Balfour Declaration, November 2016 - Richard Kemp

by Richard Kemp

Hatred of Jews and denial of their rights permeate PA speeches, TV shows, school-books, newspapers and magazines.

• Flying in the face of the long-standing US bipartisan policy of rejecting the so-called 1967 borders, there is increasing concern that President Obama's parting shot at Israel might be to either endorse such a resolution or fail to veto it. Such actions would have incalculable consequences -- not least a flare-up in violence and the prospect of global sanctions against Israel.
• Depending on his audience, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas claims to desire a two-state solution. But his actions speak louder. How can it be possible to bring about peace with a country or a people that you constantly vilify and attack? Hatred of Jews and denial of their rights permeate PA speeches, TV shows, school-books, newspapers and magazines.
• Arab Jew-hatred has caused Britain up to the present day to sometimes fail to condemn Arab aggression against Israelis, and to find excuses for their violence. All in the name of appeasing the Arabs and their supporters in the Muslim world and even at home.
• Britain can be intensely proud that it alone embraced Zionism in 1917. And it was the blood of many thousands of British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers that created the conditions that made the modern-day State of Israel a possibility.
• Even 99 years after the world-changing Balfour Declaration, we still have our work cut out for us in supporting the Zionist project, which owes so much to the unequalled historic backing in Great Britain.

This week we enter the centenary year of the Balfour Declaration. This document, signed on November 2, 1917 by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, was the first recognition by one of the world's great powers -- in fact at the time the greatest power in the world -- of the right of the Jewish people to their national homeland in Palestine.

It was the single most significant step taken in restoring Jewish self-determination in their historic territories. Under the San Remo Resolution three years later, the Balfour Declaration was enshrined in international law, leading inexorably to the 1947 UN partition plan and ultimately to the proclamation of the State of Israel by David Ben Gurion on May 14, 1948.

As Britain, Israel and the free world begin to mark this monumental anniversary, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demands an apology from the UK.

The man whose constitutional tenure as Palestinian leader expired seven years ago, yet remains in place. The man who raised funds for the 1972 massacre in Munich of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes. The man who misused millions of dollars of international aid intended for the welfare of his people. The man who dismissed as a "fantastic lie" the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

This man demands an apology. Of course he does. And in demanding that Britain apologise for a 99-year-old statement supporting a national home for the Jewish people, he exposes his true position, and the true position of all factions of the Palestinian leadership: that the Jewish people have no right to a national home; the Jewish State has no right to exist. According to Abbas, Palestine, from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, belongs to the Arabs and only to the Arabs.

At a dinner held by the Zionist Federation in London on April 12, 1931, Sir Herbert Samuel, British High Commissioner in Palestine from 1920 to 1925 and the first Jew to govern the historic land of Israel in 2,000 years, said: "In time the Arabs will come to appreciate and respect the Jewish [standpoint]".

Unfortunately, as Abbas's demands demonstrate only too clearly, he could not have been more wrong. It is sometimes claimed that Arab violence towards the Jews began with the Balfour Declaration, which created in their minds a feeling of betrayal by the British and an apprehension of Arab subjugation under Jewish governance.

This ignores the murder and massacre of Jews by Arabs in the Middle East, including in Jaffa and Jerusalem, throughout the 19^th Century and in the 20^th Century in the years before 1917 -- just because they were Jews.

Arab Jew-hatred certainly did not start with Balfour. But it did intensify after Balfour. It was this intensification, with its accompanying slaughter, revolt and rioting against both British and Jews that caused Britain to falter and fail over her 1917 declaration of support for a Jewish national homeland. It caused the British government to introduce White Papers in 1922 and 1939 that sought to appease Arab violence and resistance by imposing restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine and the development of the millennia-old Jewish presence in their historic homeland.

It caused Britain to deny Jewish immigration into Palestine even as Jews were being butchered in the millions in Europe. It even led Britain to send survivors of Auschwitz back to the lair of the Nazi murderers. And it caused Britain to behave in a way that precipitated agonizing Jewish violence against the British in Palestine in the 1940s, when it was the last thing the Jews wanted to do.

It caused Britain to abstain from the 1947 UN General Assembly resolution that brought about the re-establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. And even to appoint a British general -- Sir John Glubb -- to lead the Arab Legion's invasion of Israel immediately afterwards.

It has caused Britain up to the present day to sometimes fail to condemn Arab aggression against Israelis, and to find excuses for their violence. All in the name of appeasing the Arabs and their supporters in the Muslim world and even at home.

Despite all of this, with Britain sometimes sinking into moral weakness over its subsequent failure to support the state that it incubated, the country can be intensely proud that Britain alone embraced Zionism in 1917. And it was the blood of many thousands of British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers that created the conditions that made the modern-day State of Israel a possibility.

These men fought and died in the Palestine campaign to defeat the Ottoman Empire that had occupied the territory for centuries. One month after the Balfour Declaration, on December 7^th, the British Empire forces under General Allenby drove the Ottomans from Jerusalem. The day the last Turk left the Holy City was the first day of Hanukkah, the celebration of the Maccabean liberation of that city 2,000 years earlier.

Those soldiers were above all the instrument of the will of one of the greatest Prime Ministers in British history: David Lloyd George. There are many arguments about the motives for his actions over Palestine. But not only was he the true motivating force behind the Balfour Declaration; he also ordered and drove the defeat of the Ottomans in Palestine that breathed life into his Foreign Secretary's words to the Zionist Federation.

