance with the Paris Protocol, an agreement signed between Israel and the PLO in 1994 that allows Israel to collect and transfer to the PA government the import taxes on goods that were intended for the Palestinians.

The law also requires the Israeli Defense Ministry to provide the cabinet with data on the amount the PA pays terrorists and their families. Israel's Finance Ministry will then withhold that amount from the tax funds it transfers.

Abbas was also referring to the steep cuts in US financial aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the PA government.

Abbas went to the Arab League meeting in Cairo with the seeming hope that the Arab countries would help him overcome the severe financial crisis his government has been facing in the past few months. He was apparently hoping that the Arab countries would implement the decision of the Arab summit held in Tunisia in late March to provide financial aid to the Palestinians.

As it turns out, however, both the Arab summit in Tunisia and the Arab League meeting in Cairo have given the Palestinians nothing but empty promises and meaningless statements of support and solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

Earlier this week, Abbas revealed during a meeting of his cabinet in the West Bank city of Ramallah that despite the pledges of financial support from the Arab states, the Palestinians still have not received any funds. He further disclosed that he had asked the Arab countries for a loan -- a request which he said has also been ignored by the Arab states.

"We asked our Arab brothers to provide us with a financial safety net," Abbas said, referring to his speech at the Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.

"But we're not pinning high hopes on them. God willing, something will happen. We asked for $100 million each month. We told them to consider it a debt, which we will pay you back. However, we haven't received an answer even regarding the debt request."

At this point in his speech, Abbas became aware that his remarks were being broadcast live on Palestine TV. It was at that moment that he stopped speaking about the failure of the Arab states to fulfill their promises to the Palestinians. What happened was that Abbas realized that his criticism of the Arab states was likely to enrage the Arab heads of state.

Abbas understood that he had made a grave error in calling out his Arab brothers for their tightfistedness. This was a massive mistake because his Arab brothers do not tolerate any form of criticism. For them, Abbas should only be criticizing Israel and the US. Sure enough, to avoid a crisis with the Arab countries, Abbas's official news agency, Wafa, deleted from its report about his speech the critical remarks he had made about the Arab states.

The Palestinian news agency evidently does not want Palestinians to know that their Arab brothers are refusing to help them financially. It appears, instead, to want the Palestinians to believe that Israel and the US are solely responsible for the financial crisis facing the Palestinian Authority government. In fact, this is how the Palestinian propaganda machine has long been functioning. This is the old Palestinian blame game: always make Israel or the U.S. appear responsible for the suffering you inflict on your own people.

The Arab betrayal of the Palestinians is not new. Instead of supporting their Palestinian brothers, the Arab states have been cutting aid to them. According to one report, Arab financial aid to the Palestinians has dramatically dropped in the past two decades. Another report revealed that donations from the Arab world to the Palestinians has been slashed over the past few years by 50%. A mere quarter of the PA's 2017 budget of approximately $3.7 billion has come from Arab states, the report said.

The Palestinians are right to believe that the Arab world no longer cares about them and their problems. The Arab countries have their own problems, particularly financial ones. Most Arab countries seem sick of the Palestinians and see them as ungrateful, particularly after the PLO's support for Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait – one of several wealthy Arab countries that funded the Palestinians to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in the 70s and 80s.

The PLO's support for Saddam Hussein was a wake-up call for Kuwait and many Arab countries, who are now telling the Palestinians: "Here's some tough love: you spit in our faces, we cut off your allowance."

Like most Palestinians, Abbas is well aware that the Arab states are no longer willing to serve as a cash machine for ingrates. Under the current circumstances, the Palestinians are more likely to succeed in cajoling money from duped Western donors than from their loving brothers. From the Palestinian leaders' point of view, however, this is an inconvenient truth best hidden from their people.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on Twitter

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14167/palestinians-inconvenient-truths

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The NYTimes' Jew-Hating Cesspool - Michael Ledeen

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by Michael Ledeen

Many are surprised, but they shouldn't be.

The Times. New York, that is.   

As Roger Simon says, it isn’t just about the Jews and Israel, it’s everything.  And it isn’t a new departure, but part of a long-standing pattern.  The dreadful newspaper did not support the rescue of Jewish refugees from the Third Reich.  Its owners, the Sulzbergers, were German Jewish immigrants who were contemptuous of East German [editor: European?] Jews (Poland, especially), and editorially asked FDR to block entry to the East Europeans, most famously those on board the St Louis, which incredibly was sent back to the Nazis.

