Palestinian Terrorism: Funded by the EU?

by Joseph Pruder


In his ploy to avoid negotiations with Israel that might actually force him to make such minimal concessions as "ending the conflict" with Israel, and recognizing Israel as the "state of the Jewish people," Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the Palestinian Authority (PA), can count on the European Union (EU) to support him. That support has been both financial and political. Financially, the EU has written a virtual "blank check" for the Palestinians to use with no accountability. Politically, the EU has deemed the Palestinians as "underdogs," deserving uncritical support. In both cases, EU support for the PA has done little to advance a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Whether it is misplaced guilt, or fear of Arab terrorism, the EU continues to sink unaccounted billions of European taxpayer euros into the corrupt administration of Mahmoud Abbas. According to the United Kingdom’s Sunday Times, the Palestinian Authority squandered nearly 1.95 billion euros ($2.64 billion) in European aid through corruption and mismanagement between 2008 and 2012.

The Sunday Times reported that billions of euros in European aid to the Palestinians may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption, according to a damning report by the European Court of Auditors, the Luxembourg-based watchdog. EU investigators who visited sites in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank noted "significant shortcomings" in the management of funds sent to Gaza and the West Bank. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the EU. The auditors, according to the Sunday Times, complained about lack of measures to mitigate "high level" risks, such as "corruption, or of funds not being used for their intended purposes."

Since the creation of the PA in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, signed on the White House lawn in September, 1993, the EU has become the largest donor to the PA. As such, it has a responsibility to its taxpayers, who in recent years have suffered the debilitating effects of the global recession, austerity, and chronic high unemployment. The EU also has a moral responsibility to insure that its funds are not diverted to support terror, and human rights violations. The ostensible reason for the EU’s assistance to the PA is to help advance a lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

Michael Theurer, chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, writing in the Wall Street Journal (April 9, 2014) revealed in the findings of the European Court of Auditors last December that "since 2007, a considerable number of PA civil servants in Gaza have received their salaries partly funded through EU aid – even though they were not going to work due to the political situation in Gaza." Theurer questioned how this contributes to peace building. He also asked how the EU can preserve its credibility back home when it pays salaries to people who don’t work, while millions of European citizens are unemployed?

The Court of Auditors also found that the EU paid "insufficient attention to the fungibility of the funds provided to the PA. There is reason to believe, the report noted, that EU financial assistance has allowed the PA to use its own general budget to support terrorist or criminal activities." In addition, the PA allocates a significant portion of its budget to paying salaries to Palestinians convicted of terrorism. These salaries are five times higher than the average salary in the West Bank. Convicted terrorists also receive large grants from the PA.

An investigation by the EU anti-fraud commission into PA funding of terrorist activities, conducted in 2005, allegedly found no conclusive evidence of armed attacks financed by the European Commission’s contributions to the budget. These allegations could not be dismissed, however, given the fact that the internal and external audit capacity of the PA is largely underdeveloped.

The removal of Salam Fayyad as Finance Minister and Prime Minister has essentially ended the PA’s opportunity for transparency and the fight against corruption and mismanagement.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that in 2012, the PA payments to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons, and to the families of deceased terrorists, including suicide bombers, accounted for more than 16% of the annual foreign donations and grants to the budget of the PA. Israel considers PA payments to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons and their families to be "funding terrorism." In 2012, the PA Ministry of Prisoner Affairs transferred $75.5 million to terrorists imprisoned by Israel and their families, out of a total budget of $3.1 billion, according to Israeli government figures. In February, 2014, the Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs announced an allocation of 30 million euros to current and former terrorist prisoners and their families.

Responding to the EU’s calls that its funds not go to convicted terrorists, PA Minister of Prisoner Affairs Issa Karake said on PA-TV, (November 4, 2013) "The Europeans want their money that comes to us to remain clean – not to go to families of those they claim to be terrorists. They (the Europeans) need to renounce this occupation mentality. These prisoners are heroes, fedayyeen (self-sacrificing fighters) who fought so that they could live in dignity. We appreciate the people of the revolution and are proud of them." Calling the murderers of unarmed civilian men, women, and children heroes is a perversion of reality that even the Europeans cannot accept.

The Europeans prefer to ignore the possibility that their funding, however indirect, supports Palestinian terror against Jews, and hate education that is rivaled only by Nazi Germany. States like Israel and organizations such as Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) have time and again shown how EU funding has facilitated hate literature and hate teaching in Palestinian schools. EU money has also been used to fund anti-Semitism in the Palestinian media. In the PA broadcasts, Jews have been described as apes, rats and crows. TV discussions that negate the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, and characterize Israelis as bloodthirsty colonialists are not only hateful, they are inimical to peacemaking and amity between Arabs, Jews, Palestinians and Israelis.

Michael Theurer asked how the EU can ensure that its financial assistance to the PA will help advance peace and stability in the region, while promoting freedom, democracy and the rule of law. And, he ponders how the EU can guarantee that its funds won’t be used to reward terrorism. Theurer responded at least partially to some of his questions by asserting that at the plenary of the European Parliament in early April, 2014, a resolution was passed calling for greater transparency in EU aid to the PA.

It is easy to conclude however, that hitherto, the EU’s unrestrained financial support to the PA has done little to promote freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, and has above all been inimical to peace between the Palestinians and Israel.
 