Thirteen years later, at the Zionist Federation dinner in 1931, mentioned earlier, David Lloyd George was present as guest of honour. He said:

"The Jews surely have a special claim on [Palestine]. They are the only people who have made a success of it during the past 3,000 years. They are the only people who have made its name immortal, and as a race, they have no other home. This was their first; this has been their only home; they have no other home. They found no home in Egypt or in Babylon. Since their long exile they have found no home as a people in any other land, and this is the time and opportunity for enabling them once more to recreate their lives as a separate people in their old home and to make their contribution to humanity as a separate people, having a habitation in the land which inspired their forefathers. Later on it might be too late."

Later on it might be too late. These prophetic words became a devastating reality for millions of Jews in the years to come. Within five years, the Arab Revolt had begun, in protest at the influx of Jews into Palestine, desperate to get out of Europe before it was indeed too late. The Arab Revolt in turn led to the White Paper of 1939, severely curtailing Jewish immigration into Palestine at their hour of greatest need, as the British government attempted to appease the Arabs.

The White Paper was described by Lloyd George in Parliament as "an act of perfidy" and by the Manchester Guardian as "a death sentence on tens of thousands of Central European Jews." The words of the Peel Commission, which investigated the Arab unrest, apply as much today as they did in 1937 when they were written: "The hatred of the Arab politician for the Jewish national home has never been concealed and... it has now permeated the Arab population as a whole."

The Balfour Declaration, signed 100 years ago this week by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour (left), was the first recognition by one of the world's great powers of the right of the Jewish people to their national homeland in Palestine. David Lloyd George (right), then Prime Minister of Britain, was the true motivating force behind the Balfour Declaration; he also ordered and drove the defeat of the Ottomans in Palestine that breathed life into his Foreign Secretary's words.

The Arabs rejected the British proposals for partition of the land in the 1930s and again rejected the 1947 UN partition plan. Since then they have had numerous opportunities for the creation of a Palestinian state. All have been rejected. They have preferred to attempt Israel's annihilation by terrorism and war, rather than find an opportunity to live side by side in peace.

Depending on his audience, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Abbas claims to desire a two-state solution. But his actions speak louder. How can it be possible to bring about peace with a country or a people that you constantly vilify and attack? Hatred of Jews and denial of their rights permeate PA speeches, TV shows, school-books, newspapers and magazines. Murderous terrorists are glorified by naming football teams and sports stadiums after them. They are incentivised to violence by salaries and payments to their families -- funded of course by the American and European taxpayer. Everywhere there is incitement to hate. Only a few days ago we saw the consequences of failure to hate for four hapless Palestinians who dared to fraternise with the "Zionist enemy" when they entered the Mayor of Efrat's succah.

As we know only too well, the violent attacks against Jews, seen so frequently in the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, continue unabated to this day. The latest just last week when three Israeli soldiers were shot and wounded by an Arab gunman near the Jewish town of Beit El. In recent weeks, we have seen the Palestinian Authority's efforts to expunge Jews and Judaism from any connection with their undeniable history and holy places via grotesque and nonsensical resolutions at UNESCO.

Nothing has changed in the Arabs' attitudes and actions from Balfour's day to our own. Yet we have seen a miraculous and untold transformation over those 99 years within the State of Israel. Even as far back as that dinner in 1931, years before the re-creation of the state, Lloyd George was able to declare:

"Zionism has brought to an old land, a renowned but a ruined old land, new wealth, new energy, new purpose, new initiative, new intelligence, a new devotion and a new hope. Zionism has not finished its task, far from it, but it has already accomplished so much as to demonstrate that the land flowing with milk and honey was no baseless legend."

Even he would be astonished to see just how much further Israel has ascended in the intervening 85 years. But despite Israel's seemingly boundless progress, she remains under attack not just from the Arabs of the Middle East but also in the West, in Europe and in the UK.

Despite a myriad of their own dire problems and the ongoing bloodbath in the Arab world, the Europeans, led by the French, seem hell-bent on trying to impose the so-called 1967 borders on Israel through the UN Security Council -- lines described by legendary Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban as the "Auschwitz borders."

Flying in the face of the long-standing US bipartisan policy of rejecting these borders, there is increasing concern that President Obama's parting shot at Israel might be to either endorse such a resolution or fail to veto it. Such actions would have incalculable consequences -- not least a flare-up in violence and the prospect of global sanctions against Israel, which would rightly be unable to accept such a resolution.

In the home of the Balfour Declaration the pressure is also on. Increasing anti-Semitic abuse is directed against the Jewish community in the UK and against those who dare to support the State of Israel, including politicians. Abuse aimed of course at undermining their support and isolating the Jewish State.

Only a few days ago we saw despicable scenes of anti-Semitic hatred and lies at an event in the House of Lords in support of Abbas's absurd demand that we apologise for Balfour. In the same week, we witnessed another vicious outbreak of anti-Semitic abuse at University College London, where Jewish students were forced to seek refuge in the face of an aggressive effort to shut down their freedom of speech by so-called supporters of Palestine.

Even 99 years after the world-changing Balfour Declaration, we still have our work cut out for us in supporting the Zionist project, which owes so much to the unequalled historic backing of Great Britain.

But as Lloyd George said of this great venture: "Can you recall any movement worth prosecuting that has not encountered obstacles? Can you recall one persevered in with courage and faith where such obstacles have not been overcome in the end?"

