Palestinians: In Need of a Mirror? - Bassam Tawil

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by Bassam Tawil

The Palestinian Authority's silence over the murder of the Jewish teenager sends one clear message to the Palestinian public: It is fine to kill a Jew.

• The Palestinian Authority's silence over the murder of the Jewish teenager sends one clear message to the Palestinian public: It is fine to kill a Jew.
• Abbas's silence, in fact, encouraged many Palestinians to express joy over the terrorist attack.
• It was hard to find even one Palestinian who was willing to express his or her revulsion over the terrorist attack. But this makes sense. Why should any Palestinian come out against terrorism when their leaders are either silent or joyously celebrating the murder of a Jewish teenager?
• This is the hate that has been embedded in the hearts and minds of Palestinians toward Israel and Jews. When Palestinians run to link the Palestinian slaughter of a Jewish teen to a Muslim feast and the tradition of sacrificing sheep, it is clear that the time has come for Palestinians to take a hard look at themselves – and if they are nonetheless unwilling to do so, perhaps the international community might finally bring a mirror to them.

The Palestinian Authority's silence over the murder of Dvir Sorek, a Jewish teenager, sends one clear message to the Palestinian public: It is fine to kill a Jew. Why should any Palestinian come out against terrorism when their leaders are silent about the murder of a Jewish teenager? Pictured: Bir Zeit University, in the West Bank. (Image source: Oromiya321/Wikimedia Commons)

Palestinians are again celebrating the murder of a Jew – this time 18-year-old Dvir Sorek, an unarmed off-duty soldier who was fatally stabbed and whose body was discovered August 8 on rocky ground in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc near Bethlehem.

Not even a single Palestinian has condemned the ruthless killing of the teenager. The Palestinian Authority (PA), whose leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has previously said that he is opposed to terrorism, apparently does not see a need to denounce the killing of Sorek.

Instead, the Palestinian Authority continued to issue multiple statements condemning Israel for "violating international law" for building new housing units for Jewish families in the West Bank. The statements, issued hours after the terrorist attack in Gush Etzion, made no reference to the murder of the Jewish teen.

In the eyes of the Palestinian Authority leadership, the inauguration of a new neighborhood in a settlement is a "major crime" that needs to be brought before the International Criminal Court.

Here is what Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, had to say about the building of the housing units in the settlement of Bet El, north of the West Bank city of Ramallah:

"This act is condemned and rejected and in violation of international resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which says settlement activity constitutes a flagrant violation of international law. These continued provocations and hostile acts require practical decisions."

Just as Israeli security forces were conducting a manhunt for the terrorist or terrorists who killed the Jewish teenager, Abbas instructed his foreign ministry to file a complaint against Israel with the International Criminal Court over its policy of settlement construction. Abbas also instructed his envoy to the UN, Riad Mansour, to hold consultations with members of the Security Council in preparation for holding an emergency session to condemn Israel's settlement activity.

Abbas's instructions were published by the Palestinian Authority's official media while the Jewish teenager was being brought to burial. Again, Abbas's media chose totally to ignore the terrorist attack that claimed the life of a young Jewish man.

No-one was expecting Abbas to offer condolences to the family of Sorek or to send Palestinian officials to attend the funeral. Yet, by remaining silent about the brutal murder of an unarmed Jewish teen and publishing statements condemning Israel on the same day of the attack, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority demonstrate with utter clarity their reckless disregard for human life.

As the manhunt was underway for the capture of the terrorist or terrorists, Abbas's ruling Fatah faction called on Palestinians to form "guard committees" to "thwart" purported retaliatory attacks by settlers. The Fatah appeal is nothing but a continuation of Palestinian incitement against Jews living in the West Bank.

Needless to say, Jewish settlers, most of whom are law-abiding citizens, did not carry out retaliatory attacks against Palestinians after the discovery of Sorek's body. In fact, Jews living in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc have always maintained good relations with their Palestinian neighbors, many of whom are employed in settlements and Jewish-owned businesses in the area.

The Palestinian Authority's silence over the murder of the Jewish teenager sends one clear message to the Palestinian public: It is fine to kill a Jew.

Abbas's silence, in fact, encouraged many Palestinians to express joy over the terrorist attack.
As soon as news about the fatal stabbing spread, Palestinian terrorist groups seemed to be competing with each other over heaping praise on the perpetrators. Islamic Jihad, Hamas and several PLO factions, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were quick to issue statements "welcoming" the "heroic operation." The groups also urged Palestinians to increase their terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank.

In an attempt to prevent the Israeli security forces from laying their hand on the terrorists, Palestinian factions and activists appealed to Palestinians living in the area where the terrorist attack took place to delete footage quickly from security cameras installed at their homes and businesses.

At the West Bank's Bir Zeit University, students celebrated the murder by handing out candies and praising the terrorists.

Meanwhile, many Palestinians took to social media to celebrate the killing of Sorek in the most straightforward rhetoric.