Moreover, the Times consistently underplayed the dimensions of the Holocaust, one of the reasons American military officers, including Eisenhower himself, were so horrified by what they saw when they entered the liberated concentration camps. Ike sent a message to Congressional leaders urging them to visit, because it was impossible to imagine the horror.  Even General Patton was overcome by nausea when he first entered.

The Times has repeatedly called for “understanding” our enemies, especially totalitarians.  The newspaper’s Moscow reporter, Walter Duranty, denied the forced starvation of the Ukrainian people in the early 1930s (for which he outrageously was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, still displayed at NYT headquarters), and similarly called on President Reagan to tone down his attacks on the Soviet Gulag Archipelago.  They warned Reagan not to push the Soviets’ back against the wall, lest Brezhnev or Gorbachev get angry.  Omri Ceren put it nicely in a tweet:

NYT spent decades defending antisemitic smears & BDS as legit criticism of Israel. They pushed Obama admin's agenda via Jew trackers & stories exploiting oppressed Iran Jews. They wove Jews into Russiagate conspiracism. You can't do that without having effect on newsroom culture.

The latest anti-Semitic cartoons are just the most recent, not something brand new.  The Times has always oppose[d] American leaders who see “peace” as something abstractly desirable, instead of understanding that peace is imposed on the loser of a battle or war.  Hence the Times did not want the United States to defeat the Soviet Empire in the Cold War, and certainly did not want the fall of Gorbachev along with Reagan’s historic victory.  As Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer elegantly proclaimed, the Times was similarly hostile towards Israel in general and Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular, because they fought back against their enemies and sought to bring about a real peace in the Middle East.  The breathtaking realignment of Israel’s relations with the Arab world might seem worthy of praise, but no.  Instead, the Times is “a cesspool of hostility towards Israel."

Many are surprised, but they should not be.  The liberal Jews who own, edit, and in large part write the newspaper, only embraced Zionism when Israel was governed by socialists, even if they came from Eastern Europe.  That changed when Menachem Begin became prime minister, and the political center of gravity moved to the right, where it firmly rests today.

Ambassador Dermer well understands the dynamic, because he knows the history of the newspaper and its top dogs.

The same New York Times that a century ago mostly hid from their readers the Holocaust of the Jewish people has today made its pages a safe-space for those who hate the Jewish state,” Dermer said. “Through biased coverage, slanderous columns and antisemitic cartoons, its editors shamefully choose week after week to cast the Jewish state as a force for evil.

Listen to Roger.  It isn’t just about Jews and Israel.  It’s the whole thing.


Michael Ledeen is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center and Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273644/nytimes-jew-hating-cesspool-michael-ledeen

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Muslim Federation Facebook Manager Calls Jews ‘Demonic’ and US ‘World’s #1 Terrorist' - Joe Kaufman

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by Joe Kaufman

Abdur Rahman al-Ghani posts that Democracy is evil and Islam will overtake the world.

The South Florida Muslim Federation (SFMF), the umbrella organization for South Florida’s many Islamic extremist groups, like most organizations, has a presence on social media. But unlike most organizations, this one’s Facebook page is managed by an individual who has previously used this same outlet to publicly degrade Jews, homosexuals and America and to call for violence. This piece is not meant to change this organization, SFMF, but to expose it.

SFMF was founded in April 2017 and incorporated in December 2017. Among its founding organizations were groups with significant ties to international terrorism, including Islamic Relief (IR), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Currently, the group is headed by a former executive leader of CAIR, Nezar Hamze. As well, the SFMF Public Relations Director, Wilfredo Ruiz, is from CAIR.

The Manager of SFMF’s Facebook page is Abdur Rahman al-Ghani. Al-Ghani is well known to the South Florida radical Muslim community, as he has previously held the positions of Youth Director and Events Coordinator for the Islamic Foundation of South Florida (IFSF), one of SFMF’s member organizations.

Al-Ghani, whose real name is Samuel Pittman, grew up near Washington, DC, in Norfolk, Virginia. He was raised by a single mother and went to church regularly. He was introduced to Islam, through the Nation of Islam, around the age of 20. He has been living in Florida, since 2005. His wife is Pakistani.

Al-Ghani is an interesting yet not surprising choice to run the SFMF Facebook page. Al-Ghani has, in the recent past, made a number of highly offensive and controversial posts on this social media platform, including posts that are heavily anti-Semitic and violent in nature.