David Lloyd George, as in so much else, was of course right. And the words of this Welshman who saw so much in common between his own tiny country and the homeland of the Jews, whose nonconformist upbringing gave him a feeling of familiarity with the Holy Land, are words that should guide those of us who support the State of Israel today: "This Mandate [for the Jewish national home] must be carried out not nervously and apologetically but firmly and fearlessly."

• Follow Richard Kemp on Twitter

Colonel Richard Kemp was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan. He served in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Balkans and Northern Ireland and was head of the international terrorism team for the UK Joint Intelligence Committee.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9273/balfour-declaration

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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

Drums Along the Potomac - Clarice Feldman

by Clarice Feldman

A revolutionary war is being fought again in New York and D.C.

Watching the events of last week online I’m reminded of Drums Along the Mohawk a story about a couple in New York’s Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War. The New York frontier settlers fought off Tories, Indians, the British with a small militia, muskets, and grit until peace was restored and they could return to farming.

A revolutionary war is being fought again in New York and D.C., this time between the administration’s corrupted Department of Justice, the compliant press and the Democratic Party on one hand, and the New York Police Department, the U.S. Attorney Preet Bahara, and the FBI on the other. The issues at stake are not all that different: the right of free people to govern themselves. The weapons are not muskets, but the Internet.

Background: The Wheels Coming Off the Hillary Bus

We’re just 2 days away from the election and having worked at times in bureaucratic organizations I can imagine the turmoil in the vast Clinton machine. The constant releases of hacked emails by Wikileaks in such a top-down operation surely has hamstrung their work. People who work there are either searching frantically for their names in the emails, gossiping among each other about what is found there and worrying about what is to come. The head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was replaced, only to find the new head Donna Brazile was herself the subject of scandal -- leaking debate questions she learned were going to be asked of Hillary. It’s not only Wikileaks -- Project Veritas’s exposure of the Creamer-headed vote-rigging and thuggery operation must have put a crimp in its 50-year-long Midwestern vote-stealing scheme. People who worked for him have to be unsure of their next steps and with the Wisconsin attorney general promising an investigation, it must be harder still to operate as usual. Huma Abedin, Hillary’s right-hand gal of many hats, is on the sidelines as her husband’s computer with its 650 thousand emails is being examined by local cops and the FBI for evidence of child pornography and national security leaks. The Clinton Foundation slush fund is under scrutiny for pay-to-play corruption and tax fraud and their many employees, recipients, and donors must be scouring their records and getting unwelcome law enforcement inquiries.

Steve Pieczenik Throws some Ammo on the Fire

Pieczenik, a smart man, once on the Council of Foreign Relations and other high positions, who lately has a spotty history of accuracy, transmitted a video in which he charged that the Clintons had effected a silent coup d’état, corrupting and coopting all the normal checks and balances. He said various intelligence agencies have been working with Julian Assange to carry out a counter-coup online to “stop the Clintons” and prevent Obama from pardoning them for their crimes.

Days later he offered up another video. This time more sensational. He claimed that both Clintons had been part of the Jeffrey Epstein “Lolita express” to his compound on Little St. James island and the NYPD had a record of the Clintons and other of their coterie involved in pedophilia. He claims the Intelligence Community has a lot of evidence of these illegal activities.

If true, then for a public long inured to the usual Clinton political corruption, this at last would grab their attention. Surely, true or not, such charges would most certainly have given Comey good reason to reopen the investigation and Attorney General Lynch and her cohorts at the Department of Justice reason to pull back and keep their mitts off the FBI’s reopened investigation.

Like clockwork, less well-known websites started publishing related accounts.Typical of these is this:

According to NYPD sources, files found on Weiner’s newly found laptop which he shared with his wife Huma Abedin, show evidence of a political pedophile ring operating within Washington, involving members of Congress as well as numerous top Clinton aides and insiders.
According to reports, a folder on Weiner’s laptop named “life insurance” contains explicit evidence that both Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin helped run and cover-up a Washington pedophile sex ring.
Truepundit.com reports:
NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to:

• Money laundering
• Child exploitation
• Sex crimes with minors (children)
• Perjury
• Pay to play through Clinton Foundation
• Obstruction of justice
• Other felony crimes

NYPD detectives and a NYPD Chief, the department’s highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co-conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director [snip] The new emails contain travel documents and itineraries indicating Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, Weiner and multiple members of Congress and other government officials accompanied convicted pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein on his Boeing 727 on multiple occasions to his private island in the U.S Virgin Islands, sources said. Epstein’s island has also been dubbed Orgy Island or Sex Slave Island where Epstein allegedly pimps out underage girls and boys to international dignitaries.
Both NYPD and FBI sources confirm based on the new emails they now believe Hillary Clinton traveled as Epstein’s guest on at least six occasions, probably more when all the evidence is combed, sources said. Bill Clinton, it has been confirmed in media reports spanning recent years, that he too traveled with Epstein over 20 times to the island.

Bill Clinton’s travels with Epstein were confirmed long ago. The rest of the charges about pedophilia have not been confirmed to my knowledge. However, Reddit participants scouring through Wikileaks found accounts of Hillary helping Laura Silsby escape punishment for her trafficking of children from Haiti.

