The Palestinian War on Businessmen - Bassam Tawil

​
by Bassam Tawil

Abbas and his old guard officials are evidently hoping that the US and international community will continue pouring millions of dollars on them without holding them to account....

• By boycotting the conference in Bahrain, in fact, Palestinian leaders had already sent a message to the world that they would rather see their people continue to suffer economic hardship than receive billions of dollars in aid.... Rather than spitting in the faces of businessmen, Palestinian leaders should be working closely with Israel and the US and any other party that wants to help the Palestinian people.
• Abbas and his old guard officials are evidently hoping that the US and international community will continue pouring millions of dollars on them without holding them to account.... They want the conflict to continue for as long as possible so that they can continue receiving funds from Americans, Europeans and others.
• Palestinian leaders want to continue blackmailing the international community into giving them unconditional and unlimited financial aid, while at the same time depriving Palestinians of any opportunity to improve their living conditions. They want their people to continue living in misery so that Abbas and his officials can blame Israel and the rest of the world for the "suffering" of the Palestinians.
• These leaders' biggest fear is that economic prosperity might divert Palestinians' attention from the fight against Israel. Like his rivals in Hamas, Abbas seems afraid that once Palestinians start enjoying the fruits of a strong economy, they will stop thinking of killing Israelis or abandon the Palestinian dream of destroying Israel.

Thirteen Palestinian businessmen who defied the Palestinian Authority's call for boycotting the recent US-led "Peace to Prosperity" economic conference in Bahrain are now being targeted by Mahmoud Abbas's security forces in the West Bank. Some of the businessmen have been forced to go into hiding. Pictured: Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner speaks at the conference about boosting the Palestinian economy, reducing unemployment and improving Palestinian living conditions, on June 25, 2019. (Image source: Bahrain News Agency)

The Palestinian Authority's crackdown on Palestinian businessmen who participated in the recent US-led "Peace to Prosperity" economic conference in Bahrain signals strongly how Palestinian leaders act directly against the interests of their own people.

Even more worrying is the message that this crackdown sends to the Palestinian public: anyone who dares to work with US President Donald Trump's administration will be denounced as a traitor and collaborator with the "enemies" of the Palestinians: the US and Israel.

Thirteen Palestinian businessmen who defied the Palestinian Authority's call for boycotting the Bahrain conference are now being targeted by Mahmoud Abbas's security forces in the West Bank. Some of the businessmen have been forced to go into hiding, while others are keeping a low profile after receiving threats from many Palestinian groups, including Abbas's ruling Fatah faction.

Worse, the families of the Palestinian businessmen have been forced publicly to "disown" their sons out of fear that they, too, will be targeted by Palestinian activists and security forces.

The campaign of intimidation against the businessmen who attended the Bahrain conference began weeks before they headed to the Bahraini capital of Manama. Palestinian social media users launched an online campaign to shame the businessmen, which included publishing their names and photos on several sites. Spearheaded by Fatah, the campaign organizers warned that participation in the Bahrain conference was tantamount to treason.

Despite the threats, Palestinian businessman Ashraf Jabari, who belongs to a large clan from the West Bank city of Hebron, headed a 13-member delegation of business leaders that traveled to Bahrain. The delegation was part of a group called Palestinian Business Network, which has no political affiliations.

Jabari and his friends say they did not go to Bahrain as representatives of the Palestinian Authority or any Palestinian faction. Instead, they add, they went to the conference after receiving personal invitations from the US administration.

The Palestinian businessmen's participation in the conference enraged Abbas and many Palestinians, who called for punishing the attendees and putting them on trial for betraying the Palestinian people and cause.

It did not take long for Abbas to order his security forces to chase and arrest the businessmen. Palestinian security forces moved to arrest them less than 24 hours after they returned to their homes in the West Bank.

The Palestinian security officers succeeded, however, in apprehending only a single businessman, Saleh Abu Mayaleh, from Hebron. Abu Mayaleh was arrested during a raid on his home. The following day, the Palestinian Authority, under pressure from the US administration, was forced to release him, an act that drew sharp criticism from many Palestinians.

A second businessman from Hebron, Ashraf Ghanem, said he managed to flee his home before the Palestinian security forces arrived. Ghanem said he was injured during the escape. Fifty security officers, he added raided his home and confiscated his passport and credit cards. Ghanem, owner of a furniture business, said he has been forced to go into hiding and fears for his life.

The Palestinian security forces also raided the homes of several other businessmen who attended the Bahrain conference, but did not find them. They, too, have apparently been forced to go into hiding.

The businessmen did not go to Bahrain to discuss political issues. None of them is even known to be affiliated with any Palestinian political faction. They traveled to Bahrain, it would seem, to discuss ways of boosting the Palestinian economy and improving the living conditions of their people. They presumably went to the conference to discuss economic projects -- as any normal businessman would do.