Some Palestinians compared the victim to the "sheep of Eid al-Adha," the Muslim "Festival of Sacrifice." The feast honors the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God's command. Before Abraham could sacrifice his son, however, God provided a lamb for sacrifice instead. On Twitter, Palestinians called Sorek the "sheep of Eid al-Adha" because he was "slaughtered" on the eve of the Muslim feast.

Referring to the Muslim feast, which begins on Sunday, another Palestinian commented: "Apparently, the Palestinians have become used to making their sacrifices before Eid al-Adha."

Some Palestinians even exchanged greetings for the feast upon learning about the killing of Sorek by stating that this was a "happy Eid."

Other Palestinians said they were delighted to learn that Sorek's grandfather, Holocaust survivor Rabbi Benjamin Harling, had also been murdered by terrorists 19 years ago. "Blessed are the hands of the Palestinian resistance fighters who killed the soldier, whose grandfather was killed in an operation in 2000," wrote another Palestinian on Twitter.

It was hard to find even one Palestinian who was willing to express his or her revulsion over the terrorist attack. But this makes sense. Why should any Palestinian come out against terrorism when their leaders are either silent or joyously celebrating the murder of a Jewish teenager?

This is the hate that has been embedded in the hearts and minds of Palestinians toward Israel and Jews. When Palestinians run to link the Palestinian slaughter of a Jewish teen to a Muslim feast and the tradition of sacrificing sheep, it is clear that the time has come for Palestinians to take a hard look at themselves – and if they are nonetheless unwilling to do so, perhaps the international community might finally bring a mirror to them.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14689/palestinians-need-mirror

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Hansen Video: Killing Free Speech - Frontpagemag.com

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by Frontpagemag.com

When the powers-that-be have to kill free expression – along with a film about the killing of Europe.

Subscribe to the Glazov Gang‘s YouTube Channel and follow us on Twitter: @JamieGlazov.

This new edition of The Glazov Gang features filmmaker Michael Hansen, whose new film is Killing Free Speech. 

Michael discusses his new film and unveils how the powers-that-be are killing free expression — along with a film about the killing of Europe.
Don’t miss it!



And make sure to watch Michael focus on his film Killing Europe and on Europe’s Suicide in the Face of Islam. He also shares the Unholy Alliance‘s totalitarian effort to drown his film:



Follow us on Twitter: @JamieGlazov.


Frontpagemag.com

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274568/hansen-video-killing-free-speech-frontpagemagcom

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Killing One Another - Ben Voth

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by Ben Voth

The terrible goal of the Jacobin media and the political elites is to tear us further apart and incite us all to further acts of violence.

The mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton unleashed their own secondary agony of interpretation provided by our Jacobin commentary class. At the heart of this pathological narrative are cynical manipulative notions of white supremacy, gun control, and a larger agenda of galvanizing rejections of President Trump. We can find our way past these false interpretations and back toward a world where we are not killing one another. 

A key commentator on this matter is former El Paso congressman and now Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke spares little wrath in describing the reactionary and acidic response he seeks for the public with regard to President Trump: "This is the most racist President we've had since perhaps Andrew Johnson, in another age and another century, and he is responsible for the hatred and the violence that we're seeing right now.” He went further to attack a journalist who asked if Trump was racist by responding: “What the f**k!” O’Rourke’s boiling over at the President is part of a larger blue privilege narrative about President Trump either being a white supremacist or appealing to them. Drawing on deliberate distortions of the President’s remarks regarding the protests at Charlottesville, the blue privilege interpreters create an ongoing gaslit echo chamber that the President regularly appeals to white supremacists and is an apparent racist.

It is important for us as Americans to reject the psychological projection of the media culture led by figures like CNN’s Don Lemon. Media organizations like CNN are elevating white supremacist rhetoric with the purpose of creating associations between such individuals and the President. Richard Spenser is a regular guest on CNN and without this deliberate promotion by media outlets Spenser and his archaic notions of race would continue to wither in the American public consciousness. In reality, the United States is most successful political project of racial and ethnic integration in human history. The separatist notions of race were successfully dismantled by a wide array of American heroes like James Meredith, James Farmer Jr., Medgar Evers, Mickey Schwerner, Diane Nash, and many more. While racism will likely always remain a problem, the deliberate elevation of separatist voices like Spenser’s constitute the ugly basis of why such ideas find increasing salience in 2019. 

Of course, the El Paso shooter is quoted with regard to his racist desire to rid Texas and the United States of Hispanics. This is plainly racist rhetoric. At issue is how this violence came to be spawned. In his own manifesto, the shooter sought to distance himself from the master narrative of the media:

“My ideology has not changed for several years. My opinions on automation, immigration, and the rest predate Trump and his campaign for president. I am putting this here because some people will blame the President or certain presidential candidates for the attack. This is not the case. I know that the media will probably call me a white supremacist anyway and blame Trump’s rhetoric. The media is infamous for fake news.”