And there was earlier a report -- later scrubbed -- by the Inspector General of the Department of State indicating Hillary had tried to block an investigation of pedophilia by a U.S. ambassador and an ambassador-designate:

The Washington Examiner published an expose on June 17 that reveals portions of an Inspector General report on how Hillary Clinton’s State Department sought to block an investigation of a U.S. Ambassador and an ambassador-designate who was accused of pedophilia.
The IG’s report was later scrubbed of this information by Clinton operatives.
The Examiner, however, obtained several drafts of the IG report and published those portions.
A draft dated November 16, 2012 notes:
“Sources reported that a senior ‘7th Floor’ Department official ordered [diplomatic security] to stop the investigation of an ambassador accused of pedophilia, and another such senior official had [diplomatic security] stop an investigation of an ambassador-designate.”
Another deleted part of the IG report states that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security was caught “circling the wagons to protect favored… rising [stars ] from criminal charges or from embarrassing revelations that could harm a promising career.”
[snip]
Hillary has been willing to cover up for Bill’s adulterous relationships – and even rape charges – in order to achieve and maintain power. So, covering up for a pedophile isn’t any big deal to her.

I have no idea if these charges about the contents of Weiner’s computer are true or not, though it seems obvious that whoever is leaking this information is doing it to let Lynch and others know who else may be implicated just in case they try once again to shut down the investigation.

An Inside Voice

Thomas Lipscomb posted a missive purportedly from inside the counter-coup which despite its dubious provenance and obvious creativity details the operation’s means and objectives:

As you know, what you are seeing is the resolution of an attempted coup d’état sprung by the Obama/Hillary cabal and we are winning so far.
Fortunately, this is the first attempt at a digital coup d’état and it is still bloodless.
Unlike a banana republic, where the trick for the rebels is to get the Air Force first and bomb the Presidential Palace and then take over the national radio, in a digital society we are winning by superior communications.
[snip]
Ironically this is an attempted coup by the current Obama government against the electoral system itself. Having mustered the support of core Federal agencies like the CIA, Homeland Security, DOJ, and without interference from the supine press, the Obama/Hillary transition team were initially stunned by the statement we pressured out of Comey last Friday which we were only able to get because it was becoming clear to all Trump was winning.
We have DOD, NSA and strong points in various security agencies like the FBI and local police which make it possible to force them to allow the electoral process to continue.
But by Tuesday, Loretta Lynch was building a case in her DOJ issued statement by Kadzik for “a parallel DOJ investigation of the Weiner email” treasure trove that would enable her to make her own “more objective interim statement” tomorrow [Friday.November 4] that so far, “there was no indication that any of the new emails would occasion any additional action by DOJ, although the process had not been completed.”
She made the fatal mistake of leaving the totally compromised Kadzik in charge of her operation, but with things happening fast, that weakness might not have mattered compared to the PR effect of her support on behalf of Hillary’s staggering campaign.
Fortunately, while Obama was able to keep Loretta Lynch from empanelling a grand jury, and hence denying Comey any ability to get proper subpoenas and bring an indictment and the same could have been the net effect of his current investigation as well, this time DOJ is not the controlling legal authority.
This investigation is being conducted by the NY Police Department as a sex crimes pursuit of the evidence on the Weiner case regarding sexual child abuse. It has its own time clock and its own validity. And the “accidental” discovery of the implication of the Clinton Foundation and key individuals in it and the Democrat Party may be pursued without regard for the concerns of DOJ. It is under the supervision of an ambitious and able US Attorney for the Southern District appointed to office by Obama himself, who also sees the likelihood of a Trump win.

Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova should certainly be considered a messenger of the counter-coup if there really is one taking place.

Agents within the Federal Bureau of Investigation want to take down the personnel at the top of the Justice Department, according to a former D.C. based U.S. Justice attorney.
“Just think of the FBI as the Vietcong. That’s what they are. They are digging tunnels under the Justice Department. They are going to sink that place,” Washington attorney Joe DiGenova told the Daily Caller Thursday.
DiGenova, who has bureau sources close to the FBI investigation, named Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, Assistant Attorney General Peter [Kadzik], Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin, and Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell as senior level staff at DOJ have who have “done something that they are going to regret.” As a result of the obstacles thrown in their way, DiGenvoa says the agents within the bureau have gone “rogue” and any upper level bureaucrat that gets in their way from investigating Clinton could be exposed.
“Even though this is technically under the auspices of the bureau, nobody is going to control these agents,” he said.

His charges are less sensational than Pieczenik’s and other digital sources in that he claims the Weiner computer contains evidence of Hillary’s perjury, not pedophilia, but he underscores what Pieczenik and multiple websites are reporting: there was silent coup led by the Clintons and there’s now a counter-coup led by local police and members of the various intelligence communities, including most specifically the FBI, and it will not be stopped by Lynch or the president or anyone else.

Meantime a lot of people are looking for lawyers and writing their résumés. Or they should be.

Clarice Feldman

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/11/drums_along_the_potomac.html

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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

Islam takes over the symbols of Western Christianity - Giulio Meotti

by Giulio Meotti

Islam plans to have the call of the muezzin sound from the historic Christian sites of Europe.

Islam is obsessed with overtaking the symbols of Western Christianity.

One is Saint-Denis, the religious Christian epicenter of Paris, a few metro stops from the Champs Elysées. It takes the name from Denis and his companion Éleuthère, the martyrs who paid with their lives to Christianize the region. It is also the burial place of Charles Martel, whose victory stopped the Arab invasion in 732 and it is traditionally held to have halted the Islamization of Europe. As the scholar Gilles Kepel wrote, “the ancient city of kings has become the Mecca in Islam of France”. Islamic extremists cultivate many fantasies about the religious takeover at Saint Denis.

