Drug Trafficking Feeds the Ayatollah's Power - Aynaz Anni Cyrus and Kaveh Taheri

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by Aynaz Anni Cyrus and Kaveh Taheri

For the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the drug trade is just another weapon of choice which they take as legitimate, as it helps to advance the cause of Islam.

Global drug trafficking generates at least $426 billion to $652 billion per year, making it one of the most lucrative illicit markets in the world. So of course, those profits tempt the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) thugs to use the drug trade to fund the terror activities that got them recently designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States.

Demand for drugs has become global. The market for cocaine in Asia and Africa has increased, as their economies have grown. The civil wars in the Middle East now provide an extraordinary opportunity for drug dealers, who find smuggling drugs to be easy through shattered controls at the borders.

Drug trafficking is a serious challenge for the world, and directly involves the IRGC, as even a former IRGC chief affirmed. Iranian officials have been silent on such testimony, neither confirming nor denying it. While quite boldly last year, the regime-proclaimed “moderate” President Rouhani implicitly threatened that if sanctions were to intensify, they would use terrorism and drugs.

International drug dealers collaborate with the IRGC. The IRGC passes narcotics (often opium) from Afghanistan through Iran and out to the rest of the world. On a wider scale, it ships heroin and cocaine to and from South America and East Asian countries.

The history of the IRGC's drug trafficking dates back to the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1989. Soon after taking power, the corrupt Islamic regime in Tehran had begun to move foreign currency in pursuit of profits through illicit trade deals. These included the narcotics business. During the early 1980s, it quickly ramped up the drug trade, as its need to finance the war became urgent.
The IRGC gets billions of dollars by drug trafficking. It now holds the monopoly of narcotics trafficking in Iran. The Revolutionary Guard and its foreign branch Quds Force are involved in collusion with major drug cartels in South America and East Asia. Drug trafficking has become a normal operation among Guard Corps commanders, and many of them are directly involved in the illicit trade. That involvement was exposed as far back as 2012, with the United States Treasury Department press release, “Treasury Designates Iranian Quds Force General Overseeing Afghan Heroin Trafficking Through Iran.”

The IRGC produces heroin and morphine in Iran from imported Afghan opium, much of it from Taliban-controlled areas, and smuggles it around the world by both air and sea routes. The terrorist organization uses its unlimited logistics powers within its shipping companies and airlines to transport illegal goods, including drugs. The IRGC also uses buses and trucks to export drugs through neighboring countries, under the guise of sending supplies for ritual ceremonies abroad.

The IRGC operates drug flow pipelines through its wide control of transit routes, ports, air-sea borders, as well as illegal networks, and fictitious companies set up for doing business to Europe, Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Its proxies, like Hezb’allah, also engage in the trade, taking the business as far as South America. Hezb’allah sends cocaine from South America to the EU, which brings significant profits in that hard-foreign currency back to the Islamic regime’s war chest.

It also uses Iran’s “diplomatic immunity” to transport narcotics around the world.

Reports are that the IRGC even hauls drugs around in vehicles with diplomatic immunity. Or, they rely on bribes to security agents at the customs ports. Shipments are sent in bulk to Albania, Romania, and Bulgaria via airways, and then broken down into smaller packages in trucks, for transfer and distribution to the west.

The terrorist organization also produces opium by cultivating poppy plants in Iran. The Islamic regime’s ICT minister, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi recently announced that “a 70-hectare farm was found in Iran, where Poppy is cultivated." So in the same way that neighboring Afghanistan has become infamous as a source for the drug, the IRGC has transformed Iran from a transit country into a producer country.

The IRGC also feeds massive levels of drug addiction inside Iran. By import, production, and distribution, drugs in Iran are weaponized against society by the IRGC. The addictions reduce motivation for protest among the huge youth segment especially and the constant flow of money is a steady income source for its regional militaristic goals.

So while the repressive regime is losing foreign currency inflows after the Trump administration’s tightening of oil-waivers, the mullahs increasingly must rely on drug trafficking to fund their weapons and terror programs.

The regime poisons the world and uses the profits to kill global villagers, including its own citizens. As an international criminal network, the IRGC also involves itself in human trafficking, smuggling weapons, fuel, and other illicit goods to gain money for Tehran, to continue its malicious ambitions.

Publicly, the regime postures against the drug trade. It releases news of drugs seizures and lies to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the EU that it is preventing transmission of drugs to the West. But local sources confirm that the officials return confiscated drugs back into the consumption cycle for both the internal market and abroad.

In service to the Islamic agenda of domination, they recognize no limits on what they might do, no matter how awful the results become for either the Iranian people or for humanity as a whole. For the IRGC, the drug trade is just another weapon of choice which they take as legitimate, as it helps to advance the cause of Islam. And in that end, it is destabilizing the region and the rest of the globe.


Aynaz Anni Cyrus, an Iranian-American human rights activist, National Director of American Truth Project, founder of Live up to Freedom and producer of The Glazov Gang .. Anni was sold for $50 as a child bride in Iran. Rebelling against a life of sex slavery, she escaped to America. Now an American citizen, she is a leading spokeswoman against the evils of Islam.