Of course, the shooter’s views are thoroughly pathological, but the selective quoting of the shooter by ideological reactionaries serves to escalate public anger and hatred. Moreover, the radical leftist views of the Dayton shooter are largely ignored in favor of lives that matter for an ideological agenda -- to say nothing of individuals dying in urban centers such as Chicago on a daily basis. The problem is further confounded by reports that the shooter was particularly set off by remarks in the first Presidential primary debate where so many Democratic party candidates raised their hands for providing free health care to illegal immigrants. Should we think that these candidates “caused” the shooting? Of course not. 

Analysts challenged about such rhetorical framing of white supremacism assert that ‘something must be done about these shootings.’ Certainly rhetoric always plays a role and ought to be as ideal as possible. There is however something that can be done about these shootings. Moreover, this action will almost certainly reduce the shootings to near zero. Very little is said about this solution. 

Of the most recent shootings, 26 out of 27 shooters lacked the primary influence of a father in the home. In their excellent book, Fatherless, James Dobson and Kurt Bruner painfully document the massive sociological devastation of human community without a father. The reality of this can be anecdotally observed in the difference between two civil rights heroes: Malcolm X and James Farmer Jr. Malcolm X’s father was murdered when he was three while Farmer’s dad was the first black PhD in the state of Texas and a Methodist minister. The presence and absence of a father were the life and death difference on how a productive challenge to segregation and racism would be achieved in the United States. The cultural annihilation of fatherhood is systemic and profoundly unjust. It must be ended and we should acknowledge that the restoration of fatherhood as an ideal goal is in fact a solution to this terrible problem of mass violence. 

Our blue privilege storytellers would like to pour rhetorical salt into our national wounds over these shootings. The terrible rhetorical goal is to tear us further apart and incite us all to further acts of violence. This is reprehensible and we must all become better consumers of the words and symbols that motivate us. If our partisanship prevents us from saying words of healing and help then we do well to observe more than a few moments of silence. Better yet, have a challenging conversation with our heavenly Father who is more than capable of dealing with our frustration. This would be better and less hurtful than saying words that will lead to more of humanity killing one another, whether on a baseball field in Virginia or a Walmart in El Paso. 

Ben Voth is an associate professor of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs and Director of Debate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/08/killing_one_another.html

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How to Tell If a Trump Supporter Is Racist - Dennis Prager

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by Dennis Prager

Three key questions.

Every non-liberal leftist — that is, nearly every Democrat running for president, New York Times and Washington Post columnist, CNN and MSNBC host, and your left-wing brother-in-law — labels every Trump supporter and, of course, President Donald Trump, a "racist."

And they don't stop there. Leftists don't only label the half of the country that supports the president "racist," they label all whites and America itself "racist." If your son or daughter attends or recently attended an American university, it is close to certain he or she was repeatedly told that America and all whites are racist. According to the left, whites are divided between those who admit they are racist and those who don't admit it.

Every conservative and many liberals know this is a big lie. The great question is: Do leftists believe it? It is impossible to know. But this we do know: If you repeat something often enough, and if your Weltanschauung (worldview) and that which gives your life meaning are dependent upon believing something, you will eventually believe it.

So here is a way to show it is a lie.

Ask any white conservative, including one who supports Trump, the following three questions:
1) Do you have more in common with, and are you personally more comfortable in the company of, a white leftist or a black conservative?

2) Would you rather have nine white leftists or nine black conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court?

3) Would you rather your child marry a black Christian conservative or a white non-Christian liberal?

A white racist would prefer the whites in each case.

I have asked these questions of thousands of Trump supporters at lectures and on my radio show. Not once has a white Trump-supporting conservative said he or she would be more comfortable in the presence of a white leftist than a black conservative, or would prefer an all-white liberal Supreme Court to an all-black conservative Supreme Court. Not once has a white Christian conservative said he or she would prefer their child marry a white non-Christian liberal to a black Christian conservative.

If you're an honest leftist, this should present a powerful challenge to your belief that all white conservatives are racist.

But it won't. Leftists have too much at stake to confront the truth about conservatives. Everything the left has ever believed has depended upon lying about opponents. From the day Stalin labeled Trotsky — who served as the head of the Red Army and who, along with Lenin, founded the Bolshevik Party — a "fascist," leftists have lied about their opponents.

Some liberals lie and some conservatives lie, but the truth is both a liberal and conservative value. It has never been a left-wing value. Any leftist who would commit himself to the truth would cease being a leftist. He would either become an anti-left liberal or an anti-left conservative.

"America is racist." "Whites are racist." "Trump supporters are racist." These are all big lies.

So, then, given how important it is to leftists to maintain the lie of conservative racism — along with xenophobia, misogyny, transphobia and Islamophobia — how would they rebut conservatives' answers to these questions?

Presumably, they would argue that every conservative who responds to these questions as I described is lying.

But these questions are important — no matter how much leftists ignore or dismiss them — because they perform an important service for conservatives.

I know this from Jewish history. There was so much Jew-hatred in the medieval Christian world that Jews sometimes wondered if there was any truth to the attacks on them. When a whole society denigrates a group, members of the denigrated group start wondering whether any of the attacks on them have any truth. But when the charge of blood libel — that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to bake matzos for Passover — arose, it liberated Jews from taking any of the anti-Semites' attacks seriously. Every Jew knew the blood libel was a lie — Jews never consumed animal blood, let alone human blood.