 
Joseph Pruder
 
Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/eu-unrestrained-support-of-the-pa-is-inimical-to-peace/

Copyright   Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Unsafe Spaces: Islamist Mosques

by Frank Gaffney, Jr.

 

 

 

The contempt that America’s enemies have for the United States these days is palpable. The most obvious current example is Vladimir Putin’s disdain for President Obama, whom he regards as little more than a speed-bump on the road to his conquest of Ukraine and perhaps other nations in what the Kremlin calls Russia’s “near-abroad.”

 

Not content with snatching Crimea and preparing reprises elsewhere, Putin has a jet buzz one of our ships in the Black Sea for ninety minutes then launches a new multiple-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile. By contrast, Team Obama is busily dismantling what’s left of our navy and strategic forces.

Then there’s the back of the hand treatment China showed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel when, during his recent visit to the People’s Republic, the Pentagon chief had the temerity to lecture his hosts about how to behave internationally. They took him to see their just-refurbished aircraft carrier and unveiled a new fighter aircraft to operate from it. The best Hagel could do was announce that the U.S. was going to respond to Beijing’s increasing belligerence in the region by sending there a grand total of two more anti-missile destroyers–by 2017.

A more subtle, but no less in-your-face kind of contempt has just been served up by Muslim Brotherhood operatives and other Islamists in this country.

To mark the occasion of the first anniversary of two of their fellow jihadists’ murderous attack at the Boston Marathon, the leaders of several Brotherhood fronts have launched something called the “Safe Spaces Initiative.” They evidently think we are so stupid, or at least now so submissive, that they can try to put mosques off-limits to law enforcement. This is all the more astounding since we know that the perpetrators of the terrorism of a year ago used the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge to become versed in the ways of the supremacist Islamist doctrine known as shariah and the jihad it commands.

A chief proponent of this Safe Spaces gambit is Salam al-Marayati, the president of an Islamist influence operation out of California with extensive access to the Obama administration, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). In an opinion piece posted by altmuslim blog on March 28, al-Marayati actually makes plain the true purpose of his Safe Spaces Initiative.

Notwithstanding the portrayal of this proposal as a means of preventing radicalization in mosques, in the words of al-Marayati: “Safe spaces are needed so that government informants and extremist recruiters are prevented from violating the sanctity of the mosque. In essence, we want to enhance both a spiritual safety and public safety.” (Emphasis added.)

Unfortunately, the latest announcement by William Bratton–the former police commissioner recently re-appointed by New York’s new, Islamist-friendly mayor, Bill de Blasio–would sure seem to justify the Brothers’ low regard for us. As the New York Times reported today “The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods….Plainclothes detectives looked for ‘hot spots’ of radicalization that might give the police an early warning about terrorist plots.”

The Times quoted the NYPD’s chief spokesman, Stephen Davis, who made clear the completeness of the department’s submission to the Islamists who style themselves as the “leaders” and “representatives” of all Muslim Americans: “‘Understanding certain local demographics can be a useful factor when assessing the threat information that comes into New York City virtually on a daily basis,” Mr. Davis said. “In the future, we will gather that information, if necessary, through direct contact between the police precincts and the representatives of the communities they serve.”

I discussed the folly of making mosques surveillance-free zones in an interview on Secure Freedom Radio this evening with former federal prosecutor and best-selling author Andrew C. McCarthy. Here’s part of our conversation (for the entire podcast, click here):

FRANK GAFFNEY: The Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, who’s a Muslim Brother fellow-traveller jihadist type, has a rather poetic turn of phrase for it. He says, “The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks, and the faithful our army.” And, Andy, this gives rise to a concern that I’m sure you share about an initiative that some of these Muslim Brotherhood types, notably Mohamed Magid, the president of the largest Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States, the Islamic Society of North America–and, oh, by the way, a frequent visitor at the Obama White House and prominent source of counsel to him and others in his Administration–

ANDY MCCARTHY: And another unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation.
FG: Indeed. These guys have cooked up something called the “Safe Spaces Initiative.” I wonder what you make of that idea, particularly as it seems their purpose is to, as one of them put it, “keep government informants…from violating the sanctity of the mosque.”

AM: Yeah, well, you know, it’s unfortunate that with this particular Justice Department and this Administration they’re probably pushing on an open door.

FG: It’s probably a wired game, let’s be honest. These guys have almost certainly got this rigged with the Justice Department.

AM: But the amazing thing is for all of Obama and Eric Holder’s caterwauling about, you know, how we’ve proved again and again that the civilian justice system is the best way to prosecute terrorism cases–well, why don’t they ever check into what was proved in those prosecutions that they like to tout around? Because if they open the transcripts…what they would find is that mosques were used as recruitment centers, they were used for conspiratorial conversations and agreements, they were used to house weapons, they were used to transfer weapons, and they really were used to light a fire under people who might have been fence-sitters but who were powerfully influenced by some of the imams, particularly the guy who I prosecuted in the 1990s, the Blind Sheikh.

It was in the mosques that [Omar Abdel-Rahman] did most of the damage that he did to the United States. So this is not something we speculate about, Frank. This is something that’s actually been proved in court, and proved again and again and again. So, if you’re going to say that a mosque needs to be a safe space, then what you’re really saying is we’ve taken willful blindness, which was a problem, and we’ve now codified it, so it’s not just willful blindness; it’s just mulish, absolute refusal to come to terms with what we’re up against.