Al-Ghani believes Jews are inherently wicked and in control of the media and world banking system, which he refers to as the “Global Zionist Banksters Plan.” In June 2011, under a video al-Ghani posted, titled ‘Jews control World Economy,’ he wrote, “Secular ‘Zionist’ Jews are the one’s destroying The World today.” In March 2012, he quoted little known anti-Semite Elizabeth Templar, stating, “Bolshevic Jews are the children of Satan.” In September 2012, he repeated a wild myth about how most Jews are the descendants of European converts to Judaism, writing, “80% of so-called Jews are really Ashkenazi Zionist, a derivative of the Khazarians.”

In November 2012, al-Ghani quoted Pope Clement VIII, stating, “All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit.” Also in November 2012, al-Ghani described the Middle Eastern Gulf states as “COWARDS and PUPPETS of the ‘zionist controlled’ US.” In December 2012, he wrote, “Zionist/Israelis are not holy people. They are demonic and the most evil on earth.” And in January 2013, under a story about Saudi Arabian jets aiding US military strikes on Yemen, al-Ghani posted a link to a cartoon depicting an Arab male prostrating himself on a US flag at the foot of a large menorah with a Jewish star atop it.

In November 2012, al-Ghani targeted homosexuals, quoting an individual named Alioune Ndiaye, who had written about the opening of a gay-friendly mosque in France. Al-Ghani’s post states, “If you are gay, you are not a Muslim, you are a stone cold kaffir outside the fold of Islam. No one is born gay, it is a sickness a person nurses either from their evil desires, or a behavior that was learnt either from abuse or from being evil by nature… May the curse of Allah be upon these people who are trying to make a mockery of our deen…”

Though he resides here, Al-Ghani hates the United States and those who fight to defend her. In April 2012, he posted a graphic labeling the US the “Worlds Number One Terrorist Organization.” And in September 2012, al-Ghani posted a photo of a group of Egyptians tearing up an American flag and lifting up what has become known as the black flag of ISIS. Al-Ghani’s personal description of this reads, “Anniversary of 9/11 in Egypt. Putting down ‘AMERICAN FLAG’ and Raising the “ISLAMIC FLAG - AR RAYAA.”

Al-Ghani is very much in favor of an Islamic State for the US and much of the world. He despises anything concerning democracy. In March 2011, he wrote, “No one wants Democracy!!! We Don’t Need A Kaffar System To Rob Us, And Neglect The Needs Of The People. TRASH THEM!” In November 2011, he posted a picture of someone holding a sign reading, “Democracy is Cancer. Islam is the Answer.”

In March 2012, al-Ghani posted a graphic stating, “ISLAM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD.” And in April 2012, he posted a graphic of the prohibition sign over the word “Democracy” and the picture of a demon. Next to the graphic, he wrote, “JUST SAY NO!!!... TO democracy, parliaments and dictators! KHILAFAH or nothing!!!”

Al-Ghani has, as well, posted material in support of terrorist organizations and threatening violence against US institutions. In February 2012, he posted a bloodied CIA logo with the caption, “Wiping out the CIA.” In November 2012, he posted a photo containing Hamas militants with the caption, “The few the brave. They are not [a] regular army. They have nothing to fight [for] except a strong faith on Allah. We love u Hamas. U are the real hero.” Al-Ghani, further, openly promotes the internationally banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir, advertising the group’s viewpoints and events.

Al-Ghani is a fan of deceased al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. In May 2011, al-Ghani complained about America’s lethal targeting of al-Awlaki with a drone strike. He wrote, “So The u.s. Is Now Invading Every Islamic Land At Will, To Kill And Destroy Whomever and Whatever It Wants… LETS FORM KHILAFAH FOR THE LANDS WHERE WE LIVE, TO PROTECT OUR MUSLIM BROTHERS AND SISTER’S, INSHA ALLAH.” In September 2012, al-Ghani paid homage to al-Awlaki, posting an image bearing al-Awlaki’s name and containing a black Islamic flag, with the ominous caption, “ALLAH IS PREPARING US FOR VICTORY.”

The vast majority of the above posts are still found on al-Ghani’s Facebook page, evidence that al-Ghani’s fanatical views are very much intact. And while most organizations would run away from people like al-Ghani, the South Florida Muslim Federation, which is made up of dozens of radical Muslim groups, openly welcomes such monsters.

Abdur Rahman al-Ghani, a.k.a. Samuel Pittman, is a clear threat to the United States and her populace, and any organizations that associate with him (i.e. IFSF and SFMF) should be considered threats, as well, and should be shut down immediately.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.