Muslim fundamentalists are now busy also in the “reconquista of the mosque of Cordoba”. Local authorities in the Spanish southern city just dealt a blow to the Catholic Church’s claim of legal ownership of the mosque-cathedral. Built on the site of Saint Vincent’s church, it then served as a mosque for over 400 years when Muslim Spain was part of a caliphate stretching from Gibraltar to Persia, before the Christian kingdom of Castile conquered the city and converted it into a cathedral. Now Islamists want it back.

With the fall of Constantinople, imperial Christian tradition was eclipsed. And Istanbul’s church of Saint Sophia, for some thousand years Christianity’s greatest cathedral, was turned into a mosque. A muezzin’s call reverberated inside the sixth-century Istanbul landmark for the first time in 85 years on last July 1.

Vladimir Putin’s new Christian wave is based on the myth of Russia as “the third Rome”, the largest state in Europe for 1,100 plus years, ruled by the longest continuous Christian royal dynasty, never conquered by a foreign power, a bulwark protecting Europe from Islamic and Mongol invasions. That is why the re-Islamization of Central Asia worries the Russians. That is why Putin fought so hard in Chechnya.

There were four capitals of the Roman Empire: Rome, Carthage, Alexandria and Antioch. Only the first still belongs to the West. Islam took over all the rest. That is why the Islamic State (IS) released the first issue of a new magazine called “Rumiyah”, calling in it for lone-wolf attacks in the West. Rumiyah is the Arabic word for Rome.

The Caliphate is obsessed by the idea of raising its black flag over the dome of St. Peter in Rome. In its propaganda videos we have seen the Colosseum in flames and flooded in a sea of ​​blood. Abu Mohammed al Adnani, the late spokesman of the Islamic State, announced that “we will conquer Rome, we will smash your crosses, we will reduce your women into slavery.” The Caliphate would like to see St. Peter’s Basilica meeting the same fate as Mosul’s churches, where the Caliphate erased any trace of Christianity, or the Green Church of Tikrit. 

But it is not only the Caliphate. There is a long Islamic tradition that wants to convert Romiyyah to Islam and have it become the base from which Muslims will conquer the Western world. That is why Saudi Arabia financed in Rome the construction of one of the largest mosques in Europe.

The fall of Rome is based on the Islamic myth of Heraclius and a letter that the Byzantine emperor wrote to Mohammed recognizing him as “the messenger of God mentioned in our New Testament: Jesus the son of Mary had announced you.” Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the founder of the Islamic law school Hanbali (now in power in Saudi Arabia), reported that the Prophet of Islam would have predicted that “the city of Heraclius (Constantinople), it would fall first, then Rome.”

In 2003, at the height of the Iraqi war, Osama bin Laden delivered a speech against “the new Rome”. Three years later, in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s lecture at the University of Regensburg, Al Qaeda urged the Muslims to “conquer Rome as they conquered Constantinople”. On Al Aqsa TV, Hamas’ broadcasting from Gaza, sermons incite to take Rome, while Muhammad ibn Abd al Rahman al Arifi, imam of the King Fahd Military Academy in Saudi Arabia, announced that Islam “will control Rome and introduce Islam”.

The ultimate result of Europe’s extreme secularism could be a European Caliphate in which the fate of its ancient and beautiful cathedrals recapitulates those in Constantinople. A Europe in which the muezzin summons the faithful to prayer from the central loggia of Saint Peter’s in Rome, while Notre Dame has been transformed into Hagia Sophia on the Seine, a great Christian church that becomes an Islamic museum.

This has already happened to British cathedrals, which since the 1970s, have begun charging visitors for admission, a sound economic decision, but one that sent the disastrous message that these buildings were museums rather than living places of worship.

Do radical Islam’s fantasies sound so hallucinatory today?


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

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19724

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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

In UNESCO, Palestinians claim ownership of Dead Sea Scrolls - Shlomo Cesana

by Shlomo Cesana

Palestinians say that as the Qumran Caves, in the Judean Desert, are beyond the Green Line, Israel has taken possession of the ancient texts illegally • Israeli envoy to UNESCO: This is another provocative attempt by the Palestinians to rewrite history.

One of the Dead Sea Scrolls | Photo credit: Israel Antiquities Authority

The Palestinian Authority is planning to claim ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls and demand that UNESCO order Israel to surrender the artifacts, Israel Hayom learned over the weekend. 

Discovered in the Qumran Caves in the eastern Judean Desert between 1947 and 1956, the scrolls -- a trove of 981 different texts dating back to the time of the Second Temple -- are believed to be the work of members of a Jewish sect known as the Essenes. 

The majority of the scrolls are written in Hebrew, some are written in the Aramaic dialects common to the area at that time, and a handful of parchments are written in Greek.

The Palestinian's first move on the matter took place last week, during a meeting of UNESCO's subcommittee on the retrieval and return of cultural property to its countries of origin, which operates in an advisory capacity.

Israel, which is not a member of the committee, has observer status in the forum.

The Palestinian delegate claimed that as the scrolls were found in an archeological dig beyond the Green Line, Israel has taken possession of then illegally. 

Qumran is located in Area C of the West Bank, which under the 1993 Oslo Accords is under Israeli civil and military control. 

Israeli Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen lambasted the Palestinians' gall.

"This is another provocative and audacious, attempt by the Palestinians to rewrite history. The Dead Sea Scrolls are factual and weighty archeological evidence of the presence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel," he said.

Shlomo Cesana

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=37747

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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

Clinton's charity confirms Qatar's $1M gift while she was in office - Yoni Hersch, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

by Yoni Hersch, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Clinton Foundation received the money while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state without informing the State Department as required • Move was in violation of the ethics agreement Clinton signed upon taking office in bid to avoid conflict of interest.