FG: Yeah. And to speak to the other subject of your trilogy there, it is a formula for more of the grand jihad, not less. It is a certainty that you will find more Tsarnaev boys being recruited, or being trained, or being armed, or in other ways being enabled. It simply is mindboggling, Andy, and I think the American people couldn’t comprehend what’s going on here, or believe it if told it.

We can’t afford more of the sort of willful blindness that will give rise to more unsafe mosques and other places, and more jihad.

Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Source: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2014/04/17/unsafe-spaces-islamist-mosques/

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

Palestinians: "Prisoners Day"

by Khaled Abu Toameh

While the Palestinian Authority is calling on the international community to punish Israel for imprisoning Palestinians, its own security forces continue to hold hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians in prison, some tortured, some without trial.
This year alone, the Palestinian Authority has arrested 357 Palestinians accused of security/political offenses, 42 of whom are university students.
Of course, the arrests continue to be ignored by the mainstream media in the West. This is a story that does not reflect negatively on Israel, so is therefore not considered worthy of being reported to Western audiences.

 
The Palestinian Authority's duplicity clearly has no limits.

On April 17, it marked "Prisoners Day" by holding rallies throughout the West Bank in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

On the same day, a report published by Palestinians revealed that the Palestinian Authority has arrested hundreds of Palestinians since the beginning of this year. The report pointed out that the Palestinian Authority continues to torture detainees.

"Prisoners Day" is an event that has been taking place for nearly two decades and is intended to express solidarity with the thousands of prisoners who are being held by Israel for security-related offences, including some of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But as Palestinians were marking "Prisoners Day," a report released in the Gaza Strip revealed that since the beginning of 2014, this year alone, the Palestinian Authority has arrested 357 Palestinians accused of security/political offenses.

According to the report, prepared by the Hamas-run Ministry of Planning, all 357 detainees belonged to various Palestinian groups in the West Bank, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The report said that 42 of the detainees are university students. During the same period, Palestinian Authority security forces also raided and searched the homes of 60 Palestinians in the West Bank suspected of security/political offenses, the report added.

In March alone, Palestinian Authority security forces raided and searched 42 private and public institutions, businesses, hospitals and charitable organizations in the West Bank, the report continued. It also pointed out that the Palestinian Authority security forces were continuing to torture detainees.

Not surprisingly, the findings of the report were completely ignored by Palestinian Authority officials in their speeches and statements marking "Prisoners Day."

Of course, the arrests by the Palestinian Authority also continue to be ignored by the mainstream media in the West. This is a story that does not reflect negatively on Israel, so is therefore not considered worthy of being reported to Western audiences.

Instead, Palestinian representatives chose this occasion to heap praise on the Palestinian "heroes" and "fighters" in Israeli prisons, who have made "gigantic sacrifices for their people and cause."

The PLO's Hanan Ashrawi called for dispatching international commissions of inquiry to Israeli prisons to look into Israeli "violations" against the Palestinian inmates. She also went as far as accusing Israel of "war crimes" because of its "mistreatment" of the prisoners.

Most of the Palestinian officials told the crowds at the West Bank rallies that the prisoners are the true heroes of the Palestinians and that there would never be peace with Israel as long as one Palestinian remained in Israeli prison.

As the Palestinian Minister for Prisoners Affairs, Issa Qaraqi, put it, "There will be no agreement or peace or an extension of the [peace] talks until the gates of the prisons are opened and our prisoners are set free."

So while the Palestinian Authority is calling on the international community to punish Israel for imprisoning Palestinians, its own security forces continue to hold hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians in prison, some tortured, some without trial. Yet, the Palestinian Authority does not see its actions as a violation of human rights and international law.

It is all right for Palestinians to detain and torture a fellow Palestinian. But apparently it is not all right for Israel to arrest and imprison anyone who harms its security or murders its citizens.

Further evidence of the Palestinian Authority's double-talk on the issue of prisoners and terrorism was provided one day before Palestinians marked "Prisoners Day."

At a meeting with Israeli MKs [Members of Knesset, Israel's parliament] in Ramallah, Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, announced that the Palestinian Authority was "completely opposed to violence by any party."

The Israeli MKs took Abu Rudaineh's remark as a straight and clear "condemnation" of a shooting attack that killed an Israeli police officer near Hebron in the West Bank two days earlier. Needless to say, the Palestinian spokesman had made no specific reference to the shooting attack.

Israeli police officer Baruch Mizrahi (upper right) was shot and killed by a Palestinian terrorist near Hebron on April 14, as he drove to a family celebration with his wife and four of their children. His wife Hadas Mizrahi was shot and wounded.

Still, for the Israeli MKs, this was sufficient evidence that the Palestinian Authority is opposed to terror attacks on Israelis and is therefore a reliable "peace partner."

The following day, however, the rallies and speeches marking "Prisoners Day" provided further evidence that the Palestinian Authority continues to glorify Palestinians who launch terrorist attacks against Israel.

The Palestinian Authority even went as far as condemning those who label the prisoners as terrorists. In the words of Qaraqi, the Minister for Prisoners Affairs, "We condemn attempts to distort the image of our prisoners by describing them as terrorists."