Every conservative knows his responses to these three questions are heartfelt and true, so these questions can help conservatives come to see the left's charge of conservative racism as medieval Jews came to see the anti-Semites' blood libel charge: as a lie.
   

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in April 2018, is The Rational Bible, a commentary on the book of Exodus. He is the founder of Prager University.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274530/how-tell-if-trump-supporter-racist-dennis-prager

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Israel’s Strategic Goal in Syria - Yaakov Lappin

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by Yaakov Lappin

Israel’s shadow war in Syria is based on the strategic objective of convincing the Islamic Republic that its investment in a war machine is going to waste.

Bodies of Iranian casualties from the Syrian Civil War are returned to Kermanshah, Iran, August 2016, photo via Wikipedia

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,250, August 9, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel’s shadow war in Syria is based on the strategic objective of convincing the Islamic Republic that its investment in a war machine is going to waste. Iran has so far chosen to weather the strikes and shift tactics without abandoning its Syria project.

At the start of July, media reports surfaced regarding an alleged widespread wave of Israeli strikes on Iranian axis targets across Syria. The reports serve as a reminder of the ongoing shadow war that is raging between Jerusalem and Tehran, and bring into the spotlight Israel’s long-term strategic objective.

The strikes allegedly hit Iranian and Hezbollah weapons sites. They included development, storage, and transfer facilities, some of which appear to have been embedded in Syrian regime military bases. Targets around Damascus, Homs, and western Syria were all reportedly hit, resulting in a number of casualties.

Long before the US began its policy of maximum economic pressure on Iran, Israel had been applying its own policy of maximum – yet low profile – prevention in Syria, and that policy continues.

Using advanced intelligence coupled with precision firepower, the Israeli defense establishment has prioritized the objective of disrupting the construction of an Iranian war machine in Syria. Israel has also acted on many occasions to prevent Iran from using Syria as a transit and production zone for advanced weapons, such as guided missiles, for the benefit of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This effort involves tracking flights, weapons factories, suspicious ground convoys, and an array of Iranian weapons production and smuggling activities throughout the Middle East.

According to reports, Israel’s War Between Wars campaign has also included strikes against Iranian efforts to build a land corridor linking Iraq to Syria for the purpose of transferring weapons and Iranian-backed militias.

The reports of alleged Israeli strikes represent the tip of a very large iceberg. For every reported preventive action by Israel, it can be assumed that there are many more that go unreported and remain unknown to the general public.

Israel is determined not to allow Iran to build offensive drone bases, missile factories, and proxy terror networks with which to threaten its citizens, and the Israel Air Force operates at a high tempo around the clock to monitor and disrupt emerging threats.

Israel’s overall strategic objective in these strikes was spelled out by Mossad Director Yossi Cohen hours after the alleged July 1 attack, when he stated at the Herzliya Conference, “I believe that Iran will reach the conclusion that it is just not worth it.”

This statement reflects the wider Israeli goal, which is not limited to just physically stopping Iran’s force build-up in Syria. Rather, Israel’s goal is getting Supreme Leader Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Quds Force to reach the conclusion that they will not be able to slip offensive capabilities into Syria without Israel’s noticing and taking action where it feels it is necessary.

Hundreds of Israeli strikes in recent years were designed to push Iran into changing its course and scaling back its Syria project. It is hoped that the net result of the strikes will be that Iran is forced to perform a cost-benefit analysis and conclude that its investments in Syria are going to waste.

Iran’s response so far has been to play cat-and-mouse with Israel: It temporarily tones down its activities before turning the volume back up and shifting the focus of its force build-up activities away from southern Syria, near the Israeli border and Damascus, and toward the deep central Syrian desert.

Cohen confirmed this in his speech, saying that Mossad has witnessed the Iranians and Hezbollah building bases further north in Syria.

This likely includes Iranian attempts to use the T4 airbase in central Syria as an alternative to Damascus’s international airport for smuggling and storing advanced weapons before distributing them onward to Syria and Lebanon.

“They mistakenly think it will be harder to reach,” Cohen said during his speech.

In recent weeks, Israel has attempted to complement its military steps with added diplomatic pressure on Iran to roll back its activities in Syria. This came in the form of a significant trilateral meeting, held in Jerusalem on June 24, which saw national security advisers from Russia, the US, and Israel meet to discuss Syria.

The results of this effort remain unclear. Publicly, at least, Russian national security advisor Nikolai Patrushev indicated that Moscow is in no hurry to disband its alliance with Iran in Syria, which has seen the two countries coordinate air and ground operations to secure the brutal regime of Bashar Assad.

“Iran has been and will be an ally and partner of ours, with which we have [been] gradually developing ties for quite some time, both bilaterally and multilaterally,” Patrushev said during the conference. “Any attempts to make Tehran look like the main threat to global security, to put it in the same basket as ISIS or any other terror group, are unacceptable. Iran has been contributing a lot to the fight against terrorism in Syria, helping to stabilize the situation. We call upon our partners to exercise restraint and to take efforts to alleviate the concerns and tensions. Efforts should be made to decrease tensions between Israel and Iran.”

