Abu Ivanka and the Democrats’ Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Week - Clarice Feldman

by Clarice Feldman

The President’s detractors are riding the loop-the-loop this week. Isn’t it fun to watch?

The week began with the Democrats’ Quixotic and inexplicably stupid effort to block the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and went on to heat up the fevered brows of those who think the Russians colluded with the president. It ended with the multitasking President cheering Gorsuch’s confirmation and bombing a Syrian airfield which our military had pinpointed as the takeoff point for the horrible chemical attack on Syrian civilians. Beleaguered Arabs are now calling him Abu Ivanka (Ivanka’s father) and Trump is hinting he expects to name as many as four more new justices to that court 

The Supreme Court

Neil Gorsuch is a jurist with an impeccable record for fairness who had just years before been unanimously confirmed by the Senate to the Tenth Circuit. Fifteen years ago Senator Schumer weaponized judicial confirmations by changing the procedure from a straight up and down vote, requiring only a majority for confirmation, into a filibuster blockade to preclude the confirmation of Miguel Estrada to the D.C. Circuit Court.

Within two years, Schumer’s tactic would be deployed to torpedo nine more of President George W. Bush’s nominees.
Predictably, the misuse of the filibuster led to an existential threat to the filibuster itself. To confirm President Bush’s embattled judicial nominees, then-Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened the “nuclear option,” that is, changing Senate rules to ban the use of the filibuster in certain instances. A bipartisan group of senators known as the “gang of 14” de-escalated the situation by voting to confirm most of the filibustered nominees, staving off such a fundamental change to Senate procedure.
In politics, as in life, what comes around goes around. In 2009, Democrats regained control of the White House and the Senate, and as Senate Republicans blocked Obama’s judicial and executive-branch nominees, Democrats quickly grew frustrated with the new era of partisan warfare they had begun under Bush. In November 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid detonated a partial version of the nuclear option, eliminating the filibuster for appointments to the executive branch and lower courts, while exempting Supreme Court nominees from the new simple majority-vote standard. [snip]
When Reid invoked the partial-nuclear option, nobody could have known when retribution would come. But anyone who has ever followed McConnell’s career should have understood that it would come eventually. McConnell, whose memoir is fittingly titled “The Long Game,” would wait more than three years before moving to end the judicial war once and for all. [/quote[

This time, the Republicans held firm and -- as Reid said he would do if the Democratic candidate won the presidency, McConnell ended by Senate rule the possibility of using filibusters to prevent the confirmation of Supreme Court justices.

Oh, the gnashing of teeth on the left side of the aisle. But the move is long overdue. Filibusters themselves are of short-term duration and antidemocratic. Professor Kevin Gutzman explains that in a departure from its original practice, it now has nothing to do with debate, “Instead a ‘filibuster’ is just a 41-vote Senate minority’s mechanism for preventing a vote on an issue it wants to prevent the majority from deciding.”

From a theoretical point of view, in the context of a republican government, this kind of situation is intolerable. Not only has the form swallowed the substance, with “filibusters” bedeviling Senate majorities long since unlimited debate was actually the issue, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., seems intent on using this faux filibuster in a context in which it has never been used before: a perfectly partisan attempt to prevent the Senate from voting on a Supreme Court nomination. This would be a minority veto, plain and simple.
Minority veto is contrary to our republican tradition, in which each branch is governed by a majority. [snip]
Yet, although states are represented in the Senate as states rather than according to population, it is majorities thus configured that rule, just as majorities rule in the House and the Electoral College. The Constitution provides that the Senate can make its own rules. The Republican majority can get rid of the filibuster, an artifact of a former Senate age, by majority vote.
Americans commonly complain that their federal government is dysfunctional. The less attentive among us think that all congressmen are equally to blame for Congress’s failure to adopt popular policies.
Abolishing the filibuster would clear up confusion about responsibility for Congress’s policy decisions. the duty to govern would fall upon the majority, as it should.