The Palestinian Authority told the visiting Israeli MKs that it is opposed to violence "by any party." Hours later, the Palestinian Authority told the Palestinian public that those who carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis are "heroes" and "revolutionary pioneers."

The Palestinian Authority complains that there are more than 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. But the same Palestinian Authority is trying to hide the fact that it is holding and torturing many Palestinians in its prisons.


Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4276/palestinians-prisoners-day

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

A "Wadjda" for Kosovo

by Visar Duriqi

Kosovo shares one social problem with Saudi Arabia. That is the infiltration of radical Islam. The story of victimized moderate Muslim clerics and intellectuals, removed from their congregations, dismissed from their teaching positions, and physically attacked, remains to be told.
I would like to be a brother or friend to a female president, but to a president that has reached her position as Wadjda got her bicycle -- because she deserved it.

 
Saudi Arabia, a male-dominated country, is changing slowly. One example of its cautious new openness is the 2012 movie Wadjda, Saudi Arabia's first feature film, by its first female director, Haifaa Al-Mansour.

My country, the Balkan republic of Kosovo, more than 90% Muslim, is likewise male-controlled and also appears to be changing.

That impression, however, is created by Kosovo having a woman president, Atifete Jahjaga, and is false.

President Atifete Jahjaga does not belong in the same category as Wadjda, the female protagonist of the Saudi film. We need a Wadjda for our country – both a female with the spirit of the cinema character, and a movie like it. We need many Wadjdas.

A promotional poster for the film Wadjda (left), and Kosovo's President Atifete Jahjaga.

In Wadjda, the film-maker tells the story of a 10-year old girl in a world where women exist to bear children, satisfy sexual demands, and serve food. Wadjda, living in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, makes an immense effort to purchase a bicycle, like the one owned by a neighborhood boy. She is warned that girls should not ride bicycles, reflecting Saudi Wahhabi doctrine. Still, Wadjda's mother, using money she saved for a red dress, buys her the bicycle. At the end Wadjda rides toward the highway, another Saudi male preserve.

Wadjda got what she desired, without complaining about being a woman.

I want a Wadjda for Kosovo.

My country is full of women who want their rights, and are intelligent and educated, but who fail. They hold to a mindset that declares, "I am a women, unequal, wronged, and must be given rights."

Kosovo is a European country, and the obstacles to women's equality present in the Balkans are seldom comparable to those in the Saudi kingdom. Polygamy is rare in Kosovo, civil divorce is a guaranteed right, women are represented widely in the professions – President Atifete Jahjaga was a police commander – and all religions have freedom.

But Kosovo, with a movie industry that is not restricted by the so-called "moral" and religious requirements of Saudi reality, also needs films that will expose the dark aspects of life in the republic – where the male leader caste decides the future of the country alone, ignoring or manipulating nearly all women, government officials, and religious leaders. They act as if unrestrained by law or custom – spreading corruption in private and public life, through intimidation, counting on habitual assent to injustice.

Kosovo shares one social problem with Saudi Arabia. That is the infiltration of radical Islam through the top clerical apparatus in the Balkan lands. The Wadjdas of Kosovo need to defy those who would, in the name of Islam, impose foreign habits on them. The story of victimized moderate Muslim clerics and intellectuals, removed from their congregations, dismissed from teaching positions, physically attacked, and otherwise abused, remains to be told.

As a Kosovo citizen, I owe allegiance to the female head of our state, President Atifete Jahjaga, nicknamed "Zarf-tifete," or "Envelope-tifete." Her position was gained two years ago, in April 2011, when her name was presented to the Kosovo government in an envelope, by the former U.S. ambassador to Kosovo from 2009 to 2012, Christopher Dell, who was an Obama appointee. Jahjaga was an unknown – when she became president there was only one picture of her in Google Images.

Atifete Jahjaga did not seek her post as president, the way Wadjda fought for her bicycle. Atifete Jahjaga risked nothing. She appears above party politics.

It would be bad enough if my very small country had only one Atifete Jahjaga, that is, only one person whose high position represented tokenism and reward without real merit. Unfortunately, the majority of women in Kosovo's public life are like her. She is supported by American diplomats and local personalities pushing and grabbing for others' positions: in business, in politics, in criminal operations, as silent partners.

President Atifete Jahjaga presents merely a positive image of Kosovo. It is a country with more than 90% of its 1.8 million people Muslim, a country with an Islamic majority but a female president.

Wadjda's director, Haifaa Al-Mansour, dedicated years of work to her product. She was forced into compromises, changing the script.

My country, Kosovo, with its Muslim identity, needs strong women in public life, who dare to do things forbidden in the name of Islam but which Islam does not prohibit.

Saudi Arabia is changing. Wadjda, a film that offered a realistic depiction of the opening-up of Saudi society, gained the support of Saudi King Abdullah. Some have criticized the film for showing Wadjda's mother buying the bicycle instead of the young girl herself.

I want a Wadjda for my country, in addition to women like President Atifete Jahjaga.

I have sisters and female friends. I would like to be a brother or friend to a female president, but to a president who has reached her position as Wadjda got her bicycle – because she deserved it.