Moscow’s public stance appears to suggest that while Russia is open to pressuring Iran to stay away from the Israeli border, it either cannot or will not act to oust the Iranians and their proxies from Syria. Iran’s presence is still needed to stabilize the Assad regime, and the Iranians still have a strategic role to play in Russia’s long-term Syrian project, despite the clear fractures and tensions that are emerging between Moscow and Tehran due to a divergence of interests in Syria.

Iran, for its part, is working to counteract Israel’s attempts to recruit Russia against the Iranian axis. In recent days, a member of the Iranian Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee stated that despite Russian-Israeli ties, Tehran has been able to maximize the utility of the “Russian card” in its activities in Syria, according to a report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

Israeli-Iranian competition over Russian influence looks set to continue, placing Moscow in the position of arbitrator in Syria – which suits Russia’s objective of returning to great power status in the Middle East.

Iran’s overall response, therefore, has been to try and weather the Israeli strikes and be flexible in its approach to building up a force in Syria, without abandoning its ambition of turning the country into an extension of the Hezbollah-Lebanese front against Israel.

In the face of increasing American economic sanctions pressure, Iran could seek to activate proxies or assets in Syria to target Israel. Iran appears to have already tried such a provocation on June 1, when two rockets were fired at Mount Hermon from Syria. The Israeli retaliation targeted Assad regime artillery guns, an air defense battery, and observation posts.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attack left three Syrian soldiers and seven “foreign fighters” – Iranian and Hezbollah personnel – dead.

The Israeli-Iranian struggle in Syria looks set to continue. Both sides seek to recruit Russia against the other.

Crucially, Israel has shown its determination to activate military force to keep Iran in check in Syria. This determination was expressed by PM Netanyahu on July 14 during a visit to the IDF National Defense College. “At the moment, the only military in the world that is fighting Iran is the Israeli military,” he said.

View PDF

Yaakov Lappin is a Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He specializes in Israel’s defense establishment, military affairs, and the Middle Eastern strategic environment.

Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-strategy-syria/

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Hezbollah supporter sent to prison in US - Elad Benari

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by Elad Benari

Lebanese businessman designated as financial supporter of Hezbollah sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to forfeit $50 million.

A Lebanese businessman designated by US authorities as an important financial supporter of the Hezbollah terrorist organization was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to forfeit $50 million, the Justice Department said Thursday, according to AFP.

Kassim Tajideen, 63, pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiracy to launder money as part of a scheme to evade US sanctions.

He was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in May 2009 by the Treasury Department based on tens of millions of dollars in financial support given to Hezbollah.

In a plea, Tajideen admitted to conspiring with at least five other people to conduct more than $50 million in transactions with US businesses, in violation of prohibitions barring his involvement with US persons or companies.

"His sentencing and the $50 million forfeiture in this case are just the latest public examples of the Department of Justice's ongoing efforts to disrupt and dismantle Hezbollah and its support networks," said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski, according to AFP.

Tajideen, who operated a network of businesses in Lebanon and Africa, was extradited to the United States in March 2017 after his arrest overseas.

Hezbollah has been a US designated terrorist group since 1997 and is regularly sanctioned by Washington.

Last month, the US Treasury placed two Hezbollah members of Lebanon's parliament on its sanctions blacklist, marking the first time Washington has taken aim at the Iran-allied group's elected politicians.

Last October, President Donald Trump signed new sanctions targeting Hezbollah.

A week earlier, five groups, including Hezbollah, were designated as transnational criminal organizations to target with tougher investigations and prosecutions.

Before that, the Treasury sanctioned one of the financiers of Hezbollah and its representative to Iran, as well as five entities based in Europe.


Elad Benari

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/267188

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Khamenei's Nuclear Fatwa is a Deception, a Ploy and a Lie - Majid Rafizadeh

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by Majid Rafizadeh

Having been found out for their deception, the Iranian authorities subsequently adopted deception as a national policy

• If history is anything to go by, the Supreme Leader's statement is barely worth a pinch of salt. It is notable that the first time Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons took place right after his government was caught red-handed pursuing secret nuclear activities and enriching uranium in two clandestine nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002 in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
• Having been found out for their deception, the Iranian authorities subsequently adopted deception as a national policy by promoting the narrative of aversion to nuclear weapons to the world while embracing and furthering their nuclear activities privately.
• First of all, no one, it seems, has ever laid eyes on this proclaimed fatwa.
• Khamenei's nuclear fatwa is nothing but a phony decree aimed at deflecting attention from Iran's nuclear ambitions and activities. It is designed solely to serve the interests of his umma (Islamic community) and the Islamic Republic.