Kaveh Taheri (Twitter: @TaheriKaveh), co-founder and chairman of the ICBHR.Com, and American Truth Project contributor, is a Turkey-based Iranian Human Rights researcher and journalist who has worked exclusively on Middle East. Kaveh, who was a former political prisoner in Shiraz, had been sent to prison for his writings and statements on his Websites and Weblogs in Iran and fled the country through Turkey to save his life.

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

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Amazon’s CEO Owns a Terror-Linked Paper - Daniel Greenfield

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by Daniel Greenfield

The Washington Post’s ties to Islamic terrorists are a national security risk.

Millions of Americans brought Alexa into their homes only to learn, belatedly, that not only software, but human beings, were listening in on them. Amazon employees and contractors from Costa Rica to India were caught reviewing thousands of recordings, of casual requests, private conversations and intimate moments, and sharing clips that they thought were funny in chat sessions with each other.

The Amazon product is always listening and maintains recordings of your conversations indefinitely.

But now there’s something bigger at stake than privacy violations. Amazon expects a $10 billion cloud contract for the military. The $10 billion contract was a sweetheart deal for a politically influential company that seemed unstoppable until President Trump suddenly slammed the brakes on JEDI.

The deal had always been dubious and many critics had questioned how or why a single company could expect to have a monopoly on the JEDI cloud for the United States military. Amazon’s cloud business is huge, but the Capital One breach of 100 million credit card applications by a former Amazon employee highlighted the company’s security and workforce issues. Capital One kept its data in the cloud through AWS or Amazon Web Services and the hacker was a former AWS employee with specialized knowledge.

In the Obama era, Amazon had received a $600 million cloud contract that covers all 17 intelligence agencies. The secret deal was met with protests especially since Amazon’s wasn’t even the lowest bid.

Just as with JEDI, all the national security eggs were being put into one very fragile basket.
Amazon’s federal cloud contracts took off in the Obama era. Many of the biggest contracts are classified making it difficult to measure how much taxpayer money is being sucked into the Bezos business. But Amazon is winning contracts in the usual Washington D.C. way, by spending millions a year on lobbying.

The dot com titan began lobbying the Pentagon in 2016. That was the year Amazon’s lobbying expenditures hit a whopping $11 million, up from $1.62 million during the Bush administration. Amazon’s PAC, which the company strongly encourages employees to donate to, accounted for $515,200 in donations to members of Congress.

Amazon was the fourth biggest contributor to Senator Mark Warner. And when President Trump put Amazon’s JEDI deal on hold, Warner was among the first to protest the move. In his letter, Warner urged the Secretary of Defense to “resist political pressures” that might scuttle $10 billion for Amazon.

Senator Warner, who was applying political pressure to the Secretary of Defense, to protect a contract that would benefit his contributors, appeared to be unaware of the irony of his message.

But Amazon’s lobbying millions were only the tip of the iceberg of its dubious political influence.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is not only the richest person in the world, with an estimated $156 billion, but is a heavyweight political donor who has outspent other S&P 500 CEOs by a factor of 10. Bezos was the 12^th biggest political donor of the 2018 cycle, coming in behind Bloomberg and Soros.

And, even more importantly, Bezos owns the Washington Post. The powerful political tabloid sets the agenda in the government city, but it’s also raising questions about whether Amazon is a security risk for reasons that go far beyond the flaws in AWS or whatever influence it might have used to grab JEDI.

In its story on the JEDI contract, the Washington Post claimed that, “Trump on several occasions has spoken out against Amazon and its chief executive, Jeff Bezos. And he has attacked the Bezos-owned Washington Post for its coverage of him by conflating it with Amazon’s interests.”

Then the Washington Post went on to complain that, “The president has called the news organization the ‘Amazon Washington Post,’ while accusing it of publishing ‘fake news’ and being a ‘lobbyist newspaper’ for the company.” A rumor that the Washington Post helpfully put to bed by doing just that.

But the real problem with the intersection between the Washington Post and Amazon isn’t its left-wing politics: it’s Jamal Khashoggi. A year after Amazon began lobbying the Pentagon, the Washington Post began publishing propaganda screeds in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, shaped by the Qatar Foundation, under the name of Jamal Khashoggi.

The Washington Post was aware that Khashoggi, an old friend of Osama bin Laden and longtime supporter of Islamic terrorism, was operating under Qatari influence. It was also aware that Qatar was the region’s biggest backer of Sunni Islamic terrorism and regime change influence operations. Its publication of Qatari propaganda under Khashoggi’s name and its subsequent insistence on transforming him into a martyr as part of the Qatari influence operation against Saudi Arabia, was an active attempt to influence United States foreign policy on behalf of an enemy government.

It’s behavior properly associated with registered foreign agents. Not an American media outlet.

A company that appears to be operating as an unregistered foreign agent for an enemy government cannot then turn around and have its owner’s company be trusted with the military’s JEDI cloud.

Why the Washington Post chose to participate in the Qatari influence operation is an open question. Until it’s resolved, allowing another company controlled by its owner to have sole dominion over the military cloud, as it already possesses over our intelligence cloud, is an unacceptable security risk.

The issue at stake is about more than whether Amazon or Microsoft get a $10 billion contract.

Our national security has already been badly compromised by the radical employees of contractors, Edward Snowden and Reality Winner. Snowden and Winner both compromised national security through the auspices of The Intercept, a site funded by Franco-Iranian dot com billionaire Pierre Omidyar. The Intercept has also been a notorious vehicle for Qatari influence operations.