By cracking down on these businessmen, the Palestinian Authority leadership is making clear that improving the economy is that the last thing it has on its mind. By boycotting the conference in Bahrain, in fact, Palestinian leaders had already sent a message to the world that they would rather see their people continue to suffer economic hardship than receive billions of dollars in aid.

It is also worth noting that, by labelling the businessmen as traitors and collaborators, Palestinian leaders are giving a green light to their people to kill Jabari and his friends for attending the conference.

The Palestinian Authority's highest priority should be fighting Hamas and preventing it from extending its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority's highest priority should also be combating financial and administrative corruption and seeking ways to boost the Palestinian economy by solving issues related to soaring unemployment and poverty. Rather than spitting in the faces of businessmen, Palestinian leaders should be working closely with Israel and the US and any other party that wants to help the Palestinian people.

Instead, Abbas and his senior officials in the West Bank understand their mandate as intimidating and incarcerating businessmen for going to an economic conference whose main goal was to help the Palestinian people.

What message is Abbas sending to his people when he orders 50 intelligence officers to raid and search the homes of a businessman whose only crime was that he accepted a personal invitation to attend an economic conference? Why was there a need to enter the homes of these businessmen and their families in the middle of the night? Why do Palestinian businessmen need to become terrified fugitives for discussing projects that would benefit the Palestinian people?

How has the international community, specifically the Europeans, responded to Abbas's crackdown on the businessmen? Where are the EU and UN condemnations, so free and easy when anything to do with Israel is at hand? Why was the US administration the only party to speak out in defense of the businessmen?

The answer is clear and simple: the businessmen were not targeted by Israel. Instead, they are being hunted down by their very own leaders.

A few questions arise: If the Palestinian Authority truly believes the businessmen who attended the conference in Bahrain to be traitors, then why are the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank continuing to conduct security coordination with the Israel Defense Forces? If the Palestinian Authority truly believes that the US administration is hostile towards the Palestinians, why is the Palestinian Authority continuing to denounce the Americans for cutting financial aid to Palestinians?

Under the willfully unwatchful eyes of the international community, the Palestinian leaders continue their longstanding double-dealing. On the one hand, they denounce Trump and his senior officials, specifically US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and presidential advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, by dubbing them "Zionist settlers." On the other hand, the Palestinian leaders demand that the same US open its pocketbook wide to Palestinians. For how long will the Palestinian leaders choose to cheat their own people by insisting on playing with a marked deck?

Abbas and his old guard officials are evidently hoping that the US and international community will continue pouring millions of dollars on them without holding them to account. They want the conflict to continue for as long as possible so that they can continue receiving funds from Americans, Europeans and others.

Palestinian leaders want to continue blackmailing the international community into giving them unconditional and unlimited financial aid, while at the same time depriving Palestinians of any opportunity to improve their living conditions. They want their people to continue living in misery so that Abbas and his officials can blame Israel and the rest of the world for the "suffering" of the Palestinians.

Like his rivals in Hamas, Abbas is afraid that economic prosperity might soften Palestinians' attitudes towards Israel. Abbas and his associates seem afraid that once Palestinians start enjoying the fruits of a strong economy, they will stop thinking of killing Israelis or abandon the Palestinian dream of destroying Israel.

Bassam Tawill is an Arab Muslim based in the Middle East.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14488/palestinian-war-on-businessmen

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Turkey: State-run media calls upon Turks to donate to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaign fund - Robert Spencer

​
by Robert Spencer

Here is the real collusion. But as always, the establishment media and the political elites will protect Omar from any political consequences, should she take such donations.

“Turkish media calls for Turks to fund, support Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaign,” MEMRI, July 2, 2019:

(July 2, 2019 / MEMRI) Tarek Cherkaoui, the manager of the Turkish state-run news channel TRT World’s research center, wrote an article in April calling upon Turks to donate to the campaign fund of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). The article was widely reprinted in the Turkish media.
The article, written for the English-language website of the Turkish pro-government daily Yeni Şafak and published on April 1, 2019, was titled “Media Flak Directed At Ilhan Omar No Surprise At All.” At least seven other Turkish media outlets ran the article, in both English and in Turkish.
It should be noted that U.S. federal law prohibits foreign nationals from donating to political candidates.
In the article, Cherkaoui wrote that “donating money to Omar’s campaign fund would be an adequate way of denying powerful organizations the power to censor alternative voices.”
It is difficult to calculate the reach this call has had among Turkish readers, but Yeni Şafak’s Turkish-language website is one of Turkey’s most popular news websites, and as of Sept. 2018 its Turkish print edition had a weekly circulation of 111,622. Given Omar’s popularity in Turkey, and the fact that the article was published in Turkish as well as in English, it is likely that some Turks have sought to donate to her campaign fund….