Iranian authorities adopted deception as a national policy by promoting the narrative of aversion to nuclear weapons to the world while embracing and furthering their nuclear activities privately. Some world leaders bought Iran's lie and began pressing others to follow suit. Pictured: Then US Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2014. (Image source: US State Department)

In the world we live in where many things are certain, one of them is the Iranian regime's recent efforts to invoke a fatwa in an attempt to deceive the West. The declaration of a fatwa by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to serve as "proof" that Tehran is not pursuing nuclear weapons is a move both mischievous and clever.

Recently, the junior Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, met with Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif, who in his deliberations with Senator Paul told him about Iran's unwillingness to seek nuclear weapons because of Khamenei's fatwa.

Iran's Supreme Leaders had been previously quoted as saying:

"We consider the use of such weapons as haraam [religiously forbidden] and believe that it is everyone's duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster".

Going even further, the Supreme Leader claimed that the production or use of nuclear weapons are governed by Islamic laws which ban them. On his official website, he adds that "Both sharia [Islamic laws] and aqli [related to logic and reason] fatwas dictate that we do not pursue them."

If history is anything to go by, the Supreme Leader's statement is barely worth a pinch of salt. It is notable that that the first time Ayatollah Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons took place right after his government was caught red-handed pursuing secret nuclear activities and enriching uranium in two clandestine nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002 in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Having had their deception found out, the Iranian authorities subsequently adopted deception as a national policy by promoting the narrative of aversion to nuclear weapons to the world while embracing and furthering their nuclear activities privately.

In a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for instance, Iran deployed Khamenei's declaration of a fatwa to dodge further discussion about its nuclear program. Iran claimed that "the production, stock-piling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons."

Unsurprisingly, some world leaders bought Iran's lie and began pressing others to follow suit. Former President Barack Obama, for example, in an attempt to appease Tehran and curry the favor of the Iranian mullahs, naively declared in his address to the U.N. General Assembly (September 24, 2013), that "The Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons."

As if to echo Obama's statement, former US Secretary of State John Kerry also said:

"The supreme leader... says he has issued a fatwa, the highest form of Islamic prohibition against some activity, and he said that is to prohibit Iran from ever seeking a nuclear weapon."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also lent her support to the farce by further pushing the narrative of Iran's innocence to the word. According to her:

"The other interesting development which you may have followed was the repetition by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei that they would – that he had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, against weapons of mass destruction. Prime Minister Erdogan and I discussed this at some length, and I've discussed with a number of experts and religious scholars."

First of all, no one, it seems, has ever laid eyes on this proclaimed fatwa.

Second, if only Clinton, Obama, Kerry or other politicians were smart enough to study the fundamentals of Islam, they would be cognizant of the fact that taqiyya can be a reason to issue fatwas under Shia Islam. Taqiyya, which is particularly emphasized in Shia Islam, is an Islamic juridical term which dictates that lying is allowed when one's interests or the interests of Islamic government or community is under threat. In other words, taqiyya is a type of jihad, the battle to win the fight against the supposed enemies.

For those still willing to grasp at straws by believing the Ayatollah issued a nuclear fatwa, and who know anything about Islam, they would realize that fatwas are not carved in stone; they can be changed at any moment at the discretion of the Muslim leader.

In summary, the quick reference to Ayatollah Khamenei's nuclear fatwa declaration as evidence of Iran's innocence in the nuclear arms race amounts to self-deception. Khamenei's nuclear fatwa is nothing but a phony decree aimed at deflecting attention from Iran's nuclear ambitions and activities. It is designed solely to serve the interests of his umma (Islamic community) and the Islamic Republic.

• 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/14667/iran-nuclear-weapons-fatwa

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Searching for the Next AOC - Discover The Networks

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by Discover The Networks

The 'Justice Democrats' announce their latest endorsements for Congress.

Justice Democrats (JD), the leftist organization that helped elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress last year, has announced its three latest endorsements for the 2020 elections to the House of Representatives: Alex Morse and Morgan Harper as primary challengers to Democratic incumbents Richard Neal (Massachusetts) and Joyce Beatty (Ohio), and Kara Eastman as a primary challenger to Republican incumbent Don Bacon (Nebraska). All three of JD's candidates – including Eastman, the nominal Republican – are leftists/socialists, as evidenced by JD's assertion that “we are honored to endorse these three candidates as part of a new generation of Democrats who will fight for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free college, and ending mass incarceration and deportation.”