Visar Duriqi is a young Kosovar Albanian who has become prominent as an investigative journalist exposing the penetration of radical Islam, and other social problems, in the Balkan republic. He is a Kosovo correspondent of the Center for Islamic Pluralism.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4277/kosovo-wadjda

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

The Left Renews Its Vows With Moscow

by William R. Hawkins


There were many on the Left in the West who lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union as much as Vladimir Putin. They saw the USSR as the main restraint on U.S. imperialism; helping to arm and support hostile Third World regimes and creating a zone of “peace” outside the reach of capitalism. The leftist view of the world did not change just because the Soviet empire disintegrated. Its motivation is still “anti-imperialist” and it has embraced every movement that has declared itself the enemy of Western civilization. The Ukrainian crisis has sparked a revival of the left-wing love affair with Moscow. What amounts to a renewal of vows in the ideological marriage of the Cold War is evident in how events are presented, with Russia again embraced for standing up to the United States and the European Union.
 
The Nation has, of course, taken its usual “blame the West first” explanation for the Ukraine crisis. It’s April 15 report cites the magazine’s long-serving editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, as saying, “We are witnessing civil war,” one that was “triggered by the European Union’s reckless ultimatum—despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer of a tripartite agreement—which compelled an elected president of a deeply divided country to choose economically between the West and Russia.” In truth, it was Russia’s stooge Viktor Yanukovych who broke off talks with the EU to lead Kiev into the Russian camp. His actions prompted an uprising of the Ukrainian people who did not want to be sold back into a revived Kremlin empire. In the face of an aroused Ukrainian populace, Putin realized there was no chance of controlling a democratically chosen Kiev government. So he resorted to force to grab what parts of the country he thinks Russia can hold.

It should be remembered that vanden Heuvel edited a collection of essays right after the 9/11 attacks. Its theme was that the terrorist attacks were “blowback” against American imperialism. Vanden Heuvel argued that the proper response was for Washington to refer the matter to the United Nations.
At OpEdNews, a radical website that frequently airs calls for President Barack Obama to be tried alongside Dick Cheney for war crimes (particularly for the use of drone strikes), there are columns like those of George Eliason, titled “Kiev’s War Against the Peace-Loving People of South-East Ukraine.” Left-wingers cannot understand why the Ukrainian people would want to be independent from Russia. Aligning with the evil capitalist West, even the democratic socialist EU, is anathema. Thus patriotic Ukrainians are termed “ultra-nationalists” who are then equated with “neo-Nazis.” Pro-Russian militants are called dissidents seeking liberation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is portrayed as wanting to resume Hitler’s march to the East, with the backing of the hegemonic United States. In an earlier column, Eliason criticized Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (who is of Lithuanian-descent) for having stated during John Kerry’s bid for the Presidency, “If John Kerry is elected; Kerry will work vigorously for Ukraine’s continued independence and prosperity.” That was apparently a fascist thought even though it came from a very liberal source.

Left-wing rhetoric is crude even by the low standards of the Cold War. Consider this diatribe from another OpEd columnist,

With the illegal, coup d’état installed government in Kiev about to engage in some very serious skull cracking to put down a mounting rebellion in Eastern Ukraine there have been some accounts that hired guns from corporate mercenary firms are augmenting the local paramilitary police forces. With the pushback against the US backed ‘Yats’ regime and it’s neo-Nazi shock troops it is imperative that a real version of the Euromaiden ‘revolution’ not be allowed to take root to oust the stooges of the corporate global finance mafia.

The author, Donn Martin, a self-styled progressive activist, cites a story from the state-run Russian News and Information Agency which is supposedly not as corrupt as the Western media. On April 9, RIA Novosti reported “The deployment of foreign private security firms in Ukraine is unacceptable as they increase the risk of an outbreak of civil war, Dennis John Kucinich, a former US Representative from Ohio and a two-time presidential candidate, told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.” Kucinich was such a joke as a Congressman that his own Democratic Party contrived to gerrymander him out of his seat. Leftists have often called Western NGOs “mercenaries,” especially the National Endowment for Democracy, which, it has been alleged, stirred up the anti-Yanukovych protests. For leftists like Martin, U.S.-EU policy is simply aimed at “making Ukraine safe for corporate vultures.”
Global Research is a Montreal-based group that studies “globalization” with a focus on opposing U.S. and allied operations against terrorism. It has also defended Iran from “predatory” Western policy including “US-NATO-Israel preparations to wage a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran.”
On March 30, it posted an essay “Canada’s Harper Stokes Imperialism’s Drive Against Russia.” Writer Keith Jones was eager to portray the Soviet Union as a victim whose agony is simply being continued by the U.S.:

It is the US, Canada and their European allies that have moved aggressively against Russia, which emerged from the restoration of capitalism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union economically and geopolitically hobbled. In the past two decades, NATO—the US-led military bloc whose raison d’être was to counter and, if need be, militarily conquer the Soviet Union—has incorporated all of the states of Eastern European formerly allied with the USSR, as well as the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which were part of the USSR until 1991. As a result, NATO forces are now deployed on Russia’s borders.

Jones makes no mention of the Berlin Wall or Warsaw Pact puppet governments only kept in power by the Red Army. Jones continues, “To achieve this predatory objective, the US and Germany precipitated the current crisis by intervening in Ukraine and fomenting the fascist-led overthrow of the country’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, after he balked at signing a pact with the European Union.” 
 