Robert Spencer

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/07/turkey-state-run-media-calls-upon-turks-to-donate-to-rep-ilhan-omars-campaign-fund

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

A U.S.-Iran War Will Not Be Fought Only in Iran - Seth Frantzman

​
by Seth Frantzman

An arc of simmering conflict runs from the waters off Cyprus to the Gulf of Oman

^{Originally published under the title "Know This: A U.S.-Iran War Would Not Be Fought Only in Iran."}

Soldiers carry off debris from the errant S-200 near the village of Tashkent, 12 miles northeast of the Cypriot capital, Nicosia.

Residents in northern Cyprus were surprised on July 1 when an S-200 [air defense] missile landed in the wake of an Israeli airstrike in northern Syria. Israel has targeted Iranian bases and weapons transfers to Hezbollah more than a thousand times in the last seven years. Iran has threatened to respond, but Tehran now faces larger concerns as it wrestles with Washington and seeks to raise tensions in the Gulf, Iraq and Yemen among its allies and proxies.

An arc of simmering conflict runs from the waters off Cyprus to the Gulf of Oman where the U.S. Global Hawk was downed in June, to Abha in Saudi Arabia which has been targeted by Iranian-backed Houthi drones. It is a frontline that stretches three thousand miles and marks out the potential flashpoints between the United States and its allies against Iran and its allies and proxies. Viewing the region through this complex map of interlinked conflicts is the best way to see the current U.S.-Iran tensions in the context in which they have grown. It also reveals the possible ways Iran and its proxies might strike at the United States and its allies. In some cases these conflicts have already broken out.

Iran is seeking to raise tensions in the Gulf, Iraq and Yemen among its allies and proxies.

Tensions between the United States and Iran grew in early May after National Security Advisor John Bolton warned of Iranian threats and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to Iraq to discuss those threats. This is the latest phase of a complex challenge that Iran poses to U.S. and Western policymakers, as well as local allies.

After the Trump administration left the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Iran deal, in 2018, Iran has been subjected to new sanctions. Tehran has warned that if European powers cannot find a way to meet its demands for a way around these strictures it will break through agreements about the amount of enriched uranium it stockpiles. This has now occurred and further threats have been issued.

The larger picture is that Iran has been nurturing its role in its near abroad, particularly Iraq and Syria, and providing support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Much of this support is well known. For Hezbollah it means not only financial packages but also precision guidance for a rocket arsenal that now numbers up to 150,000. Hezbollah has said all of Israel is within its range. In the waning days of 2018, Israel launched an operation along its northern border to ferret out Hezbollah tunnels. This was a warning to Beirut that Israel knows what Hezbollah is up to.


Iran has indicated that a conflict with the United States would result in attacks on Israel. Mojtaba Zolnour, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said Israel would be destroyed in the event of war with the United States, according to a report on July 1.

That could mean a Hezbollah-Israel war, but it could also mean opening up a front in Gaza and in Syria. For instance, Iran has supported Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2006, and Islamic Jihad, a militant Palestinian group that has fired rockets at Israel from Gaza over the last year. Using its Iron Dome air defense system, Israel has deflected most of the more than 1,000 rockets fired since March 2018, thus foregoing the need for a large ground offensive like the ones that took place in 2009 and 2014.

Iran has also established bases and infrastructure in Syria. This includes Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases that have been used to support the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in the conflict against the Syrian rebels since 2011. There are also Iranian-backed militias from Iraq who have gone to Syria to serve in the conflict. The existence of this Iranian infrastructure has generally been revealed through tensions with Israel. More than one thousand airstrikes by Israel against targets from Damascus to two hundred kilometers north in Latakia and Homs provinces, reveal the extent of Iran's role and Israel's desire to reduce or at least stall the growth of Iranian entrenchment.

Iran has established IRGC bases and infrastructure in Syria

In addition, several serious incidents illustrate that Iran's goal in Syria has grown from helping the regime defeat the rebels to using Syria for other purposes. This has been seen as part of Iran's attempt to carve out a "road to the sea" or corridor of influence via Syria to Lebanon. In February 2018, an Iranian drone flown from Syria entered Israeli airspace near Beit Shean. It was shot down and Israel struck the T-4 airbase on the road to Palmyra where the drone was allegedly flown from. Later in May, a salvo fired from Syria resulted in another round of Israeli retaliations.

The simmering conflict puts Syrian air defense in an awkward position. If it doesn't defend its Iranian ally that will be seen as giving Israel a carte blanche to do as it wants. But Syrian air defense has also proved remarkably erratic. In September 2018, an S-200 fired at an Israeli warplane struck a Russian plane that was landing in Latakia. Angered, Russia said it would supply Syria with the S-300 air defense system. That system remained dormant until June 30 when a satellite image from ImageSat International showed it deployed near Masyaf. It wasn't clear if it was operational and when Israeli struck targets nearby the next day the system did not appear to be used. Instead another S-200 fired wildly went out to sea and hit a mountain in northern Cyprus. In another instance in 2017, a Syrian missile flew over Jordan and had to be intercepted by Israel's Arrow 3 defense system. Syria's one success was a missile that targeted an F-16, leading to the plane crashing in northern Israel.