Joe Kaufman was the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Republican nominee for United States House of Representatives in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District against Debbie Wasserman Schultz. He is an expert in the fields of counter-terrorism, foreign affairs and energy independence for America. He has been featured on all major cable networks, including Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, PBS and C-SPAN. Joe has been instrumental in getting terrorist charities shut down and terror-related individuals put behind bars. Exactly one month prior to the September 11 attacks, he predicted the attacks by stating in an article that “the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was no aberration” and that it would happen again.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273634/muslim-federation-facebook-manager-calls-jews-joe-kaufman

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Godzilla-sized ExxonMobil gets ready to stomp socialist Cuba like a bug - Monica Showalter

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by Monica Showalter

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of socialist expropriators.

That didn't take long.

Mere days after President Trump lifted the waiver on lawsuits by Americans to sue communist Cuba for expropriated assets, Big Oil's Bigfoot, ExxonMobil, was on this case like Godzilla. The Miami Herald reports that it is ready to stomp Cuba:

Exxon Mobil has filed suit in U.S. federal court against Cuba’s CIMEX and CUPET companies for their use of an oil refinery and other properties seized by the Fidel Castro government six decades ago.
Exxon Mobil is the first U.S. company to file suit after President Donald Trump allowed Title III of the Helms-Burton Act to take effect, opening the way for demands against Cuban and foreign companies that benefit from properties seized by the communist government.
Title III had been suspended every six months by every U.S. president since the law was approved in 1996.

That's a monster. And it's going to cost Cuba big, if ExxonMobil wins, and ExxonMobil always plays to win, and with some of the world's best attorneys, it usually does win. The Helms-Burton law of 1996 states that U.S. companies who had their property stolen by communists in Cuba are entitled to sue for three times the value of the stolen properties, plus 6% annual interest, which, compounded over 60 years of Castro rule, is a...lot of interest. The company must have had that lawsuit ready for Trump's move, given the speed with which it was executed.

It shows just how major President Trump's act was. Over the years, much of the reporting on this matter has focused on small-time Cuban-American stakeholders who lost shops and apartments in the vast uncompensated thievery of communization, and these are people who have largely been dismissed as poor mice hopelessly living in the past.

Exxon's the elephant, though, and it never forgets.

Why do I think this will be a monster for the Castroites? Well, because back when I was reporting news, I wrote an investigative story describing ExxonMobil's response to Venezuela's expropriations. The company fought the Chavistas like the Mobil tiger in the tank — and it eventually won more than a billion in compensation. The company plays for keeps. Here is an old story I found from 2005 that ran on Page One of Investor's Business Daily, describing how ExxonMobil responded to Chavista Venezuela's attempt to steal ExxonMobil's assets.

ExxonMobil, of course, is going to be painted as a bully for doing it by the Chavista left, and it's likely the leftists are painting their signs and calling up their media buddies as I write this. But ExxonMobil has a rationale for this, because its business extends across the globe, and it doesn't get to pick where the oil is — which means it often has to deal with some very gamy dictators. Of course they have to fight the thieves among them. Because once word gets around in the global dictator community that big-moneyed ExxonMobil can be pushed around (its revenues, as I noted in the IBD piece back in 2005, were three times the size of the Venezuelan economy), all of them will jump in and try to shake ExxonMobil down for more for themselves. It's dictator nature. So for ExxonMobil, it's fight the miscreants, and keep the rest on their best behavior. It's the only way to run an international oil company. Now Cuba is about to learn that the hard way.

This is precisely what it deserves, given its propping up of the Maduro regime in Venezuela through its use of intelligence agents, incompetent technicians, and torturers. Trump's move is about squeezing Cuba to force it to get the hell out of Venezuela, and Trump plays hardball.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of socialist thieves.

Monica Showalter

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/godzillasized_exxon_mobil_gets_ready_to_stomp_socialist_cuba_a_bug.html

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America’s Most Anti-Christian President - David Horowitz

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by David Horowitz

The most extreme leftwing figure to ever occupy the White House.

[Order David Horowitz's new book, Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America: CLICK HERE.] 

Which American president changed the White House Christmas cards from being about Christmas or faith to cards featuring the family dogs and similar non-Christmas related subjects?
Which president decorated the White House Christmas tree with ornaments that included figures such as Mao Zedong and a drag queen?

Which president excluded pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit?

Which president nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican?

Which president speaking at Georgetown University ordered a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name covered while he was delivering his speech?

Which president made a practice of deliberately omitting the phrase about “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence?

Which president opposed the inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial?