Launched in Los Angeles on January 23, 2017, Justice Democrats is a federal political action committee aligned with the Democratic Party. The group was co-founded by several individuals who had been either supporters or staffers of Senator Bernie Sanders’ failed presidential campaign of 2016. These included: Cenk Uygur of the online news program The Young Turks; longtime Democrat operative Zack Exley; Saikat Chakrabarti, who would go on to become a key advisor and aide to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Alexandra Rojas (national digital field director of Sanders’ campaign); Corbin Trent (founder of “Tennessee for Bernie Sanders”); and Kyle Kulinski, the host and producer of the YouTube show Secular Talk. All except Kulinski had also been co-founders (in 2016) of the pro-Democrat organization Brand New Congress (BNC).
In contrast to BNC’s unusually ambitious goal of replacing all 435 U.S. House Members with political novices, JD deemed it wiser to support some incumbent Democrats and to direct its efforts chiefly toward unseating: (a) only those Democrats whose politics were unacceptably centrist, and (b) as many Republicans as possible. Over time, JD reasoned, this approach would help “change the Democratic Party from the inside out” by moving it ever farther to the political left.
JD believes that: (a) “racism and xenophobia have always been part of our country’s history”; (b) “African Americans and Latinos in particular, and people of color generally, have been targets in our nation’s continued assault against their rights, liberties, and humanity”; and (c) “a truth and reconciliation commission [should be empaneled] to investigate the generational harms caused by slavery and Jim Crow and [to] propose remedies.”
In 2017, JD launched a recruiting campaign whereby it held auditions for potential candidates who could run for various U.S. Congressional seats on its leftist political platform in the 2018 midterm elections. All told, more than 10,000 names were submitted to JD for consideration. One of those names was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Bronx bartender who was recommended to JD by her brother Gabriel. Upon meeting the young woman, JD perceived her to be someone whose charisma and persona could be harnessed very effectively for political purposes. Thus the organization made Ocasio-Cortez its top priority for the 2018 midterms. Toward that end, JD scripted and produced her campaign videos, while also coordinating all of her fundraising, social media, and voter mobilization activities.
In December 2017, both Cenk Uygur and JD’s treasurer, David Koller, resigned from the organization after it was learned that they each had authored blogposts in the early 2000s containing language that was degrading to women.
By February 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had joined Saikat Chakrabarti as a member of of JD’s board of directors.
All told, JD in 2018 endorsed 78 Democratic congressional candidates and recruited 12 to run for office, serving as a political consulting firm for those dozen. Ocasio-Cortez was the only one of the 12 recruits who went on to win her general election, though six additional JD-endorsed candidates — three incumbents and three freshmen — were also elected to the U.S House. Those six were: Ro Khanna, Raul Grijalva, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Pramila Jayapal. Among the more noteworthy candidates who received JD’s support but failed to win their respective elections were Ben Jealous and Abdul El-Sayed.

To secure JD’s endorsement and support, candidates are required to openly embrace the organization’s political platform. Key planks of that platform include the following:

• Enact a Green New Deal, environmental legislation whose mission is to rapidly eliminate all fossil-fuel use from the U.S. economy; create a basic income program and a federal jobs guarantee that would provide a “living wage” to every person who wants one; implement a government-run, single-payer health care system called “Medicare For All”; and replace free-market capitalism with a socialist framework.
• Invest “trillions” of dollars in “rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, schools, levees, airports, etc.”
• “Mak[e] the top 1% [of earners] and multinational corporations pay their fair share” of taxes.
• Provide free education for everyone attending public colleges and trade schools.
• Increase expenditures for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which already consume, in aggregate, 62% of the federal budget.
• Ensure paid vacation time, sick time, family leave, and childcare services for all American workers.
• “Protect women’s rights” by supporting the Paycheck Fairness Act, repealing the Hyde Amendment (which bars the use of public money to fund abortions), and “oppos[ing] Republican cuts to Planned Parenthood.”
• Enact “sweeping and comprehensive policy changes” to a criminal-justice system that “currently targets Black and Brown people” with “inappropriate policing practices” and “unjust mass incarceration.”
• “Invest more in jobs and education, less in jails and incarceration.”
• End “the racist War on Drugs” that “has torn families apart all across our country” and disproportionately harms the black community.
• Abolish capital punishment, an “indefensible” practice that too often “puts innocent people to death.
• Place “a ban on assault weapons” (semi-automatic weapons) and “high-capacity magazines.”
• Secure the “voting rights” of “every American citizen” by eliminating Voter ID laws allegedly designed “to disenfranchise [poor and nonwhite] voting blocks who have traditionally supported Democrats.”
• Abolish the federal Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which “has turned into a state-funded terror group that regularly violates basic human rights.”
• Implement “comprehensive immigration reform” that ensures a “path to citizenship” for millions of illegal aliens.
• “Support the movement to provide statehood for Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico” – places whose residents overwhelmingly support Democrats over Republicans – “in order to bring balance to the increasingly skewed Senate.”

In summation, JD's objective is to make the Democratic Party ever-more radical in its positions and agendas, while simultaneously infiltrating the Republican Party with candidates who will help to push it leftward as well.

Discover The Networks

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274561/searching-next-aoc-discover-networks

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CAIR’s Far-Reaching and Destructive Tentacles - Raymond Ibrahim

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by Raymond Ibrahim

The terrorist-linked group goes from influencing the War College to influencing Congress.

The “all-seeing eye” and multi-tentacled reach of CAIR is again on display, signifying just how intrusive this terrorist-linked Islamic organization that poses as a civil rights group has become in the U.S.’s efforts to defend itself against terrorism.

As previously noted, after inviting me to lecture on my recent book on the military history between Islam and the West, the US Army War College (USAWC) reneged because CAIR cried “Islamophobia” and “racism.”  In response, the office of Congressman Scott Perry—a graduate of the USAWC, which falls under his PA district—drafted a letter that was signed by nine other congressmen and delivered to the Commandant of the USAWC, John Kem. 