The Clinton Foundation has confirmed it accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar while Hillary Clinton was U.S. secretary of state without informing the State Department, even though she had promised to let the agency review new or significantly increased support from foreign governments.

Qatari officials pledged the money in 2011 to mark the 65th birthday of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton's husband, and sought to meet the former U.S. president in person the following year to present him the check, according to an email from a foundation official to Clinton's presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta. The email, among thousands hacked from Podesta's account, was published last month by WikiLeaks.

Clinton signed an ethics agreement governing her family's globe-straddling foundation in order to become secretary of state in 2009. The agreement was designed to increase transparency to avoid appearances that U.S. foreign policy could be swayed by wealthy donors.

If a new foreign government wished to donate or if an existing foreign-government donor, such as Qatar, wanted to "increase materially" its support of ongoing programs, Clinton promised that the State Department's ethics official would be notified and given a chance to raise any concerns.

While Clinton Foundation officials initially declined to confirm the Qatar donation at first, foundation spokesman Brian Cookstra said last week that the charity accepted the $1 million gift from Qatar, but this did not amount to a "material increase" in the Persian Gulf country's support for the charity. 

Cookstra declined to say whether Qatari officials received their requested meeting with Bill Clinton.

Officials at the Qatari Embassy in Washington and in its Council of Ministers in the capital, Doha, declined to discuss the donation.

The State Department has said it has no record of the foundation submitting the Qatar gift for review, and that it was incumbent on the foundation to notify the department about donations that needed attention. 

According to the foundation's website, which lists donors in broad categories by cumulative amounts donated, Qatar's government has directly given a total of between $1 million and $5 million over the years.

The Clinton Foundation has said it would no longer accept money from foreign governments if Clinton is elected president and would spin off those programs that are dependent on foreign governments.

At least eight other countries besides Qatar gave new or increased funding to the foundation, in most cases to fund its health project, without the State Department being informed, according to foundation and agency records. They include Algeria, which gave for the first time in 2010, and the United Kingdom, which nearly tripled its support for the foundation's health project to $11.2 million between 2009 and 2012.

Foundation officials have said some of those donations, including Algeria, were oversights and should have been flagged, while others, such as the U.K. increase, did not qualify as material increases.

The foundation has declined to describe what sort of increase in funding by a foreign government would have triggered notification of the State Department for review. Cookstra said the agreement was designed to "allow foreign funding for critical Clinton Foundation programs" to continue without disruption.

The State Department said it has no record of being asked by the foundation to review any increases in support by a foreign government.

Asked whether Qatar was funding a specific program at the foundation, Cookstra said the country supported the organization's "overall humanitarian work."

"Qatar continued supporting Clinton Foundation at equal or lower levels" compared with the country's pre-2009 support, he said. He declined to say if Qatar gave any money during the first three years of Clinton's four-year term at the State Department, or what its support before 2009 amounted to.

Yoni Hersch, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=37741

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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

TV Report On Tribal Retribution Against Families Of ISIS Members In Ramadi, Iraq - MEMRI

by MEMRI

"Wanted by the tribe." "An eye for an eye,"

According to a TV report aired on October 25, tribal retribution is being carried out against families of ISIS members in the city of Ramadi, Iraq. The graffiti written by ISIS on the walls of homes of people wanted by the organization has now been replaced by the slogans "Wanted by the tribe." "An eye for an eye," say the residents of Ramadi, a city in which lawlessness has spread, according to the Iraqi Kurdestan NRT TV report.

Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV

Reporter: "The slogans are different, but similar in essence. A new phenomenon began to spread in the city of Ramadi shortly after it was recaptured from ISIS. The graffiti: 'This property is an endowment of the Islamic State,' written by the militants on the walls of the homes of people wanted by ISIS, has been replaced by the graffiti: 'Wanted by the Tribe' - targeting families of people accused of belonging to this extremist organization."

Man 1: "I definitely understand this. Take me, for example. I'm a policeman, and this used to be my home. ISIS destroyed my home. Nothing ever happens to the homes of the leaders. It is always the homes of the low-ranking policemen or officials that are destroyed. Besides, who will pay me compensation? There is no compensation or anything. Don't tell me that nobody knows who joined ISIS, killed people, and destroyed or burned down their homes. I couldn't bear it if someone who tried to kill me returns to this city. That's inconceivable. According to tribal law, it is a life for a life, and for the destruction or burning down of a home, you respond in kind."

Man 2: "We will have an eye for an eye, like Allah said: 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and reprisal in wounds.' Whoever hurt us - we will hurt him back."

Reporter: "It is not surprising in a tribal community like that of Al-Anbar Province for the tribe to have the final say. But this phenomenon has begun to reflect lawlessness. Thus, tribal law is allowed to determine the fate of some citizens, even when there is not a shred of evidence proving the guilt of these people. The tribes have their own ways to investigate and implement punishments, and it all starts with the sentence 'Wanted by the tribe,' written on the door or a wall of the home."

View The Clip

MEMRI

Source: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/5732.htm

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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

Judge orders IRS to stop targeting conservative groups - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

The arrogance of this out of control agency is breathtaking

A judge in Ohio is ordering the IRS to stop targeting conservative groups applying for tax exempt status and to make an immediate determination on an application by a Tea Party group in Texas.