Israel's frontline in a potential growing crisis with Iran is clear. It could involve Gaza, southern Lebanon and targets in Syria. In the past Israel has warned that Hezbollah's role in Lebanon, where it controls the Health Ministry and has a powerful political and military presence in the country, has ramifications for Lebanon in general. This will be a more serious conflict than the one in 2006, which was a precursor of worse to come. Hezbollah's weapons have increased in precision and it has thousands of battle hardened men who fought in the Syrian Civil War. Israel's air defense and arsenal has also increased.

For the United States, the arc of confrontation with Iran stretches down the Euphrates river in Syria where U.S. forces and their partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces defeated the Islamic State in March of this year. In addition, the United States continues to play a role in Tanf, a barebones desert base established in Syria near the border of Iraq and Jordan. The base was supposed to train anti-ISIS fighters, but its long-term fate is unclear. When President Donald Trump announced the United States would leave Syria in December 2018, it appeared to be on the menu to be folded up, but it is still there. The United States has warned Iranian-backed militias and Syrian regime forces to keep out of an exclusion zone around the base, which they have harassed in the past with bloody results.

US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters were instrumental in defeating ISIS.

Along the Euphrates River, tensions flared in February 2018 when a group of pro-Syrian regime militias attacked the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the United States responded, allegedly killing Russian mercenaries among the Syrians. Later, in the summer of 2018, an airstrike on a Kata'ib Hezbollah base led to accusations by the group that the United States was behind the attack—although it may have been Israel. Kata'ib Hezbollah, which the United States considers a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), is closely linked to Iran's IRGC, which Washington also designated as an FTO this year. The summer 2018 airstrike illustrates that in Syria the multiplicity of Iranian-linked groups would mean that any outbreak of hostilities could also result in conflict along the Euphrates between the United States and partners, such as the SDF, and groups like Kata'ib Hezbollah. Iran also proved with ballistic missile strikes in the fall of 2018 that it can target this area, so nothing is off the table. Although Iran said it was retaliating for an ISIS attack in Ahwaz, the United States asserted that it had not been warned beforehand.

Tensions with Iran also threaten U.S. forces in Iraq. For instance, in the spring of 2018, a quarterly Department of Defense report in May noted "Iranian support for certain PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces] militias posed the greatest threat to the safety of US personnel in Iraq." A more recent Inspector General report on the U.S. anti-ISIS campaign warned about the need to divert resources from the anti-ISIS fight to monitor Iranian threats in Iraq.

Trump said in December 2018 that the United States could use Iraq to "watch" Iran, leading Iraqi officials to respond that the country should not become an area of conflict. However, on May 14, U.S. officials say a drone was launched from Iraq targeting a pipeline in Saudi Arabia. Five days later, a rocket landed near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and the Washington has blamed Iranian-backed forces for the attack. In mid-July four days of rocket attacks followed, near U.S. forces in Camp Taji and Mosul, and against Balad Air base and oil facilities near Basra.

The rocket attacks, between the attack on two oil tankers on June 13 and the downing of the Global Hawk drone, formed part of a pattern of apparent threats to the United States in the Middle East. What they indicate is that any conflict with Iran could involve clashes in Iraq. The United States has already designated several large Iranian-backed Shia paramilitaries as terrorist groups in Iraq, such as Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba and Asaib Ahl al-Haq. These paramilitaries have been an official part of the Iraqi Security Forces since 2018. Press TV in Iran reported on July 2 that these militias are being increasingly integrated into the Iraqi armed forces. Iran has even proposed working with Iraq on air defense and conducting joint military drills with Baghdad. This creates a complex web of forces linked to Iran's IRGC and also the Iraqi government. If one of those groups was involved in the drone attack on Saudi Arabia or rocket attacks near U.S. forces, that paints a disturbing picture of worse to come in Iraq if tensions escalate.

From Iraq, the arc of contact between the United States and Iran is in the Gulf of Oman. Six oil tankers were sabotaged between May 12 and June 13. A sophisticated Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Demonstrator U.S. drone was shot down on June 20. The United States has blamed Iran for all these incidents. U.S. airstrikes that would have targeted Iran in retaliation for the downing of the drone were subsequently called off, but F-22 raptors were sent to the Gulf at the end of the month to bolster B-52s and other U.S. naval and air force assets.

Across the Gulf of Oman in Yemen, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been fighting a Saudi Arabia-led alliance since 2015. Since the May incidents with Iran, the Houthis have increased their drone and cruise missile attacks on Saudi Arabia. An examination of the number of publicly known attacks reveals that they began in earnest on May 15 and continued unabated to the end of June. This included at least seven days of attacks directed at Abha city in southern Saudi Arabia and four days of attacks on Jizan. Iranian media has highlighted these attacks on airports, an indication of how they play into Tehran's regional views.