In the footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg and V.I. Lenin, Jones sees the West as creating the Ukrainian crisis to bail out “a systemic crisis of world capitalism”:

Through war and threats of war, Washington is seeking to offset the relative decline in the US’s economic might and lay claim to resources, markets and strategic territories….Canadian imperialism also hopes to directly profit from the confrontation between Russia and the western powers, seeing it as a golden opportunity for Canada to displace Russian oil exports to Europe and overcome opposition within the US to the building of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Jones makes no mention of how Moscow has used its leverage as a major supplier of natural gas to Europe to bully not only Ukraine but the rest of the continent. Providing Europe with alternative to Russian energy is a vital part of a long-term solution to the confrontation, but it is a solution that Jones does not want to see as it would weaken Russia. What is alarming is that Global Research claims its views are used as source material by college and university students.

Over at the Revolutionary Communist Progressive Labor Party (you can’t make this up) the mood is that former KGB officer Putin really is a welcome return of the USSR. In December, it presented a history of events leading to the current crisis:

Russian President Vladimir Putin successfully pressured cash-strapped Ukraine into remaining in Russia’s orbit and canceling its planned alliances with the U.S.-leaning European Union (EU) and the U.S.-run International Monetary Fund (IMF)…. For Russia, Ukraine is a matter of fundamental national security. For a Western power, Ukraine is of value only if that power is planning to engage and defeat Russia, as the Germans tried to do in World War II. Putin didn’t merely frustrate the EU and the IMF; he stopped the expansion of Pentagon-led NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in its tracks.

For Leftists, the nationalist revolution against Russian domination was not a real revolution. What Ukraine needs, according to the PLP, is a communist revolution against capitalism, which can only come if the country is kept out of the clutches of the West.

What motivates the Left is not research, analysis or “truth seeking.” It is motivated purely by hatred. Leftists are alienated from the Western civilization within which they live. They reject its values, scoff at its traditions and label its astounding material success as immoral. Yet, everyone needs to feel part of something larger than themselves. Since they cannot embrace anything akin to national loyalty, they align with foreign regimes or movements that share their opposition to their home country. Given that they only want the worst for their native land, to see it defeated in battle and to collapse into ruin and revolution, there is no reason for anyone who wants to see their nation remain strong and prosperous to pay any attention to their blathering. It is important, however, for the general public to know such “enemies within” exist, within the United States as in Ukraine, because it is from their ranks that sedition, treason and even terrorism are most likely to emerge.


William R. Hawkins

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/william-r-hawkins/the-left-renews-its-vows-with-moscow/

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

Why Negotiations Can't Succeed

by Gideon Israel


Almost nine months have passed since negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians were renewed. Since the content of the negotiations remains confidential it is difficult to gauge if actual ‘progress’ was achieved. In Israel, the political right points to the Palestinian Authority as the reason for the failure of negotiations, while the political left still wants to pursue the negotiations believing that it is critical to reach an agreement, while also blaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the settlements, construction announcements for the failure of negotiations.

For those who believe that the purpose of the peace process is actually a process in which ‘peace’ between two ‘nations’ will be achieved, it is hard to understand how the political left, after twenty years of negotiations, numerous Israeli concessions without any Palestinian concessions, continued PA- sponsored incitement against Israel, delegitimizing of Israel in all international forums, terror attacks, and rejection of Israel, still thinks there is a chance to reach peace. I believe the answer is simple and requires a readjustment of our expectations from the peace process and the nature of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The Israeli Left that is pursuing the peace process so zealously is not looking to achieve peace through the negotiations. The peace process is a vehicle for them to achieve something else. They believe that there is a Palestinian demographic problem (‘bomb’) and that Israel must rid itself of this problem, at any cost. This assertion is heavily disputed, and even if proven wrong they will claim that they don’t want to rule over a large Palestinian population. This is legitimate, but it helps get a better understanding of why they keep pursuing negotiations at any cost. What happens during negotiations doesn’t matter since the Israeli Left needs the Palestinians to agree to a state and thus they need the peace process no matter the price.

One outcome of this is that it doesn’t really matter that there is continued incitement on the Palestinian side toward the Israelis, since the goal of the peace process is not peace. They know incitement will occur both before and after an agreement is signed. Terror will also happen before and after a peace agreement. The goal of the Left is to setup a state for the Palestinians that will take the headache of the Palestinian population (and array of other problems) away from the Israelis. They, of course, will demand that the Palestinians make some type of declaration that the conflict is over, but the more important thing is that the Palestinians finally agreed to a state.

Since this is the attitude, all empirical facts which show that there is really no peace partner don’t really matter, since peace is not the objective. The proof of this is that so many on the Left do not care if Mahmoud Abbas recognizes Israel as a Jewish state. If it is essential to ending the conflict why doesn’t the Left demand it, and if it is not -- why can’t Abbas just say the sentence?

Furthermore, for the Left the ‘settlers’ are also enemy #1 since them and their ideology are blocking the Left from reaching a peace deal and of course endangering the Jewish majority of the state. There are also other reasons why parts of the Left want to relinquish Judea and Samaria (West Bank), but that is a different discussion. The Palestinians are well aware of this, and they know that when it comes to the Israeli Left they can keep milking the cow since the milk never stops – the Left will always make more concessions. The motivation to reach an agreement is nonexistent, since the Left will never throw in the towel.

