The Obama administration’s most covert war - Caroline B. Glick

by Caroline B. Glick

Hat tip: Dr. Carolyn Tal

The Obama Administration believes it is at war with Israel- not a shooting war, but a political war.

Over the past several weeks, we have learned that the Obama administration believes it is at war with Israel. The war is not a shooting war, but a political war. Its goal is to bring the government to its knees to the point where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loses power or begs Obama and his advisers to shepherd Israel through a “peace process” in which Israel will renounce its rights to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

One component of this war is espionage. Last month The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel is a top target for American espionage.

The other component of the administration’s war against Israel is political subversion. Over the past week, the administration has campaigned against the NGO bill sponsored by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. If the bill, which was approved by the government, becomes law, it will require political NGOs that are principally financed by foreign governments to identify as foreign agents in their official communications and interactions.

Last week, State Department spokesman James Kirby lambasted the bill at an official briefing. Among other things, Kirby rejected Shaked’s claim that her bill is less restrictive than the US’s own Foreign Agents Registration Act. Kirby offered no substantiation of his claim.

Earlier this week, US Ambassador Dan Shapiro met with Shaked. Following their meeting, the US Embassy published two statements attacking the NGO law. In one of them, the embassy sought to substantiate Kirby’s claim regarding FARA. By the embassy’s telling, FARA relates only to agents whose action are directly guided by foreign governments, while Shaked’s NGO bill relates to entities that receive financing from foreign governments whether or not their actions are directed by the government financiers.

The embassy’s claim is deeply misleading.

As attorney Lorri Lowenthal Marcus explained this week in The Jewish Press, in practice, the burden of proof that US entities are not directed by foreign governments that fund them falls on the entities, not on the US government. In her words, the US law “uses ambiguous words and tests which are far more likely to lead to over-broad applications and chilling of speech than does the straightforward Israeli proposal’s standard.”

Moreover, whereas Shaked’s proposed NGO law would fine entities that fail to abide by reporting restrictions, under FARA, US entities that fail to abide by the restrictions of the law can face both fines and up to five years in prison.

The duplicitous nature of the administration’s assault on Shaked’s bill is all the more obvious when we consider how senior US officials view these politicized organizations.

Currently, the State Department is slowly fulfilling a federal court order to publish the emails Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton sent from her private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Over the past several weeks, the department has published a number of emails regarding Israel that reveal the depth of hostility Clinton’s closest advisers harbored toward Israel.

Last week, one such email demonstrated that Clinton’s senior anti-Israel advisers viewed radical Israeli-registered NGOs as agents for the administration to use in order to carry out covert anti-Israel policies.

The email in question is a letter Clinton received in December 2011 from retired ambassador Thomas Pickering. Clinton asked her chief of staff to print out his letter.

Pickering’s illustrious career reached its peak during Bill Clinton’s administration. Clinton’s husband appointed Pickering, a former ambassador to Israel, to serve as undersecretary of state for policy planning, the third-most senior position at the State Department.

Pickering retired in 2001, at the end of the Clinton years. Since retiring, he has enjoyed the status of elder statesman among the American foreign policy elite. He has also been a loyal supporter and lobbyist for Iran, and a signatory on numerous plans to stick it to Israel.

In his letter to Clinton, Pickering recommended using leftist NGOs – including Peace Now, which he mentioned by name – to destabilize the political situation on the ground in Israel.

Pickering set out a plan, which in his view would force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ask the Americans to initiate a new diplomatic process with the Palestinians.

Pickering’s plan involved organizing a protest movement of Palestinian and Israeli women to “bring continuing pressure to change minds at the top.”

On the Palestinian side, Pickering said, “there might be peaceful demonstrations against all aspects of the occupation on the Palestinian sides – roadblocks, land confiscations, new settlement activity, around military government installations and perhaps in Area C, which they do not control.”

These actions Pickering wrote, “could create the kind of action which no army can easily use force to deal with.... With all and only women demonstrating peacefully under the eyes of the world, the chances are much less force will be used against them, since that action has its own consequences.”

In other words, Pickering sought to organize provocations of IDF units “under the eyes of the world,” in which IDF soldiers would be portrayed as being mean to Palestinian women. These women for their part would provoke them to be mean by interfering with military operations or disrupting the lives of Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria.

Pickering made no bones about the covert nature of this US anti-Israel subversion. He warned Clinton, “Most of all the United States, in my view, cannot be seen to have stimulated encouraged or be the power behind it for reasons you will understand better than anyone.

“I believe third parties and a number of NGOs on both sides would help.”

That is, Clinton’s confidante, the elder statesman who organized a lobby on behalf of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, called for the secretary of state to use radical Israeli NGOs as US agents to carry out a covert US operation against an allied government.

A notable aspect of Pickering’s plan is his underlying assumption that the US-organized demonstrations would be filmed and used against Israel in the court of public opinion.

For the past several years, the US government has funded B’Tselem’s video project.

According to NGO Monitor, in 2014 the US paid some $68,000 for the project which provides video cameras and photographic training to Palestinians. The goal is for them to film IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians in fraught situations and call their morality and legitimacy into question.

It was his recognition that cameras are the new weapon of Israel’s enemies that caused Gilad Ach, a 32-year-old master’s student at Tel Aviv University, to form his own NGO – Ad Kan. Ad Kan’s goal is to penetrate radical Israeli NGOs to expose their problematic activities.

In a bit of bad timing for the administration, last Thursday, the same day Kirby launched the administration’s public assault against Shaked’s NGO bill, and just before Pickering’s email to Clinton was published, Uvda, Channel 2’s investigative news magazine, broadcast a report revealing some of the findings that Ach and his colleagues have uncovered in Ad Kan’s three-year operation.

Over the past three years, Ad Kan employees have seeded themselves inside radical Israeli NGOs and surreptitiously filmed their operations.

The footage broadcast last week on Uvda showed senior “human rights” operatives for B’Tselem and Ta’ayush, Nasser Nawajah and Ezra Nawi, plotting to bring about the arrest, torture and murder of a Palestinian by the Palestinian Authority’s US-trained and -funded security services.

The Palestinian in question was, as far as they were concerned, marked for torture and murder because he was hoping to sell his land to Jews in the South Hebron Hills around the Israeli community of Sussiya.

One of the strangest aspects of the Uvda report was the radical Left’s response to it. By and large, leftist groups refused to condemn what Nawi and Nawajah were doing. B’Tselem, which is supposed to fight for Palestinian human rights, said that it is legitimate to turn Palestinians who wish to sell their property to Jews over to the PA, despite the fact that the PA’s penalty for such actions is death.

Beyond what their refusal to condemn solicitation of murder and torture says about their commitment to Palestinian human rights, the radical Left’s silence reveals just how key Nawi and Nawajah are to their operations.

In a word, Nawajah and Nawi are superstars of the radical Left in Israel and throughout the Western world. Last July, Nawajeh published an op-ed in The New York Times. In it, he accused Israel of denying the property rights of Palestinians in the exact area where he and Nawi plotted the murder of a Palestinian who sought to exercise his property rights by selling his land to Israelis.

As Liel Liebowitz reported in the Tablet online magazine, in 2007, after Nawi was arrested at a violent protest against the IDF, 20,000 people, including the who’s who of the radical Left in Israel and in the US, signed a petition demanding his immediate release.

Leading members of the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement in the US, including Jewish Voices for Peace, have financed Nawi’s activities.

Pickering recommended using NGOs to organize protests. Ad Kan exposed how this is done.

On Monday, Channel 2 broadcast Ad Kan surveillance footage showing a Breaking the Silence employee paying Nawi and his Ta’ayush colleague Guy Botavia for organizing a demonstration against IDF soldiers. Botavia serves as the head of Ta’ayush’s video project.

In the same report, Ta’ayush activists are filmed paying Palestinians in cash for participating in the demonstration, in which they threw rocks at IDF soldiers.

In a conversation this week with The Jerusalem Post, Ach claimed that without the NGOs, the Palestinians would not be demonstrating. “I asked one of the Palestinians if he would be rioting if the NGO wasn’t paying him. He said no.

“I asked him what he does when he isn’t rioting.

He said he’s a construction worker in Modi’in Illit, [an Israeli settlement beyond the 1949 armistice lines]. That is, five days a week, Israelis pay him to build settlements, and the rest of the week, other Israelis pay him to throw rocks on soldiers.

“This guy only works for Israelis – either to build or destroy,” Ach wryly noted.

One of the common claims the far Left has made in response to the Uvda report is that if the report is all Ad Kan managed to learn in three years of planting moles in these groups, then clearly there is nothing to expose.

But Ach explains, what Ad Kan has revealed to date is merely the tip of the iceberg.

And so, as the Obama administration ratchets up its political war against Israel in its final year in office, we can expect to learn that like the administration itself, the NGOs the administration is so concerned about protecting have and will stop at nothing to achieve their goal of demonizing Israel and destroying its good name in the Western world.


Caroline B. Glick

Source: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Column-one-The-Obama-administrations-most-covert-war-441567

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

New Permutations in the Mideast “Game of Camps” - Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman

by Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Middle East is today divided into four rival camps: Iran with her proxies and allies; the Salafi Jihadists, currently dominated by the so-called “Islamic State”; the Muslim Brotherhood movement in its various manifestations, including Hamas, supported by Qatar and by Erdogan's Turkey; and the “forces of stability”: all those who fear and resist the rise of the first three camps, with Israel an active and important player in this latter camp.

The first few days of 2016 have already provided fresh evidence of the changing dynamics of the regional balance of power. The escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran are the most salient aspect of a larger drama now unfolding across a broad landscape – from Yemen to Syria and from the Gulf to Libya.

The traditional tool of analysis of the Realist school – "raison d'etat" – has largely been rendered irrelevant by the collapse of states. Thus it is necessary to map the regional struggles – which have brought about immense destruction, bloodshed, deprivation, mass migration and foreign intervention – along the ideological fault lines dividing the groups now seeking to dominate the region's future.

It is easy enough, when the Saudis execute a Shi'a cleric and Iran erupts in sectarian anger, to simplify the current upheaval in terms of the primordial confessional divide between Shiites and Sunnis; the divide that has torn apart the world of Islam since the days of 'Ali Ibn Abu Talib in the 7th century. And yet the present confrontation deserves a more nuanced analysis; a perspective that avoids the tarring of all Muslims, or of all Shi'a or Sunnis, with the same brush.

The rivalries being played out so violently across the region reflect the imprint of modern ideological imperatives, albeit interwoven with traditional themes: the revolutionary politics of 20th century totalitarianism woven into, or rather, dressed up as, fundamental religious positions. This distinction is useful not only in order to better understand the emerging landscape but also to design coherent strategies to beat back and ultimately defeat the totalitarian challenge.

Thus, it is possible to discern in the "Middle East" as broadly defined – North Africa, the Levant, the Red Sea basin, and the Gulf – not two confessional camps, but four ideological camps.

[One might add a fifth, secular nationalist socialist camps, which once dominated Arab politics; and a sixth camp:  the hopeful young liberals who played such a prominent role in launching the political upheaval in the first place. But these are the forces of the past and (perhaps) of the future, respectively. They are not in real contention for power at present.]

Of the forces who are in contention, three camps or groups belong to the general category of Islamist totalitarians: Iran with her proxies and allies; the Salafi Jihadists, currently dominated by the so-called “Islamic State” (IS); and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) movement in its various manifestations, including Hamas, supported by Qatar and by Erdogan's Turkey. (Prime Minister Netanyahu has called these groups “branches of the same poisonous tree”).

The fourth camp, loosely defined, brings together all those who fear and resist the rise of the first three camps. We can call these actors []the forces of stability, with Israel as an active and important player in this camp.

What we are witnessing is a shift in the complex balance of power among these four camps. They are essentially at war – even if they do at times find it possible to cooperate across the ideological divide, against what they come to see as even more dangerous enemies.

The sharp edge of the escalating Iranian-Saudi confrontation reflects the fact that the Iranian camp on one hand, and the forces of stability on the other, have by now come to see each other as the predominant challenger, with IS and the MB relegated to a second tier.

What happened? To begin with, the Ikhwani (Muslim Brotherhood) camp went into sharp decline, diminishing their prospects and curbing their ambitions.  (Turkey had hoped that the AKP could become the predominant political template for the rising MB tide). Sisi's grip on power in Egypt seems firm, despite persistent economic problems, recurrent terror    attacks, and serious doubts as to the validity of the recent parliamentary elections. The chances of an MB return to power seem slim.

Elsewhere, an-Nahdha in Tunisia has regained the status of the largest party in parliament, when the governing coalition of parties (Nidaa Tunis) fell apart. But at this point, they seem to have little appetite to take power again.

Hamas, after the painful blows of 2014, remains eager to avoid another test of wills in Gaza. The Jordanian front party of the Ikhwan has split. The Syrian MB factions have been marginalized. Across the Gulf, the written work of Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Mawlana Abu-A'la al-Mawdudi and their likes is being taken off the shelves as subversive. The list could go on and on. In short, since the summer of 2013, the fortunes of the MB has been receding, casting doubts about the movement's usefulness as a “strong horse” with which to ride to power.

The same cannot yet be said of IS, whose spectacular acts of public brutality enhance their mystique and still draw to them certain types of young people, excited by the prospect of a life of action outside all Western (read: human) norms.

On the ground, IS has made gains in places like Libya, and its forces still hold large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Its momentum, however, has been checked.

The Russian intervention in Syria may not have been quite as transformative as it is claimed to be, but it did increase the Western drive to do more – as did the horrors in Paris. The fight against IS is still far from being overwhelming; it needs to be far more focused and purposive, operationally and strategically. But it is sufficient to ensure that Baghdadi's “Caliphate” is being steadily eroded, and cannot ultimately compete at the highest level of the struggle for power.

This seemed to leave the Iranian regime and its wide network of proxies, allies and agents in a position to turn the years of turmoil to its advantage. With the Russians now shouldering some of the burden of saving the rump regime state in what is left of Syria from collapse, the Iranian camp is free to resume the march for regional hegemony. This is true even before international sanctions on Iran are lifted and funds begin to flow to Teheran.

Consider these developments. An IRGC commander has already boasted that the Guards already control four Arab capitals – Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana'a – and two of the world's maritime choke points, in the Straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab. To this scary list could be added the network of subversives in the Eastern seaboard of the Arabian peninsula – whose activities were at the core of the violent Saudi reaction. On the Mediterranean, in addition to their grip on Lebanon through Hizbullah, a fully-owned Iranian subsidiary, and their hold on Assad's remnant of Syria, Iran also has a proxy in Gaza known as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), as well as a cooperative relationship with Hamas (although the latter belongs to the MB camp).

The Obama Administration, which looks upon the nuclear deal as a key strategic legacy, has been paying lip service (but little more) to the need to counter Iranian regional ambitions. As the international focus shifts to fighting IS, it is not surprising that the Saudis and others in the region have the impression that Obama and other Western leaders are willing to look at Iran as part of the solution, not the key part of the problem. After all, Iranian-trained Shi'a militias were increasingly significant in the battle against IS in Iraq, and Tehran has been willing to sing from the same sheet of music as Washington when it comes to fighting “terrorists.”

(This is, of course, a fairly surprising assertion from the world's premier fount of state-sponsored terror, as the authorities in Argentina, Bulgaria and India know all too well. Even more surprising is the willingness of some in Washington to take these Iranian protestations at face value.)

Perhaps more than any other factor, it is this sense that the US can no longer be relied upon to stand effectively alongside the forces of stability in the region which drives the new dynamics in “the game of camps.”

Saudi Arabia has by now put together a broad, Sunni-based coalition of forces committed to fighting terrorism. It is, in effect, conducting a continuous and often brutal coalition warfare against the Houthi uprising in Yemen (– which is seen in Riyadh as a Shi'a dagger aimed at the two holy sites, Mecca and Medina, in the Hijaz, Saudi Arabia's Western province and the cradle of Islam).

Enough inducements (and pressures) were brought to bear on Bashir's regime in Sudan, ultimately translated into a dramatic decision to defect form the Iranian camp directly over into the Saudi-led ranks in Yemen The Sudanese have been joined several Arab states in cutting off relations with their former patrons in Tehran.

Most significantly, Turkey – facing growing friction with Russia over Syria and the need for a general review of her priorities, given the extremely poor results of past policies – also has strongly indicated an interest in closer association with the Saudis and their camp. In this context, interestingly enough, Ankara has openly raised the proposition of improving relations with Israel.

This new reality has thus become so distinct so as to force Turkey and Qatar to consolidate their bilateral cooperation, including unprecedented plans to station Turkish forces in Qatar, as well as to reconsider their priorities in the regional game.

It would be premature, and at this stage unwise, to speak of the emergence of a coherent and strong camp of stability, acting in close cooperation. The Saudis seriously differ with Egypt over Syria, and the Israeli relationship with Abbas’ regime in Ramallah, despite common perspectives on the broader regional challenges, has suffered a severe regression in recent months as the Palestinians latched on to a wave of terror as a political tool. Turkey's shift has yet to mature, and Erdogan's intentions (and his continued commitment to Hamas) still arouse suspicions in Jerusalem, and in Cairo.

But given the potential rise of Iranian power, alliances which until recently seemed unlikely may well become the building blocks of new realities. This is exactly what already has happened in the Eastern Mediterranean, where the interests of Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Greece and Cyprus, as well as Italy and other European powers who are waking up to the dangers of the present situation – now cohere.

Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman is a senior research associate at the BESA Center, and former deputy for foreign policy and international affairs at the National Security Council.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.
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Photo Credit: World Jewish Digest


Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman - (Ph.D. London School of Economics) Member of Faculty, Shalem Academic Center. Former deputy for foreign policy and international affairs at the National Security Council in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. Held senior posts in IDF Military Intelligence for over 20 years. Also served as Israel director of the American Jewish Committee.

Source: http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/new-permutations-in-the-mideast-game-of-camps/

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

Who Is Betraying the Palestinians? - Bassam Tawil

by Bassam Tawil

• If the Americans and Europeans continue meddling, the stable but still fragile Palestinian social fabric in the West Bank will tear, and at the first sign of weakness, Hamas and ISIS will rush in -- as they have long been planning -- to take over.
• Every Arab regime has, at one time or another, used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an excuse to oppress its people. Our fellow Muslims have been happy to use us as a pretext: We are waging war because of the Palestinians. We refuse to fight because of the Palestinians. We cannot do what you want because of the Palestinians. At no time did they ever seriously seek to resolve the conflict -- nor did they ever want to.
• The sheikhs who claimed it was forbidden for Muslims to live under the shadow of infidel European Christianity now have to watch as Muslims grovel at Europe's feet and beg the infidel Christians for a safe haven and shelter from... other Muslims.

According to Islamic sources, one of the signs of yawm al-qiyamah (Judgment Day) and redemption is the appearance of the False Messiah, masih dajjal, sent by Satan in the guise of the True Messiah. He is charismatic and powerful, his skin is the color of bronze, his hair is curly and his eyes flash fire. He pretends to do good deeds, drawing people to him and making them blindly follow him.

According to the tradition, the False Messiah sows disaster around the world, marking the stage before redemption. The Qur'an says, "You may love something that is bad for you and hate something that is good for you," a convenient way of cajoling people into doing things they might find distasteful, such as blowing themselves up.

When U.S. President Barack Obama began his presidency and bowed down before the Islamists at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, we thought he would bring redemption to the Arab world. But his meddling in the Middle East has led to the final dissolution of most of the Arab states. The United States has muscled through a "nuclear deal" that the Iranians will not sign. How could one even expect Iran to sign anything with a country they call "the Great Satan?" Would you?

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, on June 4, 2009. (Image source: White House)

As an additional advantage, since Iran has not actually signed anything, they cannot be accused of cheating -- not that it would matter to them if they were, given their track record of breaking the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The expected infusion of astronomical amounts cash will enable Iran to complete its nuclear weapons program and intercontinental ballistic missiles along with it; arm Hezbollah even more; spread greater terror and further the Shi'ite takeover of the Sunni regions.

The delusions of the Carter administration resulted in the overthrow of Iran's Shah. This experience should have taught the Americans not to allow the overthrow of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak. The man was undone by Obama's comic-book fantasies and unworkable, starry-eyed demands. The rise and survival of Egypt's current President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi -- despite the attempt of the U.S. administration to reinstate Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood's regime -- is only due to the will of Allah.

By withdrawing prematurely from a stable, if imperfect, Iraq, Obama caused much chaos in the Middle East. His wishful thinking and rambling concepts -- from America's great followership to resolving conflicts by surrendering -- have stripped America of all deterrence and sucked the Middle East into an ocean of blood. His adolescent worldview, idealizing Islam, is nothing more than nostalgia for the days of his youth. His daydream of a peace-seeking "political Islam," divorced from violence, has brought the Middle East devastation, wretchedness and death.

As Palestinians, our reactions are sorrow and frustration. We have to tell the truth and say that nothing is left of our dreams that the Arab armies would conquer Israel. Those of us who once thought that Islamist terrorist organizations would save us have now realized that this is not going to happen.

The Arab leaders who used to blame the miseries of our people on Jews and Zionists are now left with nothing but their empty words. Their hearts are full of envy, hatred and frustration as they look at the blossoming of Israel, the land Allah promised the Jews in the Qur'an, a flower in a burning field of weeds.

The Muslim clerics who claimed it was forbidden for Muslims to live under the shadow of infidel European Christianity sent our young people to blow themselves up to kill Jews and Christians, to frighten and conquer Europe. They now have to watch as Muslims grovel at Europe's feet and beg the infidel Christians for a safe haven and shelter from... other Muslims.

The leaders of the wealthy Arab states are apathetic and have no solution, or even advice, for the millions of Syrian Muslim refugees who have lost their homes and families; yet the European "Crusaders" have opened their gates to thousands of desperate Muslims who reach their shores.

There will always be Muslim sheikhs who will claim that the wave of Muslims seeking salvation in Europe will eventually join those mujahidin [jihad warriors] who for years have been organizing in the European ghettos, but a close look reveals that the only ones genuinely profiting from the situation are the Jews, and that the prophecies of the Qur'an are coming to pass: the Noble Qur'an prophesies that the Jews will return to Beit Almakdis (Jerusalem) and the land around it from the four corners of the world to live there, and it gives the Jews the Blessed Land and Jerusalem.

The Iranians promised us they would liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque, but all they really want is to lull us into a false sense of security, then take over the Arabian Peninsula. They have infiltrated and subverted Yemen and Bahrain, and taken control of the Straits of Bab al Mandeb, Hormuz and countries between Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut.

While the Arabs are weak and divided -- thanks to America's policy of divide and conquer -- the Iranians keep on getting stronger. In light of the catastrophe Obama has caused the Arab world -- with millions of refugees flooding the Middle East and invading Europe from Africa and the Arab countries -- the dream of returning to Palestine has vanished.

It has long been obvious that there is no connection whatsoever between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the chaos in the Middle East. Every Arab regime has, at one time or another, used the conflict as an excuse to oppress its people by telling them they were fighting a common enemy. We have been betrayed by them as much as by the Europeans.

Our fellow Muslims have been happy to use us as a pretext, to have something to point at and complain about: We are waging war; it is because of the Palestinians. We refuse to fight; it is because of the Palestinians. We cannot do what you want; it is because of the Palestinians. At no time did they ever seriously seek to resolve the conflict, nor did they ever want to.

The great benefit we have is that the Israelis no longer rule us. We now have an autonomy. If the Americans and Europeans continue meddling and pressuring one side or the other in our conflict with the Israelis, eventually the stable but still fragile Palestinian social fabric in the West Bank will tear, and at the first sign of weakness Hamas and ISIS will rush in -- as they have long been planning -- to take over.

All we can do is comfort ourselves with the thought that given all the signs, the redemption of the world is coming and the Mahdi everyone is waiting for will soon be here. 


Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7245/betraying-palestinians

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

Barry and the Pirates - William A. Levinson

by William A. Levinson

Let's not mince words here about what the Iranians did to our sailors.

It is particularly telling that Barack Obama spent part of his State of the Union speech telling us that the state of our Union is strong while Iranian pirates seized two U.S. Navy vessels and then, as pointed out by Rick Moran, violated the Geneva Conventions by publishing a photo of the captured sailors on their knees with their hands on their heads.

The Iranian action was both piracy and an intentional act of war against the United States.  If the boats strayed into Iranian waters due to navigational or mechanical problems, Iran was obliged under international law to render them assistance.  "Accidents in international air or sea traffic, even those involving military vessels, generally require nations to assist the victims and keep hands off the stricken planes or ships, the experts said."  Note also that "Iranian officials searched [the boats] for advanced technology and sensitive communications."

If this is not enough to define Iran's behavior as piracy and an act of war, Moran also pointed out that an Iranian general said openly that its purpose was to teach the United States a lesson.  "'This incident in the Persian Gulf, which probably will not be the American forces' last mistake in the region, should be a lesson to troublemakers in the U.S. Congress,' Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, head of Iran's armed forces, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency."

The Iranian pirates then drove this point home by publishing humiliating images of our service members on their knees with their hands over their heads (a war crime) as well as captured American weapons.  In addition, we have to ask how the pirates managed to capture the boats in the first place.

Why Did the Boats Surrender?

Noting also that it is disgraceful for any soldier or sailor to give up his or her weapon except under the direst circumstances, this also is an intentional humiliation of the United States.  Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, once punished some men who had allowed themselves to be disarmed by a mob by forcing them to appear on parade with wooden swords.  The Code of Conduct for the U.S. Armed Forces reinforces this principle: "I will never surrender of my own free will.  If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist."

Surrender is therefore acceptable only in the face of overwhelming force, when resistance would result in the futile loss of personnel and material.  While Iranian destroyers or frigates, possibly with support from aircraft and antiship missiles, might have constituted overwhelming force against ten sailors in two small boats, why were the U.S. destroyers and aircraft carriers that should have supported the boats out of position to do so?  The same question might be asked, by the way, why military support was not provided to our ambassador and his staff in Benghazi.

Vice President Joe Biden then lied to the American public by saying that the United States did not apologize to Iran: "Iran neither sought nor received an apology when 10 U.S. Navy sailors were taken into custody by the Islamic republic after drifting into Iranian waters."  Iran published simultaneously an apology extorted from the boats' commander: "It was a mistake. That was our fault and we apologize for our mistake." Noting that a captured service member is obliged to provide only his or her name, rank, and serial number, we must ask what kind of threats the pirates made against his crew members, and perhaps the female one in particular, to compel him to make this statement.

Shotgun Joe then added with a straight face, "The Iranians picked up both boats, as we have picked up Iranian boats that needed to be rescued" and then "released them like, you know, ordinary nations would do."  Is the vice president of the United States telling us that the United States also committed piracy on the high seas and war crimes by boarding the Iranian boats and forcing their sailors to kneel with their hands on their heads, searching the boats for sensitive and classified material and distributing humiliating photographs of the Iranian sailors?

Don't Give the Bully Your Lunch Money

The bottom line is that Iran demanded the United States' lunch money to see what the United States would do about it, and the United States as led by Barack Obama paid up.  This in turn assures Iran's theocrats that the United States will not raise a finger to stop them from building nuclear weapons in violation of their agreement with the United States, just as we have done nothing substantial about their test of a ballistic missile.

Alexander the Great said that he feared an army of sheep led by one lion more than he feared an army of lions led by a sheep, and Iran knows the United States to be led by a sheep.  Its piracy of U.S. Navy vessels and its humiliation of our service members proves that the Armed Forces of the United States, as led by Barack Obama, are less to be feared than an army of rabble led by somebody like Vladimir Putin.  When Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft and killed a Russian pilot, Putin did not apologize to Recep Erdoğan for purportedly violating Turkish airspace; he imposed economic sanctions to make Erdoğan regret it.

Anybody who knows anything about leadership realizes that the instant the bully demands your lunch money, you must knock him down on the spot, or else he will take your lunch money every day, and then perhaps your school books and everything else you have.  An excellent scene in Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Devil (1990, 139-140) illustrates this principle.

Richard Sharpe (played by Sean Bean in the TV series) has been pressed into service on a ship with some very unsavory characters, including a bully named Balin.  Balin says he likes Sharpe's English coat and moves to take it from him, whereupon:

… the moment his hand took hold of the material Sharpe brought up his right boot, hard and straight, the kick hidden by the coat until the instant it slammed into Balin's groin. The big man grunted, mouth open, and Sharpe rammed his head forward, hearing and feeling the teeth break under his forehead's blow. [Sharpe continues to batter him even after he is down and then] … he stooped, plucked a good bone-handled knife from Balin's belt, picked his coat up from the deck, and looked around. "Does anyone else want an English coat?"

Rudyard Kipling made the same point in his poem "Dane-Geld."  "And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld; You never get rid of the Dane."  The world learned this principle the hard way when Neville Chamberlain let Adolf Hitler steal his lunch money, along with Czechoslovakia, at Munich.  Chamberlain could not have told Hitler more plainly that Hitler could take what he wanted, and do whatever he wanted, without repercussions.  Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and John Kerry just told Iran's dictators the same thing.

There was a time when the sight of an American flag promised nothing but instant and violent death to any pirate who made the slightest move to attack the vessel in question – rather than "take whatever you want," as it does under the Obama regime.  This makes it more important than ever to elect somebody who will not tolerate for an instant violence against our country or our Armed Forces.  That somebody is not among the Democratic Party's candidates.


William A. Levinson, P.E., is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/barry_and_the_pirates.html

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

'Zuckerberg don't kill us!' Facebook incitement battle heats up - Ari Soffer

by Ari Soffer

Israeli rights group to rent billboards outside Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's home to force him to stop ignoring rampant incitement.

Since the major escalation in Arab terrorist attacks in Israel began at the start of October last year, Israelis have consistently complained about the use of social media to incite terrorism and glorify "martyrdom," and the lack of enforcement by social media companies.

Indeed, analysts and Israeli officials alike have noted that the current wave of terror was preceded by months of ceaseless, often extremely graphic Arab online incitement, including videos and even instructions on how to best stab, slash or disembowel innocent victims. Since the terror wave began that incitement has only worsened.

Perhaps the worst offender in this regard is Facebook, which not faces legal action over its slow, minimal reaction to the reams of anti-Semitic incitement uploaded daily.

Now, the Israeli rights NGO which is leading the legal campaign against Facebook incitement is taking the fight directly to the digital giant's CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Shurat HaDin has launched a Headstart fundraising campaign to hang billboards opposite Zuckerberg's multi-million dollar home highlighting and condemning the ongoing incitement on Facebook.



"If he doesn’t see the incitement, we will display it opposite his California home," the group said in a statement.

"The phenomenon of incitement on Facebook has become one of the characteristics of the current wave of terror in Israel," the statement continued. "Facebook pages which show how most effectively to kill Jews, include detailed instruction and encouragement for the killers on social media networks.

"On Facebook, you can find guidelines for the murderer: For example, to spray the knife with K300 (poison) prior to stabbing the Jew, or instructions as to where on the body to stab so that the murder will be most effective; and also encouragement for the murderers and their transformation into cultural heroes."

Shurat HaDin has long led the battle against the incitement on Facebook already for a long time, having recently filed a lawsuit on behalf of 20,000 Israelis against Facebook over its continued inaction against incitement.

Despite this, Shurat HaDin says, tens of thousands of complaints to Facebook requesting that posts inciting murder and terror attacks against Jews have received the following laconic response from Facebook: “Thank you for taking the time to report about something that may, in your opinion, violate our community standards. . . We have checked the group that you reported as containing inflammatory remarks or symbols of hatred and found that it does not violate our community standards.”

"From now until the lawsuit in the United States begins, we at Shurat HaDin are launching a new initiative: If Facebook does not see the incitement – we will bring it all the way to the home of Mark Zuckerberg, so that he cannot ignore it," the group declared.

The $30,000 ad campaign will be provocatively entitled: “Zuckerberg don’t kill us,” and Shurat HaDin has already contacted an advertising firm in the U.S. to hang the billboards in California, in the area around Zuckerberg’s home near Palo Alto.

"The incitement on Facebook is becoming a weapon in the hands of terror, and we cannot accept this," said Shurat HaDin director, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner. "Even after the murder of close to 30 Israelis since October, driven by wild incitement on social networks, Facebook continues to turn a blind eye.

"If Facebook’s founder does not see the incitement – we will place it opposite his California home. This is part of the struggle we are leading which is also supported by the lawsuit against Facebook which we are currently administering."


Ari Soffer

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/206577#.Vpvv9lKzdds

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

Open Hillel welcomes the enemy into the Jewish tent - Dr. Richard Cravatts

by Dr. Richard Cravatts

Israel-hating academics want to force Palestinianism down Jewish students’ throats. Why are they not demanding that Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association, debate or embrace the views of pro-Israel students?

Winston Churchill could have been observing the sorry state of academic free speech today when he observed that “Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” 

As if to confirm Churchill’s prescience, this month a cabal of 55 high-minded but morally incoherent American and Canadian professors formed Open Hillel’s Academic Council, a group comprised of well-known Israel-haters who condemned “Hillel International's Standards of Partnership [which] narrowly circumscribe discourse about Israel-Palestine” and which, in its view, “only serve to foster estrangement from the organized Jewish community.”

This group of academics and intellectuals, who almost to a person promotes a one-sided, anti-Israel view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and whose teaching and so-called scholarship perpetuates a historically false and factually defective narrative in which Israel is the world’s greatest manifestation of malevolence and the Palestinian Arabs are innocent victims of colonial oppression, feel very free to tell Hillel how to achieve its mission:

“Hillel’s recent aggressive attempts to police discourse about Israel place it in direct conflict with the spirit of the academy,” the Council bloviated, adding that “Just as our classrooms must be spaces that embrace diversity of experience and opinion, so must Hillel.”

This sentiment is not surprising from these particular academics, given the ideological composition of a group that includes:

• Peter Beinart, associate professor at the City University of New York, who justifies the BDS campaign because “its recruits are progressives, and that what tips them toward BDS is despair that there seems no other way to end Israel’s immoral, undemocratic control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip;”
• Berkeley’s feminist philosopher, Judith Butler, who notoriously and who almost surreally commented that it is important to view “Hamas/Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left;”
• Stanford’s Joel Beinin, a self-proclaimed Marxist and rabid anti-Zionist who singles out Israel for criticism of its varied and frequent transgressions, all the while excusing the social and political defects of the neighboring Arab states who surround it and blaming the pathologies of the Middle East on Western imperialism and the continuing colonial impact of the U.S.'s proxy in the Levant, Israel;
• UC Irvine’s Mark LeVine, associate professor of history, who claims that Israel, like America, essentially receives what it deserves, contending that, “In Israel the violence and terrorism of the latest intifada cannot be understood except as emerging out of decades of occupation, discrimination and dispossession.”  

Open Hillel, founded in 2013 by “progressive” (read: anti-Zionist) Jewish students at Swarthmore College, was an attempt to challenge Hillel International’s guidelines which seek to preserve Hillel’s primary desire “to enrich the lives of Jewish students so they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.” Part of that enrichment is helping Jewish students to connect and form an enduring relationship with Israel, and so a positive view of the Jewish state is generally fostered and embraced within Hillel chapter walls.

Open Hillel, however, is not satisfied with that approach to forming a Jewish identity; instead, it seeks to invite anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist voices into Hillel, purportedly to bring a diversity of views into discussions about Israel and the Palestinians, but, as is obvious from the unseemly group behind the movement, to actually bring anti-Israel activism right into the otherwise “safe” space that Hillel provides Jewish students who are forming their own spiritual identities and attitudes about the Jewish state.

The idea that Hillel International has very clear guidelines about which type of groups may, and may not, appear at Hillel events was apparently too much for these anti-Israel ideologues, who are not content with flooding the rest of campuses with virulent pro-Palestinian activism that incessantly demonizes, libels, and demeans Israel and its supporters; these activists also want to force this tsunami of anti-Israel hatred, often anti-Semitic in nature, right into Hillel’s door—using the disingenuous claim that it is done in the name of academic free speech and diversity of ideas.

“Hillel’s recent aggressive attempts to police discourse about Israel place it in direct conflict with the spirit of the academy . . . [by] forcing an unnecessary and destructive choice between academic freedom and membership in the Jewish community.”

What are the “aggressive attempts” by Hillel “to police discourse about Israel”? In fact, Hillel’s guidelines are designed, not to eliminate any discussion about Israel, but only to prevent self-identified enemies of Israel to participate in Hillel events—those groups such as the virulent Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Student Association (MSA), who lead in on-campus agitation against Israel and Jews who support it, and toxic fringe groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Breaking the Silence, which use the cover of having Jewish members themselves to openly, and vigorously, seek to weaken and destroy the Jewish state. 

Hillel’s Standards of Partnership state clearly that “Hillel will not partner with . . . organizations, groups, or speakers that . . . Deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state . . . Delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel . . ; Support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel . . ; [or] Exhibit a pattern of disruptive behavior towards campus”—exactly the speech and behavior characteristic of both the activist groups mentioned above and virtually all of the members of the Open Hillel Academic Council.

Students for Justice in Palestine, for example, the campus group currently leading the campaign to delegitimize and demonize Israel, has absolutely no interest in joining Hillel in robust, honest debates about a future Palestinian state or, as the wishful thinking goes, creating two states that will live side by side in peace. SJP has a long history, since its founding in 1993, of bringing vitriolic anti-Israel speakers to their respective campuses, and for sponsoring Israeli Apartheid Weeks, building mock “apartheid walls,” and sending mock eviction notices to students in their dorms to help them empathize with Palestinians.  

SJP may wish to enter Hillel’s tent to spew their venom, and clearly this is the intention of Open Hillel’s Academic Council, but not so they can engage in actual dialogue with pro-Israel Jewish students. The whole idea of even legitimizing a pro-Israel view is anathematic to SJP and their fellow-travelers in their never-ending bash-Israel campaign.

In fact, a leaked memorandum from the Binghamton University SJP chapter revealed that its members would be required to never even engage in dialogue with pro-Israel groups on their campus, and they would be prohibited from “engaging in any form of official collaboration, cooperation, or event co-sponsorship with [pro-Israel] student organizations and groups, due to their unyielding support for the Apartheid State of Israel.”

What is more, the memo read, SJP members “shall in no manner engage in any form of official collaboration with any student group which actively opposes the cause of Palestinian liberation nor with groups which have aided and abetted Zionist student organizations in the interest of undermining or denigrating the work of Students for Justice in Palestine,” meaning, of course, that the so-called intellectual debate that academics pretend to promote will never take place when SJP is involved.

Why, then, would Hillel ever want to allow SJP, or groups countenancing similar attitudes, to discuss anything about Israel, Zionism, or Judaism inside its walls? Obviously, it would not, which is precisely the reason that Open Hillel wants so badly to force these openly anti-Israel, often anti-Semitic views into a Jewish communal space where an honest discussion of Israel’s politics and relationship to its Arab neighbors is productive, but not a negative, one-sided dialogue with Israel as the sole villain and the Palestinians as entirely blameless victims.

If the august and self-important Open Hillel Academic Council actually wishes to support campus “spaces that embrace diversity of experience and opinion,” why is it not demanding that Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association, or other groups central to the Israeli/Palestinian debate and/or embrace the views of pro-Israel students, as they are asking Jews to do with their ideological enemies, and insist that Hillel members and others be invited to participate in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, rallies, conferences, and campaigns to promote “the principle of open discourse” they seem so intent to foist on Hillel alone?

The renowned religious leader Hillel the Elder, for whom Hillel itself was named, once famously asked, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” For Hillel International, that means that as Jewish students forge a relationship to Judaism and Israel, they have to act with some self-interest to insure that others, who do not have their best interest at heart, cannot do them harm by defaming, libeling, and assaulting their moral and religious identities—exactly what the poisonous ideology of the Open Hillel academic council seems intent on achieving.

Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, author of Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews (A David Horowitz Freedom Center publication), is President of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18252#.Vpu_X1Kzdds

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

'Peddling Fiction' Or Repealing Math? - Clarice Feldman

by Clarice Feldman

Amid all the factors behind the tailspin of our and the world’s economies it is obvious that the grand progressive schemes based on ignoring reality play a critical part

No sooner had the president charged that those who claimed the economy is in trouble were “peddling fiction” than U.S. stocks posted their worst ten-day start to a year in history. Walmart announced it was closing 154 stores in the U.S. putting 10,000 U.S. jobs on the block. (It also was closing over one hundred of its stores in Brazil.) Macy’s announced it was closing 36 stores and 27 Kmart and Sears stores were also to be shuttered. True, some of this reflected the change in shopping habits with more consumers buying merchandise online, but from the barrage of emails I receive daily from retailers online cutting prices, I think it’s likely that the entire tranche -- retail sales -- suffered mightily last year, and I expect to see that big dip reflected in their fourth quarter reports. Consumers simply are running out of money to buy things.

To be sure, the global economy is shaky right now. China leads the way down and with it a glut of oil as Middle Eastern countries open the spigots just as demand is down. Countries in BRIC, the five emerging national economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), are also in a hard spot, meaning that the entire globe, not just the oil producers and the Western economies, are at risk and the global recession looks to be more severe than the last one.

As my friend “Ignatz Ratzkywatszky” notes:

The problems my untrained eye see that are worse than last time;
1. U.S. population may not be overextended but the middle class is in a weaker spot otherwise than 08, a lot of municipalities and states are already a lot more stressed than they were in 08 and U.S. gov[ernment] debt is much higher.
2. Every one of the BRICS is already either in a depression [Brazil], plunging who knows how far [China, South Africa] or getting set to plunge who knows how far [Russia, India]. That doesn't leave much of a wall and I have zero confidence in any of their abilities to weather the storm.
3. Most of the Eurozone never really recovered from 08.
4. Policy makers and central bankers seem even more clueless than ever after having embarked on an even larger worldwide binge to cure the hangover, or more correctly aneurysm, from their last binge.
Perhaps the only silver lining might be there is less distance to fall for most and those who have most profited from the free money binge of the last 7 years are those with the most to lose.

Amid all the factors behind the tailspin of our and the world’s economies it is obvious that the grand progressive schemes based -- as they certainly are -- on ignoring reality play a critical part. Returning to Walmart, for example: responding to demands to raise the minimum wage, in February of 2015 it raised wages above the minimum. Critics of raising the minimum wage argued that that would raise prices, negatively affect sales and reduce employment rolls. It seems that it did.

In economic terms, we are in the worst possible situation: politicians and bureaucrats with no respect for reality support programs which depend on an ever increasing supply of other peoples’ money at a time when there isn’t such money to be had because, in large part, they are also supporting programs which ignore supply/demand exigencies and choke commercial, industrial, and agricultural activity.

Reason sets out the dilemma succinctly:

Sanders has built his popularity almost exclusively on promises to spend more money not just on the poor but not on everybody, without even a hint that he understands why that would only exacerbate the "wealth inequality" he rails so often against.
[snip]
Sanders hasn't been specific about where the money would come from, mentioning only one transaction tax on Wall Street. Such a tax, by itself, wouldn't come close to funding Sanders' promises --his plans require massive tax hikes not just on the rich but on the middle class, meaning his efforts at offering everyone an education could not only increase inequality (since richer people are, in general, more likely to take advantage of entitlements like a "free education") but also actually redistribute wealth upward.
There's a relevant Richard Feynman quote about big numbers. "There are 10¹¹ stars in the galaxy," Feynman once said. "That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers." That was at least three decades ago -- the annual deficit is at about a trillion now.

Puerto Rico is this week’s U.S. basket case with $70 billion in debt for which they have no means of repaying. Other states with unfunded enormous pension liabilities look to be lining up behind Puerto Rico and will certainly be seeking some sort of bankruptcy relief, relief which may well hurt middle class bond holders as well as the pensioners and the poor who depend on functioning government services. On a national scale, People who could add warned that ObamaCare would collapse with expenditures quickly exceeding revenue, and there’s no doubt that the death spiral is well underway.

This week Humana joined the list of insurers reporting big problems with Obamacare. PJ Media’s Stephen Green Commented: 

As for the ObamaCare!!! cheaters -- well, it's not like the Democrats who authored this law weren't given plenty of warnings about the perverse incentives.
The net result is that more and more insurers can't afford to sell insurance to ObamaCare!!! customers -- the very people the law was ostensibly designed to help:
"Humana Inc. has added its name to the list of mega-medical insurers to report big problems under ObamaCare."
"The Louisville, Ky.-based company does not expect to make enough money this year in premiums from individual plans to cover what it will pay out in claims, according to a regulatory filing made last week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission."
"Humana, which is being acquired by Aetna Inc., said it is still trying to figure out how big the gap will be. The company did say it has set aside a premium deficiency reserve -- meaning, it’s setting aside money to help make up the difference."
"Humana, which will provide a deeper dive into its 2016 outlook when it releases its fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 10, said in the SEC filing that it expects membership to drop this year by 200,000 to 300,000. The decrease reflects plans sold under ObamaCare as well as older policies."
"'We expect Humana will exit Health Insurance Exchange marketplaces in 2017 in light of this data.'"
This thing is coming off the rails, and a LOT of people are going to get crushed when it does.

Mere glitches to the innumerate progressives. I don’t know what they are up to where you live, but in Washington D.C. they are proposing a massive new paid 16-week family leave program which it is estimated could cost over $700 million a year. Even though the plan would be based on a 1 percent tax on salaries to be paid by employers, it likely would entail a $200 million annual deficit, and -- if experience on the cost of government programs is any guide -- that shortfall estimate is probably an optimistic scenario. In any event, it is most likely that if this passes, employers will hire fewer people and pay them less to compensate for the cost. Once again the bottom of the economic pyramid would bear the burden of the virtue signaling of those at the top.

In fact, Walmart has just notified District officials that it was cancelling 2 planned new stores in depressed neighborhoods.

Walmart officials were more frank about the reasons the company was downsizing. He said the company cited the District’s rising minimum wage, now at $11.50 an hour and possibly going to $15 an hour if a proposed ballot measure is successful in November. He also said a proposal for legislation requiring D.C. employers to pay into a fund for family and medical leave for employees, and another effort to require a minimum amount of hours for hourly workers were compounding costs and concerns for the retailer.
“They were saying, ‘How are we going to run the three stores we have, let alone build two more?’ ” Evans said.

Restaurant employment is already down, likely due to the city's minimum wage law.
Math is so hard for progressives. I expect any day now some Democrat in Congress will introduce a bill repealing it.

Clarice Feldman

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/peddling_fiction_or_repealing_math.html

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

Iran's Commitment to Shia in the Region - Lawrence A. Franklin

by Lawrence A. Franklin

• Iran's commitment to Shi'ite interests seems firmly linked to its idea of its mission, as well as to the survival of its revolutionary regime. Iran's theocracy is likely willing to pay a high price to safeguard this legacy. The West should not expect Iran to reduce its presence in Syria or Iraq, even under severe military pressure.
• As the Obama Administration continues to reward Iran for violating its agreement not to build nuclear weapons under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and violating its agreement not to build nuclear-capable missiles, and its refusal to sign the worthless "Iran Deal," its presence is set to become even more unpleasant as it becomes more prominent.

The West does not seem to appreciate the intensity of Iran's commitment to its Shi'ite cousins in Syria. The West also seems not to comprehend the depth of Iran's spiritual ties to its centuries-old role as the champion of Shi'a Islam.

Much Western journalistic commentary addresses Iran's commitment to the Assad regime in Damascus. Left underreported is the profound sense of shared religious identity between the Shia of Iran and the Shi'a Alawi minority of Syria. Iran's determination to maintain Alawi supremacy in Syria transcends any personal attachment to the Assad administration.

In light of this month's execution of a leading Shi'ite preacher Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia and the consequent heightened tension between Tehran and Riyadh, it might help policymakers to understand that the religious divide between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims as an inveterate and unbridgeable chasm as that between ISIS and the United States.

Parts of the Saudi embassy in Tehran were burned on January 2, when a mob of Iranians attacked and ransacked the diplomatic mission. The attack came in response to Saudi Arabia's execution of Shi'ite preacher Nimr al-Nimr the same day.

Iran's Shi'ite Ayatollahs are on record declaring that Syria's Alawites are genuine Shi'ites[1], a question finalized after a centuries-long dispute. The Iranian Shi'ite establishment had questioned the Syrian Alawi inclination to venerate Jesus, Mohammad and Ali as a pale reflection of the Christian theological concept of the Holy Trinity. Moreover, some Iranian Mullahs were not comfortable with the Alawi practice of celebrating Christmas. Iran evidently felt obligated to extend a protective cover to its Shi'ite co-religionists.

Another dimension of Iran's support for regional Shi'ism is its close operational relationship with the Lebanon-based terrorist group, Hezbollah -- the political arm of Lebanon's Shi'ites. The links are so close that Tehran has been able to mobilize thousands of Lebanese Shi'ite volunteers to fight in support of the Assad regime in Syria. Iran's theological ties to Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslims also are deep and longstanding.

Iran's sense of responsibility for Shi'ism beyond its borders seems linked to the historical Islamic world-power contest for hegemony between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. The Sunni, for centuries, have dominated and persecuted the Shi'ites, even in states where the Shiites have been in the majority. This century is first time the Shi'ites have started successfully to challenge Sunni supremacy in the region of the Persian Gulf. The George W. Bush Administration replaced Iraq's ousted Sunni President, Saddam Hussein, with a basically Shi'ite leadership. And the Obama Administration, thorough the promised infusions of up to $150 billion (much of which Iran will presumably use to increase its terrorist activities worldwide), has paved the way for Iran to have the capability to assemble nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems.

But perhaps even the Americans could not, in an electoral system, have prevented Shi'ite predominance in a country where the Shi'ites constituted about two-thirds of Iraq's population.[2] Next-door Iran is at least 75% Shi'ite.[3] The theological cadre from both countries receives its religious training in many of the same seminaries in Qom, Iran and Najaf, Iraq. Much of Iraq is now controlled by militia groups loyal to Tehran, not to Baghdad.[4]

Iran is also extending assistance to Bahrain's Shi'ites, the vast majority of the island's population.[5] Iran, which had controlled Bahrain before the island was colonized by Great Britain in the 19th century, had agreed to London's grant of independence to the Gulf state in 1971. The agreement had served British imperial interests in the region. Yet Iran has evidently never been comfortable with the arrangement. The final secession of Bahrain from Iranian patrimony remains an open wound to Iran's national pride. The Bahrain issue is particularly sensitive, as the United States Navy's 5th Fleet is now headquartered there. The fleet's naval assets enable the U.S. to guard the Persian Gulf below Iran's southern border.

A religious reason, however, also motivates Tehran's role in Bahrain. For more than two centuries, Bahrain has been governed by the al-Khalifas, a Sunni family originally from Qatar,[6] and sustained in power by Iran's regional and religious arch-rival: Saudi Arabia. The Sunni ruling family in Riyadh even financed the construction of a 14-mile bridge linking Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, enabling a quick response to any possible move by Tehran to re-establish its dominance in the island. In 2011, Riyadh dispatched military units to Bahrain to suppress protests by the country's Shi'ites, who were demanding more representation in keeping with their majority status on the island.

Iran also maintains extensive ties to the Shi'ite minority in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, where most of the country's oil fields are. The Saudi National Guard does not permit demonstrations against Riyadh's policies. Imams who preach any opposition sentiment to the House of Saud are immediately imprisoned. One imam, Nimr, al-Nimr, was executed by the Saudis this month, presumably as a warning to Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia not even to think any dissenting thoughts.

Iran's sense of duty to Shi'ite communities outside the Arab Middle East has also earned it influence, particularly in South Asia[7] and West Africa[8].

Iran's commitment to Shi'ite interests seems firmly linked to its idea of its mission, as well as to the survival of its revolutionary regime. Iran's theocracy is likely willing to pay a high price to safeguard this legacy. The West should not expect Iran to reduce its presence in Syria or Iraq, even under severe military pressure.

As the Obama Administration continues to reward Iran for violating its agreement not to build nuclear weapons under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and violating its agreement not to build nuclear-capable missiles, and its refusal to sign the worthless "Iran Deal," its presence is set to become even more unpleasant as it becomes more prominent.

Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

---

[1] In 1972 Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Hasan Mahdi al-Shirazi issued a Fatwa ruling that Shia and Alawis are "two synonymous words." Ayatollah Musa al-Sadr, who disappeared on a visit to Libya reconfirmed al-Shirazi's Fatwa. See also The Vanished Imam by Fouad Ajami, 1986. p 174.
[2] Encyclopedia Britannica (1997) and various other compilation sources support the statistics cited. However, B.E. claims the percentage of Shia among Iran's Muslims is about 93%.
[3] Encyclopedia Britannica. Kuwait 30%, Syria/15%, Pakistan 15-20%, Bahrain/65%.
[4] The Council on Foreign Relations Initial Background Paper on Militia Groups in Iraq by Lionel Beehnor and follow-on versions, 9 June 2005.
[5] Encyclopedia Britannica.
[6] Al-Khalifa has governed Bahrain directly or indirectly since 1783.
[7] The key pro-Iranian militia/terrorist group in Pakistan's mega-city of Karachi is the Tehrik-e-Jafaria.
[8] Iran has just lodged diplomatic protest against the alleged Nigerian Army's recent massacre of Shi'a Muslims.

Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7242/iran-shia-commitment

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