Iran sees its role in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, as well as its confrontation with the United States and U.S. allies, as an interlinked policy. Tehran works in a classic Clausewitzian manner in this regard, blending military and political goals alongside economic and cultural initiatives. For instance, on July 2 Iran's Tasnim News reported a new series of agreements between Iran, Iraq and Syria to facilitate a road network and trade between the three countries.

The theater of operations is an arc of simmering conflict stretching thousands of miles.

The United States also understands that its policies regarding Iran have ramifications in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and other countries. During the buildup to the Iran deal there was acknowledgement that policies on Hezbollah and also in Syria were linked to the desire for the deal. Iran's threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, made in April, appear linked to the attacks on the oil tankers in May and June. The tanker attacks were part of a buildup that included the drone raid on Saudi oil installations on May 14 and the rocket attacks in Iraq on May 19 and in mid-June. The theater of operations of these attacks is massive, and if one includes the Israeli airstrikes on Syria it is an arc of simmering conflict stretching thousands of miles.

While a direct U.S.-Iran conflict has not broken out, there are already conflicts taking place between allies and proxies. This includes Israel's attempts to prevent Iranian entrenchment in Syria and also the conflict between the Houthis and the Saudi-led alliance. It is best to understand the Middle East through this paradigm today. This means looking at the Middle East as a series of interlinked confrontations between the United States and its allies, and Iran and its allies and proxies.

Washington has indicated that it views Iran as responsible for its proxies' behavior and its designation of the IRGC as an FTO was part of the Trump administration's attempt to draw these links into the open. Even if the administration subsequently seeks to change course, or a future administration seeks to return to the Iran deal, it will be necessary to manage all of the tensions from Lebanon to Yemen as part of any Iranian policy.

Seth Frantzman is The Jerusalem Post's op-ed editor, a Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a founder of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/58872/a-us-iran-war-will-not-be-fought-only-in-iran

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Turkey and other Muslim countries endorse China’s Muslim concentration camps - Christine Douglass-Williams

​
by Christine Douglass-Williams

Turkey's support for China most importantly shows how little Islamic supremacists are concerned about Muslim lives.

Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a trip to Beijing on Tuesday, reportedly struck a more positive note about China’s concentration camps for Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, and other Muslims in Xinjiang province a decade after denouncing attacks on Uighurs as “genocide.” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration joined the Muslim-majority governments of Pakistan and Indonesia, the most populous Islamic country in the world, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia in defending China’s repression of its Muslim minority.

As bizarre as support for China by Turkey and other Islamic countries looks, one of the reason for it is economics, as “Erdogan reportedly traveled to China to boost the Turkish economy.” But support for China most importantly shows how little Islamic supremacists are concerned about Muslim lives. Their primary focus is power and expansion. Let’s not forget that since 1948, Muslims have murdered about 12 million of their coreligionists. Muslim countries turning their backs on the Uighurs also demonstrates the level of contempt that Islamic countries have for democracies — a hatred that is more powerful than love for their coreligionists. In a similar manner, Islamic states do not genuinely care about the Palestinian people, and they do not even want Palestinians to be successful, because it would put a monkey wrench into the propaganda mill that works overtime against Israel. It will also cut their jihad funding. Nothing Western countries ever do to appease Islamic supremacists will be enough. Jihadists aim to subvert and destroy free societies, yet Leftists continue to be useful idiots in their service. Canada leads the pack of useful idiots, among those who support its “anti-Islamophobia” Motion M-103.

Lying, deception, manipulation and propaganda are primary tools jihadists and jihadist regimes use against free societies — especially those that are Christian and Jewish countries at their root. Recall Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comment in response to “Austria’s move to close mosques and expel Turkish-funded imams.” He called the move “anti-Islamic” and threatened “a war between the cross and the crescent.” Erdogan also accused Europe of “starting a ‘clash’ between Christianity and Islam” in response to a ruling that would allow employers to ban headscarves as part of wider restrictions on religious and political symbols; Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu warned about impending “holy wars” between Islam and Europe over the banning of headscarves. And although Turkey is Sunni and Iran is Shia, despite the historic enmity between the two sects, Turkish Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekci has stated that Turkey will stand with its “friend and brother Iran” against US sanctions.

The hatred against Jews and Christians is palpable from Islamic supremacist states such as Turkey and Iran, and such hatred governs their foreign policy. While “Islamophobia” is being forced upon Westerners by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its allies and dupes for merely criticizing Islam, the OIC is ignoring abuses against Muslims in China. “Islamophobia,” charged at every turn by Islamic supremacists, is a deliberate drive to weaken free societies by attempting to destroy their cornerstone, the freedom of speech. China is the place to which the OIC should be directing its condemnation of “Islamophobia.”