Which presidential administration announced that it would forgive student loans in exchange for public service, but that it would no longer forgive student loans if the public service was related to religion?

The answer of course is President Barack Obama, the most extreme leftwing figure ever to occupy the White House. Obama’s attacks on Christians earned him the title of “America’s Most Biblically Hostile President” from the website www.wallbuilders.com, which listed these incidents.

Of course these constitute only a partial list of Obama’s attacks on Christians, and religious communities in general. Among Obama’s more serious crimes was his support for the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which gave a green light to that infidel-hating organization to murder thousands of Coptic Christians simply because they were Christian.

Even worse, Obama abandoned America’s military base in Iraq and withdrew America’s troops, creating a vacuum which gave rise to ISIS and the creation of the Islamic state. The jihadists then set out to murder hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians without a protest from Obama or a serious military effort to stop them. Thanks to Obama’s reluctance, ISIS succeeded in destroying the oldest Christian community in the world whose temple in Mosul had held Sunday sermons continuously since the time of St. Paul.

This genocide was one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. And it was the direct responsibility of a president who went to the United Nations after the attack in Benghazi to protect the Islamic jihadists responsible for the murder of four Americans – including the American ambassador. Although he knew the claim was false, Obama blamed their deaths on an obscure filmmaker whose offensive video no one saw. Obama then proclaimed to the world in the strangest words ever uttered by an American president: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet Mohammed.”

The blood on Obama’s hands, was more than a betrayal of the Iraqi Christians and the heroes in Benghazi. It was a betrayal of every American and every Iraqi who gave their lives to keep that country out of the hands of the terrorists. It was a betrayal of America itself.

David Horowitz
[For Frontpage editor Jamie Glazov's essay on David Horowitz's life and work, click here.]
David Horowitz is a conservative thinker and writer who has authored dozens of books over the course of his lifetime. He began his political career as one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s and served as an editor of its largest magazine, Ramparts. As described in his bestselling autobiography Radical Son (1997), Horowitz was forced to confront some difficult truths about the political left after a close friend of his was murdered by the Black Panthers, and ultimately found a political and intellectual home as a conservative activist. Well-known conservative author and economist George Gilder described Radical Son as “the first great autobiography of his generation.”


Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273643/americas-most-anti-christian-president-david-horowitz

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The Forgotten Armenian Genocide of 1019 AD - Raymond Ibrahim

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by Raymond Ibrahim

Muslim brutality against Armenians goes back a long way.

Last April 24 was Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Millions of Armenians around the world remembered how the Islamic Ottoman Empire killed -- often cruelly and out of religious hatred -- some 1.5 million of their ancestors during World War I. 

Ironically, most people, including most Armenians, are unaware that the first genocide of Christian Armenians at the hands of Muslim Turks did not occur in the twentieth century; rather it began in 1019 -- exactly one thousand years ago this year -- when Turks first began to pour into and transform a then much larger Armenia into what it is today, the eastern portion of modern-day Turkey.

Thus, in 1019, “the first appearance of the bloodthirsty beasts… the savage nation of infidels called Turks entered Armenia… and mercilessly slaughtered the Christian faithful with the sword,” writes Matthew of Edessa (d.1144), a chief source for this period. Three decades later the raids were virtually nonstop. In 1049, the founder of the Turkic Seljuk Empire himself, Sultan Tughril Bey (r. 1037–1063), reached the unwalled city of Arzden, west of Lake Van, and “put the whole town to the sword, causing severe slaughter, as many as one hundred and fifty thousand persons.”

After thoroughly plundering the city -- which reportedly contained eight hundred churches -- he ordered it set ablaze and turned into a desert. Arzden was “filled with bodies” and none “could count the number of those who perished in the flames.” The invaders “burned priests whom they seized in the churches and massacred those whom they found outside. They put great chunks of pork in the hands of the undead to insult us” -- Muslims deem the pig unclean -- “and made them objects of mockery to all who saw them.”

Eight hundred oxen and forty camels were required to cart out the vast plunder, mostly taken from Arzden’s churches. “How to relate here, with a voice stifled by tears, the death of nobles and clergy whose bodies, left without graves, became the prey of carrion beasts, the exodus of women… led with their children into Persian slavery and condemned to an eternal servitude! That was the beginning of the misfortunes of Armenia,” laments Matthew, “So, lend an ear to this melancholy recital.”

Other contemporaries confirm the devastation visited upon Arzden. “Like famished dogs,” writes Aristakes (d.1080), an eyewitness, “bands of infidels hurled themselves on our city, surrounded it and pushed inside, massacring the men and mowing everything down like reapers in the fields, making the city a desert. Without mercy, they incinerated those who had hidden themselves in houses and churches.”

Similarly, during the Turkic siege of Sebastia (modern-day Sivas) in 1060, six hundred churches were destroyed and “many [more] maidens, brides, and distinguished ladies were led into captivity to Persia.” Another raid on Armenian territory saw “many and innumerable people who were burned [to death].” The atrocities are too many for Matthew to recount, and he frequently ends in resignation:

Who is able to relate the happenings and ruinous events which befell the Armenians, for everything was covered with blood... Because of the great number of corpses, the land stank, and all of Persia was filled with innumerable captives; thus this whole nation of beasts became drunk with blood. All human beings of Christian faith were in tears and in sorrowful affliction, because God our creator had turned away His benevolent face from us.

Nor was there much doubt concerning what fueled the Turks’ animus: “This nation of infidels comes against us because of our Christian faith and they are intent on destroying the ordinances of the worshippers of the cross and on exterminating the Christian faithful,” one David, head of an Armenian region, explained to his countrymen. Therefore, “it is fitting and right for all the faithful to go forth with their swords and to die for the Christian faith.” Many were of the same mind; records tell of monks and priests, fathers, wives, and children, all shabbily armed but zealous to protect their way of life, coming out to face the invaders -- to little avail.

Anecdotes of faith-driven courage also permeate the chronicles. During the first Turkic siege of Manzikert in 1054, when a massive catapult pummeled and caused its walls to quake, a Catholic Frank holed up in with the Orthodox Armenians volunteered to sacrifice himself: “I will go forth and burn down that catapult, and today my blood shall be shed for all the Christians, for I have neither wife nor children to weep over me.” The Frank succeeded and returned to gratitude and honors. Adding insult to injury, the defenders catapulted a pig into the Muslim camp while shouting, “O sultan [Tughril], take that pig for your wife, and we will give you Manzikert as a dowry!” “Filled with anger, Tughril had all Christian prisoners in his camp ritually decapitated.”

Between 1064 and 1065, Tughril’s successor, Sultan Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghri -- known to posterity as Alp Arslan, a Turkish honorific meaning “Heroic Lion” -- “going forth full of rage and with a formidable army,” laid siege to Ani, the fortified capital of Armenia, then a great and populous city. The thunderous bombardment of Muhammad’s siege engines caused the entire city to quake, and Matthew describes countless terror-stricken families huddled together and weeping.

Once inside, the Islamic Turks -- reportedly armed with two knives in each hand and an extra in their mouths -- “began to mercilessly slaughter the inhabitants of the entire city... and piling up their bodies one on top of the other... Beautiful and respectable ladies of high birth were led into captivity into Persia. Innumerable and countless boys with bright faces and pretty girls were carried off together with their mothers.”

The most savage treatment was always reserved for those visibly proclaiming their Christianity: clergy and monks “were burned to death, while others were flayed alive from head to toe.” Every monastery and church -- before this, Ani was known as “the City of 1001 Churches” -- was pillaged, desecrated, and set aflame. A zealous jihadi climbed atop the city’s main cathedral “and pulled down the very heavy cross which was on the dome, throwing it to the ground,” before entering and defiling the church. Made of pure silver and the “size of a man” -- and now symbolic of Islam’s might over Christianity, the broken crucifix was sent as a trophy to adorn a mosque in modern-day Azerbaijan.

Not only do several Christian sources document the sack of Armenia’s capital -- one contemporary succinctly notes that Muhammad “rendered Ani a desert by massacres and fire” -- but so do Muslim sources, often in apocalyptic terms: “I wanted to enter the city and see it with my own eyes,” one Arab explained. “I tried to find a street without having to walk over the corpses. But that was impossible.”

Such is an idea of what Muslim Turks did to Christian Armenians -- not during the Armenian Genocide of a century ago but exactly one thousand years ago, starting in 1019, when the Turkic invasion and subsequent colonization of Armenia began.

Even so, and as an example of surreal denial, Turkey’s foreign minister, capturing popular Turkish sentiment, recently announced that “We [Turks] are proud of our history because our history has never had any genocides. And no colonialism exists in our history.”
 

Note: The first (and other) Turkic invasions of Armenia is documented in Raymond Ibrahim’s recent book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. American Thinker reviews of the book can be read here and here.

Raymond Ibrahim

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/the_forgotten_armenian_genocide_of_1019_ad.html

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