The Right to Mock - Douglas Murray

by Douglas Murray

There is nothing special about Islam that means it cannot be mocked. In fact, it would be a very good thing (both for Muslims and everyone else) if it were mocked rather more

• Mohammed Shafiq was quoted in the Sun saying of Smith: "I think he should apologise immediately. Our faith is not to be mocked, our faith is to be celebrated and I think people will be offended."
• Shafiq does not explain why his faith should not be mocked. Nor does he seem to know anything about the right of free people in free countries to do or say whatever we like about Islam or any other faith whenever we feel like it.
• There is nothing special about Islam that means it cannot be mocked. In fact, it would be a very good thing (both for Muslims and everyone else) if it were mocked rather more.
• But there in that sentence is the implicit threat again. All insist that their faith "should not be mocked." And for those who say they are moderates, and are presented as such by the press, it seems to be exceptionally useful that they do not have to be much more explicit than this.
• But in this not-so-subtle intimidation do we not see precisely that thing which most worries the public? That despite what our politicians say, the allegedly vast chasm that separates the extremists from the "moderates" seems at times to be almost paper-thin.

If there is one question that most concerns the public around the question of radical Islam it is "What is the connection between the extremists and the moderates?" Leading politicians across the Western world have not been much help in answering this question, insisting as they do, that radical Islam has nothing to do with Islam and that the extremists are as far away from the moderates as it is possible to be. Yet the public senses that this is not the case.

Despite the amazing lack of public debate about the actual contours of the discussion, the public knows that something is not right about the analysis provided by Liberal politicians and others. Indeed, the public notices not only that there is some connection between the two (something Democrats in the U.S., among others, deny) but that the connection may be closer than anyone would like. A fine example of this was thrown up in the UK this week in the space of just 24 hours.

On Friday the London Evening Standard carried a story about the police launching a possible "hate crime" investigation into literature that the paper had discovered being handed out at a London mosque. The potential "hate crime" was not even the best known variety -- a mean Tweet or a nasty comment -- but the sort of thing we used to call "incitement." The literature being handed out at a mosque in Walthamstow consisted of a booklet which insisted that "any Muslim should kill" anyone who insults the Prophet of Islam. Those who insult the main man "must be killed," it repeated.

The pamphlet backed up this point of view with reference to classical Islamic law and explained that in the case of those who "insult" Mohammed, such as apostates who "deserve to be assassinated," it was not necessary to wait for any court or court judgement to rule. Better just to get on with it on your own, was the gist.

In a case that is becoming increasingly familiar to indigenous British people as much as it is to British Pakistanis, the booklet referred to the seminal case of Mumtaz Qadri, the Pakistani man who in 2011 murdered Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province. Qadri murdered Taseer because of the latter's support for the reform of Pakistan's strict Islamic blasphemy laws. The booklet explains that "all Muslims should support" the assassin Qadri and that even being what the publication calls "a big shot" like Taseer should not protect someone from being killed by any Muslim who feels like it.

Salman Taseer, pictured in the memorial poster at left, was the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province when he was murdered in 2011 by a radical Islamist, because of Taseer's support for the reform of Pakistan's strict Islamic blasphemy laws. Right: London police may be launching a "hate crime" investigation into a booklet being handed out at a London mosque, which explains that "all Muslims should support" Taseer's murderer.

The police are currently investigating the Dar-ul-Uloom Qadria Jilania mosque in Walthamstow, where the booklet was handed out, and would do well to look into the imam of the mosque, Syed Abdul Qadir Jilani, whose name and photograph are on the front of the booklet in question. Of course, the response of the political class in Britain is to ignore any and all such things. "Bad egg" or "one rotten apple" is probably the most the public will be able to expect from any politician, if one were forced to give any view at all on Mr Jilani, his pamphlet or his mosque. Yet the public reads stories like this and rightly wonders where people like Mr Jilani get their ideas from and how widely such ideas might be spread.

The following day (Saturday) readers of The Sun were able to learn of a British celebrity gymnast, Louis Smith, who had got drunk with friends at a wedding and made a video that appeared to have come back to haunt him. As the Sun headline read, "Has he got a screw Louis? Olympic ace Louis Smith accused of mocking Islam after yelling 'Allahu Akbar' and pretending to pray in boozy video." The video of drunken japery included Smith and a friend pulling a rug off a wall and shouting "Allahu Akbar" while the friend pretended to pray in a vaguely Islamic style. As the paper led the story,

"Olympics star and former Strictly Come Dancing winner Louis Smith has been accused of mocking Islam after appearing in a video with a mate drunkenly pretending to pray. The footage shows him with fellow gymnast Luke Carson yelling 'Allahu Akbar', an Islamic phrase meaning 'God is the greatest'."

It is hardly the most important news story of the year, and hardly involves any of the most important figures of our time. But the story will have been read by millions of readers and they will have noticed the reactions. First, that from a "security source" who tells the paper "Mocking religion is pretty foolish. In the case of Islam, it can also be quite a risky thing to do." And then the paper has the obligatory quote from an alleged "moderate Muslim," on this occasion one Mohammed Shafiq of a one-man organization called the "Ramadan Foundation." Mr Shafiq has previously been hailed in Britain for his apparently exceptional moral courage and bravery in coming out against the mass gang-rape of children. In 2013, he stood accused of attempting to get up a lynch-mob when the reformist Muslim Maajid Nawaz tweeted out an innocuous image that Shafiq insisted was offensive to all the world's Muslims.

Anyhow -- responding to the Louis Smith drunken video, the same Mohammed Shafiq was quoted in the Sun saying of Smith: "I think he should apologise immediately. Our faith is not to be mocked, our faith is to be celebrated and I think people will be offended." Shafiq does not explain why his faith should not be mocked. Nor does he seem to know anything about the right of free people in free countries to do or say whatever we like about Islam or any other faith whenever we feel like it. There is nothing special about Islam that means it cannot be mocked. In fact, it would be a very good thing (both for Muslims and everyone else) if it were mocked rather more. But there in that sentence is the implicit threat again. Less blatant than the threat against Maajid Nawaz, but very close indeed to the line used by the Walthamstow imam and the extremists who defend Mumtaz Qadri.