This leads to me to the second point. Tzippi Livni, who is an actual person -- but also could be the name of any left-wing politician in charge of negotiations -- believes that negotiations happen in increments. There are many issues to cover with the Palestinians: borders, refugees, Jerusalem, water, commercial agreements, and more. During negotiations different issues are raised, some might be “agreed upon”, others progress has been achieved, and some remain in dispute. Hence, she believes that there has been progress in negotiations. Take a theoretical example: Livni has agreed to 1967 borders, land swaps for the settlements and the issue of Jerusalem is about to be solved except for control of certain neighborhoods and the Temple Mount. From her perspective, progress has been achieved and it’s just about sitting around the negotiating table and banging heads for another few days or weeks until the issues have been resolved.

However, for the Palestinian negotiators, it’s a different ballgame. They play on a completely different playing field and thus have lured the Israeli Left into believing that a peace deal is imminent and it’s because of Netanyahu or some other Israeli right-wing politician that everything is being held up. 
 
The Palestinians view the negotiations differently and play by different rules. The rule of the game is that the only deal that can be signed is one that allows the Palestinians to continue their struggle against Israel – like the Oslo agreement – where the Palestinians make no concessions and continue their terrorism against Israel; essentially rendering the agreement void of any content. The other type of agreement that can be signed is one where the Israeli side has made so many concessions that implementing the agreement will cause Israeli society to crumble from within.

Both of these types of agreements will be difficult for the Palestinians to achieve. So, how do the Palestinians keep their rational Israeli counterparts at the negotiating table? The Palestinians know that even the “Tzippi Livnis” of the world have red lines?

The strategy is as follows: the Palestinians view negotiations as a zero-sum game. Until everything is agreed upon, nothing is agreed upon. For example: an issue is put on the table such as borders. The Palestinians pretend to agree that that they have agreed upon ’67 borders with settlement swaps. The Israelis are excited, but the Palestinians know that in another area of negotiations where they will make an unreasonable demand which will cause the negotiations to stall. Once the negotiations stall, the sides will bang heads for a few weeks trying to fix the problem. However, the Palestinians know that even as they might be making progress on let’s say the water issue, they already have prepared another issue where they will make an unreasonable demand -- like demanding that the Israelis build them a seaport near Hadera so that they can easily export their agricultural products from the North and Central West Bank (they have not yet demanded this in public but this is an example). Completely ridiculous -- but they will demand it.

Should the water issue really stall, then the Palestinians will come and say “if you are not willing to compromise on the water issue then we demand that you give us complete control of the Temple Mount.” By doing this, the Palestinians have reopened a topic that the Israelis thought was agreed upon, whereas this was part of the strategy all along. We can call it “agree, refuse, demand, agree” -- this is the neverending cycle of negotiations which the Palestinians love -- since they keep on reaping the benefits of concessions, as they have done for the past 20 years, without giving anything in return. The Israeli Left can tolerate this process, since they really believe progress is being made and thus are willing to continue sitting at the negotiating table. Yet, they fail to understand that it’s a big game for the Palestinians and they are experts at it.

Enough has been written about the dangers of a Palestinian state and the damage that it would cause Israel; but I am not worried. When I hear that the sides are inching closer to an agreement I just smile. It can’t happen -- not on Abu Mazen’s watch.


Gideon Israel

Source: http://americanthinker.com/2014/04/why_negotiations_cant_succeed.html

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

Israeli Scientists make Genetic Code Breakthrough

by Ilan Gattegno, Israel Hayom Staff and Reuters

Israeli scientists discover cellular equivalent of "on/off" switches in DNA, explaining differences between modern humans and extinct Neanderthals • Paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer calls research "pioneering," and "a remarkable breakthrough."

A replica of a Neanderthall skull

|

Photo credit: Reuters

A replica of a Neanderthall skull | Photo credit: Reuters

Breakthrough Israeli research published in the online edition of the prestigious journal "Science" may explain what separates modern man, or Homo sapiens, from Neanderthals.

How can creatures as different in body and mind as present-day humans and their extinct Neanderthal cousins be 99.84 percent identical genetically?

Four years after scientists discovered that the two species' genomes differ by a fraction of a percent, geneticists said on Thursday they have an explanation: the cellular equivalent of "on/off" switches that determine whether DNA is activated or not.

The discovery also underlines the power of those on/off patterns. Together, they add up to what is called the human epigenome, to distinguish it from the human genome. The genome is the sequence of 3 billion molecules that constitute all of a person's DNA while the epigenome is which bits of DNA are turned on or off even as the molecular sequence remains unchanged.

In the last few years, research on the epigenome has shed light on how gene silencing leads to cancer, for instance, and how identical twins with identical DNA sequences can be very different. The epigenome exerts such powerful effects that it is often called the "second genetic code."

Now it has offered clues to what makes modern humans distinct.

For the new study, geneticists led by Liram Carmel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem started with DNA from limb bones: those of a living person, a Neanderthal and a Denisovan, an extinct human that lived in Eurasia during the Stone Age and whose remains -- a pinkie bone and a tooth, from a cave in Siberia -- were not discovered until 2010.