“Turkey’s Islamist President Endorses China’s Muslim Concentration Camps,” by Edwin Mora, Breitbart, July 3, 2019:

Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a trip to Beijing on Tuesday, reportedly struck a more positive note about China’s concentration camps for Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, and other Muslims in Xinjiang province a decade after denouncing attacks on Uighurs as “genocide.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration joined the Muslim-majority governments of Pakistan and Indonesia, the most populous Islamic country in the world, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia in defending China’s repression of its Muslim minority.
Beijing has repeatedly claimed its crackdown is aimed at combating religious extremism, terrorism, and separatism in Muslim Uighur-majority Xinjiang province, but many countries point to the ample evidence that it is instead using the alleged terror threat to violate the human rights of its Muslims citizens.
On Monday, Adrian Zenz, an independent German researcher, reported that Chinese government documents “refute” Beijing’s “propaganda claims” that its “concentration camps” in Xinjiang are vocational and training centers, according to the Journal on Political Risk (JPR).
China’s state-run Global Times paraphrased Erdogan as saying during a meeting with Communist Party chief Xi Jinping on Tuesday that “it is a fact that the residents of various ethnic groups in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are living happily under China’s development and prosperity.”
Erdogan further indicated that “Turkey does not allow anyone to provoke the relationship between the two countries,” the Global Times adds.
In response, Xi indicated:
China appreciates the fact that Erdogan has repeatedly reiterated that any anti-China separatist activities are not allowed in Turkey as well as its strong support to China’s anti-terrorist operations … adding that China is willing to enhance international cooperation on counter-terrorism with Turkey.
Erdogan’s position is a far cry from the criticism he leveled against Beijing when he served as Turkey’s prime minister a decade ago.
Referring to China’s long-standing and at times allegedly deadly oppression of its Uighur ethnic minority, then-PM Erdogan declared in July 2009, “The incidents in China are, simply put, a genocide. There’s no point in interpreting this otherwise,” Reuters reported.
Turkey, however, appears to have changed its tune, even from as early as February of this year when it expressed concerns about the situation in Xinjiang at the United Nations Human Rights Council to China’s dismay.
Erdogan’s foreign ministry issued a stern condemnation of China’s internment camps.
“The reintroduction of internment camps in the [21st] century and the policy of systematic assimilation against the Uighur Turks carried out by the authorities of China is a great shame for humanity,” the statement proclaimed…

Christine Douglass-Williams

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/07/turkey-and-other-muslim-countries-endorse-chinas-muslim-concentration-camps

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Helluva warning about the stalemate in Venezuela - Monica Showalter

​
by Monica Showalter

Could Colombia go down with Venezuela? Francisco Toro has a powerful warning about what's happening in the vacuum.

Venezuela is in a stalemate. Ruled as a colony by its Cuban masters with a little puppet leader in the persona of Nicolás Maduro, it's as bad an economic shambles as Cuba is, and as with Cuba, millions of its people are fleeing. The United Nations declared it a death-squad regime, with 7,000 documented killings of dissidents. There's a legitimate leader in the legislative declaration of Juan Guaidó as president, but the man is powerless without an army to command and sadly fading to irrelevance.

But there's not nothing going on.

Francisco Toro at the Washington Post has a powerful warning that the Venezuelan vacuum is activating some extremely evil forces that could take down our ally Colombia at a time when most of the attention is focused on the Guaidó melodrama.

As Venezuela's economic and political situation continues to plumb new depths, analysts fret that the crisis is bound to spill over its borders sooner or later. The most obvious candidate for destabilization is Colombia, which lies just across a long, porous, heavily populated border region that stretches over the Andes and down through the Amazon jungle.
It's no picnic having a failed state on your border. As Rwanda found out in the '90s when the perpetrators of its genocide set up camp across the border in the vast, ungoverned jungles of Congo, security threats quickly become unmanageable if your foe has a safe harbor just across a lightly patrolled border. And while the scale of violence in the northern tip of South America is much less, the basic dynamic looks distressingly similar.
Take a moment to consider Colombia's Ejército de Liberación Nacional, known as the ELN. Insofar as American commentators think about the ELN (which, in fairness, isn't very far at all), they tended to view it as the unruly little cousin of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC. The ELN was considered a murderous gang technically adhering to old-school Marxist ideology but, in practice, much more devoted to running drugs than to overthrowing the bourgeoisie.
That perception is out of date. Over the past few years, the ELN guerrilla has grown massively in wealth and power. And it has done so largely by turning Venezuela's collapse to its advantage.

Toro notes the news that's been out there about ELN taking over the bottom half of Venezuela's map, setting up bases, and literally governing with power as a result. That's its sparsely populated jungly south, and easy to do when there are few people and those people are poor, and even more desirable because it's loaded with gold mines and other resources. Toro notes that the Venezuelan military is actually helping them with advanced weaponry, presumably to target Colombia. The impoverishment of the Venezuelans, he notes, has left ELN with rich recruiting ground for new guerrillas. (Chalk it up to another achievement of socialism.) He continues:

Venezuela's economic tailspin has left thousands of young Venezuelans hungry and desperate for any chance to make a living, creating rich recruiting grounds for the guerrillas. That same hunger has pushed thousands of Venezuelans out of the cities and toward the frontier mining regions the ELN controls, bringing a much-needed pool of labor to exploit.
The result is a seriously strengthened ELN that, today, has more fighters, more income, more weapons and more territory under its control than ever before. Some analysts are now describing it as a "Colombo-Venezuelan rebel army."