All insist that their faith "should not be mocked." And for those who say they are moderates, and are presented as such by the press, it seems to be exceptionally useful that they do not have to be much more explicit than this. Fortunately for them, there are other people willing to do the killing in countries such as Pakistan and occasionally in the West. The rest of us -- whether gymnasts on a night out or anyone else -- are simply expected to have learnt this by now. But in this not-so-subtle intimidation do we not see precisely that thing which most worries the public? That despite what our politicians say, the allegedly vast chasm that separates the extremists from the "moderates" seems at times to be almost paper-thin.

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Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9100/mockery-islam

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Several Paths from a 1920 Jewish National Home to a 2016 Jewish State - Wallace Edward Brand, JD

by Wallace Edward Brand, JD

A must read to understand the legal foundations for Israel's existence as a Jewish state.

Enacting UN Resolution 181 (the Partition Resolution) was NOT one of the logical paths to Jewish statehood in Palestine because the UN General Assembly has no authority to do more than recommend. 

In the 1920s the British in the Balfour Declaration had developed a policy to favor the Jewish goal of Zionism in Palestine if the Allies were successful in WWI against the Ottoman Empire, that had joined the war in 1914 as one of the European Central Powers.  In April, 1920, the Allies met in San Remo and adopted that policy.  The British had volunteered to be trustees over a trust designed to permit the Jewish People first to settle in Palestine west of the Jordan River and ultimately to attain sovereignty if and when it became the majority population in that territory and became capable of exercising sovereignty. 

Between 1920 and 1948 British interests changed.  It found that meeting the obligations of trusteeship over a trust res for the Jewish People by maintaining law and order in Palestine was no longer its goal and that maintaining law and order in Palestine was costing it much in treasure and military manpower.  It gave notice to the UN that it would resign as trustee in 1948. 

The UN formed a Special Committee on Palestine  (UNSCOP) that held hearings on what to do following the British withdrawal.  It enacted a Resolution 181 entitled The Partition Resolution because the resolution divided the Palestine territory between the Jewish People and the Arab People.  The Resolution was no more than a recommendation because the UN General Assembly has no authority to legislate and Article 80 of the Charter was careful to maintain existing rights to territory.. 

A careful reading of the UN Charter shows that the General Assembly can only recommend.  Its recommendations become international law only if those affected by the recommendation agree to it.  These are usually ratified by a treaty.

As noted by Caroline Glick in her recent book The Israel Solution, Elihu Lauterpacht, a judge on the International Court of Justice says “’the coming of Israel into existence does not depend legally upon Resolution [181].  The right of a state to exist flows from its factual existence, especially when that existence is prolonged, shows every sign of continuance and is recognized by the generality of nations.” 

Amplifying Lauterpacht’s position, in 1981 the legal scholar Julius Stone wrote “The State of Israel is . . .not legally derived from the partition plan, but rests (as do most other states in the world) on assertion of independence by its people and government, on the vindication of that independence by arms against the assault by other states and on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control. Stone, Israel-Palestine: Assault on the Law of Nations Baltimore Johns-Hopkins (1981).

And Judge Stephen Schwebel, who later became the President of the International Court of Justice, explained in a 1970 article in the American Journal of International Law that “where the prior holder of territory [in this case Jordan] had seized the territory unlawfully, the state which lawfully takes the territory in the exercise of self-defense [that is Israel in the 1967 Six Day War] has better title. ‘’ What Weight Conquest, April 1970 pp. 346.

My own path to the Jewish People’s sovereignty is somewhat different. 

The Palestine Mandate is a trust agreement. I find this, as did Dean Eugene Rostow in Historical Approach to the Issue of Legality of Jewish Settlement Activity in New Republic, April, 1990 and  Duncan Campbell Lee, in a book entitled Mandate for Mesopotamia and the Principles of Trusteeship under British Law containing his lecture in May, 1921 at University College, London. Both are correct in finding that the Palestine Mandate is nothing more than a trust agreement. 

Harry Sacher who penned the first draft of the Balfour Declaration also wrote a short booklet in 1919 published by the Zionist Organization in London in which he recommended that the collective rights to political self-determination be placed in a trust in which the trustee would be Great Britain, under the supervision of the League of Nations.  His book is entitled A Jewish Palestine, the Jewish case for a British Trusteeship. 

This conclusion is confirmed by the very first sentence of the Palestine Mandate which “entrusts” Britain with the right to administer the government within Palestine.

This trust lasted at least until 1967 as the British resignation of their voluntary undertaking as trustees did not have the effect of ending the trust according to Dean Rostow.  Exercising legal domain over collective political rights to self-determination (national rights) would give a group the right to set up a government and administer it.  By 1922 the British had already converted its military government to a civilian one.

Evidence of the intention of the settlors of the trust is the lodestar (guiding light) to interpreting the terms of the trust if it is judicially admissible.  This is a recognized legal principle. 

There are three pieces of evidence that appear to be relevant.  One is the British Government’s explanation of the Balfour Declaration issued by the British Foreign Office on December 19, 1917.  In an official memorandum Arnold Toynbee and Lewis write that the contention the Jewish government would be anti-democratic was "imaginary" because the national rights, the collective political rights to self-determination would be placed in trust until the Jews attained a population majority. This memo was published the month after the publication of the Balfour Declaration which was copied into the San Remo Agreement and the Palestine Mandate word for word.

This is relevant because at San Remo on April 25, 1920, the Allied Principal War Powers of WWI agreed that the terms of the British Policy would govern the terms of the trust authorized to be created and the terms of the Balfour Declaration were adopted word-for-word. 

Also of relevance is an excerpt from the tentative proposal of the US drafted by “The Inquiry,” a group of academics assembled at the request of President Woodrow Wilson to have an academic approach to settlement terms for the war.

“It is recommended that the Jews be invited to return to Palestine and settle there, being assured by the Conference of all proper assistance in so doing that may be consistent with the protection *of the personal (especially the religious) and the property rights of the non-Jewish population, and being further assured that it will be the policy of the League of Nations to recognize Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a Jewish state in fact.

(1. David Hunter Miller, My Diary at the Conference of Paris, Vol. iv, pp. 263-264. Full text.2. J.C. Hurewitz (ed.), The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record, Vol.2, British-French Supremacy, 1914-1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 103. 3. www.eretzyisroel.org/~samuel/americandraft.html)

Both the British Foreign Office Memo and the tentative proposal of The Inquiry of January 21, 1919 provide for statehood following the Jewish National Homeland when the Homeland meets the conditions discussed by the settlers. 

A third piece of evidence is the memorandum of Herbert Samuels at the time the Ottoman Empire entered into warfare joining the Central Powers, Germany, The Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, et al.  These indicate that they wanted a state but that a state would be impractical to create when the ruling bloc was smaller than other ethnic groups whose obedience must be commanded.  And the Jewish population would also need to be large enough demographically to be able to protect their citizens  from foreign aggressors.  One need only look at what happened later to the French Mandate in Syria when these same principles were ignored and a 2% Alawite ethnic group was recognized by the French as sovereign.  Under Hafez Assad, some 100,000 civilians were killed and under his son Bashir, another 450,000 civilian casualties are believed to have been sustained. 

On the evening before the adoption of the San Remo Resolution France had wanted to amend the savings clause applicable to non-Jewish communities, to save the political rights of the non-Jews.  The others at the table objected to this change as the non-Jewish communities had never exercised any collective political rights and therefore had none to save.  The French were satisfied with a “side agreement” written in French that the savings clause did not require that these non-Jewish communities to surrender any of their existing rights.

The terms of the Palestine Mandate were approved and confirmed by 52 States who were members of the League of Nations and by the U.S. in June, 1922 in a joint congressional resolution and in 1925 in a treaty.  The tentative proposal of the U.S. at the Paris Peace talks contained the provision:

`That the Jews be invited to return to Palestine and settle there, being assured by the Conference of all proper assistance in so doing that may be consistent with the protection of the personal (especially the religious) and the property rights of the non- Jewish population, and being further assured that it will be the policy of the League of Nations to recognize Palestine as a Jewish state.

The phrase on the intended policy of the League of Nations shows that the act of the League of Nations recognizing Palestine as a Jewish state was intended only to be a ministerial act once the trust res vested.  These trust conditions vested partly in 1948 and partly in 1967. 

The terms of a trust agreement typically are self-executing.  If I place a Ming vase in trust for my daughter to vest when she is 35 years of age, it would be self-executing.  The trust res would vest on her 35th birthday unless the trustee disagreed she should have it.  In that case it would have to be litigated.  The League of Nations had set up a Permanent Mandates Commission to take the place of a court of equity. The conditions of this trust were that if the Jewish people had attained a majority in the area and the capability of exercising sovereignty, they would rule.  These conditions were attained in 1948 for the first area in which both were met.  This was the area now described as being within the Green Line. 

According to Article 7 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on duties and obligations of statehood, “The recognition of a state may be express or tacit. The latter results from any act which implies the intention of recognizing the new state.”  Both Presidents Harding and Coolidge executed the US confirmation and approvals.  They had the power to authorize recognition of a foreign state.

I think the foregoing will help any person who wants to understand all the support for the proposition that the Jewish People have sovereignty over all of Palestine west of the Jordan.  I do not suggest that this result should supersede the reasoning of others such as the respected Lauterpacht, Stone or Schwebel but seem to be a simpler and reasonable approach to the question.  Also, it seems to be supported by the opinions of several highly regarded jurists in United States shown in Rifkind, et al., The Basic Equities of the Palestine Problem.

Question: Why was the draft Mandate for Palestine redrafted to expressly avoid discussing that its second step was to recognize the Jewish People’s Statehood? 

Because the British had published the Declaration at a time when the war was ongoing.  Calling troops away from the main fight with the Central Powers, to keep order in Palestine if the Arabs were stirred up, was at all costs to be avoided.  Communications showing that the British knew it was providing for ultimate statehood for Palestine are collected in Doreen Ingrams, Palestine Papers 1917 — 1922:Seeds of Conflict.


Wallace Edward Brand, JD

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19588

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Hungary to Amend Constitution to Block EU Migrant Plan - Soeren Kern

by Soeren Kern

"Brussels or Budapest, that was the question, and the people said Budapest."

• The Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, all former Communist countries, also oppose the EU plan to relocate 160,000 "asylum seekers," which they say is an "EU diktat" that infringes on national sovereignty.
• "One of the principals underpinning the system is the primacy of EU law." — Margaritis Schinas, chief spokesperson for European Commission.
• "In the early autumn of 2015 we erected a fence on the external green border of the European Union and the Schengen Area. This was to protect the European Union's greatest achievement: free movement within the common area of the internal market.... We do not want to distribute the migration burdens falling on Europe, but we want to eliminate them: to put an end to them." — Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, July 11, 2016.
• "We do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other countries... That is a historical experience for us." — Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, September 3, 2015.
• "We lose our European values and identity the way frogs are cooked in slowly-heating water. Quite simply, slowly there will be more and more Muslims, and we will no longer recognize Europe." — Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, September 30, 2016.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has proposed amending the Constitution to prevent the European Union from settling migrants in Hungary without the approval of Parliament.

In a speech on October 4, Orbán said the amendment would be presented to Parliament on October 10, and, if approved, it would come into effect on November 8.

Hungarian voters overwhelmingly rejected the European Union's mandatory migrant relocation plan in a referendum on October 2, but failed to turn out in sufficient numbers to make the referendum legally binding.

More than 97% of those who voted in the referendum answered 'no' to the question: "Do you want the European Union to be entitled to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary without the consent of the National Assembly?"

Voter turnout was only 40%, however, far short of the 50% participation required to make the referendum valid under Hungarian law.

Orbán has been a vocal opponent of the EU's plan to relocate 160,000 "asylum seekers" from Greece and Italy. Under the scheme, 1,294 migrants would be moved to Hungary. The Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, all former Communist countries, are also opposed to the EU plan, which they say is an "EU diktat" that infringes on national sovereignty.

Although the referendum has been invalidated, Orbán — whose eurosceptic Fidesz party has more support than all opposition parties combined — said he would not be deterred. Speaking to supporters after the polls closed, he said:

"The European Union's proposal is to let the migrants in and distribute them in mandatory fashion among the member states and for Brussels to decide about this distribution. Hungarians today considered this proposal and they rejected it. Hungarians decided that only we Hungarians can decide with whom we want to live. The question was 'Brussels or Budapest' and we decided this issue is exclusively the competence of Budapest."

In an address to Parliament on October 3, Orbán hailed the vote as a "great victory" and reiterated his plan to amend the Hungarian Constitution to ensure that the EU cannot settle migrants in Hungary. He said:

"No party or party alliance in the history of Hungarian democracy has ever received such a large mandate. I'm telling you with sufficient gentleness, we will not let the opinion of the 3.3 million people who voted 'no' to be ignored.
"... with sufficient modesty and restraint I must say that Hungarians made history yesterday. If it is true that history is written by the victors then with a resounding victory of the 'no' votes Hungary won yesterday."

In Brussels, Margaritis Schinas, chief spokesperson for European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the European Union, said that regardless of the referendum, EU law still takes precedence over Hungarian law. He said:

"On the referendum, if it had been legally valid, our comment would have been that we take note of it. Since it was declared legally void by the Hungarian electoral commission, we can now say that we also take note of it.... One of the principals underpinning the system is the primacy of EU law."

The EU's unrelenting stance, and Orbán's continued opposition to it, implies that the intra-European fight over what to do with hundreds of thousands of migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is far from over.

Some 400,000 migrants passed through Hungary in 2015 on their way toward Western Europe. Since then, Hungary has built fences on its borders with Serbia and Croatia, effectively cutting off the so-called Western Balkan Route, which constitutes the main land route through Eastern Europe for migrants who enter the EU from Turkey via Greece and Bulgaria.

Migrants protest at Budapest Keleti railway station, September 4, 2015. (Image source: Mstyslav Chernov/Wikimedia Commons)

Orbán, who has emerged as the standard-bearer of European opposition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's "open-door" migration policy, has rejected criticism of the fences. In a July 11, 2016 article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he wrote:

"In the summer of 2015, with complete disregard for European rules, more than ten thousand migrants a day were arriving at the Hungarian-Serbian border. These people had already been in the territory of another Member State: in the territory of both the EU and the Schengen Area. As it is the responsibility of a country on the Schengen Area's external border to ensure that the crossing of that external border is controlled, Hungary had no choice but to erect a physical barrier.
"Germany, and a considerable section of German public opinion, were unable to comprehend — and some people are still unable to do so — how Hungary, the country that tore down the iron curtain, could resort to such a measure.
"I understand how German society, which for decades was divided by walls and barbed wire, dislikes the fence. But if anyone has the moral standing to explain this to their German friends, surely the Hungarians do. After all, it was Hungary that cut through the Iron Curtain which divided Europe — and the German people — in the decades after the Second World War....
"In 1989 we dismantled a fence which divided the peoples of Europe. In the early autumn of 2015 we erected a fence on the external green border of the European Union and the Schengen Area. This was to protect the European Union's greatest achievement: free movement within the common area of the internal market. This free movement is protected by the Schengen Agreement, in accordance with jointly agreed European regulations ratified many years ago. As a result, we have been protecting the European people's way of life and economic model — at least on the section of Europe's external border for which we are responsible. And, no less crucially, we have been protecting their security....
"When some people hear comments such as these they automatically react with the accusation of populism. As Shakespeare would put it, however, populists are people who call a spade a spade. We Hungarians call things by their names. This is part of our nature. We do not want to distribute the migration burdens falling on Europe, but we want to eliminate them: to put an end to them."

Orbán has repeatedly warned that Muslim refugees are threatening Europe's Christian identity.

At a news conference after a meeting with other European leaders in Brussels, Orbán said:

"We don't want to, and I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country. We do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other countries and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force us to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want to see. That is a historical experience for us."

Orbán was referring to the 150-year Ottoman Turkish occupation of Hungary, which began with the Siege of Buda in 1541, and ended with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, when the Ottomans ceded Hungary to the Habsburg Monarchy.

The Ottoman conquest of Hungary actually began at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, when Turkish forces led by Sultan Suleiman I destroyed the Hungarian army and partitioned the country. Some 15,000 Hungarian troops were killed in the battle and many of those who survived were beheaded by Turkish forces.

Over the next century and a half, the Ottoman forces occupying Hungary plundered and pillaged the land and took more than a million Hungarians as slaves, according to Paul Fregosi, the author of Jihad, a history of Muslim holy war against Christians.

In a September 3, 2015 essay published by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Orbán wrote:

"Let us not forget that those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? If we lose sight of this, the idea of Europe could become a minority interest in its own continent."

Speaking at a September 30, 2016 rally in support of the referendum, Orbán said:

"We lose our European values and identity the way frogs are cooked in slowly-heating water. Quite simply, slowly there will be more and more Muslims, and we will no longer recognize Europe. What we have seen so far from the people's migration have only been warm-up rounds. The real battle is yet to come."

When asked if he thought the EU could override Hungarian law, Orbán replied:

"I can't imagine that there is a state among the democratic community of Europe which says clearly that it doesn't want something, and then in another capital, they try to override it. Brussels, for example.
"I think this would be unprecedented in the history of the European Union, so I don't think there would be a decision like this, a decision raping democracy. I have a much better opinion of the European Union."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9088/hungary-migrants

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US formally accuses Russian hackers of political cyberattacks - Erez Linn, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

by Erez Linn, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

"Only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities," says U.S. • Russian Foreign Ministry says accusations lack proof, are attempt to fan "unprecedented anti-Russian hysteria" • U.S.: Attacks "consistent with Russian motivations."

The U.S. government on Friday for the first time formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyberattacks against Democratic Party organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.

"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities," a U.S. government statement said on Friday, referring to the hacking of political groups.

"These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process."

U.S. intelligence officials concluded weeks ago that the Russian government was conducting or orchestrating cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, possibly to disrupt or discredit the election, in which Democrat Hillary Clinton faces Republican Donald Trump.

A Kremlin spokesman called the U.S. allegations "nonsense," the Interfax news agency reported.

On Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the U.S. accusations lacked any proof and were an attempt by Washington to fan "unprecedented anti-Russian hysteria."

"This whipping up of emotions regarding 'Russian hackers' is used in the U.S. election campaign, and the current U.S. administration, taking part in this fight, is not averse to using dirty tricks," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Saturday in comments posted on the ministry's website.

The Obama administration's decision to blame Russia for the attacks marks the latest downward turn in relations between the two countries, which are under strain over Russia's actions in Syria and Ukraine and in cyberspace.

Also on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russian and Syrian actions in the Syrian civil war, including the bombings of hospitals, "beg for" a war crimes investigation.

In addition, a U.S. intelligence official said on Friday that Russia was moving short-range nuclear-capable missiles into Kaliningrad, a tiny Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, confirming Estonian news reports.

Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, said the public blaming for the hacks left the question of "why Donald Trump continues to make apologies for the Russians." Trump had previously expressed doubt about Russia's involvement. In July, he suggested Russia should attempt to retrieve and publish emails from Clinton's private server.

Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hours after the U.S. government's accusation was levied, WikiLeaks posted hundreds of emails on its website purportedly hacked from Podesta's private account.

Until Friday, the Obama administration had avoided publicly singling out Russia in connection with the mounting civilian deaths in Syria or the cyberattacks.

The statement by the Homeland Security Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not blame the Russian government for hacking attempts against state election systems, but said "scanning and probing" of those systems originated in most cases from servers operated by a Russian company.

A Homeland Security Department spokesman said U.S. officials had concluded that the hacking attacks or probes of state voter registration systems were "consistent with Russian motivations."

Concern has grown about the reliability of the U.S. voting system as a result of the breach, and Trump has called the system "rigged," but without providing specific evidence.

U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no evidence that voting recording systems have been manipulated.

Identifying Russia as the actor behind the cyberattacks on political organizations falls short of more punitive measures the United States has taken against other countries for cyber intrusions.

Lawmakers of both political parties welcomed the formal accusation. Republican Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity, said he planned to introduce sanctions legislation.

Earlier this year, a U.S. grand jury indicted seven Iranians employed by two Iran-based computer firms on charges of hacking into the U.S. financial sector. In 2015, Obama announced sanctions against North Korea for hacking into Sony Pictures.

In 2014, the United States charged five Chinese military hackers for economic espionage aimed at U.S. nuclear, metals and solar industries.

A senior U.S. official said the administration is considering other retaliatory steps against Russia, but he declined to identify them. Those steps may remain covert, the official said.

The Democratic National Committee publicly disclosed intrusions into its systems in June and held Russia responsible. Leaks of committee emails from pro-transparency group WikiLeaks soon followed, demonstrating what appeared to be favoritism for Clinton over another Democrat, Bernie Sanders, by committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman, stepped down.

In Friday's statement, the government said disclosures of emails by WikiLeaks and hacking entities known as DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 "are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts."

WikiLeaks has not identified the source of its leaks and criticized those who have claimed it was Russia. Guccifer 2.0 has identified itself as a Romanian hacker, but U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks are both a front for Russian spy units.

Erez Linn, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=37019

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The Top Ten Schools Supporting Terrorists: UC Irvine - Frontpagemag.com

by Frontpagemag.com

A notorious base for supporters of terrorists.

Last night the David Horowitz Freedom Center launched a campaign against the pro-terrorist groups and their faculty encouragers at the University of California Irvine campus. The University of California, Irvine is a notorious base for supporters of terrorists. BDS activists on campus make no secret of their allegiance to Hamas, chanting slogans such as “Intifada, Intifada/long live the Intifada” and “when people are occupied/resistance is justified” and disrupting pro-Israel events. Irvine hosts an annual Israeli Apartheid Week which has been variously called “Anti-Zionism Week” and “Resisting Zionism” by its supporters.

Recently, Irvine’s mock “apartheid wall” glorified convicted hijacker Leila Khaled a member of the murderous terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The wall depicted a map of Israel with the entire nation labeled as “occupied territory.” Speakers invited to Irvine by the campus chapter of the Muslim Student Union included BDS movement founder Omar Barghouti and infamous terrorist-supporting anti-Semite, Amir Abdel Malik Ali, who has openly stated his allegiance to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. Irvine’s student senate unanimously passed a BDS resolution in 2012, one of the first student governments in the nation to do so. Irvine students even met with a prominent Hamas leader during a secret trip to the Middle East in 2009.

On Wednesday night, the David Horowitz Freedom Center conducted a campus poster operation at Irvine, plastering the campus with posters identifying the organization Students for Justice in Palestine as a campus front for Hamas terrorists and the Hamas intermediary American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). AMP was revealed in recent congressional testimony to be funneling terrorist dollars to Students for Justice in Palestine to support the Hamas-sponsored, anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in America.

One poster depicts a gun-toting Hamas terrorist holding the strings of a puppet labeled “American Muslims for Palestine” which in turn controls a marionette labeled “Students for Justice in Palestine.” Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is described as “The chief sponsor of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities on campus.” Hamas is identified as “A terror organization pledged to wipe out Israel” (a goal explicitly stated in the Hamas charter) while AMP is the “Hamas-created chief organizer and funder of SJP.” The poster also depicts shadowed bodies lying in pools of blood, illustrating the bloody deeds of Hamas’s campaign of terror against the Jews. The poster contains the hashtag #JewHatred and the Freedom Center’s website, www.HorowitzFreedomCenter.org.

A second poster targets UC-Irvine professor and director of the UC Institute for Humanities Research Theo Goldberg who is depicted in caricature. The poster reveals that Goldberg “Calls Israelis Nazis” and “Claims Jews Murder Palestinians in Snuff Films.”

The posters are part of a larger Freedom Center campaign titled Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus which seeks to confront the agents of campus anti-Semitism and expose the financial and organizational relationship between the terror group Hamas and Hamas support groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine. The campaign also recently released a report on the “Top Ten Schools Supporting Terrorists” which may be found on the campaign website, www.StoptheJewHatredonCampus.org. UC-Irvine is among the campuses listed in the Top Ten report. The section of the report demonstrating Irvine’s support of anti-Israel terrorists follows below.

Supporting Evidence:

May 18, 2016: Irvine SJP succeeded in disrupting a pro-Israel film screening that was co-sponsored by the campus chapters of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) and Hillel. SSI reported on its Facebook page that, “Tonight one of our events was disrupted by certain student organizations. They were in violation of UC Regents Hate Speech policy and were shouting various anti-Semitic statements. The police had to escort attendees out of the event for their own safety.” Video of the event reveals students shouting their support for anti-Israel terrorism, screaming “Intifada, Intifada/long live the Intifada,” “displacing people since ‘48/there’s nothing here to celebrate!” and “when people are occupied/resistance is justified.”

https://www.facebook.com/SSIUCI/posts/1111833845525576
http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7605
http://www.amchainitiative.org/campusmonitor/campusmonitor-ucirvine/

May 2-5, 2016: Irvine’s chapters of SJP and the Muslim Students Association (MSA) collaborated with other student groups to hold an “Anti-Zionist Week” on campus. The week featured a huge mock “apartheid wall” which celebrated anti-Israel terrorism in multiple panels. One panel depicted an image of convicted hijacker Leila Khaled holding a gun with the slogan “Women Leading Resistance” below it. “Resistance” is a euphemism for anti-Israel terrorism. Another segment of the wall repeats the slogan, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.” Another segment depicted a map of Israel with the entire nation labeled as “occupied territory,” an allusion to Hamas’s genocidal goal to rid Israel of its Jews. The wall also endorsed the Hamas-inspired Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel.

In addition to the apartheid wall, Irvine’s anti-Zionist week featured a mock funeral procession for a Palestinian “martyr.” One of the students participating in the funeral procession held a sign proclaiming “Long Live the Intifada.” Another event featured a speech by anti-Israel Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss who comes from a fringe Jewish sect. During his address, Weiss resorted to anti-Semitic caricatures, claiming that Zionism is “a Madoff scheme” and Zionists use their “billions and billions of dollars” to intimidate “the media” and “any politician who dares …to show too much sympathy for the Palestinian cause.” He also claimed that “newspapers are conglomerates that are owned or controlled by Zionist organizations.”http://www.imgrum.net/media/1243068338314014499_227088962http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2016/05/rabbi-yisroel-dovid-weiss-condemns.html
http://www.amchainitiative.org/campusmonitor/campusmonitor-ucirvine/
https://www.facebook.com/msuuci/photos/a.109702209116306.23746.109701965782997/1015493961870455/?type=3&theater
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2016/05/uc-irvine-bash-israel-week-is-here.html

February 19, 2016: SJP held an event titled “Unlearning Zionism: A Workshop and Discussion” with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. The Facebook page for the event featured side-by-side photos labeled “Warsaw 1944” (an image of the Warsaw ghetto) with “Gaza 2009,” implying an equivalence between the Holocaust and the treatment of Palestinians.https://www.facebook.com/events/1600520343520537/
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/photos/gm.1600520360187202/950070228380389/?type=3&theater
October 12, 2015: An event featuring former Israeli Chief Justice Aharon Barak at Irvine was interrupted by 20-30 anti-Israel protestors, forcing police to interrupt the event and escort Barak and the other attendees out of the event.
http://www.amchainitiative.org/campusmonitor/campusmonitor-ucirvine/

May 4-7, 2015: UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union staged an “Anti-Zionism Week” on campus. As part of the week’s activities, SJP and MSU sold T-shirts emblazoned with “UC Intifada,” openly stating their allegiance to Jew-killing terrorists. The back of the T-shirt read “End Settler Colonialism” (a core Hamas fiction) and depicted a genocidal Hamas map which falsely alleged that an Arab nation called “Palestine” existed in 1947 and was over-run by Jews.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/california/article/a_letter_to_president_napolitano_and_chancellor_gillman_on_anti_zionism_wee
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/posts/822587804461966
https://www.facebook.com/events/992972734047882/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular&action_history=null&source=3&source_newsfeed_story_type=regular

April 23, 2015: A pro-Israel festival held by Anteaters for Israel (“Anteaters” is the school team name) was disrupted by anti-Israel protestors, who used their bodies and large signs to block a walkway and loudly chanted such slogans as “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” an attempt to whitewash terrorism.
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2015/04/pro-palestinians-mar-i-fest-at-uc-irvine.html

March 06, 2015: UC-Irvine professor Rei Terada was among the signatories of an op-ed appearing in the Daily Californian urging the administrators of the UC system to support the BDS Movement against Israel.
http://www.dailycal.org/2015/03/06/statement-uc-faculty-divestment-israel/

December 7, 2014: UC Irvine SJP held an event in defense of terrorist Rasmeah Odeh, with law professor Marjorie Cohn, calling Odeh “our comrade and sister.” Odeh was convicted by an Israeli military court in 1970 for her involvement in two fatal terrorist bombings: “Join us as we host Marjorie Cohn, Professor of Law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former President of the National Lawyer’s [sic] Guild and current Deputy Secretary of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers as she discusses the implications of the U.S.’s targeting of our comrade and sister, Rasema Odeh [sic]. Ms. Cohn recently authored an article titled, “US Leaders Aid and Abet Israeli War Crimes, Genocide & Crimes Against Humanity.”
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/posts/746787762041971
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmea_Odeh
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2014/12/08/rasmieh-odeh-palestian-wins-bond/20116389/

July 14, 2014: UC Irvine SJP shared on its Facebook page the following statement about Israel’s belated response to the unprovoked firing of thousands of Hamas rockets into its civilian areas, called “Operation Protective Edge.” The SJP statement parroted Hamas’s war propaganda that “Operation Protective Edge” was an aggressive initiative to indiscriminately murder Palestinians: “Israel’s war on Gaza is not an attempt to strike back at Hamas, nor was it in the 2008 war on Gaza or the previous wars it has waged against Palestinians. This is an attempt to murder as many Palestinians as they can before they decide to stop. If you are shocked that Israel is killing Palestinian women and children do not be, this is their intention and the principle on which their state was created. Every couple of years Israel wages a war on defenseless populations in their quest to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people. Remember, even if the current war stops, they will come back to kill more Palestinians in the future. Do not get comfortable today, and do not ignore Palestine tomorrow. Continue to spread awareness about what is happening. It should not take more than 150 lives for us to wake up and decide to care. Palestine is under occupation all day, every day. May we all see a free Palestine. #‎gazaunderattack#‎FreePalestine”
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/posts/677228392331242

June  2014: UC Irvine SJP posted a statement on Operation Protective Edge, repeating Hamas lies and defending its war crimes: “718 People. 718 Palestinians. Israel is massacring Palestinians on such a mass scale, it’s a wonder why no media outlet is stating that they are targeting civilians. The lives taken speak louder than Israel propaganda.” Hamas deliberately locates its rocket launchers in civilian neighborhoods which accounts for the civilian casualties when Israel attempts to eliminate the Hamas rocket threat. SJP parrots this cynical propaganda as a loyal and uncritical ally of Hamas terrorism. UC Irvine SJP also shared a post from Holocaust-denying former professor Norman Finkelstein commenting on Operation Protective Edge and listing “the names of Palestinians that Israel has murdered. #‎gazaunderattack#‎freePalestine#‎IsraelcontinuestomurderPalestinians”
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/posts/682944208426327
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/posts/678259378894810

May 6, 2014: UC Irvine SJP crashed a pro-Israel demonstration called “IFest” with a large sign, “End Apartheid.”  A group of SJP and MSU members pushed through a gathering of pro-Israel students to intimidate them, causing injuries to some. One student was reportedly grabbed and deliberately pushed to the ground and left with scratches and bruises. SJP proudly showcased the demonstration on their Facebook page: “This is how we welcomed Ifest (Israeli Fest) today. This is how we remember; Israel’s Independence day is our catastrophe. #‎IsrealiIndependenceEqualsGenocide#‎FreePalestine:”
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/photos/a.307158882671530.72599.126419344078819/645668485487233/?type=1
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/258644/betrayal-jews-paul-schnee

November 12, 2013: UC Irvine SJP hosted an event with anti-Israel activist Ben White, author ofIsraeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guideand co-author of Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy. White’s talk was titled “Israel: Apartheid, Not Democracy.” White has defended Hamas’ attempts to kill Israeli civilians, stating “Israel’s hasbara (public relations) says context for assault is rocket fire. Well, context for rocket fire is 64 years of expulsion & occupation.” A flat out lie. Gaza was a staging ground for three unprovoked aggressive wars against Israel, and Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in a gesture of peace which was answered by thousands of Hamas rockets aimed at civilians. 
https://www.facebook.com/events/388580594608935/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular&feed_story_type=17&action_history=null
http://www.adl.org/israel-international/anti-israel-activity/c/profile-ben-white.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/#.VfIA9BFViko

October 27, 2013: UC Irvine SJP posted on its Facebook page the series of Hamas-created maps that falsely depict a non-existent Arab nation of “Palestine” existing in 1947 and being colonized by Jews.
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/posts/560146354039447

May 6-9, 2013: UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union (MSU) held a week of events on “Resisting Zionism: The Palestinian Narrative.” The week featured an enormous “apartheid wall” plastered with anti-Israel propaganda including a call for BDS and a list of the purported “Rules of Occupation” which invert the reality that Israeli security measures are necessitated by Palestinian terrorism and aggression to assert the false claim that Israel is seeking to oppress and ethnically cleanse Palestinians. In fact, the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel have more rights and protections than the Arabs of any other Middle Eastern nation. The week of anti-Jewish activities included multiple anti-Israel events including one with anti-Israel activist Miko Peled and also a discussion on “The Need for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.”
https://www.facebook.com/msuuci/photos/oa.137300469788603/444237518996105/?type=1
https://www.facebook.com/sjpuci/photos/a.307158882671530.72599.126419344078819/491259227594827/?type=1

February 4, 2013: UC Irvine SJP held an event featuring BDS Movement founder Omar Barghouti titled “All About BDS.”
https://www.facebook.com/events/148531135298456/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular&feed_story_type=17&action_history=null

November 2012: UC Irvine’s student senate became one of the first in the nation to pass a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution against Israel. The BDS movement is a Hamas-inspired and funded campaign to strangle the Jewish state. The vote was unanimous, 16-0.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/165416/uc-irvine-student-government-approves-anti-israel-arnold-ahlert

May 8 2012: Anti-Semitic hate speaker Amir Abdel Malik Ali, a black racist “Imam” from Oakland, spoke at Irvine’s Palestinian Liberation Week which is organized by the Muslim Student Union.  In addition to defending suicide bombers, Malik Ali has compared the Jews to Nazis and openly expressed support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxl299EPVaQ

February 2010: UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union disrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on campus, which resulted in the arrest of nine of its members (and another two from the UC-Riverside chapter). MSU members stood up one at a time and shouted accusations at Oren including, “Mr. Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech” and “Israel is guilty of 101 war crimes.” The MSU members refused to cease their disruption, even after an administrator repeatedly begged for civility and ultimately scolded the students: “Shame on all of you!” The tactics used by the MSU are in keeping with Hamas’ prohibition on the “normalization” of relations with Israel and supporters of Israel. For its violation of campus rules of civility, the MSU received a one-year suspension, which was ultimately shortened to only one semester after the organization and its lawyer appealed.
http://www.adl.org/israel-international/anti-israel-activity/c/anti-semitism-at-uc-irvine.html?referrer=http://archive.adl.org/main_anti_israel/uc_irvine_hate.html#.VdFKLPlVikohttp://volokh.com/2010/02/12/free-speech-on-campus-michael-oren-at-uc-irvine/

September 2009: Students participated in a campus program called the Olive Tree Initiative and met with prominent Hamas leader Aziz Duwaik during a trip to Israel and the West Bank.  The students were told to keep the meeting a secret to avoid being prevented from re-entering Israel from the West Bank and to avoid a conflict with Jewish community leaders and others who would have disapproved of the meeting.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/89345/uc-irvine-students-secret-meeting-hamas-nichole-hungerford
http://www.ha-emet.com/oti_students_meet_hamas.html

Frontpagemag.com

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/264429/top-ten-schools-supporting-terrorists-uc-irvine-frontpagemagcom

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The angel of death in Aleppo - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Do we hear the drums of the apocalyptic war of Gog and Magog?

Whatever lies ahead of us in the new year is determined during the period of the High Holydays, when the Book of Life – and that of Death - are opened in the Heavens. The Book of Death does not only name those who will die but by what means each will meet his end:  by the sword, by falling prey to wild beasts, from hunger, pestilence  or other horrors that the fruitful mind of the human beast has managed to invent. 

Apparently there are cultures whose main occupation is self destruction and the destruction of others, to whom the quality of life and the business of living are uninteresting at best. What counts in these cultures is honor, the ruler, power and the state – even when it is an artificial one – and these are much more important that the lives of a peaceful and quiet population that wants only to survive. 

The state of Syria is taking its last gasping breaths, but there are those in Russia and Syria who feel that since some of the anti-Assad rebels have chosen the eastern sectors of Aleppo as their headquarters, the city's close to a quarter of a million men, women and children do not deserve to live. Putin and Assad believe that the lives of 250,000 citizens are less important than the elimination of a few hundred rebels, and much less important than the rule of Assad in Aleppo.

If Russia really wanted to end the crisis, its leaders would allow the artificial state known as Syria to fall and be remembered in the history books after its demise, as are the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and prior to that, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, each of them a combination of ethnic and religious groups who never managed to become a united nation. This was the basic problem of the Arab States as well, and once the day of reckoning came, they failed to function.

If the leaders of Russia really wanted to solve Syria's problems they would sit down with the Americans and others who support those rebelling against Allawite butcher Assad, discuss ways to save civilian lives, leave the cities as viable entities and reach the only possible conclusion:  that no Allawite, considered a heretic by the Muslims who make up the majority of the area's inhabitants, can rule for long in the Middle East. This and nothing else, is Syria's basic problem and it did not start today. This is what lay behind the 1976-1982 Muslim Brotherhood rebellion against Bashar Assad's father Hafez, that left 50,000 dead. Today's rebellion began in 2010, has already left ten times that number dead  - half a million people -  and threatens to continue.

Russia is investing all its conventional (so far) military power to breathe life into the Assad regime although his regime has no hope of continuing on its own in a country where most of the people do not ever want to see him again. Russia has raised the level of its participation over the last two weeks and is systematically bombing – along with Assad's air force – the eastern sectors of Aleppo and particularly the hospitals, whose dwindling medical staff and untreated wounded  have been turned into live shields by the rebels. Are the rebels acting according to accepted rules of war? Of course not, but that can in no way excuse Russia and Syria's horrific response.

The situation in Aleppo, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from hunger, disease and the bombings, has at last even elicited a response from the government of the United States of America, which witnessed the last five and a half years of genocide with complete equanimity.

The US halted the talks with Russia on the future of Syria which had absolutely no effect on the situation anyway, except for one week during the holiday of Id al Fitr, and in reality gave Russia a modicum of cover for escalating its military involvement against Aleppo's civilians.  The US also threatened to increase its support for the rebels if Russia continues to bomb Aleppo.

The Russians reacted by transferring the S-300 long range surface to air anti-missile system to Tartus, claiming that it is only going  to protect the Tartus military port. Protect from whom, exactly? The rebels have no air force. The range of these missiles is 200 kilometers and clearly placing them in Tartus is meant to cover the entire air space of northwestern Syria, including Aleppo and Latakia, in case western aircraft are deployed against Assad's bombers – or heaven forfend, Putin's.

Another step Russia has taken is stopping the talks with the US on limiting both nations' supply of plutonium. Plutonium has no uses other than military ones, so that limiting the amount held by each country should reduce the danger of nuclear war between the two superpowers. The cessation of talks is a significant sign that Russia really intends to flex its muscles vis a vis the US, which, for its part, is raising economic sanctions against Russia by a notch. These were instated a few years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. The US suspects Russia of being involved in North Korea's nuclear project, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

Russia is involved in the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile industry, left for Iran to decide on independently in last year's Nuclear Agreement.

All this makes it seem that the Aleppo bombings are the straw that broke the American camel's back, one step too many for Russia, one that Americans cannot take lying down as Obama's presidency draws to a close for two main reasons: One, that Obama refuses to let his watch end with the American flag taken down in the Middle East and the area turning into a Russian sphere of influence. This would make America seem like a loser banished from the region with its tail between its legs. The Americans may not want to fight, but they also know what it means to be humiliated and want to avoid that with all their might.

The second reason is the coming elections: Obama and Clinton realize that an American defeat in the Middle East will put the Democratic administration, Obama's today and Clinton's if she is elected, in a terrible position when facing voters, who also do not want to engage in war but do not agree to be humiliatingly removed from another region - in addition to Ukraine, where Putin simply took over. An obvious humiliation might even lead to a Republican victory.

This presents a difficult dilemma for the current administration: How can the destruction of Aleppo and the rule of mass-murderer Assad be brought to an end without the US being drawn into the fray and without giving in to Putin's dictates over who will govern Syria in the future, when the Syrian issue is held in the vise that holds Ukraine, North Korea, Iran, plutonium stores and economic sanctions?

The circle is too solid to square through diplomatic means, especially since one side is doing everything to avoid using its strength while the other is actively using massive power to affect facts on the ground.

The history of international relations has no record of a similar situation among world powers; the Cold War between the USA and the USSR was based on a real mutual threat of equal magnitude that could have led to total world destruction, at a time when US presidents spoke and acted resolutely and employed determined military action (e.g. the Korean and Vietnamese wars). Today the faceoff is between a global power that uses its strength unrestrainedly to aid its allies and advance its own interests and another power that has decided not to employ its strength and even to abandon some of its allies.

American leaders see the destruction in Syria and know exactly who will be expected to finance its recovery. They have more than enough internal economic problems and have no desire to take part in rebuilding Syria just because they helped the rebels. That, however, is in the future, and what is important now is that a quarter of a million civilians in Aleppo want to survive. Russia, sure of itself and the justice of its cause, is destroying Syria without the blink of an eyelid and Washington is paralyzed.

This unbalanced situation is not like anything in the past, and that is why I do not agree with those analysts who believe the Cold War is about to return. The situation today is totally different, one that cannot be explained using terms from the international political lexicon of the Cold War. 

Do we hear the drums of the apocalyptic war of Gog and Magog? I do not know, not being a prophet or the son of one. However, the situation is worrisome, because here in Israel we live in a fragile, crisis-filled region which once solved its own problems but is now becoming the playing field for the conflict between one international power with aspirations for global hegemony and another that is searching for  a way out with minimum damage to itself and the region. It is practically impossible to bridge the gap between these two radically different thought patterns. And the lack of a bridge may cause the region to degenerate into a situation where everyone will lose.

Translated by Rochel Sylvetsky


Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs in Israel.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19591

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