Iraq's Coming Apocalypse - Daniel Pipes

by Daniel Pipes

The dam has steadily weakened over the past 19 months, to the point that experts worry that a surge of spring waters will overwhelm it and cause its collapse.

No, it's not ISIS or rampaging Shi'i militias. It's the Mosul Dam, Iraq's largest, and its possible collapse, perhaps leading to millions of deaths. Those in the know worry catastrophe could strike this spring, as snows melt and build an uncontrollable water pressure.

The Mosul Dam from the air.

Hastily built in wartime for the dictator Saddam Hussein by a German-Italian consortium, the Mosul Dam was located where it is because one of Hussein's cronies came from the area and used his pull, despite the fact that engineers knew from the start that its porous gypsum base could not sustain such a huge structure.

What was then called the Saddam Dam opened in 1984 and within two years needed constant grouting, that is, day and night infusions of microfine cement, lots of it – 200 million pounds over the decades – to keep it from collapsing. The grouting keeps the foundational problem from worsening but does not solve it.

Employees at work to strengthen the Mosul Dam, Feb. 3, 2016.

The years went by; fortunately, there was no disaster on the American watch. Then, during a fateful ten-day period, August 7-17, 2014, the Islamic State (ISIS) seized control of the dam. While the group neither sabotaged nor blew up the structure, grouting stopped for six weeks and the whole repair regime – especially the skilled workers and the supply of cement – henceforth became less consistent.

As a result, the dam has steadily weakened over the past 19 months, to the point that experts worry that a surge of spring waters will overwhelm it and cause its collapse. That the dam's two emergency floodgates are broken and cannot be opened to relieve intense pressure renders the situation the more fraught.

The consequences of a collapse are terrifying: A wall of water 45-70 feet high would reach Mosul, a city of some one million inhabitants, in about four hours. Then the flood wave would roll down the Tigris River valley to other cities, including the capital Baghdad, before dispersing in a wide flood. A huge number of immediate casualties would be followed by drought, disease, lack of electricity, chaos, and crime, ensuring biblical-level miseries and fatalities.

For years, quiet grouting and blithe assurances kept the precariousness of the Mosul Dam obscure. But heightened alarms coming from the U.S. government since the start of 2016, relying primarily on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates, appear finally to have awakened Iraqis to the dangers they face. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad has even issued a highly unusual "Mosul Dam Preparedness Fact Sheet" with advice (in English, alas) on evacuation steps, educational needs, and relief efforts.

In contrast, the Iraqi government issues a stream of dishonest assurances that there's no problem. Mohsen al-Shimari, Iraq's minister for Water Resources and official in charge of the dam, says "The danger is not imminent, it's far off. The danger is 1 in 1,000" (itself, an unacceptable risk). Or he insists that Mosul Dam is in "no greater" danger than other dams. At other times he actually claims "there is no problem in the dam that may lead to its collapse." Note the inconsistency, itself a sign of duplicity.

In keeping with this irresponsible, even criminal nonchalance, Iraqi authorities have done next to nothing to prepare for a possible collapse. 

Yes, they claim that a contingency plan exists, but no one has seen it, much less learned its details, so what use can it have in time of crisis? Yes, they signed a $300 million deal with Trevi, an Italian company, to repair and maintain the Dam, but this is a Band-Aid fix, not a long-term solution.

To make matters worse, the dam's most vulnerable city, Mosul, labors under the rule of the apocalyptic Islamic State, whose disregard for human life and extreme hostility toward the outside world negates both crisis planning and international assistance. But there is a silver lining here; ISIS' monstrous rule has caused Mosul's population to decline from 2½ million two years ago to about 1 million now, thereby reducing the number of potential casualties there.

Assuming the dam survives this year's snow melt, only one long-term solution exists: to complete the Badush Dam downstream from the Mosul Dam that would mitigate the consequences of a collapse. Started soon after the grouting began in 1986 but halted in 1990, this ancillary dam will cost US$10 billion that the Iraqi government cannot afford. But it must be the country's highest priority.

Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2016 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved. (For the sources used in this article's, click here.)

Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/16560/iraq-coming-apocalypse

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The U.N. Sinks Further into the Anti-Israeli Muck - Elliot Abrams

by Elliot Abrams

Hat tip: Darrell Simms

This being the U.N., what kind of candidate will they choose?

It may seem hard to believe that the United Nations can hold any new surprises when it comes to unprincipled attacks on Israel, but never despair: There is always farther to fall. 

For more than 20 years, the U.N. Human Rights Council has had a dedicated “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” (Needless to say, there’s no U.N. Special Rapporteur for the condition of Tibetans or Cubans; only Palestinians.) Now, the incumbent Israel-Hater-in-Chief is leaving and his replacement must be chosen. 

This being the U.N., what kind of candidate will they choose? Be careful, now: The position’s entire purpose is to condemn Israel, so it’s important to disqualify anyone who might examine the evidence in an unbiased search for truth. Heaven forfend. Much better to choose someone whose anti-Israel bias is absolute. 

And this being the U.N., that’s what they’re doing. 

There are two top candidates, both worthy successors to Richard Falk, who served in the post from 2008 to 2014. Falk was the nut-case Princeton professor who wanted U.S. officials prosecuted as war criminals for deposing Saddam Hussein, and once said, “Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not.” You can see why the U.N. chose him. 