The decision, made public on Friday, leaves no doubt that despite their claims to the contrary, the IRS is still playing politics in determining the tax exempt status of conservative groups - some of whom have been waiting for years to be approved.

Washington Times:

The IRS is still targeting tea party groups for illegal scrutiny by refusing to process applications that have been pending for years, a federal court said in a ruling made public Friday, ordering the tax agency to quit stalling.
U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett said the IRS can still either approve or deny the Texas Patriots Tea Party’s application for nonprofit status, but the agency can no longer sit on its hands. And he said the IRS must give the application an honest evaluation without prejudice stemming from the yearslong targeting.
In a series of stark findings, Judge Barrett ruled that the IRS did in fact single tea party groups out for special scrutiny because of their political viewpoints in opposition to President Obama — undercutting congressional Democrats who said liberal groups faced the same level of targeting.
“The evidence strongly suggests that the IRS initiated the delay because TPTP’s application was perceived at the screening stage to be a Tea Party case,” Judge Barrett, whose courtroom is in Ohio, said in an opinion that was filed earlier under seal, and was only made public after parts of the 29-page ruling were redacted.
It’s the latest blow to the tax agency, which is facing a separate order from a judge in Washington, D.C., to process a handful of other cases the agency had delayed.
The TPTP applied for non-profit status in 2012 and quickly got caught up in the political targeting that snared hundreds of groups.
After the IRS admitted it was maltreating the groups in 2013, the agency began to process most of the applications — but some of the groups sued, and the IRS refused to process their cases. The IRS said its standard policy was to halt applications in litigation, and also said it was afraid that by beginning processing it would open its agents up to lawsuits against them individually.
Judge Barrett rejected each of those arguments, saying that the IRS itself admitted the litigation policy wasn’t absolute and saying that agents who take an honest look at the application aren’t likely to face a lawsuit.
The TPTP is part of a broader class action lawsuit against the IRS, but it was the only member of the class whose application was still pending.

The arrogance of this out of control agency is breathtaking. Judge after judge in ruling after ruling has ordered the IRS to halt their illegal targeting of conservative groups, but the IRS has, in effect, thumbed its nose at the courts and continues to play politics with tax exempt applications by conservatives.

The real world impact is that most of these groups who've had their applications slow walked through the system wither and die because donors can't take the tax deduction from monies they contribute to these groups. That, of course, is the heart of the IRS plan, which has worked for 5 years to stifle the free speech of conservatives.

Conservatives have no other remedy than continuing their defense in the courts. But unless some judge decides to throw a few IRS managers in jail for contempt, the IRS will continue giving the middle finger to the right.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/11/judge_orders_irs_to_stop_targeting_conservative_groups.html

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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

The SPLC Finds Niqabs and Kippahs Equally Threatening - Daniel Pipes

by Daniel Pipes

Headgear like niqabs and burqas are banned in banks and other commercial institutions around the world, for the obvious reason that criminals use them as accessories to holdups. So far as I know, not a single institution has ever banned the kippah,

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Heidi Beirich has distributed a standardized reply to the avalanche of protests (including a particularly eloquent one by National Review) against its wretched Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists (of which I am allegedly one). Her apologia makes a quite remarkable claim in reference to me that calls for a response. She writes that

the calling for a ban of any religious dress is indeed extreme, regardless of the religious institution. Calling for a ban on the niqab is akin to banning a kippah. Daniel Pipes, another extremist on this list, has also called for a similar ban. These calls are contrary to religious freedom.

The kippah (aka the yarmulke); really? In response, two points addressed to Ms Beirich:

1. I am fine with the wearing of a hijab or burkini because these do not threaten public security. They are a matter of personal Islamic expression. But I reject the niqab and burqa because they do threaten public security. Had you bothered to consult my blog on this subject, with over a hundred incidents where these articles of clothing have been used to facilitate criminality, political violence, and jihad, you would understand the problem.
2. Headgear like niqabs and burqas are banned in banks and other commercial institutions around the world, for the obvious reason that criminals use them as accessories to holdups. So far as I know, not a single institution has ever banned the kippah, a tiny covering at the top of the head, on security grounds. Can you possibly figure out why not?

(November 6, 2016)

Daniel Pipes

Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2016/11/the-splc-finds-niqabs-and-kippahs-equally

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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

Bigger than Hillary -- The establishment cesspool of dishonesty and corruption - Newt Gingrich

by Newt Gingrich

Will Americans really vote to send a criminal family to the White House?

The only precedent in American history for the mess we will be in if Secretary Hillary Clinton wins on November 8 is the election, investigation, and resignation of President Richard Nixon.

The parallels struck me when Callista and I visited the Nixon Presidential Library two weeks ago. We were signing our new books (Treason by me and Hail to the Chief by Callista).

The Nixon Library has undergone a remarkable renovation. Touring it is a powerful educational experience. Since my first congressional race was in 1974 as Nixon was forced from office, the Library brought back many memories. (I lost that year in a Republican collapse over the scandal.)

The process of investigating Watergate and within 21 months of his reelection forcing President Nixon to resign (August 9, 1974) is the only precedent for the problem we will face if Secretary Clinton wins.

In some ways this is an unfair comparison.

Unlike Clinton, Nixon had a great foreign policy record. Working with Henry Kissinger as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, President Nixon opened up our relationship with China and balanced our relationship with the Soviet Union. His diplomacy with Beijing was an astonishing and totally unexpected breakthrough.

Nixon entered office with millions of Americans bitterly opposed to President Lyndon Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War. Nixon and Kissinger developed a policy to free South Vietnam and establish peace in the region. They ensured the return of several American prisoners of war including John McCain.

Domestically, President Nixon worked hard to achieve a sweeping reelection victory in 1972. He learned from 1960, when he lost so narrowly that only vote theft in Illinois and Texas enabled Kennedy to win.  Nixon won very narrowly eight years later in 1968, in a three way race with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Governor George Wallace.

In 1972, Nixon carried 49 states. That number has only been equaled in modern times by President Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection. What most Americans don't realize is that President Nixon actually won reelection by a greater margin than Reagan (60.7 percent for Nixon compared to 58.8 percent for Reagan).

After the massive victory in 1972, Nixon might have expected a very successful conclusion to his then 26-year career in public life as a Congressman, Senator, Vice President and President.

Yet the overwhelming victory was not enough to protect him from the mistakes of his team and himself.

Looking back, the Watergate scandal was about a burglary of the Democratic Party headquarters located in the Watergate Building. This was one of the most self-destructive acts in American history. Nixon was going to win by a landslide. There was no point in breaking into the Democratic headquarters.

Nixon should have repudiated the burglary.  If he had allowed the burglars and their immediate bosses to pay for their enthusiastic stupidity everything would have ended. Nixon would have served out his four years and history would have been very different.

However, Nixon's loyalty to his team and his deep paranoia about his political enemies, including the news media, led him to obstruct justice.

America is a hard country in which to sustain dishonesty and corruption because there are simply too many people with consciences that compel them to report illegality and the betrayal of the rule of law. By lying to government officials and plotting to hide the truth, Nixon placed himself at the center of much bigger scandal than the original break in.

Nixon found himself drawn deeper and deeper into a cover up. It was discovered that he had maintained an audio taping system in the Oval Office. Then it was discovered that 18 and a half minutes had been deleted. The tapes are available today at the National Archives (they are public property just like Clinton's emails).

For 18 months the American government was increasingly paralyzed by what Nixon's own former White House counsel, John Dean, called “a cancer on the Presidency.”  It was clear that Nixon would be impeached and he chose to resign rather than face a bitter fight for survival.

Ironically Hillary Clinton knows this history well because as a young lawyer she served on the House Judiciary Committee as it established the groundwork for impeaching President Nixon.

Why did she ignore it? Why has she ignored it for virtually her entire public career going back to Arkansas over 30 years ago?

Lord Acton warned nearly 200 years ago that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

More than two thousand years ago the Greeks warned that hubris preceded Nemesis. Greeks believed hubris occurred when someone was too proud and that the goddess Nemesis would punish them for their arrogance.

From Whitewater to 33,000 deleted emails to the corruption of the Clinton Foundation to all the problems exposed by Wikileaks, the Clintons personify the Greek model of hubris and Lord Acton's warning that power corrupts.

Now Nemesis may be intervening in Hillary Clinton's career.

We now know that the FBI has stumbled on to some 650,000 emails on the Abedin-Weiner computer.

This must be something like the intervention of a Greek goddess. Who else could imagine that former Congressman Anthony Weiner's sexting a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina would lead the FBI to a computer that may have over 650,000 emails from Hillary's closest aide, Huma Abedin (Weiner's wife).

As a novelist, I wouldn't have the nerve to suggest such a wild plot.

Now the FBI has reopened the email case.

The FBI also has five field offices looking into the corruption of the Clinton Foundation. The memo by Bill Clinton’s closest aide, Doug Band (written to convince Chelsea he was making money for her parents), has been described as the Rosetta Stone of the Clinton criminal operation.

Andy McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who tried the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case, has suggested the Clinton system is a classic RICO crime case. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, himself a very successful federal prosecutor before becoming mayor, has outlined count after count in a variety of federal statutes which he believes would prove criminal behavior by the Clintons.

President Obama sent a clear signal when Josh Earnest, his spokesman, said the President retained great confidence in FBI Director Jim Comey.  This endorsement of Comey directly undercut the Clinton campaign’s effort to undermine and delegitimize him. It may be the first sign that continuing disclosures about the Clintons are forcing Obama to distance himself from a very flawed candidate.

The Nixon precedent is very sobering and relevant.

If carrying 49 states and getting 60.7 percent of the vote couldn't protect Nixon from an 18-month ordeal leading to his resignation, what defense would a narrowly elected Hillary Clinton have?

Compare Nixon's 18 and a half minute tape gap with 33,000 deleted emails.

Remember that for Nixon there were no charges of personal corruption, personal enrichment, or conspiracy to exploit public office for financial gain.

On every level, the Clintons have greater vulnerabilities, greater exposure to investigation, and greater legal liabilities than Nixon.

Will Americans really vote to send a criminal family to the White House?

Will Americans vote to have a presidency drowning in investigations and crippled with constant legal assaults?

How could a President Clinton ever achieve anything with her time and energy focused on legal survival?

Why would the Congress cooperate with someone it thought was a liar and a crook?

Why would the anti-Clinton half of America ever cooperate with a president they believed should be in jail and not in the White House?

These are very serious concerns and this is why voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton is a vote for four years of corruption, investigation, and gridlock.


Newt Gingrich, a Republican, was speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He is the author of the new novel "Treason" (Center Street, October 11) and co-author, with his wife Callista Gingrich, of "Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation's History and Future" (Center Street, May 17, 2016).

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/11/04/newt-gingrich-bigger-than-hillary-establishment-cesspool-dishonesty-and-corruption.html

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

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