Putting the military cloud in the hands of a compromised company could be truly devastating.

The Washington Post has an unfortunate history of acting as an advocate for Qatar and for Islamic terrorists in general. It has run countless pieces in support of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood has multiple terrorist affiliates and is dedicated to subverting our political system.  

The Post was criticized for running an op-ed by Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi terrorists, who are backed by Iran, who have attacked Americans, and who chant, “Death to America”.

Earlier it had been condemned for publishing an op-ed from Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamic guerrilla group that had worked with Al Qaeda. One of the founding members of the armed jihadist group went on to head the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Even Secretary of State John Kerry had condemned it, saying, “From Orlando to San Bernardino to the Philippines and Bali, we’ve seen pictures and we’ve heard testimony of shocking crimes committed by al-Qaida, by Boko Haram, by Jaysh al-Islam, by Ahrar al-Sham, by al-Shabaab, Daesh, other groups against innocent civilians, against journalists, and against teachers.”

But the Washington Post didn’t just offer op-ed space to brutal terrorists, it whitewashed them.

It ran a glowing profile of Salah Badi, a Libyan Islamist terrorist who had been sanctioned by the Treasury Department and the UN Security Council for rocket attacks that had killed civilians.

The Washington Post described the brutal Islamist killer as "one of Tripoli's defenders".

Even when it came to ISIS, the Washington Post ran an article headlined, "ISIS kidnapped my best friend. But when I met its fighters, I couldn’t hate them."

The Post ran an article touting Ismail Royer, who had been caught with weapons on September 2001, and had been convicted as part of the Virginia Jihad Network.

Last year, even the Taliban praised the Washington Post for giving the terror group credibility.

The Washington Post provides terrorists with a forum, whitewashes them and maintains an inappropriate relationship with state sponsors of Islamic terror. A company that shares a common leader with an organization with troubling terror ties should not control the military’s JEDI cloud.

The risks to our national security and the lives of our soldiers would be incalculable.

While American soldiers battle the Taliban in Afghanistan, the military’s JEDI cloud should not belong to a company that shares a leader with a paper that was praised by the Taliban.

While American sailors battle the Houthis in Yemen, the JEDI cloud should not be exposed to a company that shares a leader with an organization that provided the Houthis with a forum.

While American pilots go after Al Qaeda, ISIS and its allies in Syria, they should not be relying on JEDI cloud that shares a leader with an outlet that opened its doors to Al Qaeda’s allies.

Amazon’s JEDI bid is a threat to national security as long as its CEO is involved with a propaganda outlet for foreign terrorist groups and foreign governments that are waging a war against the United States.


Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274559/amazons-ceo-owns-terror-linked-paper-daniel-greenfield

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Trump's tough China diplomacy extends also to supporting Taiwan - Tiberiu Dianu

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by Tiberiu Dianu

President Trump is not letting China push Taiwan around on his watch.

Taiwan-mainland China relations (also known as Cross-Strait relations) have been always complex and controversial. As Hong Kong unrest and China trade ties dominate the news, how the U.S. is dealing with Taiwan is worth a close look, too, given President Trump's muscular stance with China. And the news is good.

In 1949, as a result of a civil war, China was split into two entities: mainland China (People’s Republic of China/PRC) and Taiwan (Republic of China/ROC). The civil war merely stopped without the formal signing of any peace treaty and the two sides are technically still in a state of war. Since then, relations between Beijing and Taipei have been characterized by limited contact, tension, and instability.

During these years, communist China has used its traditional “panda diplomacy” with Taiwan (offering panda bears as gifts). The gifts of pandas were attempts by the administration in Beijing to draw the Taiwanese government into its “united front” in spite of the fact that the administrations in Taipei often have supported Taiwanese independence and opposed unification with the People’s Republic of China. 

By comparing Taiwan to China in international policy, the idea of underdog comes naturally in our mind. But in American culture, underdogs are highly regarded. They appear in the Judeo-Christian parable of David and Goliath and also reflect the ideal behind the American dream, where the poor and weak can use hard work to achieve victory. 

That is why Taiwan-United States relations have always been strong and durable, in spite of some ups and downs.

In 1979, during the Democratic administration (1977-1981) of President Jimmy Carter, the United States normalized diplomatic relations with the Beijing government under the Communist Party of China. Under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the Taiwan-United State relations became unofficial and informal.

In 1982, during the Republican administration (1981-1989) of President Ronald Reagan, United States-Taiwan relations were further informally grounded in the Six Assurances in response to the third communiqué on the establishment of U.S.-PRC relations. The Assurances were intended to reassure both Taiwan and the United States Congress that the United States would continue to support Taiwan even if it had earlier cut formal diplomatic relations. 

Donald Trump took rapid steps to make the U.S. relations with Taiwan even more robust, starting before his January 2017 presidential inauguration. On Dec. 2, 2016, President-elect Trump accepted a congratulatory call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen, which was the first time since 1979 that a president-elect has publicly spoken to a leader of Taiwan. Trump stated the call was regarding “the close economic, political and security ties between Taiwan and the U.S.” 

On March 16, 2018, President Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act, under which relations between the United States and Taiwan have since maneuvered to an official and high-level basis. 

In June 2018, a new $250 million compound for the American Institute in Taiwan was unveiled. The Chinese authorities considered this action as violation of “one China” policy statement and insisted the United States to stop any relations with Taiwan without the approbation of China.

On July 17, 2018, Taiwan’s army officially commissioned all of its Apache attack helicopters purchased from the United States, at cost of $1.94 billion, having completed the necessary pilot training and verification on the fleet’s combat capability. Taiwanese President Tsai said the commissioning of the Apaches were “an important milestone” in meeting the island’s “multiple deterrence” strategy to counter an invasion and to resist Beijing’s pressure with support from Washington, which has been concerned about Beijing’s growing military expansion in the South China Sea and beyond. 

In September 2018, the United States approved the sale of $330 million worth of spare parts and other equipment to sustain the Taiwan air force.

In July 2019, the U.S. State department approved the sale of M1A2T Abrams tanks, Stinger missiles and related equipment to Taiwan, at an approximate value of $2.2 billion. 

More recently, the Trump administration, which China has been verbally attacking for weeks, now has plans to sell $8 billion worth of new F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan. The F-16V is the most advanced version of a plane that already forms the backbone of Taiwan’s air forces. Taiwan is expected to use the F-16V to replace the Northrop F-5E/Fs that are being retired in the next couple of years. 

On August 16, 2019, the State Department submitted the package to Congress for informal review, and it is not expected to meet opposition. It would be the largest and most significant sale of weaponry to Taiwan in decades. There is a mandatory 30-calendar day formal review process before state can issue a letter of offer and acceptance to Taiwan for the sale. Taiwan is under increasing pressure from the People’s Republic of China, so the sale is critical to improving the country’s ability to defend its sovereign air space. Also, the sale sends a strong message about the U.S. commitment to security and democracy in the entire Indo-Pacific region.

China is expected to vehemently object this last deal, since China never likes U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. In May 2019, the Beijing communist regime already threatened to retaliate against the United States for limiting the federal dollars spent on Chinese products. The People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official journal, intimated that China would stop exporting “rare earth” minerals to the United States, writing: “Don’t say we didn’t warn you!” That phrase has been historically used by the Chinese Communist Party to threaten armed warfare. The reply was not long in coming. On August 5, 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had declared China a currency manipulator. 

Recently, according to a spokesman for the United States Pacific Fleet, China banned two U.S. warships from visiting Hong Kong and accused members of Congress from both parties of being “the black hand” behind the protesters in Hong Kong rallying against the government of communist China.

Over the years tiny Taiwan has managed not only to survive, but to give enough headaches to the behemoth which is China. What they say about “small leaks sink great ships” or “little strokes fell great oaks” applies perfectly to the Taiwan-China relationship.

It’s a sign that Chinese “panda diplomacy” is not that infallible any more.

Tiberiu Dianu has published several books and a host of articles on law, politics, and post-communist societies. He currently lives and works in Washington, DC and can be followed on MEDIUM. https://medium.com/@tdianu

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/08/trumps_tough_china_diplomacy_extends_also_to_supporting_taiwan.html

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Watch: Gaza terrorists infiltrate Israel - Ido Ben Porat

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by Ido Ben Porat

IDF publishes footage of armed Gaza terrorists attempting to cross into Israel Saturday night.

The IDF on Sunday published footage showing terrorists attempting to infiltrate Israel Saturday night.

The five armed terrorists, who attempted to enter Israel from northern Gaza, were spotted by IDF observers.

IDF forces shot at the terrorists, eliminating three of them.

According to the IDF, five terrorists were involved in the infiltration attempt.
No Israeli troops were injured.

Gaza terrorists attempt to infiltrate Israel IDF spokesperson

Gaza terrorists attempt to infiltrate Israel IDF spokesperson

Ido Ben Porat

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/267571

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Hezbollah and Iran taking over southern Syria - Mendi Safadi

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by Mendi Safadi

In retaliation for US sanctions on Iran, Hezbollah has increased its presence along the Israeli border so that it can attack the Jewish state at Tehran’s bidding.

One year after the Syrian government and its allies took over southern Syria, there has been increased infiltration of the area by Iranian-supported militias along the border with Israel, an area of great geopolitical importance. In retaliation for US sanctions on Iran, Hezbollah has adopted new methods and ways in order to exercise its influence in the area. These include increasing its presence along the Israeli border so it can attack the Jewish attack at Tehran’s bidding. However, the manner in which it is increasing its presence along Israel’s border is very complicated and cunning. In order to expose Iran and its proxies, such as Hezbollah, human intelligence on the ground is needed to expose the degree to which these proxies are approaching the Israeli border.

Four Lebanese Hezbollah militia bases were established in southern Syria over the past year – three in the Daraa Governorate and one in the Quneitra Governorate. These bases train new volunteers for the militias and are among the main armament facilities for the militia in southern Syria.

1. In early 2019, a big Hezbollah airbase was established in Daraa, similar to the military airbase next to Kraiym, north of Lajat. The militia dug many tunnels and facilities inside of bases, using them as special training bases for new fighters. Two of the officers in the camp, Adel and Rashid, have Lebanese citizenship. In addition, a number of trainers have Lebanese citizenship. There are eight trainers, who cooperate with officers that are part of the ninth company of Syria's military and with officers from the National Security Division, who ensure transport and supply routes.
2. A general base was established in early September after the Al-Namar militia forces expelled the population from a number of villages in the area of Lajat. They emptied these villages of their residents under the pretext that they included ISIS elements, and then Hezbollah transformed the civilian homes into military barracks.
   The ninth and fifth companies of Syria's army are under the direct control of El Haj Abu Hadi, one of the most prominent Hezbollah members in southern Syria. In addition, Hezbollah uses this base as a weapons and ammunition facility for short- and medium-range rocket launchers. These weapons were stored in Iraq and then transferred with the assistance of the Asaib Ahl Al Haq militia from Al-Dumayr Military Airport on the outskirts of Damascus to the area of Lajat.
3. The 52nd Brigade was established in January 2019 after the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from Al-Zabadani and the Rima farms that surround it. They transformed the retreating forces into the 52nd Brigade near the town of Al-Hrak, northeast of Daraa, under the command of Yad Kassem, a Lebanese citizen living in Kirak. He is guarded by a soldier who is part of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Unit.
4. Sabir Base was established in late 2018 under the direct supervision of Mustafa Mughniyeh, an officer in charge of the Hezbollah's Golan Heights portfolio, whose father Imad and brother Jihad were both Hezbollah leaders killed in attacks attributed to Israel. This base is under the command of the Golan Unit, which belongs to the 90th Brigade of the Syrian Army and is located between the villages of Hader and Harfa, north of Quneitra.

Hezbollah established these bases in order to obtain widespread control over the region. They seek to obtain regional domination on behalf of the Iranian regime with the assistance of families who utilize child soldiers. In recent months, Hezbollah has recruited hundreds of residents of the Quneitra region. Hezbollah also supplied spy equipment and listening devices at the beginning of this year to locals so that they could observe their enemies and also has a number of Hezbollah fighters with Lebanese citizenship based in the area. The Sokor Al Quneitra Division, which is close to Hezbollah, guarantees a supply route from the Set Zaynab area on the outskirts of Damascus and from the Erneh region south of Mount Hermon. A table showing these groups spreading along the border with the Golan Heights is in the possession of the Safadi Center but we chose not to publish it for security reasons.

In any event, Israel’s struggle to repel these groups from the Golan Heights border is of critical importance. The presence of these groups in the region poses an existential threat. It is of great importance that Israel nip this threat in the bud and defend its security interests along the Israeli border. Failure to do so will strengthen Iranian hegemony in the Middle East. This is why Israel has been attacking Iran in Syria and must continue to do so.


Mendi Safadi

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/08/16/hezbollah-and-iran-taking-over-southern-syria/

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Govt. to increase funding for Western Wall excavations - Arutz Sheva Staff

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by Arutz Sheva Staff

NIS 16 million to be added to budget for 5 Year Plan to upgrade infrastructure, encourage tourism at Western Wall Plaza.

Wilson's Arch excavations

Yaniv Berman, Israel Antiquities Authority

The Cabinet Ministers will approve a call today (Sunday) to further increase the budget of the Five Year Plan to upgrade infrastructure and encourage visits to the Western Wall plaza.

The original budget of the plan, approved by the government in 2015, stood at NIS 100 million for the 5 years between 2016 and 2020, which is the second addition to this budget.

The current addition, of NIS 16 million, will come from the Ministry of Finance's budget (NIS 4 million in 2019) and the Ministry of Tourism's budget (NIS 6 million in 2019 and NIS 6 million in 2020).

According to the resolution, the budget addition is intended "for the construction and development of the Western Wall and the Western Wall tunnels, including the exposure and preservation of archaeological finds and other issues as decided."

The proposal also makes it clear that the budget that the Ministry of Tourism, NIS 12 million, will be used to finance works to expose the Western Wall's restaurant blocks at the foot of Wilson's Arch.


Arutz Sheva Staff

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/267557

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Ex-Muslim to ‘Post’: Trying to teach ‘naive West’ about true nature of Islam - Hannah Gal

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by Hannah Gal

“In Muslim communities, the word for Jew is not only used as a pejorative, it is used as a curse word. It is a hate that permeates so much so that it is invisible: It is just accepted."

Yasmine Mohammed. (photo credit: Courtesy)

Yasmine Mohammed has a story that sounds like an adventure novel. The ex-Muslim, as she calls herself, escaped a forced marriage to an Al Qaeda operative, who was bailed out of prison by Osama bin Laden himself.

Now, the author of Confessions of an Ex-Muslim is open about her past so she can help others, she told The Jerusalem Post. Mohammed says that she is on a mission to help closeted apostates living in Muslim-majority countries, and to teach the “naive West” about the true nature of Islam. 

The educator and author has become a prominent voice within the growing global ex-Muslim community, speaking extensively to audiences worldwide.

It all started when she was a child.

Mohammed grew up in Canada. Her typical Western childhood was interrupted when her mother married a devout Muslim; the little girl went from riding her bike and going swimming to wearing a hijab and enduring beatings for not memorizing the Quran.

Years later, under the torment of a horrific forced marriage, she would risk her life braving an escape in a bid to rescue her daughter from the threat of female genital mutilation.

“I lived every aspect of Islam up to actually being a jihadi,” said Mohammed. “I was the embodiment of an extremist Muslim. To see someone like me change so resolutely to a person who is in many ways the complete antithesis of who I was, speaks to the power of human resilience.”


Hannah Gal

Source: https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Ex-Muslim-to-Post-Trying-to-teach-naive-West-about-true-nature-of-Islam-598946

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Who's funding illegal Palestinian settlements in Area C? (Part I) - Edwin Black

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by Edwin Black

The current rapid illegal build-up is funded by hundreds of millions of euros annually, funneled by the European Union and individual European nations into scores of building and infrastructure projects.

“Area C,” which comprises some 60 percent of the 'West Bank', also known as Judea and Samaria, is making news these days. This time, the hot button issue is illegal Palestinian settlements sprouting across the region, shredding the last vestige of the Oslo Accords, which, for a generation, propelled the “two-state solution.”

Most observers of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis are accustomed to hearing talk of “illegal Jewish settlements” on slivers of land comprising one to two percent of the 'West Bank', mostly near the green line of Israel proper. But, attention now focuses on an explosion of thousands of illegal Palestinian Arab constructions: village clusters, agricultural tracts, water networks, roads, and general infrastructure crisscrossing Area C of the 'West Bank'.

All of this violates the 1993 and 1995Oslo Accords, which specify full Israeli administrative control in Area C. Under the international agreement, only the Israeli Civil Administration can authorize new construction in the zone—for Israeli and Arab alike. However, continuous waves of recent Palestinian Arabv settlements are being established without permits—often without even bothering to apply. One senior official of the Israeli security apparatus called it “the wild west.” 

According to Israeli activist watchdog groups, such as Regavim, in the past half-decade, illegal Palestinian settlements and infrastructure have sprawled across more than 9,000 dunams in more than 250 Area C locations, supported by more than 600 kilometers of illegally constructed access roads and more than 112,000 meters of retaining walls and terracing. This massive works project is being conducted in broad daylight, often heralded by tall announcement placards and proud press releases.

When questioned, various Israeli government officials did not dispute the Regavim numbers. In exasperation, one military spokesman close to the Area C files located at Bet El estimated “close to 10,000” illegal construction efforts are now underway—adding they felt “powerless to stop them.” The rapid illegal build-up is funded by hundreds of millions of euros annually, funneled by the European Union and individual European nations into scores of building and infrastructure projects.

Understanding the tortuous history that created the current sovereignty vacuum in Area C can be daunting and confusing.

Leaving out 99 percent of everything …

• The indigenous Israelites of Canaan were expelled starting in 70 C.E. by the Romans, who renamed the region “Syria-Palaestina”—or Palestine, for the Philistine sea invaders from the Greek Islands.
• In about 637 C.E., the Islamic invasion swept up from the Arabian Peninsula to conquer and convert.
• For about four centuries, the Turkish Ottoman Empire governed until its 1918 defeat in World War I.
• After WWI, the Allies dismembered Ottoman colonies throughout the Middle East and concomitantly encouraged self-determination for ethnic peoples across the Levant.

The League of Nations, in association with 51 countries and competing nationalist groups, eventually established five modern Arab countries: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, modern Hejaz (Arabia) and post-colonial modern Egypt, plus one democratic and pluralistic Jewish State in Palestine. The original 1920 “Mandate” boundaries of the modern Jewish State extended from the Mediterranean Sea across the area now known as Jordan—a country which then did not exist. 

The Arabs were shortchanged by the French in their quest for an Arab Kingdom in Syria. So, in recompense, the British modified the Palestine Mandate in September 1922 by virtue of an official memorandum, carving off some 70 percent of the intended Jewish nation to invent Trans-Jordan (now Jordan)—the territory extended from the Jordan River east to the borders of Iraq and what is now Saudi Arabia.

For decades, co-existence between Arabs and Jews in the former Turkish colony could not be achieved. In 1947, the non-binding UN Resolution 181—known as Partition—recommended side-by-side Jewish and Arab states. In those days, the identity of the two peoples was “Arab” and “Jewish,” as local Arabs did not adopt the identity of “Palestinian” until about 1964.

Israel accepted Partition, but the Arabs refused. The surrounding League-created Arab nations attacked the newly declared Jewish State. In 1948, Jordan (created by the British memo) illegally invaded and annexed the area west of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, thus coining the new term, “West Bank” for the still-disputed former Turkish colonial provinces.

In 1967, when Israel fought its preemptive Six Day War, expelling Jordan, the Jewish State reoccupied this same disputed former Turkish colonial region, still called the 'West Bank'. In 1988, Jordan rescinded any claim of sovereignty, deepening the sovereignty vacuum. 

In 1993 and 1995, after years of diplomatic wrangling, Israel and the avowed terror group Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords, envisioning a peaceful two-state solution. Under the complex Oslo Accords, and subsequent modifications at Wye, Sharm el-Sheikh, and elsewhere, the “West Bank” is divided into three separate administrative zones, Areas A, B and C.

Area A is reserved for Palestinian civil and administrative control and seats the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Area B is governed by Palestinian civil control under a joint Israeli-Palestinian security apparatus.

Area C —also called Judea and Samaria—comprises roughly 60 percent of the 'West Bank'. It more closely resembles the Biblical and original international demarcation of a Jewish State during the initial League of Nations mandate—but is now considered occupied by the international community. The majority of Area C residents are Israelis—an estimated 325,000 alongside some 300,000 Arabs (some say 80,000). In essence, Oslo normalized and structured the Israeli occupation and administration of the disputed former Turkish lands.

But by virtue of a cumulative multibillion-euro effort, European capitals are working hard to destabilize the last pillars of the Oslo Accords. Thus, these countries seek to create a Palestinian state along the 1948 armistice line — also known as the 1967 lines— without further consulting the Jewish State. This ensures the Palestinian Authority knows it need not negotiate with Jerusalem—even as the United States and Gulf countries make a daring dash to achieve peace.

As the urgency of Area C is becoming clearer, still murky is the source of the diverse European funding that enables this conflict and the routes those billions of euros take across the Mediterranean. What’s more, there is widespread fear that millions in funds are continuously funneled through entities openly accused of being affiliated with established terrorist organizations.


Edwin Black is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of IBM and the Holocaust, Funding Hate, and the journalist who in Financing the Flames documented the terrorist salaries now known as “Pay to Slay.”

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/24314

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How Al Sharpton Abandoned Africa’s Slaves - Charles Jacobs

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by Charles Jacobs

Al Sharpton is betraying black people currently enslaved in Africa.

The eminent African-American economist Glenn Loury recently wondered in the New York Times why leading Democrats would defend Al Sharpton, a man who is a blatant anti-Semite, an anti-white racist, and to many, a simple con man. Joe Biden calls him “a champion in the fight for civil rights.” Elizabeth Warren says “he has dedicated his life to the fight for justice for all,” and Kamala Harris lauds him as a man who “has spent his life fighting for what’s right.” Records show that President Obama had Sharpton visit his White House 118 times.

This, after Sharpton’s many outrages: the Tawana Brawley rape hoax of 1987, the anti-Jewish Crown Heights riots of 1991, and the firebombing of a Jewish-owned Harlem fashion boutique in 1995.

Loury suggests that any one of these things should have disqualified Sharpton from national platforms, along with any praise by Democratic Party leaders. But there’s something else, something no less repugnant, and perhaps even more shocking, that should obliterate once and for all the perception of Al Sharpton as a tough guy who never buckles when it comes to defending his race.

Al Sharpton is betraying black people currently enslaved in Africa. He went there. He spoke to them. He promised the slaves he met that he would awaken American blacks to their plight, but then he abandoned them. He abandoned them, I believe, because they are enslaved by Arab Muslims. A review of just how this came about should be instructive.

In 2001, as Sharpton contemplated a run for president in the 2004 election, he made a trip to Sudan to verify reports of the ongoing enslavement of Christian blacks there by Arab Muslims. Reports were emerging of Arabs from northern Sudan raiding black Christian villages in the south of Africa’s then-largest country, killing the men and enslaving the women and children. (Full disclosure: At the time, I headed a movement to educate the public about modern-day slavery. We worked with the human rights organization Christian Solidarity International, which over the years redeemed tens of thousands of slaves in Sudan who were returned to their villages.)

To be fair, Sharpton’s 2001 trip to Sudan required courage. He flew with CSI leaders into a war zone on one of CSI’s regular slave redemption missions to see and talk to the slaves. The mission was protected by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), a black militia defending southern villages against an onslaught that had over the years killed millions and enslaved tens of thousands, an onslaught that the Islamist rulers in Khartoum designated a jihad. Sharpton was appalled. He said it was “outrageous that no nationally known civil rights group has gone over to Africa to criticize what is happening there.” He met with slave women, who showed him their scars from being beaten and raped. One asked him if the world knew of her people’s suffering; Sharpton replied, “They don’t know now, but they will soon.”

There was speculation that Sharpton not only used this trip to launch his presidential campaign, but also to climb to the top ranks of black American leadership. Indeed, he took a subtle shot at Jesse Jackson, who had been silent about slavery in Sudan for years.

When Sharpton returned from Sudan he met with senior members of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. Farrakhan had been vigorously denying that Arabs [editor: the writer probably means Muslims] were enslaving blacks. His mission is to convince American blacks that Islam is the path to authentic freedom; it would be damaged by living and breathing proof that blacks are enslaved and slaughtered in African countries like Sudan where Islam dominates. Equally damaging for Farrakhan is the case of Mauritania, where black Muslims, who had been converted to Islam centuries ago, are nevertheless enslaved by Muslim Arab-Berbers.

Indeed, the mounting reports of Arab Muslims owning, breeding, and torturing black Muslims with impunity may have pushed Farrakhan into an unforced error: As reported by the New York Times, when he was cornered at a televised press conference and pressed by a reporter about his silence on the current enslavement of blacks, Louis Farrakhan grew visibly angry and challenged the gathered reporters. “If slavery exists,” he shouted, “why don’t you go, as a member of the press?! And you look inside of the Sudan, and if you find it, then you come back, and tell the American people what you have found!” The editors of the Baltimore Sun took him up on his challenge and sent two reporters to Sudan, where the reporters personally purchased the freedom of two black Christian slave boys. Three months later, the Sun published a Pulitzer Prize-nominated account of their trip. Clarence Page, the Chicago Tribune’s black editorialist, who had written about a billion-dollar “loan” to Farrakhan by Libyan dictator Qaddafi for purposes of fomenting a revolt among black soldiers in the U.S. armed forces, now taunted Farrakhan to respond to the Sun report. But the leader of the Nation of Islam fell silent.

One can imagine Sharpton, upon his return from the slave liberation trip in Sudan, being read the riot act by the Farrakhaners: “You want to divide the black community?!” In any event, Sharpton reneged on his promise to the freed slave woman that he would make sure black Americans learned about the plight of her people. 

In 2017, after ignoring Africa’s slaves for many years, Sharpton returned to the issue. The occasion was a CNN report on Arabs in Libya capturing and selling Africans as slaves which featured a video of an auction where a man was sold for $400. This raised eyebrows in the black community, and Sharpton announced his decision to lead a delegation of black clergy to Libya to learn more about the slave trade there. For whatever reason, Sharpton never actually went to Libya, but he did meet with Libya’s U.N. ambassador Elmahdi Elmajerbi to discuss the problem -- and made sure to get the photo-op. Just as with his trip to Sudan, however, Sharpton’s ire quickly faded and once again the slaves went down the memory hole.

Today, in five Arab and Muslim African countries -- Sudan, Mauritania, Libya, Nigeria, and Algeria -- blacks are enslaved. These are known realities, easily documented.

Sharpton and Farrakhan have ignored or denied the current-day plight of black people who are taken as slaves They do so for two primary reasons; first, so as not to denigrate Islam, and secondly, to keep “America’s racism” a singular and unique focus, the benefits of which would be lost to them if blacks here knew that today, sadly, in some parts of the Islamic world, African men, women, and children are still in bondage, captured, bought, and sold as chattel.

Al Sharpton had the chance to marshal the power of America’s black community to help free today’s slaves. That black power, political and moral, has been won with courage, persistence, and volumes of blood. It is evoked in the example of Harriet Tubman, a runaway slave who went back into the South to bring more of her people to freedom. She explained, “I have heard their groans and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them.” Al Sharpton heard the groans of enslaved black Africans, saw their tears, and then, seeing the way the wind was blowing, ran away.

Charles Jacobs is president of the American Anti-Slavery Group.

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

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Democrats' long knives are out for Biden - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

He's just too embarrassing to be able to win the presidency

The signals are unmistakable to all willing to see: Joe Biden is being written off by the power structure of the Democratic Party. He's just too embarrassing to be able to win the presidency despite what the polls purportedly say about him beating Trump in a head-to-head match. The decision has been reached, and the principal propaganda organ of the Democratic Party (as revealed by its executive editor Dean Baquet) delivered the decisive blow in this article, titled "Obama and Biden's Relationship Looks Rosy. It Wasn't Always That Simple."

Biden's sole appeal to the national electorate is his presumed status as the logical successor to Barack Obama. The New York Times article begins the process of demolishing that logic.

The body language in this 2015 Oval Office photo is clear.
(Photo credit: White House photographer Pete Souza).

The first paragraphs make clear that Obama's choice of Biden had little to do with his merit as a potential successor to the Oval Office:

Barack Obama was riding his call for generational change to the Democratic presidential nomination in the spring of 2008 when he began musing about potential running mates with aides traveling with him on the trail.
"I want somebody with gray in his hair," Mr. Obama, then 46, told one of them. He was thinking about an "older guy," he told another.
That older guy, people around the candidate would soon learn, was Joseph R. Biden Jr., 65, a has-been to pundits but to Mr. Obama a sweet-spot pick — a policy heavyweight with limited political horizons, assuming that would ensure loyalty and minimal drama. Mr. Obama was already phoning Mr. Biden two or three times a week to solicit advice, and to decide whether the Delaware senator's many positive attributes outweighed his singular liability, a notoriously self-tangling tongue.
Over the next several months, Mr. Obama's top advisers would present 30 alternatives, all of whom he respectfully considered. (snip)
In Mr. Biden, he found a running mate who would conjure the comforting past and provide experience he did not possess, but would not maneuver for the presidency from the No. 2 slot.
Deep within the long article comes the coup de grâce:
The two men spoke at least a half dozen times before Mr. Biden decided to run, and Mr. Obama took pains to cast his doubts about the campaign in personal terms.
"You don't have to do this, Joe, you really don't," Mr. Obama told Mr. Biden earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the exchange.

It's not exactly a dead fish wrapped in a newspaper, but the message of publicizing this conversation at this point is clear: Biden's chances at the presidency sleep with the fishes.

Biden now has the choice of exiting the race the hard way or the easy way. The easy way would be to announce that his concerns for his family take precedence over the call to duty, and that he is going to support whoever wins the nomination that he now is forsaking. The hard way would be further investigations into the suspicious enrichment of his family coincident with his foreign policy duties with countries that acted as benefactors of his brood, all publicized in the corporate media followers of the New York Times' lead. And don't forget the stream of embarrassing stories about his incompetence as veep and Obama's frustrations with him, hidden from the public earlier. And feature stories about the lingering effect of brain aneurisms.

New Hampshire voters already have the message: as President Trump addressed a record crowd in New Hampshire, Biden's counter-rally there drew 30 souls. 

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/08/democrats_long_knives_are_out_for_biden.html

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