Anyway, back to the current candidates. Ranked second for the Special Rapporteur job is a Canadian named Michael Lynk. Who is Lynk? The invaluable U.N. Watch notes: “Lynk . . . promotes an extreme anti-Western political agenda. Three days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Lynk instinctively blamed the West, pointing the finger at ‘global inequalities’ and ‘disregard by Western nations for the international rule of law.’” Needless to say, this political stance means he hates Israel. As UN Watch reports: 

 Lynk plays a leadership role in numerous Arab lobby groups, including CEPAL, which promotes “Annual Israeli Apartheid Week” events; signs anti-Israel petitions; calls to prosecute Israel for alleged war crimes; addresses “One State” conferences that seek to eliminate Israel; and argues that “the solution” to “the problem” must go back to Israel’s very creation in 1948, which he calls “the start of ethnic cleansing.” 

You might think, “Wow, he’s perfect for the U.N.!” But no, he’s only ranked second, under the top candidate, Penny Green. Who is Green? She’s a British criminologist whose hatred of Israel is even more blatant. She has urged that the U.K. de-list Hamas as a terrorist group. U.N. Watch reports that she “advocates the total boycott of Israel, posting statements on Twitter such as: ‘Support BDS against Israel – best way to resist this criminal government’; ‘Academics should now systematically refuse any invitations to visit Israeli universities or attend conferences there’; ‘the West must impose sanctions against, boycott and divest from Israel.’

” The Human Rights Council’s Vetting Committee deemed both Lynk and Green to be impartial and put them forward as the two best candidates for the job. 

In doing so, the committee bypassed eight other applicants, some of whom have never expressed any view about Israeli–​Palestinian affairs, and some whom even appear to be actually impartial as that term is commonly understood. The ultimate decision now rests with South Korean ambassador Choi Kyong-lim, the Human Right’s Council’s chairman, who could reject Lynk and Green in favor of one of the other applicants if he so chooses. 

Share article on Facebook share Tweet article tweet Will he? We’ll find out on March 24, at the end of the council’s current session. Not to worry, though: Even if the U.N. chooses Lynk or Green, Israel will never let either of them set foot in “the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” Israel never let Falk or his successor set foot there, either. But the game goes on in Geneva. President Bush would not permit the United States to join the Council; Obama reversed him and leapt for a seat at the table. Today, the U.N. has entrusted the defense of global human rights to representatives from China, Cuba, Vietnam, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, among other liberal bastions. 

Here’s hoping a Republican president keeps us as far away from this wretched sham as possible starting in 2017.

Elliot Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.He is the author of Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict.


Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432740/un-anti-israel-bias-reaches-new-low

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Israeli innovation could save countless stab victims - Ari Soffer

by Ari Soffer

As Israel battles knife-wielding Arab terrorists, Ariel University scientist makes discovery which could save thousands of lives worldwide. [Editor: this is a good development but we must also be more effective in stopping the attacks in the first place.]

An Israeli researcher at Ariel University in Samaria has discovered a revolutionary new method to stop the uncontrolled bleeding common in victims of stabbings - a medical innovation which could save countless lives in Israel and worldwide.

Over the past several months Israel has been engulfed by a wave of Arab terrorism, the majority of which have involved stabbings, as well as shootings and car ramming attacks.

More than 30 people have been murdered in the attacks and hundreds have been wounded. Many of the victims - which have included the elderly, children and mothers - bled to death after suffering multiple stab wounds and the accompanying rapid blood loss.

Along with ceaseless incitement, Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas and Fatah have circulated detailed instructions on how to most "effectively" stab or slash a victim to cause maximum damage, and as a result the injuries inflicted to Jewish victims are often extensive and extremely dangerous.

Until now the only blood stopping solutions for the type of deep wounds caused by such violent stabbings are either too weak to effectively deal with them, or so strong that they cause deadly blood clots. Even the most able medical first responders often do not have the most effective solutions to save lives when every second counts.

But Israeli scientist Moshe Rogosnitzky has discovered that gallium, a biometal currently used to stop bone loss in cancer patients, can, in liquid form (known as gallium nitrate), rapidly halt bleeding from deep wounds without causing blood clots.

The use of gallium for stopping bleeding from deep cuts provides additional benefits as well. Extensive research has shown that gallium is a very powerful anti-infective and speeds the healing of injuries caused by deep gashes which are often produced by the knives and other type of weapons used by terrorists.

Gallium works by inducing "flocculation" of the clotting protein in blood known as fibrinogen. This results in external clot formation. In stark contrast to other treatments for bleeding wounds, gallium does not induce clotting mechanisms in the blood. This avoids the highest risk of existing technologies that run the risk of causing deadly internal blood clots.

According to Rogosnitzky, Gallium has the potential to "dramatically increase the chances of survival by victims of terror or accidents. However, it is vital to get this discovery from the lab to the clinic as quickly as possible. The sooner it gets to the market, the sooner it can be used effectively to save lives."

At this stage, gallium has to undergo studies to determine the optimal dose and delivery method prior to filing for marketing authorization by the health authorities. In addition, a comparative efficacy trial with other technologies for stopping bleeding needs to occur.

In order to speed up the process for clinical development and availability of gallium, Stop the Bleeding, an online fundraising campaign, has been initiated through We Fund the Cure - a US-based nonprofit.

Researchers say they urgently need the funding to move forward to the next stage.

"Unfortunately, there seems to be no immediate end in sight to the kind of violent attacks facing Israelis," said Rogosnitzky. "Gallium can provide instantaneous help to victims in Israel.

"Our goal is to place gallium in every first aid kit and every ambulance, ensuring that every stabbing victim has an increased chance of survival.  In order to move forward quickly we need resources for clinical testing.

"Moreover, as blood loss remains the leading cause of death from stabbings and other external injuries, it is our hope that this innovation can help innocent victims of violent crime or accidents throughout the world by significantly reducing mortality rate and providing an effective and safe answer for blood loss from wounds."


Ari Soffer

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/209371#.VubKAHqzdds

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Muslim Temple Mount hate preacher finally jailed - Arutz Sheva Staff

by Arutz Sheva Staff

Khaled al-Mughrabi, who called on Muslims to murder Jews in hate-filled, anti-Semitic rants from Al Aqsa Mosque, jailed by Jerusalem court.

Sheikh Khaled al-Mughrabi

Hadas Parush/Flash 90

A Muslim preacher who incited the murder of Jews during a series of anti-Semitic lectures on the Temple Mount has been sentenced to 11 months in jail.

Jerusalem District Court sentenced Khaled al-Mughrabi for fomenting racist and religious hatred against Jews so as to spur attacks against them in his bi-weekly sermons. The sermons came to light after the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) organization posted translated footage from several of his rants.

An indictment against the hate preacher was initially approved by former Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein late last year.

The indictment accused al-Mughrabi of aiming via his sermons to encourage racist attitudes towards Jews, to incite violence against them and to foment hatred on the basis of race, religion and nationality. It further stated that he fully intended for his words to be translated into violent action, in the form of terrorist attacks against Israeli security forces and Jewish civilians.



The Honenu legal rights organization, which filed the indictment against al-Mughrabi, praised the successful conviction and jailing of the hate preacher.

"We welcome this verdict, which will see a Muslim Sheikh who repeatedly incited against Jews behind bars," the organization said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, only our involvement and the lodging of repeated complaints on the basis of material exposed by the Palestinian Media Watch organization, and even an appeal to the Attorney General and Jerusalem District Prosecutor, led the authorities to (finally) deal with Mughrabi," it continued, while lamenting that there were still "many just like him" inciting terrorism against Jews with apparent impunity.

But while Honenu's tireless work lobbying the Israeli legal system bore fruit, its efforts to persuade YouTube to take down videos of the sermons went ignored.


Arutz Sheva Staff

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/209376#.VubHmHqzdds

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Hezbollah and the Muslim rift - Dr. Ronen Yitzhak

by Dr. Ronen Yitzhak

The Arab League's declaration of Hezbollah as a terrorist entity have turned up the flame of the Sunni-Shiite power struggles in the Arab-Muslim world.

The Arab League foreign ministers' declaration this past weekend that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization is an important step in the war against that group being waged by the Gulf states over its involvement in the Syrian civil war, as they stated it. But the declaration was actually intended to check the terrorist group's massive influence in the Middle East and the world at large. Hezbollah, backed by Iran, limits the Sunni Gulf states' freedom of operation and increases Shiite influence in the Middle East. 

Hezbollah operates like an octopus. It isn't fighting in Syria alone; it's involved in the war in Yemen, side by side with the Shiite Houthi rebels who are battling the Sunni Arab coalition. Hezbollah is undermining the regimes in other Sunni countries, as well, and Israel's Shin Bet security agency recently exposed efforts by Hezbollah to organize terror cells in Judea and Samaria. Western intelligence officials believe that Hezbollah has also established terrorist networks throughout Europe and the Americas, particularly Latin America. These cells might still be "sleepers" but they are supposed to follow Hezbollah's instructions when it issues an order, as the bombing at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the bombing of the Jewish community center there two years later proved. 

So it appears that declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organization was expected given its military operations against the Sunni Gulf states, its involvement in Syria, and its strong alliance with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a regime that the Gulf states wanted to oust. After it was proven that the Assad regime was stable and would remain in existence under the auspices of Russia and Iran, and they weren't capable of toppling it, it was only a matter of time before the Gulf states made a move against the organization -- a move seen as legitimate because of its global involvement with terrorism. The European Union, however, considers only the military wing of Hezbollah a terrorist organization and not the group itself, whereas the U.S. -- the Gulf states' close ally -- put both branches of Hezbollah (military and political) on a list of international terrorist organizations years ago. The current assessment is that the Arab League's announcement was intended to pressure the EU to take similar action against the group. 

Closer ties between Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the recent heightened cooperation between the Sunni Gulf states made the move possible. It's no coincidence that it was done in a single day, after veteran Egyptian diplomat Ahmed Aboul Gheit was elected secretary-general of the Arab League. Gheit served as the Egyptian foreign minister at the end of the term of former President Hosni Mubarak, and had a close-up look at Iran and Hezbollah's subversive activity in Egypt at the time -- activity whose goal was to execute terrorist attacks and sow the seeds of political chaos. 

The Arab League's decision undoubtedly means that the flames of the power struggles in the Arab-Muslim world have been turned up and that the rift between the Gulf states and Hezbollah's patron, Iran, will persist. Remember, about three months ago Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations with Iran, and now -- along with other Sunni states -- is taking diplomatic action against Lebanon, seeking to hobble Hezbollah. Some Gulf states have already prohibited the dissemination of Shiite propaganda within their borders. But beyond that, the operative steps the Gulf states will take after the declaration could hurt its organizational infrastructure, its fundraising and freedom of action, throughout the Arab world. 

Nevertheless, it appears that Hezbollah won't neglect the war in Syria and keep cooperating with Iran and the Assad regime. But it's not impossible that more than three decades after its founding and after enjoying immense popularity in the Arab world as a result of its war against Israel, Hezbollah might find itself facing a challenge that will affect not only its military-terrorist future, but also its image -- the point where its popularity could plummet, a process that began with its intervention in Syria and could go on in the years to come. 

Dr. Ronen Yitzhak is head of the Middle East Studies Department at Western Galilee College.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=15501

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Egypt minister fired after comments about Prophet Muhammad - AP

by AP

So much for the promise of religious reform in Egypt

Egypt's government spokesman says the prime minister has fired the justice minister, two days after he said on TV he would even imprison the Prophet Muhammad if he committed a crime.

Cabinet spokesman Hossam Qawish tells The Associated Press Sunday that Ahmed el-Zind was "released from his position," without providing further details.

El-Zind said Friday in a television interview that he would put anyone who violates the law in prison, "even if he is the prophet, peace and blessing be upon him."

El-Zind quickly followed by saying "I ask God for forgiveness" for making the comment.
But that did not prevent a backlash by faithful Muslims as well as criticism on social media.


AP

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/03/13/egypt-minister-fired-after-comments-about-prophet-muhammad.html?intcmp=ob_article_sidebar_video&intcmp=obinsite

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New research paper on Israel’s borders and international law - Eugene Kontorovich

by Eugene Kontorovich


Hat tip: Dr. Carolyn Tal

Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948.

Professor Abraham Bell and I have a new research paper, “Palestine, Uti Possidetis Juris and the Borders of Israel.” It is now available on SSRN and forthcoming in the Arizona Law Review. It seeks to answer fundamental questions about the extent of Israel’s borders by examining the standard international-law rule used to determine the borders of newly created countries — but one that has for some reason been neglected in regard to Israel.

Here is the abstract:

Israel’s borders and territorial scope are a source of seemingly endless debate. Remarkably, despite the intensity of the debates, little attention has been paid to relevance of the doctrine of uti possidetis juris to resolving legal aspects of the border dispute. Uti possidetis juris is widely acknowledged as the doctrine of customary international law that is central to determining territorial sovereignty in the era of decolonization. The doctrine provides that emerging states presumptively inherit their pre-independence administrative boundaries.

Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948. The doctrine would thus support Israeli claims to any or all of the currently hotly disputed areas of Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem), the West Bank, and even potentially the Gaza Strip (though not the Golan Heights).

What makes the uti possidetis doctrine so powerful its generality: As a rule of customary international law, it is applied to all cases of state formation, from decolonization in Africa to the collapse of the Soviet Union to the separation of Czechoslovakia. Moreover, the doctrine trumps claims of self-determination, and any other kind of equitable objection to the former administrative boundaries.

It also turns out that the same kind of objections made to the boundaries of the Palestine Mandate were made in regard to many other mandatory territories, yet in all cases the subsequently created countries received the full mandatory borders, despite strong contemporaneous doubts about their wisdom, stability and equity.

From the Introduction:

The Article explores the history and development of uti possidetisjuris to see how it has been applied to previous disputes about states emerging from Mandatory territories, which are neither “classic decolonizations” nor the breakup of composite states. . . . We find that that uti possidetis juris has been fully applied to the numerous border disputes regarding former Mandatory territories, notwithstanding Mandates’ odd juridical status — they were neither full-pledged state, nor a mere colonial possession, nor an administrative unit of the Mandatory power. We find that bitter controversies about the borders of the Palestine Mandate are far from particular to Palestine. Similar controversies emerged regarding the borders of many other Mandates, because they often took little account of national self-determination interests, and were in several instances illegally modified by the Mandatory. Numerous Mandates were plagued by international doubts about their wisdom of their borders and serious discussions of revision. Yet in all cases, the borders of the Mandate as they stood at independence became the borders of the new successor state.

* * *


At its expiration in 1948, the borders of the Mandate of Palestine, both internal and external, were relatively well demarcated and uncontroversial. Thus uti possidetis juris could be a powerful tool for resolving extant disputes about the borders of Israel. To be sure, Israel appears to be interested in drawing consensual new boundaries that differ from the borders established by uti possidetis juris. Uti possidetis juris does not preclude later modifications of borders. Application of uti possidetis juris, as is customary in other boundary disputes, would nevertheless provide a clear baseline for future negotiated solutions.

Perhaps one of the most important, and salutary, effects of applying this otherwise universal rule is that it turns questions about the “nature” of the state — “Jewish,” “Palestinian” or otherwise — into more standard international discussions of the borders of whatever kind of state it happens to be. Thus the borders of Lebanon are the borders of the French Mandate over Lebanon, whether that state is largely Christian, as originally intended, or Shiite or Sunni. The borders of Jordan are the mandatory borders whether the state is Hashemite, Palestinian or otherwise.

International law has well-developed rules to determine the borders of new states. This article shows that they apply in full to former mandatory territories, and Israel in particular.



Eugene Kontorovich's research spans the fields of constitutional law, international law, and law and economics. He has authored a series of papers that extend "transaction cost" analysis from private law to constitutional law. Prof. Kontorovich is also a leading expert on maritime piracy,  universal jurisdiction and international criminal law. His scholarship has been relied on in important foreign relations cases in the federal courts, and historic piracy cases in the U.S. and abroad. He is working on a book, Justice at Sea: Piracy and the Limits of International Criminal Law, under contract with Harvard University Press.

Source:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/03/10/new-research-paper-on-israels-borders-and-international-law/

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Rabbis for Human Rights aid a land scam in Israel - Ronn Torossian

by Ronn Torossian

The organization, which seems altruistic, is helping those who pull off a scam against the Israeli government.

Israeli pro-Palestinian non-profit human rights organizations attract donors because they seem like legitimate organizations dedicated to bettering people’s lives – although in reality many of them are devoted to weakening Israel. Their donors mean well - since reading the websites of such groups might lead one to believe that the organization’s goals align with a peaceful resolution in which everyone in the Middle East winds up respecting each other’s rights and living harmoniously wherever they choose. Not realistic, but certainly a worthwhile goal to pursue.

Take Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR), a grantee of the extremist leftist organization New Israel Fund, for example. At first glance, it has a self-explanatory, seemingly well-intentioned name. The "About" section of their website proudly declares the organization “the only rabbinic voice in Israel that is explicitly dedicated to human rights.” Their mission is “to inform the Israeli public about human rights violations, and to pressure the State institutions to redress these injustices,” and, naturally, we expect rabbis to be concerned about about human rights.

Much of their work under the mission statement appears altruistic, fighting for rights of the poor and rights to public housing. Additionally, the organization defends the Bedouin community. Their most problematic work is in what they label as “Occupied Territories” and that warrants a careful reading.

According to their website, RHR works with Palestinian farmers in the “Occupied Territories” to gain access to “their” land.  They suggest that the Israeli army is blocking access and Israeli settlers are vandalizing fields. RHR works to manipulate the Israeli legal system in order to force the transfer of state land to Palestinian ownership.

In reviewing evidence of a video in real time made by the Zionist NGO Ad Kan, one sees undercover activists of Ad Kan gaining confirmation of the land allocation scam. While most of the video is deservedly focused on Ta’ayush, an anti-Israel “human rights organization” with whom they work, the link to RHR is clear.

Here's how it works, as this film shows: The Israeli government allocates certain government land in Judea and Samaria to anyone willing to cultivate it. The land is owned by the state and if it is not cultivated, the state reclaims it for reallocation. Basically, Israel gives farmers a test drive, and Ta’ayush decides to drive off with the car after RHR hands them the keys. RHR provides the legal advice, telling Ta’ayush what documents to file and which signatures to get in order to falsely claim the land as Palestinian, without any actual legal claim to the land and often without any attempt to cultivate it. RHR essentially advises the Palestinian Arabs to claim that the Israeli government is blocking the farmers from doing their work - this happens after some provocation brings the IDF to the scene and the "farmers" film it - making it appear that the only way to cultivate the land is to give it to the Palestinian Arabs unconditionally.

The Palestinians and organizations like RHR are missing the point of land allocation policies, and demonstrating a continued abuse of Israel and the rule of law. The allocation of uncultivated land is intended to create jobs in rural areas and allow the fertile land to be used to grow crops rather than let it stay barren. The Israeli Land Authority requires farmers to develop an agricultural plan and implement it, to prove that the land is being used productively and helping both agricultural and community development.

RHR is promoting a subtle and prejudiced agenda. This fraud of the justice system and Land Authority further demonstrates how RHR is just another NIF grantee with subversive intentions. They all cause headaches for the Israeli justice system and drag everyone involved further from any chance for peace.

It is shameful that American Jews continue to support these initiatives financially, harming the State of Israel.




Ronn Torossian

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18549#.VuVyCnqzdds

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After Dizengoff attack, talk of guns and terror — but what of killer’s drug abuse? - Dov Lieber

by Dov Lieber

In the Arab-Israeli community, where alcohol is mainly prohibited, many substance abusers are said to be swept up into a life of crime

Immediately following the New Year’s Day shooting spree in which Nashat Milhem killed two people and injured seven others in a central Tel Aviv bar and later killed a cab driver, analysts were at a loss to explain the motivation for the attack. 

Hamas showed its usual glee, but did not claim responsibility. And not long after the horror in Paris, some thought Milhelm might be an agent of the Islamic State or, perhaps, a lone wolf inspired by the terror organization. But, in the fearful hours after the attack, that group didn’t claim responsibility either. 

A day later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the scene of the shooting.

He placed the blame on Islamist propaganda, on gun proliferation in Arab towns, and on the Arab sector for intentionally not integrating into larger Israeli society.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to press after lighting a candle outside a pub on Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv, January 02, 2016, a day after two people were killed in a shooting at the bar. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

However, what was absent from the prime minister’s analysis were personal details about the killer himself. Evidence would later reveal that the 29-year-old resident of Arara in northern Israel was certainly influenced by Islamist propaganda. But that same evidence revealed that Milhem was also a serious drug abuser, which experts say may have played an important factor in his actions.

And while much attention has been cast on issues of gun proliferation and Islamist propaganda in Arab towns following Milhem’s attack, the dangerous rise of substance abuse in the Arab sector has been ignored.

A dazed and confused lone wolf

At the time of his speech, Netanyahu may have known that, after fleeing to northern Tel Aviv, Milhem hung two flags from a building: a black cloth with an Arabic term for Islamic State, “Daesh,” scribbled in Arabic and in Hebrew, and the green Islamist flag of the Hamas terror group.

But the flags merely obfuscate the killer’s motivation. The nationalist Hamas and the pseudo-caliphate IS have conflicting ideologies. Presently, IS-inspired groups are challenging Hamas’s hegemony over the Gaza Strip. Flying both flags indicates that Milhem was not acting out of a coherent ideology or motivation. Moreover, the black cloth bore no resemblance to the actual IS flag, nor does IS refer to itself as Daesh but only as the Islamic State.

A few weeks after the attack in Tel Aviv, videos found on Milhem’s phone, which was ditched on a Tel Aviv sidewalk after the attack, provided some hazy insight into the mind of the killer.

Some videos showed that Milhem was clearly inspired by the rhetoric of IS: he called on the “crusader” US President Barack Obama to convert to Islam, and in a separate video he hurled a barrage of curses against “each and every Shiite.”

In a different phone video — one that indicates the influence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Milhem — he proclaims pride in his roots, and, loading a gun cartridge in his living room, says a second attack will happen soon in Tel Aviv so “the Jews will soon understand who they are dealing with.”

The one constant in Milhem’s videos is that he appears under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol while recording them. And in one video, while walking down a street taking and “pounding beer,” he happily professes that he is drunk and high on hashish as well as on “low” drugs and “high” drugs, drugs in liquid and in powder form.

Drugs versus ideology

Dr. Walid Hadad, supervisor of the Arab Sector for the Israel Anti-Drug Authority, told The Times of Israel that he believed “that drugs, more than ideology,” led to Milhem’s attack.

During his work in the field, Hadad said, he has seen many cases of men who have morphed into murderers due to the behavioral effects of drug addiction.

Dr. Walid Hadad (Courtesy)

“A person under the influence of drugs — he doesn’t feel guilt and becomes more brutal,” said Hadad. He pointed out that not after Milhem killed two Jews during his attack on the bar on Dizengoff street, he also later killed an Arab taxi driver while fleeing the city.

There is no evidence that during the attack itself Milhem was high or drunk. A spokesperson for the Shin Bet security service told The Times of Israel that no toxicology report on the drugs in Milhem’s system was available.

However, according to the Ynet news site, the investigation into Milhem’s movements following the attack revealed that the first action he took after returning to his hometown was to buy drugs. And, while hiding out, a relative brought him more drugs.

Moreover, the killer’s former lawyer and relative, Sami Milhem, told Channel 2 news that he suffered from mental health issues and he had seen Nashat at a wedding about a month before the attack looking “stoned.”

The rehabilitation that never was

Atta Jabarin, now 57, was born into a poor Muslim family in Nazareth and began drinking alcohol at age 13 at the weddings of his Christian neighbors. By 14, he was involved with gangs, skipping school and smoking hashish. By the time he turned 16, Jabarin said, he was already a full-fledged criminal.

The native Nazarene recently spoke with The Times of Israel. He had been clean for 11 years, five months and six days. But before he sobered up and began work as a mentor for social workers in drug addiction centers in the Arab sector, Jabarin had a violent criminal history and served six years in jail for attempted murder after stabbing two people. At his lowest point, he broke his mother’s leg by pushing her out of his way as she tried to stop him from fighting someone.

Atta Jabarin (Dov Lieber/Times of Israel)

Today, the recovering drug addict from Nazareth is father to six and grandfather to three. He said he owes everything he has in his life to the social workers who worked with him while he was in jail and the education he received there. He has only kind words for the police who arrested him and the judge who sent him away.

But the Israeli prison rehabilitation system that took Jabarin off his violent and criminal path never got the opportunity to work with Milhem.

Milhem went to prison for five years in 2007 after attacking an Israeli soldier with a screwdriver, reportedly in retaliation for his cousin’s death at the hands of Israeli police a year earlier. Ynet reported that he sought several times to undergo anger management therapy, but the Prison Service disregarded his requests.

The report further stated that numerous pleas by his lawyer and family that he be treated as mentally unstable were rejected by the courts, despite a judge ruling at the time that Milhem’s “behavior stems from a mental disorder.”

Jabarin, whose years of drug addiction led him to physically abuse family members, said he saw in Milhem “the behavior of an addict.”

“He was not in the place to be a shahid [martyr]. The opposite — it was against the principles of religion and God,” said Jabarin.

“This was something that was planned from the start. He thought about it and carried it out,” Jabarin said, acknowledging that the attack was not done in a moment of temporary drug-induced insanity.

“But,” he continued, “there is the fact that drugs can lead you to obsession — they can take away your humanity and you can kill without really feeling much.”

For Jabarin, like for many Arab-Israeli youths today, the downward spiral into a life of crime began with his first drink of alcohol. Despite increased efforts to stem drug use across Israel, it is increasing among Arab youth — though decreasing among Jewish youth — and clearly leading to disastrous results.

22% of Arab youths drink; half will move on to hard drugs

“When a young Jew drinks alcohol, it’s not outside of his society. But when a young Arab drinks alcohol, it’s the beginning of a criminal career,” said Hadad of the Arab Sector for the Israel Anti-Drug Authority.

A recent study by the Israel anti-Drug authority, in which over 3,000 Arab students were interviewed, reveals a disturbing trend for young Arabs to transition quickly from alcohol to harder drugs.

Despite alcohol use being religiously forbidden in 90% of the Arab sector, 22% of Arabs 12-18 years old reported having at least one alcoholic beverage over the past year. The same was true of 60% of their Jewish counterparts. But when it comes to recreational and hard drugs, Arab usage was higher.

Twelve percent of young Arabs who drink said they also had smoked hashish, while that number was only 10% in the Jewish sector. And most importantly, 9% of Arab youth who drink said they used chemically made drugs like ecstasy, while only 4.5% in the Jewish sector admitted the same. it follows that nearly half of all Arab youths who drink alcohol will end up using harder drugs.

Adverts for drugs (Dov Lieber)

Poverty is considered an important component of drug and alcohol abuse. But Hadad believes there are other cultural factors at play. Because there is no culture of casual drinking in the Muslim community, those who do drink are likely to binge. And, “because alcohol is taboo, it is consumed surreptitiously, out of public view in orchards or olive tree groves, often along with drugs. Once the alcohol taboo is broken, youth can easily move onto drugs.”

After crossing into the forbidden zone of drugs and alcohol prohibited by religion, family and society, according to Hadad, “you’re more likely to develop a criminal career.”

There are no specific statistics about the relation between substance abuse and crime in the Arab sector or countrywide; Hadad’s contention stems from his many years in the field.

However, a 1995 study conducted in Israel by the Efshar Association, which works to advance educational-social work, showed high correlation between alcohol abuse and violent crime. Out of the 255 people in the association’s rehabilitation centers who took part in the study, nearly half (48%) said they had been arrested for violent crimes in the past.

The current statistics in the United States are similar. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), “60% of individuals arrested for most types of crimes test positive for illegal drugs at arrest,” and “alcohol is a factor in 40% of all violent crimes in the US.”

Part of what is facilitating drug use among Arab youth, Hadad said, is the lax regulation in Arab municipalities. Unlike in Jewish municipalities where the sale of alcohol is forbidden after 11 p.m., stores in the Arab sector continue to sell through the night. Rather than having a few expensive drinks in a bar, youths may consume whole bottles in their hideouts.

Drugs like Mr. Nice Guy, a synthetic psychoactive cannabinoid that once dominated Tel Aviv’s streets, were officially banned by legislation in 2013. But according to Hadad, that drug and those like it are still available in corner shops in the Arab sector.

There has, however, been progress in combating drug abuse in the Arab sector. Five years ago, according to Hadad, there were only four coordinators for drug prevention in the Arab sector. Today that number has reached 45. He attributes this large increase to new leadership in the Arab municipalities who “understand that the struggle on the individual sphere is more important than the political sphere.”

In a statement to The Times of Israel, an Israel Police spokesperson said that special emphasis is now being given to the corner shops where illegal drugs are sold.

The IS drug

The drug Captagon, which has recently been making headlines as the “IS drug” after it was discovered that the terror group’s soldiers have been using the amphetamine to reduce hunger while increasing energy and brutality, is migrating from Syria into Jordan through the West Bank and into Israel.

There is no estimate as to the quantity of Captagon in Israel. But Hadad said he has personally witnessed its spread. In a recent report on the drug in Israel from the Mako news site, the Israel Police said that last year, five or six couriers were stopped with 1,000-1,200 pills apiece.

Image from an Islamic State video showing the mass execution of Syrian soldiers on the stage of the amphitheater in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria shortly after the group captured the city on May 21, 2015. (screen grab: YouTube)

Despite the flashy headlines about Captagon as the IS drug, Matthew Levitt, an expert on narco-terrorism at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, believes the drug’s appearance in Israel is unlikely to be the outcome of any greater IS strategy.

“I think the rise cannot be arbitrarily attributed to terrorist groups. Wars create illicit markets, and this one includes Captagon (both real and fake). It’s not clear this is a strategy by a Syria-based terror group; it could just as easily be criminal networks flourishing in the illicit space created by war,” he said.

Tunisian beach gunman Seifedinne Rezgui, in an image released by Islamic State on June 27, 2015

There is no evidence that Milhem or that any other terrorists who have carried out attacks against Israelis recently used Captagon. The drug was, however, found in the body of the Islamist Tunisian shooter, Seifedinne Rezgui, who gunned down 38 people in a resort in Tunisia last year. And the killer who carried out the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014, Mohamed Merah, had also taken Captagon.

The Israel Police say that combating drug trafficking is one of their primary activities. But according to their spokesperson, the rapid production of new substances that are not punishable by law is impeding their work.

Toulouse terrorist Mohamed Merah (AP/France2)

Dealers and users of Captagon will not face any punishment within Israel: it is not considered a drug but only a “dangerous material” under Israeli law, which means it can only be confiscated.

The law that categorizes which substances as “drugs” whose sale or usage is punishable dates back to the British Mandate. And therefore, according to Hadad, there will have to be a lot of bureaucratic hurdles cleared before the IS drug becomes an illegal “drug” in Israel.

Dov Lieber

Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/after-dizengoff-attack-talk-of-guns-and-terror-but-what-of-killers-drug-abuse/

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

How long until Arabs and Muslims rule, Britannia? - Prof. Phyllis Chesler

by Prof. Phyllis Chesler

Those in England who deplore its Islamization are afraid to express their thoughts out loud.

England: Shakespeare's heroic fairy realm; the world of Blake, Milton, Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Austen, the Brontes, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and Virginia Woolf.

England: The country of William Wilberforce, who successfully fought to abolish the slave trade; the land of the bravest suffrage movement anywhere; Churchill's own country--that fair and glorious Kingdom is still there but it is also fraying, fading away.

I've just returned from a visit to this storied Isle. I saw the most sublime production of "The Tempest" at The Sam Wanamaker/Globe Theater; a wondrous  production of "As You LIke It" at the National Theater; and a riveting performance of Bellini's opera about the Druid priestess, "Norma," at the Coliseum. Every seat was filled by Brits of all ages. High Culture still lives on there--and yet, London is no longer as I first encountered it in 1961 or again, in 1969, or even in 1989.

Now, all London only dares whisper about the Arab and Muslim takeover of their city. Nearly every single luxury hotel is owned by the Sultan of Brunei, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia as is the historic department store Harrods. (Dodi Al-Fayed's father, an Egyptian, bought it long ago when he envisioned his son marrying Princess Diana, the mother of the future King of England).

The best townhouses on Park Lane, in Hyde Park, Belgravia, Mayfair, and Knightsbridge now belong to Arab Embassies, oil-rich sheiks, and the occasional Russian oligarch.

Londoners who still "take tea" in the lobbies of the grand hotels, tell me in soft, resigned voices that "this is how it is and there is nothing that can be done about it. Speak out and you will fall into immediate disfavor."

I know several exceptionally gallant, truth-telling thinkers and writers in London who are now blacklisted, censored, their powers curtailed. They dared tell the truth about how biased against America and Israel the British media and professoriate are--and how irrationally they favor both Islam and Islamism.

However, as one life-long Londoner pointed out to me: "Harrods, which is also owned by Arabs, (al-Fayed sold it to Qatar), loses business nine months of the year and only survives because Arabs come on shopping expeditions in the summer to escape the desert heat." London's Fortum and Mason's, the most luxurious store in the world, now has its first stand-alone satellite store in Dubai.

A limousine driver tells me that he routinely picks up exceedingly short fur coats that cost $65,000.00 for Arab women and that "once, a Saudi Prince left 3 million pounds in the boot (trunk) of my car. He completely forgot about it."

A professor from Oxford comes down to visit me. She tells me about the "Asian (Pakistani) grooming gangs" in Oxford and about how 378 very young Caucasian infidel girls were pimped out by these gangs in Oxford alone.

"Finally, after many years, the pimps were arrested and sentenced and the failure of the police to stop them was excoriated in open court. The English Defense League mounted a brave, civil rights protest right in front of the police station. The police cordoned them off, surrounded them with barking dogs and a line of police officers who let no one near enough to hear what they had to say. And then they loosed the Anti-Fascist League against them who came rushing down the street, hollering "Nazi, fascist scum."

As Orwell understood, not all speech is equal.

The streets are filled with women in heavy hijab, in Niqab, (face masks), and in black, burqa-like body bags. As I have written many times before: I have no quarrel with head coverings but suggest that the West must draw the line at face masks and sensory deprivation isolation chambers which burqas truly are. These "covered" women are flying the flag of Jihad, of a barbaric version of patriarchy--which is now increasingly ensconced within Britain's gates.

The West's dependence on Big Oil together with its own blind commitment to cultural sensitivity, an allegedly anti-racist tolerance for the barbarian "other," and fearfulness about the consequences of speaking out--have together brought this about.

Some say that just as England once colonized the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent, Central Asia, and the Far East that now, the favor is being returned; the Islamic world is giving the colonizing Mother Country a taste of its own well deserved medicine.

Tragically, this means that infidel women are sexual prey; that their rape, sexual harassment, and sexual slavery is being done quite openly, publicly--just as it is done in the Muslim world.

It means that the luxury hotels all offer a "halal" option; that certain British government offices are run as Sharia enterprises.

The British nationalists and the Islamists agree on one thing and one thing only: That the Jews are the greatest oppressors and conspirators in the world; that "Palestine" is the most oppressed (non-) country in the whole wide world; and that this must be screamed out loud in the mosques, on the streets, in the media, and in the universities. Please read Carol Gould and Melanie Phillips for starters if you have not already done so.

Recently, I wrote about a British documentary made possible by the hard work of a Turkish-born nun, Sister Hatune Dogan. She opened every door for the British filmmakers, gentled the sex slaves whom she and her networks had rescued from ISIS and translated their words for the filmmaker.

Despite all promises to the contrary, Sister Hatune and her foundation were completely dropped from the film. When I finally got the producer on the phone, she admitted to me that "the film could not afford to be associated with such a racist Islamophobe, that it would ruin their chances for recognition and prizes"--and when I questioned her further, she quickly began yelling, then screaming after which she hung up on me in breathtaking fashion.

Yes, there is some "fight back." Britain has the power to return Muslim girls whose families have kidnapped them to Pakistan for forced marriages--that's if they can find them. Just as I was leaving, I read that a couple were arrested at Heathrow Airport for having taken their eight year old girl back to Somalia to have her genitals mutilated; doing so, is against the law.

Will Britain, will all Europe, fight to remain Western countries? Or, hoisted on their own petard of political correctness, will they simply become vassal states of Islam? 
To be or not to be--that is the question.


Prof. Phyllis Chesler

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18548#.VuWRn3qzdds

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