That, of course, is an authentic threat to Colombia, one we all ought to be worried about. Toro writes:

What's clear is that, far from receding, the ELN threat is growing. A group that seemed on its last legs just a few years ago has engineered an unlikely turnaround on the back of Venezuela's implosion and FARC's retreat. And Colombia's peace and stability — the singular achievement of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America over the last generation — is profoundly threatened.
Policymakers in Washington are just starting to realize what their counterparts in Bogotá have known for some time now: Venezuela's crisis will be regionalized, and Colombia is going to be hit first, and hardest.

Our most important ally, Colombia, the one we spent billions and billions to help turn itself around — and, unlike Iraq, actually succeeded in achieving? That nice place one can now retire to, in now-safe drink-water-out-of-the-faucet cities such as Medellín? That place where you can walk around at 3 A.M. and not see a whiff of crime? (Something I've done in Bogotá.) That place that rings with joy and laughter in the streets because the communist guerrilla nightmare is over? If I hadn't heard this myself in Bogotá, I wouldn't write it.

It's a helluva dark cloud over Colombia. It might even explain why the country's leaders have been reluctant to hose Venezuela themselves out - they're afraid and they feel threatened already and they want to reserve their resources to save their own country.

Which ought to catch the attention of America's policymakers, actually. President Trump has been very reluctant to engage in American adventurism abroad, particularly with a side helping of nation-building, which rotted-out socialist Venezuela might actually need.

But there's a creeping feeling that the longer this crisis goes on, the worse it might get. And the harder it may be to hose out. Maybe a Marine invasion should have taken place earlier. Maybe it needs to be done now. And cripes, where is also-threatend Brazil?

What we are looking at may be two destabilized nations, one of them a close American ally, both knocked out and then run by communist guerrillas. Don't think it couldn't happen to an advanced country such as Colombia, either - in 1998, FARC encircled Bogota in open military combat against the Colombian army, firing advanced weapons into Bogota and they almost won. Toro doesn't mention it, but Colombia has a recent history of one group of bad guys replacing another. When Pablo Escobar and his M-19 Marxist guerrilla buddies were knocked out in 1990, the Cali Cartel took over. When the Cali Cartel as knocked out, FARC took over. When FARC got its vaunted yet locally rejected "peace" deal, they were knocked out (but got free stuff). Now it's ELN's turn. ELN, by the way, was founded in 1964 with the sponsorship of Castroite Cuba. They were an anifa-like group of posturing urban guerrilas in unholy combination of liberation theology and Castroite communism with drug dealing added later, sounding very woke in today's terms, and oh, they had the local university community behind them. They probably still do. Now they've become powerful and a dangerous enemy to Colombia because they've beefed themselves up on the foul-smelling fruits of Venezuela's collapse.

Ugly, ugly stuff.

Toro's analysis is a very solid warning. Read the whole thing here.

Monica Showalter

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/07/helluva_warning_about_the_stalemate_in_venezuela.html

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Smotrich: PA takeover of Israeli lands is dangerous and illegal - Arutz Sheva Staff

​
by Arutz Sheva Staff

Min. Smotrich, member of Security Cabinet, demands government create, implement, plan to end 'dangerous' Arab takeover of Israel's land.

Bezalel Smotrich                                                                                                                       Hillel Meir/ TPS                    

Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich (United Right), who also serves as a member of Israel's Diplomatic-Security Cabinet, demanded Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu call a Knesset discussion on the issue of Palestinian Authority (PA) Arabs taking over sections of Area C.

Under the Oslo Accords, Judea and Samaria were divided into three parts: Area A is under full Palestinian Authority civil and security control. Area B is under PA civil control, while Israel controls security. Area C is under full Israeli civil and security control. While Arabs live in all three areas, Jews are confined to Area C only, and accidentally entering Area A presents a risk to a Jew's life.

"Newspapers reported that the Likud party ordered its members to remove their signatures from the request to hold this meeting," Smotrich wrote to Netanyahu.

He added that the takeover is a "planned strategy subsidized by various bodies who do not seek out the good of Israel, to say the least."

"We, as a right-wing government which aims to implement right-wing policies, are obligated to respond to this via our own government plan. The discussion will center around denunciation of the PA and creating a national consensus regarding the need to act against this dangerous takeover.

"Both those who oppose a Palestinian state and those who support it cannot agree to a situation in which the Palestinian Authority creates facts and borders on the ground in a unilateral and illegal move.

"There is no question that in the current framework, a Knesset discussion can help and offer significant support for every action which we, as the government, decide to take. I therefore call on you to order the Likud party secretariat to encourage its members to sign the request. And better sooner than later."


Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/265555

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

US and Iran: What is NOT a Smart Policy - Majid Rafizadeh

​
by Majid Rafizadeh

Rooting for President Trump to fail in his policy with Iran means calling for endangering America.

• Rooting for President Trump to fail in his policy with Iran means calling for empowering and emboldening a theocratic regime that has consistently threatened "Death to America" -- with nukes, presumably, if it had the capability, which it is busy acquiring.
• The core revolutionary pillars of this Iranian government are anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. This country, which some people say they would like to see prevail over President Trump, has also been named, several times, the leading executioner of children. It has killed thousands of Americans, including in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, and has committed -- and continues to commit -- the most unspeakable human rights abuses, including flogging and executing minors....That documentation is just a limited accounting of the horrors it has committed; the list goes on.
• During President Obama's eight-year administration, Obama and Kerry made unprecedented concessions, fully respected the Iranian leaders, lifted sanctions, offered them a fast-track to legitimate deliverable nuclear capability and showered the regime with $150 billion -- all in an attempt to appease the ruling mullahs. How did that turn out?
• Iran gained legitimacy, directed the billions of dollars to Iran's military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as Iran's militias and terror groups, and, through its proxies, has been deepening its foothold in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and strengthening its hold on Hezbollah in Lebanon, Venezuela and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Rooting for President Trump to fail in his policy with Iran means calling for empowering and emboldening a theocratic regime that has consistently threatened "Death to America" -- with nukes, presumably, if it had the capability, which it is busy acquiring. (Image sources: Ayatollah Khamenei - MEMRI; President Trump - Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

There are policy analysts, scholars or politicians I have come across who say, "I hope Trump fails." One area particularly focused on is the president's policy on Iran. The statement "I hope Trump fails," however, is not a sound strategy.

Those who hold this view would apparently rather see the country fail than see President Trump do well. Rooting for President Trump to fail in his policy with Iran means calling for empowering and emboldening a theocratic regime that has consistently threatened "Death to America" -- with nukes, presumably, if it had the capability, which it is busy acquiring.

The core revolutionary pillars of this Iranian government are anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. This country, which some people say they would like to see prevail over President Trump, has also been named, several times, the leading executioner of children. It has killed thousands of Americans, including in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, and has committed -- and continues to commit -- the most unspeakable human rights abuses, including flogging and executing minors.

Iran has massacred its own people and is ranked the leading state sponsor of terrorism, and first in the world for executing people per capita. That documentation is just a limited accounting of the horrors it has committed; the list goes on.

Those who dislike President Trump, or those who are Iran's apologists and lobbyists use different narratives to try to turn the public against the president on his Iran policy.

One common narrative is that if Iran is treated with kindness, concessions and respect, then it will respond by moderating its behavior. It will stop intervening in other nations, supporting terror groups, and inciting anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

History, however, has dispassionately revealed to us that this argument is a total fantasy, pioneered by President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry. During Obama's eight-year administration, Obama and Kerry made unprecedented concessions, fully respected the Iranian leaders, lifted sanctions, offered them a fast-track to legitimate deliverable nuclear capability and showered the regime with $150 billion -- all in an attempt to appease the ruling mullahs. How did that turn out?

Iran gained legitimacy, directed the billions of dollars to Iran's military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as Iran's militias and terror groups, and, through its proxies, has been deepening its foothold in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and strengthening its hold on Hezbollah in Lebanon, Venezuela and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Tehran continues detaining and imprisoning American citizens; as recently as 2016, it waylaid and interrogated US Navy personnel. Iran also further pursues its military adventurism by expanding its influence throughout the region, including in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.

The second far-fetched tactic that the Trump's critics or Iran's agents use is to implant fear in the American society by spreading the idea that President Trump is "starting a war" with Iran.

The president and his administration have clearly stated, again and again, that they are not trying to start a war with Iran, but instead to deter Iran's offensives, threats and destabilizing actions through economic and political pressure. If the president was looking to "start a war" with Iran, he would not have invited Iranian leaders to the negotiating table; he would not have called off the planned strikes against Iran after Tehran had shot down a US drone over international waters and sabotaged several oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

President Trump has given Tehran many opportunities to change its behavior and become a constructive and rational state actor. Iran, unfortunately, has not shown the slightest interest.

By contrast, President Obama, in the first two years in office alone, authorized 193 drone strikes. Those amount to more than four times the number of drone attacks that the previous administration authorized in its eight years. The question is, why did the same critics not get up in arms and insist that Obama was starting wars?

Wishing Trump to "fail", wishing one's own country to go downhill rather than succeed -- and misleading the public about the Trump administration's policy on Iran by fear mongering and false information -- is playing right into the hands of Iran's ruling mullahs who never tire of saying that what they wish for America is "death".

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on Twitter

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14498/trump-iran-policy

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter