David Horowitz: Obama’s Treachery and Republican Silence

by David Horowitz


Reprinted from NRO Online.
 
To order David Horowitz’s new book, “Take No Prisoners: The Battle Plan for Defeating the Left,” click here.


Barack Obama deliberately set out to lose the war in Iraq, and he did. He defied the advice of his joint chiefs of staff to secure America’s formidable military presence and keep 20,000 troops in country, and left Iraq to its own devices and the tender mercies of Iran. In doing so, he betrayed every American and Iraqi who gave his life to create a free Iraq and keep it out of the clutches of the terrorists.

Iraq is now a war zone dominated by the terrorist forces of the Islamic State, whose rise Obama’s policies fostered. Both his secretaries of state praised the animal Bashar Assad as a “reformer” and a man of “peace,” helping him to thwart his domestic opposition. The Islamic State was born out of the Syrian chaos that ensued.

Far worse was Obama’s open support for America’s mortal enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood, spawner of al-Qaeda and Hamas. During the “Arab Spring,” Obama essentially put America’s weight behind the legitimization of this murderous organization that had been outlawed for 40 years for its assassinations and conspiracies against the Egyptian regime. Secretary of State Clinton gave totally unfounded assurances to the world that the Brotherhood was ready to become part of the democratic process and give up its 90-year holy war against infidels, Jews in particular but also — and explicitly — America. During the Brotherhood’s brief tenure as the government in Egypt Obama gave these genocidal zealots more than a billion dollars in American aid and F-16 fighter-bombers that could easily reach Israel’s major population centers, which for 60 years the Brotherhood had sworn to destroy.

By his feckless interventions in the Middle East, and his tacit support for the chief organization of Islam’s terror war against the West, Obama has set the Middle East on fire. All the violence in the crescent from Gaza to Iraq, including Hamas’s genocidal war against Israel, has been encouraged by Obama’s support for the Brotherhood and hostility toward the Jewish state.

Characteristic of this encouragement was his illegal intervention in Libya, which violated every principle that Obama and the Democrats invoked to attack President Bush and undermine America’s war against the Saddam regime and the terrorists in Iraq. Thanks to Obama, Libya is now in the hands of the terrorists and thousands of Libyans are fleeing to Tunisia and Egypt. Thanks to Obama, the Christian communities of Iraq, which date back to the time of Christ, are being slaughtered.

Because of Obama’s aversion to America’s role as a keeper of international peace, the tyrant Putin has been able to swallow Crimea and threaten the rest of Ukraine. Since his election in 2009, Obama’s policies have been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people and will result in the deaths of tens of thousands more. Thanks to his efforts to destroy America’s borders, Americans may be included in this grim toll. Certainly, Americans are now threatened by terrorists as never before.

Where is the Republican opposition? Why are Republicans still treating Obama as though his were a normal presidency and not a national disgrace? Why are there no indictments of Obama for the carnage he has enabled?

There is one foreign policy area where Republicans have shown some fight: Benghazi. But the fight here has been over an inquiry — important in its own right, but not a political challenge to Obama’s efforts to sabotage and degrade the country he is supposed to lead.

We know the basic facts. Obama’s team was trying to monitor and recapture the weapons we had helped supply to Islamist militias in Libya. That was Ambassador Stevens’s mission. No security was provided because Stevens’s mission had to be secret and plausibly deniable in the middle of an election in which Obama was running on the cynical lie that the war on terror had been won. During the battle waged by American heroes against the terrorists’ assault in Benghazi, the president and his secretary of state went A.W.O.L. and left these brave Americans to die. Instead of honoring them and hunting down their killers, Obama then took off for a fundraiser in Las Vegas. This was surely the most shameful individual act by a president in the history of the White House.

Having abandoned these American heroes and their families, Obama and his minions then lied to the American people about the terrorist attack and used it as an occasion to defend the Prophet Mohammed in a U.N. address to the world. This series of acts showed Obama’s contempt for the American military, contempt for the American people, and sympathy for America’s enemies, an attitude that has been revealed over and over again.

When will Republicans gather the courage to start speaking truth to power?


David Horowitz is the author of the newly published book Take No Prisoners: The Battle Plan for Defeating the Left.


Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/david-horowitz/obamas-treachery-and-republican-silence/

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

Take a Look at yourself, World Media

by Boaz Bismuth

The cease-fire between Israel and Hamas has allowed the international media to go back to addressing, among other things, the fighting in Ukraine (remember that?) and the Ebola virus, which is much more worrying than the virus known as "Hamas." The city of Donetsk in the eastern Ukraine has taken the place of Gaza in the headlines of European newspapers.

For some reason, the evacuation on Wednesday and Thursday of tens of thousands of Christians from their homes as the radical Sunni Islamic State takes over extensive areas in northern Iraq and Christian cities still hasn't been properly covered by the European media (unlike the American media), which was very -- I mean, very -- worried about Gaza. Which by yesterday had nearly been forgotten. 

Is it because there are no European journalists in northern Iraq? Or maybe because the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which cares only for Palestinians, isn't active there? Either way, the Islamic State, which is much more radical than al-Qaida (is that even possible?), continues about its business without too many headlines after taking over Kirkuk, Iraq's most Christian city (it was home to 50,000 Iraqi Christians). 

It seems like the international media has thus far perceived members of the Islamic State as space aliens. Hamas, on the other hand, are seen as freedom fighters working to remove the blockade for the good of the people of Gaza. Unlike the Islamic State people, Hamas operatives are seen as righteous. Try and explain that they're one and the same. 

U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that the U.S. was looking into the possibility of bombing Iraq. Nothing more was needed for the American media to devote its top headlines to what is happening in Iraq. 

At any rate, the administration is sort of responsible for what is taking place in Iraq today: the invasion (Bush) and the withdrawal (Obama). We mentioned the American airstrikes? This is doubtless much less dangerous than a ground operation, and between us, will anyone demand investigative committees or a special session of the U.N. General Assembly if and when, heaven forbid, innocent Iraqi civilians are killed in those same airstrikes? 

"Leave, convert, or die" was the top headline on the Fox News website. The readers, obviously, were shocked to discover just how hostile the radical Sunni Islamic State is to other religions. For some reason, no one this past month has thought to look into how Hamas sees non-Muslims. "Leave, convert, or die"… think for a moment how much Hamas would like to see a headline like that here. The world was busier removing the blockade than it was perusing the group's charter. Might there be a connection? 

Obviously, France also bears some responsibility for what's happening in the Middle East. Do you remember the Sykes-Picot Agreement? Today it's collapsing and France is seeing itself offering asylum to the Christians of the Orient. On Thursday, the government called a special session of the U.N. General Assembly to discuss the situation in Iraq. The Islamic state is "in" -- Hamas is "out." 

How quickly the story dies

 

In general, it's pretty amazing to see how quickly a story can die. You should see how far down on the CNN website Gaza has dropped. "Hamas: We are ready to renew the fighting," one of the more modest headlines read. No one is moved by Hamas' threats to resume shooting on Friday morning if the blockade is not removed from Gaza. The cease-fire talks in Cairo aren't even mentioned, lest the readers/watchers/listeners doze off. 

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon managed on Wednesday to anger officials in Jerusalem when, even before the Human Rights Council investigative committee began its work looking into the Gaza war and civilian casualties, he laid the blame on Israel for attacks on U.N. facilities in Gaza and said they should stand trial. There is no question that the U.N. under Ban is having trouble handling the troubles of the world, and it's good that there is Gaza -- and Israel -- for the U.N. to flex its muscles over in New York. 

But recent weeks have merely shown how helpless the U.N. and the international community are in solving crises: Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza have not helped the organization's image. The various conflicts around the world just prove how weak it is. 

The U.N. undoubtedly has a problem. The first clause of the U.N. Charter calls upon members to solve conflicts through peaceful means and refrain from threats and use of force to gain territory or power. Take note about just how relevant it is today. 

And one favor from Israelis traveling abroad this weekend: If you happen to run into "international opinion," ask it what exactly the "international community" is these days and where it's headed. Because between us, it looks like the international community is in real trouble, and before it examines us, it should take a look at itself.

Boaz Bismuth

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9537

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

Obama says 'no timetable' for Iraq Operations

by Rick Moran


The president held a press conference on our operations in Iraq before flying off to Martha's Vineyard for his vacation. He said that there was no timetable for operations in Iraq and that the Iraqis themselves would have to fight Islamic State forces.

CNN:

U.S. airstrikes have "successfully destroyed arms and equipment" that terrorists with ISIS could have used against the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil in Iraq, U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday.
"We feel confident" that military efforts can prevent ISIS from slaughtering people on Mount Sinjar, where ISIS has been killing many members of the Yazidi minority, Obama said in remarks at the White House.
He declined to give a timetable for U.S. airstrikes and humanitarian air drops in Iraq. "Wherever and whenever (U.S.) personnel are facilities are threatened, it is my obligation ... to make sure they're protected," he said.
The Iraqi government and military will need to take a series of steps to improve the security situation, Obama said. "I don't think we're going to solve this problem in weeks. I think this is going to take some time."
There's a lesson in this situation for Afghanistan, the president said: If leadership wants a new government to work, then people of different factions and ethnicities have "got to accommodate each other."
While the U.S. can assist Iraqi security forces in fighting ISIS with airstrikes, ultimately it's up to Iraqis to secure their country, the president said. That will take an inclusive government, he said. "All Iraqi communities need to unite to defend their country," Obama said.
Obama said he spoke with French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron about the situation in Iraq, and that both have agreed to join the United States in providing humanitarian assistance to Iraqis endangered by ISIS.

The president is going to have a long wait if he expects the Iraqis to form a government that represents all citizens. Prime Minister Maliki's authoritarian/sectarian administration has forced the Sunnis in Iraq to throw their lot in with Islamic State. And Maliki is refusing to create a government where all Iraqis would participate. Even in the face of the immiinent threat of catastrophe, Maliki is unmoved.

If nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of being hanged, Maliki should eventually relent. But will he still have a country when he finally gets around to it?


Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/obama_says_no_timetable_for_.html

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

Caliph Ibrahim's Brutal Moment

by Daniel Pipes

After an absence of 90 years, the ancient institution of the caliphate roared back into existence on the first day of Ramadan in the year 1435 of the Hegira, equivalent to June 29, 2014. This astonishing revival symbolically culminates the Islamist surge that began 40 years ago. A Western analogy might be declaring the restoration of the Hapsburg Empire, which traced its legitimacy to ancient Rome.

Whence comes this audacious move? Can the caliphate last? What will its impact be?

For starters, a quick review of the caliphate (from the Arabic khilafa, meaning "succession"): according to canonical Muslim history, it originated in 632 C.E., on the death of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, then spontaneously developed, filling the nascent Muslim community's need for a temporal leader. The caliph became Muhammad's non-prophetic heir. After the first four caliphs, the office became dynastic.

From the start, followers disagreed whether the caliph should be the most able and pious Muslim or the closest relative of Muhammad; the resulting division came to define the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam, respectively, causing the profound schism that still endures.

A single caliphate ruled all the Muslim lands until 750; but then two processes combined to diminish its power. First, remote provinces began to break away, with some -- such as Spain -- even creating rival caliphates. Second, the institution itself decayed and was taken over by slave soldiers and tribal conquerors, so that the original line of caliphs effectively ruled only until about 940. Other dynasties then adopted the title as a perquisite of political power.

The institution continued in an enfeebled form for a millennium until, in a dramatic act of repudiation, modern Turkey's founder, Kemal Ataturk, terminated its last vestiges in 1924. Despite several subsequent attempts to restore it, the institution became defunct, a symbol of the disarray in Muslim-majority countries and a yearned-for goal among Islamists.

And so matters remained for 90 years, until the group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (abbreviated "ISIS") issued a declaration in five languages (English version: "This Is the Promise of Allah") proclaiming the founding of a new caliphate under "Caliph" Ibrahim. Caliph Ibrahim (aka Dr. Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim), about 40, hailing from Samarra, Iraq, fought in Afghanistan and then Iraq. He now claims to be leader of "Muslims everywhere" and demands their oath of allegiance. All other Muslim governments have lost legitimacy, he claims. Further, Muslims must throw out "democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the West."

Reviving the universal caliphate means, announces "The Promise of Allah," that the "long slumber in the darkness of neglect" has ended. "The sun of jihad has risen. The glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph looms on the horizon." Infidels are justifiably terrified for, as both "east and west" submit, Muslims will "own the earth."

Grandiloquent words, to be sure, but also ones with zero chance of success. ISIS has enjoyed backing from states like Turkey and Qatar -- but to fight in Syria, not to establish a global hegemony. Nearby powers -- the Kurds, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel (and eventually maybe Turkey too) -- regard the Islamic State as an unmitigated enemy, as do nearly all rival Islamic movements, including al-Qaida. (The only exceptions: Boko Haram; scattered Gazans; and a new Pakistani organization.)The caliphate already faces difficulty governing the Great Britain-sized territories it conquered, troubles that will increase as its subject populations experience the full misery of Islamist rule. (Its apparent capture of the Mosul Dam on August 3 portends unspeakable crimes, including the denial of electricity and water; or even creating catastrophic floods.)

I predict that the Islamic State, confronted with hostility both from neighbors and its subject population, will not last long.

It will leave a legacy, though. No matter how calamitous the fate of Caliph Ibrahim and his grim crew, they have successfully resurrected a central institution of Islam, making the caliphate again a vibrant reality. Islamists around the world will treasure its moment of brutal glory and be inspired by it.

For non-Muslims, this development has complex and double-edged implications. On the negative side, violent Islamists will be more encouraged to achieve their hideous goals, leaving a wake of carnage. On the positive side, the caliphate's barbaric zealotry will have the salutary effect of awakening many of those yet asleep to the horrors of the Islamist agenda.

Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org), president of the Middle East Forum, holds a doctorate in medieval Islamic history.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9521

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

Border Patrol agent: Government releasing Murderers

by Rick Moran

A border patrol agent appearing on Fox News said that teenage gang members from Central America were being released into the US into the custody of their families.

“If they have family in the United States, they’ll release them to the family, even if they’re admitted gang members,” Cabrera explained to Fox News. “We’ve had a couple that had admitted to murders in their home country. They were 17 years old, 16 years old, and the United States government thought it fit to release them to their parents here in the United States.
“Even if he’s a confirmed gang member, a confirmed criminal even by self-admission, we for some reason don’t send them back to their home country, we release them into our country.”
Cabrera blamed these alleged gang members and murderers being released due to a “loophole.”
“They found a loophole with the unaccompanied women and children,” Cabrera told Fox News. “We don’t have anywhere to house these women and children and if the child has no family back in his home country, or claims he has no family back in his home country, we have to release him to a parent who is here.”
Cabrera added that morale among border agents is at an all-time low.
“Our agents aren’t allowed to do the job they were hired to do,” Cabrera told Fox News. “We’re walking more and more people out the door … they’re catch-and-release that have family units. The criminal aliens that are coming in, some of these young gang member kids that are coming in, and there’s no criminal history in the United States, we’re releasing them out the door and more and more it gets frustrating.”

Insanity. Is this the opportunity of a lifetime for Central American drug cartels? What better way to set up a branch of their operations in America?

In years to come, American cities will begin resembling those in Central America. If we think we have gang problems now, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/border_patrol_agent_government_releasing_murderers_.html

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

Hamas' Phony Statistics on Civilian Deaths

by Alan M. Dershowitz


It's a mystery why so many in the media accept as gospel Hamas-supplied figures on the number of civilians killed in the recent war. Hamas claims that of the more than 1800 Palestinians killed close to 90% were civilians. Israel, on the other hand, says that close to half of them were combatants. The objective facts support a number much closer to Israel's than to Hamas'.

Even human rights group antagonistic to Israel acknowledge, according to a New York Times report, that Hamas probably counts among the "civilians killed by Israel" the following groups: Palestinians killed by Hamas as collaborators; Palestinians killed through domestic violence; Palestinians killed by errant Hamas rockets or mortars; and Palestinians who died naturally during the conflict. I wonder if Hamas also included the reported 162 children who died while performing child slave labor in building their terror tunnels. Hamas also defines combatants to include only armed fighters who were killed while fighting Israelis. They exclude Hamas supporters who build tunnels, who allow their homes to be used to store and fire rockets, Hamas policemen, members of the Hamas political wing and others who work hand in hand with the armed terrorists.

Is a Hamas member who stores weapons in his home a civilian or combatant? Pictured, weapons and ammunition found by the IDF in the bedroom of a Gaza home, July 2014. (Image source: IDF)

Several years ago I came up with a concept which I call, the "continuum of civilianality"—an inelegant phrase that is intended to convey the reality that who is a civilian and who is a combatant is often a matter of degree. Clearly every child below the age in which he or she is capable of assisting Hamas is a civilian. Clearly every Hamas fighter who fires rockets, bears arms, or operates in the tunnels is a combatant. Between these extremes lie a wide range of people, some of whom are closer to the civilian end, many of whom who are closer to the combatant end. The law of war has not established a clear line between combatants and civilians, especially in the context of urban warfare where people carry guns at night and bake bread during the day, or fire rockets during the day and go back home to sleep with their families at night. (Interestingly the Israeli Supreme Court has tried to devise a functional definition of combatants in the murky context of urban guerrilla warfare.)

Data published by the New York Times strongly suggest that a very large number—perhaps a majority—of those killed are closer to the combatant end of the continuum than to the civilian end. First of all, the vast majority of those killed have been male rather than female. In an Islamic society, males are far more likely to be combatants than females. Second, most of those killed are within the age range (15-40) that are likely to be combatants. The vast majority of these are male as well. The number of people over 60 who have been killed is infinitesimal. The number of children below the age of 15 is also relatively small, although their pictures have been shown more frequently than others. In other words, the genders and ages of those killed are not representative of the general population of Gaza. It is far more representative of the genders and ages of combatants. These data strongly suggest that a very large percentage of Palestinians killed are on the combatant side of the continuum.

They also prove, as if any proof were necessary to unbiased eyes, that Israel did not target civilians randomly. If it had, the dead would be representative of the Gaza population in general, rather than of the subgroups most closely identified with combatants.

The media should immediately stop using Hamas-approved statistics, which in the past have proved to be extremely unreliable. Instead, they should try to document, independently, the nature of each person killed and describe their age, gender, occupation, affiliation with Hamas and other objective factors relevant to their status as a combatant, non-combatant or someone in the middle. It is lazy and dangerous for the media to rely on Hamas-approved propaganda figures. In fact, when the infamous Goldstone Report falsely stated that the vast majority of people killed in Operation Cast Lead were civilians and not Hamas fighters, many in Gaza complained to Hamas. They accused Hamas of cowardice for allowing so many civilians to be killed while protecting their own fighters. As a result of these complaints, Hamas was forced to tell the truth: namely that many more of those killed were actually Hamas fighters or armed policemen. It is likely that Hamas will make a similar "correction" with regard to this conflict. But that correction will not be covered by the media, as the prior correction was not.

The headline—"Most of those killed by Israel were children, women and the elderly"—will continue to be the conventional wisdom, despite its factual falsity. Unless it is corrected, Hamas will continue with its "dead baby strategy" and more people on both sides will die.


Alan M. Dershowitz

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4585/hamas-phony-statistics-on-civilian-deaths

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

Evelyn Gordon: How Hamas Deliberately Created a Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

by Evelyn Gordon


There has been a lot of talk lately about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. What has gone curiously unmentioned by all the great humanitarians from the UN and “human rights” groups, however, is the degree to which this crisis was deliberately fomented by Hamas: Aside from starting the war to begin with, Hamas has done its level best to deprive Gazans of everything from food to medical care to housing, despite Israel’s best efforts to provide them.

Take, for instance, the widely reported shortages of medicines and various other essentials. Many of these products are imported, and since Egypt has largely closed its border, Gaza has only one conduit for these vital imports: the Kerem Shalom crossing into Israel. Thus if Gaza’s Hamas government had any concern whatsoever for its citizens, ensuring that this crossing was kept open and could function at maximum efficiency would be a top priority.

Instead, Hamas and other terrorist groups subjected Kerem Shalom to relentless rocket and mortar fire throughout the 29-day conflict, thereby ensuring that the job of getting cargo through was constantly interrupted as crossing workers raced for cover. Hamas also launched at least three tunnel attacks near Kerem Shalom, each of which shut the crossing down for hours.

Despite this, Israeli staffers risked their lives to keep the crossing open and managed to send through 1,491 truckloads of food, 220 truckloads of other humanitarian supplies, and 106 truckloads of medical supplies. But the numbers would certainly have been higher had the nonstop attacks not kept disrupting operations. On August 1, for instance, a shipment comprising 91 truckloads of aid had to be aborted on when Hamas violated a humanitarian cease-fire by launching a massive attack near Kerem Shalom.

Then there’s the shortage of medical care, as Gaza’s hospitals were reportedly overwhelmed by the influx of Palestinian casualties. To relieve this pressure, Israel allowed some Palestinians into Israel for treatment and also set up a field hospital on the Gaza border. But throughout the war, the field hospital stood almost empty–which Israel says is because Hamas deliberately kept Palestinians from using it.

Many pundits dismiss this claim, insisting there were simply no Palestinians who wanted to go there. That, however, is highly implausible. Gazans routinely seek treatment in Israel because it offers better medical care than Gaza does; as one Gazan said in 2012, “It is obvious that people come to Israel for medical treatment, regardless of the political conflict.” Even Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh sends his family to Israel for treatment; over the past two years, Israel has treated both his granddaughter and his sister’s husband. So while some Palestinians undoubtedly objected to accepting help from the enemy, it’s hard to believe there weren’t also Palestinians who simply wanted the best possible care for their loved ones, and would gladly have accepted it from Israel had they not feared retaliation from a group with no qualms about shooting dissenters.

It’s also worth noting that “humanitarian” organizations in Gaza actively contributed to this particular problem. UNRWA and the Red Cross did refer a few patients to the Israeli field hospital. But you have to wonder why they opted to refer most patients to Gaza’s Shifa Hospital and then make videos about how difficult conditions there were instead of easing the burden on Shifa by referring more patients to the Israeli hospital.

Then, of course, there’s the dire electricity shortage–also courtesy in part of Hamas, which destroyed two power lines carrying electricity from Israel to Gaza and subsequently prevented their repair by shelling the area nonstop.

Finally, there’s the massive destruction of houses in Gaza, which has left thousands of families homeless. That, too, was largely courtesy of Hamas: It booby-trapped houses and other civilian buildings, like a UNRWA clinic, on a massive scale and also used such buildings to store rockets and explosives.

Sometimes, it blew up these buildings itself in an effort to kill Israeli soldiers. Other times, the buildings blew up when relatively light Israeli ammunition like mortar shells–which aren’t powerful enough to destroy a building on their own–caused the booby traps or stored rockets to detonate. As Prof. Gregory Rose aptly noted, Hamas effectively turned all of Gaza into one big suicide bomb. In one neighborhood, for instance, 19 out of 28 houses were either booby-trapped, storing rockets, or concealing a tunnel entrance, thereby ensuring their destruction.

Now, the organization is gleefully watching the world blame Israel for the humanitarian crisis Hamas itself created. And that gives it every incentive to repeat these tactics in the future.


Hat Tip: Sefton Bergson


Evelyn Gordon

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/08/06/how-hamas-deliberately-created-a-humanitarian-crisis-in-gaza/

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

Abbas is a Charlatan

by Ze'ev Jabotinsky

As the cease-fire takes effect, there is more talk about how now is the time to strengthen Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and trust him to bring about a solution to Gaza, meaning to demilitarize it. A cold, hard look shows that nothing is more dangerous for us than depending on this charlatan. 

First, the Palestinian Authority is incapable of preventing a military coup like the one Hamas carried out in Gaza in 2007. The only reason its people were not assassinated by their "unity" government partners was that the IDF was watching over them day and night. Here the PA shares mutual interests with Israel, which constantly eliminates militarization attempts and the buildup of terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. We also hear enthusiasm for cooperation with Israel on security, but that stems from their own survival instinct and not because they have suddenly joined the Zionist movement. So the PA will not disarm terrorist organizations in Gaza, even if it promises to. 

Secondly, the moderate Arab countries currently have mutual interests other than Abbas, and sometimes even preclude supporting him. Their mutual interest with Israel comes from the fact that they have recognized that they might well need Israel's military assistance against ideological enemies like Iran or the Islamic State group. It would be exciting to see an Islamic State member, in front of his black flag, spitting and trampling on a Palestine Liberation Organization flag and cursing the PA because an Arab caliphate opposes its ideology. Jordan understands that it will need our help when the Islamic State reaches its eastern border, whether Israel dismantles the PA or builds it a state. 

Third, empowering Abbas is dangerous because of his ideology, which he hides in his contact with Israel and the Western world. In an interview with Palestinian television, his son Yasser made it unequivocally clear, despite what his father says, that they would "return to Safed, Palestine." He even called upon his son Nader to say the same thing to prove what he taught his children. All of Abbas' actions are intended to use the Palestinian charter and the PA school system to teach the next generation that we have to be expelled through force, even though he survives on the IDF's coattails. 

Fourth, the PA has already violated its commitment to demilitarize. Operation Defensive Shield was enough of a lesson in what will happen to us if there is a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. 

What's more, there is a fair chance that the PA regime will fall once we hand over Judea and Samaria. It could happen because of internecine Palestinian fighting or because it is taken over by a group like the Islamic State. Terror tunnels that lead to the heart of Jerusalem, Kfar Saba, or Ben-Gurion International Airport, combined with occasional mortar shelling and rocket fire, would force Israel to invade a sovereign nation. The damage such a violation of international law would cause to Israel's security and diplomatic standing would be enormous. 

Abbas does not work for us. So not only is he not a solution, he is the problem.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9513

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

The Forgotten Child Victims of Hamas and ISIS

by Daniel Greenfield 

 

 

While furious mobs of leftists draped in Keffiyahs and corn syrup were shrieking about Gaza in the public squares of every major city, ISIS was continuing its genocidal advance on Baghdad. In the last 24 hours, the Yazidis, a non-Muslim minority, fled ISIS to a mountaintop where their children are dying of thirst.

The stark reality of their plight, caught between thirst and a genocidal army, is in sharp contrast to the phony claims made about Gaza where truckloads of goods continue passing from Israel during wartime, where the malls have iPhones and the five star hotels offer cakes so tall they can only be cut from a crane.

The dead Yazidi children won’t inspire any protests or much in the way of outrage. The hysterical rallies for Gaza won’t suddenly turn into anti-ISIS rallies. If any of the angry white hipsters with dead baby posters are asked about it, they will offer some variation on, “It’s Bush’s fault” or “It’s Tony Blair’s fault.”

And they had been out there in the early part of the century denouncing any move to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The dead children gassed by Saddam, along with the children in his prisons, were unfortunately created less equal than the photogenic, oddly blonde children of Gaza’s Hamaswood.

Anna, a two-year-old girl whose feet were crushed by Saddam’s torturers, never mattered to them.  It isn’t the children that they care about, not the dying Yazidi children in Iraq, the tortured children in Saddam Hussein’s prisons, or even the dead children of Gaza, used as human shields by Hamas in life and then brandished at rallies after their deaths as cardboard propaganda shields by furious Marxists.

When they thought that Israel had bombed a playground near the al-Shati refugee camp killing nine children, they went into murderous paroxysm of outrage. When it turned out that a misfired Hamas rocket was responsible, they fell silent.

They have equally little interest in the 3-year-old Gazan girl killed by a Hamas rocket in the early days of the war.

The same thing had happened in 2012 when a dead 11-month old baby, formerly an iconic front page photo, vanished into obscurity once the death turned out to have been caused by a Hamas rocket. The same thing happened to Hadil al-Haddad, a 2-year-old girl in Gaza, who went from iconic photo to yesterday’s news once it turned out that a Hamas rocket had been responsible for her death.

However the photos of those dead and wounded children, along with the dead children of Syria and perhaps soon the dead children of the Yazidi, will go on showing up at spitefully angry anti-Israel rallies.

If they genuinely cared about children, they would be at least as outraged, moved and pained by the death of a child at the hands of Saddam Hussein, as they were by ISIS terrorists dying at the hands of American and British soldiers. Instead dead Iraqi children inspired apathy and dead Al Qaeda outrage.

If it was the children that they cared about, then the death of an Israeli child or a Muslim child at the hands of Hamas would matter as much to them as the ones on the bloody placards they now brandish.

But they don’t and they never did.

They don’t love children or anyone else for that matter. They only hate. The dead children are only pieces of photographic paper to them which they use to shamelessly assault their ideological enemies.

Once Israel pulled out of Gaza, a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs found a striking increase in the amount of internal violence as the majority of deaths were now being caused by clan feuds.

During 2007’s battles between Israel and Hamas, as many Palestinian Arab children died in clan feuds as they did in Israeli air strikes. And unlike air strikes, children killed in clan feuds aren’t accidents.

The dirty little secret is that while Palestinian identity is as phony as a three dollar bill, clan identity is a powerful and defining force. Furthermore it is often hard to tell whether Hamas and Fatah terrorists are aligned with a movement because of personal belief or because their clan is aligned with a movement.

Hamas and Fatah aren’t just ideologies. They are also large extended clan families which fight over land, honor and economic control.

The origins of Israel’s struggle with terrorism go back to the roots of the al-Husayni clan which arrived in Jerusalem after the Crusades and has been trying to control the city and everything else ever since.

Prominent members and associates of the clan include Hitler’s Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, and Yasser Arafat. (Arafat however was more directly associated with the Al-Qudwas, a clan which extends from Iraq to Egypt. Both clans considered themselves to be a sort of titled aristocracy, yet another fact which makes their post-colonial posturing as oppressed peoples ridiculously hypocritical and laughable.)

Muslim children being killed in clan feuds between huge families whose local branches claim to be the leaders of the Palestinian people even as they fight with equal ferocity for control over Syria and Iraq is not a subject that any of the placard wavers are interested in. Open that door a crack and their whole self-righteous campaign collapses into incoherent bleating as they struggle to justify the primacy of one terrorist group over another based on the claims of descent from Mohammed by its leading clans.

There are stories that are simply not told.

When UN inspector and anti-war activist Scott Ritter visited Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, he encountered a prison which, in his own words, “appeared to be a prison for children — toddlers up to pre-adolescents — whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene.”

Ritter refused to discuss it any further, “because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I’m waging peace.”

Scott Ritter, who was later arrested for soliciting underage girls on the internet, wasn’t waging peace. No more than the placard wavers in London, Sydney and Montreal are waging peace. He was fighting to keep Saddam Hussein power. And he was willing to sacrifice a prison full of children to do that.

He was willing to sacrifice little girls like Anna, who had her feet crushed in a torture chamber, to keep Saddam Hussein in power. Ritter was willing to do it because he had the same morals as Saddam.

That is the same attitude that the placard wavers have toward the children of Gaza, of Iraq and of countless other places. They use them to wage war in the name of peace when they come in handy.

And when they die of Hamas rockets and clan feuds, when they are killed by ISIS and the entire murderous alphabet soup of Islamic terrorism, they drop them like yesterday’s garbage.

For Hamas and its supporters screaming “Free Gaza” at the top of their lungs, children, dead or alive, are just another propaganda weapon in the arsenal of terrorist theocracy.

They are eager and willing to let Hamas go on killing Jewish and Muslim children in the name of its war.


Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-forgotten-child-victims-of-hamas-and-isis/


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

The Invisible Face of Hamas

by IDF Blog

Hamas hides its actions from the world by threatening journalists, pressuring civilians over social media, and disguising its fighters in civilian clothing.

Despite the large number of international journalists reporting from Gaza during Operation Protective Edge, images of Hamas terrorists have scarcely appeared in Western media outlets. This is primarily because Hamas threatens journalists who don’t tell the story the way Hamas wants it to be told.

In addition, Hamas terrorists are often difficult to identify because they wear civilian clothing. By doing so, Hamas terrorists are not only trying to avoid being targeted by the IDF, but the are also causing international organizations to incorrectly label the death of many terrorists as civilians. It should come as no surprise that Hamas has ordered Gaza’s social media users not to post images of terrorists online and to refer to all terrorists killed in IDF strikes as “innocent civilians.”

Hamas Facebook message to Palestinians asking them to hide information about terrorist casualties.

Hamas knows that it benefits in the international arena from images of civilian casualties in Gaza. It is for this reason that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure in, and fires rockets from, residential areas and civilian structures. Hamas knows that if it can make terrorists killed by Israel appear to be civilians, then it will gain points in the media war and win sympathy abroad.

They would simply shoot us and kill us

Filmmaker Michael Grynszpan wrote on Facebook that a Spanish journalist had given him a straightforward explanation as to why images of Hamas terrorists were not appearing in the media. “It’s very simple. We did see Hamas people there, launching rockets. They were close to our hotel, but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them, they would simply shoot at us and kill us.”

New York Times executive Eileen Murphy offered another reason for the lack of images of terrorist operatives appearing in newspapers. “It is very difficult to identify Hamas because they don’t have uniforms or any visible insignia.”


IDF Blog

Source: http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/08/07/invisible-face-hamas/

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