Geneticist David Gokhman and others on the Israeli team then examined the DNA's on/off patterns, identifying about 2,200 regions that were activated in today's humans, but silenced in either or both extinct species, or vice versa. When a gene is silenced, it does not produce the trait it otherwise would.

Chief among the epigenetic differences: a cluster of five genes called HOXD, which influences the shape and size of limbs, including arms and hands. It was largely silenced in both ancient species, the scientists found.

That may explain anatomical differences between archaic and present-day humans, including Neanderthals' shorter legs and arms, bowleggedness, large hands and fingers, and curved arm bones.

Calling the work "pioneering," and "a remarkable breakthrough," paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London said in an interview that the HOXD gene finding "may help to explain how these ancient humans were able to build stronger bodies, better adapted to the physical rigors of Stone Age life."

One caveat about the research is that one person's epigenome can vary markedly from another's due to diet, environment and other factors. It is therefore impossible to know whether the on/off patterns found in Neanderthal genes are typical of the species overall or peculiar to the individual studied.

Other DNA with big differences in on/off patterns between the extinct and present-day humans is associated with neurological and psychiatric disorders including autism, schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. More of the Neanderthal versions were silenced.

In an interview, Carmel speculated that any given gene might "do many things in the brain." When dozens of brain-related genes became more active in today's humans, that somehow produces the harmful side effect of neurological illness.

But the main effect might have been the astonishing leap in brain development that most distinguishes modern Homo sapiens from our extinct ancestors.

Ilan Gattegno, Israel Hayom Staff and Reuters

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=16953

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

Dems May Regret Steyer’s Keystone Payoff

by Jonathan S. Tobin


After a lengthy study of the plans for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, the U.S. State Department issued an 11-volume report back in January confirming what most experts had already concluded long before then: the vital project would not damage the environment or increase the rate of carbon pollution. But liberal activists weren’t happy and have used the 90-day automatic review process that followed that report to furiously lobby the administration to stop the construction of the 1,700-mile pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast refineries. The key player in that effort was Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental extremist who has pledged to give $100 million to Democratic candidates who do his bidding. Though President Obama has flirted at times with doing the right thing and letting the project proceed, the result of the push from Steyer and the rest of the global warming alarmist crowd was as predictable as it was politically motivated. In a Friday afternoon news dump to guarantee minimal news coverage, the State Department announced that it would indefinitely postpone the decision on approval of Keystone.

Like the numerous delays of implementation of many of the provisions of ObamaCare, the delay in the final decision on Keystone is blatantly political. By putting it off until after this year’s midterm elections, the president is hoping to both assuage left-wing donors who are essential to his party’s waning hopes of holding on to the Senate and to allow vulnerable red-state Democrats to avoid blame for a decision that would hurt the economy and the cause of energy independence. But though this seems like an astute compromise that will allow the president to play both ends against the middle, it is a case of the administration being too clever by half. Far from helping the cause of Democrats like Alaska’s Mark Begich, Colorado’s Mark Udall, and Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, the Keystone delay has handed Republicans an issue with which they can batter these incumbents. Though liberals like Obama have sought to demonize GOP donors like the Koch brothers for trying to buy votes to advance their libertarian agenda, the Keystone decision is nothing less than a $100 million payoff to Steyer.

In her usual role as administration apologist, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was trotted out today on NBC’s Meet the Press to deny that the decision was politically motivated. But like so much of what comes out of Wasserman Schultz’s mouth, that assurance has zero credibility. The bottom line here is that a shovel-ready jobs project that will be good for the American economy and energy independence has been shelved, perhaps forever, because of the Democratic party’s dependence on a small group of environmental extremists with disproportionate financial and political clout.

Keystone critics howl about what they claim will be the negative impact on the environment from Canada’s recovery of oil from the sands of Alberta. But their claims are largely unproved. And, as far as the U.S. is concerned, spiking the pipeline won’t stop Canada from getting the oil out of the ground and shipping it somewhere. The only question is whether the resources will be kept in North America or sent to China or some other place.

Obama’s delays of Keystone are a symptom of an administration that talks about wanting to promote jobs but is far more interested in sweetheart deals like the Solyndra boondoggle than in getting the government out of the way of the private sector on projects that could actually put a lot of people to work. While their focus on alternatives to fossil fuels seems admirable, it actually betrays hostility to economic development and industries like oil refinement and coal that remain essential to the country’s future.

The Keystone delay is also symbolic of the way Obama’s indifference to energy independence has hindered U.S. foreign policy. At a time when European dependence on Russia as well as the Middle East has hampered efforts to defend Ukraine’s independence or to rally the world behind the cause of stopping Iran’s nuclear quest, the administration’s politically-motivated foot-dragging on Keystone is more evidence of how an unwillingness to lead by example has hamstrung Obama.

But the bottom line of the Keystone delay is that for all their talk about the Kochs and the supposedly malevolent forces financing the right, there is no longer any doubt that this administration is far more dependent as well as more in the pocket of men like Steyer than the Republicans are on any single contributor or group. When faced with a choice between Steyer’s $100 million and doing the right thing for both the economy and energy independence, Obama’s decision was never really in doubt. Democrats who think voters are too stupid to make this connection may rue this corrupt and foolish move in November.


Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/04/20/dems-may-regret-steyers-keystone-payoff/

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