The letter expressed the signatories’ “grave concern” that the USAWC “capitulated to the unfounded claims of CAIR, and thus damaged the academic freedom and integrity of the high esteem in which the USAWC is held by many around the world….  Not only are we hearing from constituents—military and civilian—on this issue, but we’re extremely disappointed in the decision to cancel Mr. Ibrahim and his voice on a critical, current issue in our Nation.” (Read the complete here).

While the congressional signatories are to be commended for questioning the USAWC’s acquiescence to CAIR, another question has arisen: why did only ten out of 435 members of congress—that is, 2.3 percent of America’s representatives—sign this otherwise rational letter of concern?

Because on July 5, right after Perry’s letter was sent to fellow members of congress to sign, CAIR instantly sent its own letter to members of congress, urging them not to sign.

The only way for CAIR to have learned about the existence of an internal letter to congress is for a member of congress or their aides to share it with CAIR.  In other words, if nothing else, this demonstrates that CAIR’s agents are well entrenched in congress (which of course should be no surprise considering that CAIR’s members/allies are not just aids but actual members of congress, a la Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, et al).

CAIR’s renewed attack begins as follows:

On behalf of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) … I am writing to warn you of a factually-incorrect congressional letter to the U.S. Army War College being led by Representative Scott Perry.

The letter encourages the War College to reinstate a speaker, Raymond Ibrahim, who promotes a false and vitriolic view of Islam… 

[Ibrahim’s] utterly incorrect and medieval view is a direct contradiction and affront to the more than one million American Muslims living in the United States and contributing to our democracy…

Attached and copied below, please find a factsheet detailing various statements by Ibrahim that demonstrate his views on Islam…

Liam Foskett

Government Affairs Coordinator

lfoskett@cair.com | www.cair.com

Tel: 202.646.6033 Cell: 404.697.8405

As might be expected, this same Liam Foskett apparently attended renowned apologist-for-Islamic-terror extraordinaire, Georgetown University, making him an ideal non-Muslim employee (or useful idiot) for CAIR.  (That said, fortunately for him his arrest record for possession of alcohol as a minor occurred in the U.S., not under the  culture which CAIR is devoted to whitewashing, and where such haram shenenagins are not well tolerated.)

CAIR’s attached and pasted document is titled, “Backgrounder: Raymond Ibrahim.”  After boasting how CAIR and allies got the USAWC to cave in to their demands, it complains that “Representative Scott Perry is now leading a letter in Congress calling on the college to reinvite Ibrahim. The letter also makes the completely false claim that CAIR has ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

You be the judge if the assertion that CAIR is connected to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood is “completely false” (see here, here, here, and here; then do your own research/googling for much more).  As Perry notes in the letter to the USAWC, these are the reasons why “our ally, the United Arab Emirates has designated CAIR a terrorist group.” 

Even more tellingly, CAIR doesn’t bother acknowledging or denying the absolute worst charge in Perry’s letter, that “CAIR is named by the Department of Justice as an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the 2007 terrorist funding case against the Holy Land Foundation.”

In other words, terrorist-linked CAIR strains at gnats while expecting members of congress to swallow camels.

The rest of CAIR’s “backgrounder”  concerning my purported “Islamophobic” tendencies consists of random quotes I’ve made over the last 15 or so years and is meant “to give a better idea of Ibrahim and his views and to discourage signing Representative Perry’s letter.”  In another article I may parse through these quotes, all of which I still stand by.  For now, note how, as with its earlier attacks on me, CAIR does not mind misrepresenting my position to make its “backgrounder” points.  It quotes me saying:

When Muslim migrants go on church-vandalizing sprees in the West – many hundreds of churches, crosses, and Christian statues have been respectively desecrated, broken, and beheaded in just Germany, France, and Austria – very few understand that this modus operandi stretches back to and has been on continuous display since Islam’s first contact with Christian civilization.

I did not end that sentence with the word “civilization.”  The complete sentence, which appears at the very end of my book, Sword and Scimitar—which is at the center of CAIR’s offensive—reads “…this modus operandi stretches back to and has been on continuous display since Islam’s first contact with Christian civilization, as recounted in the preceding history.” 

CAIR clearly does not want members of congress to realize that there is an actual, documented history that can be consulted against my “controversial” words.  Accordingly, in its willful suppression of this fact, not only does CAIR not reproduce my six final words; it fails to indicate their omission with ellipses, as required by the rules of grammatical etiquette.

Be all this as it may, the fact remains: having successfully cowed the US Army War College into obedience with its hysteria and cries of “racism,” one can only guess just how many members of congress CAIR also cowed from signing Rep. Scott Perry’s letter in defense of free speech and academic inquiry in the context of U.S. security.  

Such is the extent of CAIR’s tentacles, the extent of the propaganda-jihad—one of many, legitimate forms of nonviolent jihad—at its finest.

Raymond Ibrahim

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274562/cairs-far-reaching-and-destructive-tentacles-raymond-ibrahim

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