The Obama Administration’s Surveillance of Its Political Opposition

The weaponization of the NSA’s information gathering likely began long before Donald Trump ran for the presidency. As the Tablet reminded us this week, it evidently occurred as early as 2015 when the Obama administration spied on private conversations between U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups opposed to the “Iran deal”:

“At some point, the administration weaponized the NSA’s legitimate monitoring of communications of foreign officials to stay one step ahead of domestic political opponents,” says a pro-Israel political operative who was deeply involved in the day-to-day fight over the Iran Deal. “The NSA’s collections of foreigners became a means of gathering real-time intelligence on Americans engaged in perfectly legitimate political activism -- activism, due to the nature of the issue, that naturally involved conversations with foreigners. We began to notice the White House was responding immediately, sometimes within 24 hours, to specific conversations we were having. At first, we thought it was a coincidence being amplified by our own paranoia. After a while, it simply became our working assumption that we were being spied on.”
This is what systematic abuse of foreign-intelligence collection for domestic political purposes looks like: Intelligence collected on Americans, lawmakers, and figures in the pro-Israel community was fed back to the Obama White House as part of its political operations. The administration got the drop on its opponents by using classified information, which it then used to draw up its own game plan to block and freeze those on the other side. And -- with the help of certain journalists whose stories (and thus careers) depend on high-level access -- terrorize them. [snip]
In order to spy on U.S. congressmen before the Iran Deal vote, the Obama administration exploited a loophole, which is described in the original Journal article. The U.S. intelligence community is supposed to keep tabs on foreign officials, even those representing allies. Hence, everyone in Washington knows that Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer is under surveillance. But it’s different for his American interlocutors, especially U.S. lawmakers, whose identities are, according to NSA protocol, supposed to be, at the very least, redacted. But the standard for collecting and disseminating “intercepted communications involving U.S. lawmakers” is much less strict if it is swept up through “foreign-foreign” intercepts, for instance between a foreign ambassador and his capital. Washington, i.e. the seat of the American government, is where foreign ambassadors are supposed to meet with American officials. The Obama administration turned an ancient diplomatic convention inside out -- foreign ambassadors were so dangerous that meeting them signaled betrayal of your own country. [snip]
The administration then fed this information to members of the press, who were happy to relay thinly veiled anti-Semitic conceits by accusing deal opponents of dual loyalty and being in the pay of foreign interests. [snip]
To make its case for the Iran Deal, the Obama administration redefined America’s pro-Israel community as agents of Israel. They did something similar with Trump and the Russians -- whereby every Russian with money was defined as an agent of the state. Where the Israeli ambassador once was poison, now the Russian ambassador is the kiss of death -- a phone call with him led to Flynn’s departure from the White House and a meeting with him landed Attorney General Jeff Sessions in hot water.

In any event, Susan Rice and Farkas’ disclosures on “unmasking” and leaking add fuel to this speculation of widespread years-long abuse of the intelligence agencies’ capability to spy on us for partisan purposes. Obama’s former national security advisor Susan Rice admitted what she had previously denied, that she had in fact “unmasked” the identities of persons gathered by NSA, reports which on his way out Obama had widely distributed. This week we learned from those who viewed these reports that they were detailed and contained personal information about their lives that had nothing whatsoever to do with national intelligence.

This, needless to say, is par for the course for Obama, who owes his rise to the unmasking of salacious details in two of his opponents’ sealed divorce records.

As former CIA station chief Scott Uehlinger charged, Obama turned the intelligence community into “a tool of political destruction”:

Like some binary poisonous reagent, these dynamics combined to foster an environment ripe for political abuse and leakage -- a fairly transparent attempt, from the point of view of any discerning intelligence officer. This weaponization of intelligence for the sake of discrediting the political opposition I have seen in Kosovo, Azerbaijan, Moldova and elsewhere -- sadly, it is now on our shores.
The present culture of the intelligence community and the shameless political shenanigans of the Obama administration combined to create this disaster. In earlier times, such a gambit would have failed; CIA leadership famously stood up to the Nixon administration when asked to domestically spy on Justice during Watergate, for example. It seems that today we lack the character and the competence to ensure that the intelligence community honors the trust of the American people.

The President, according to reports, now insists on getting raw intelligence reports, not those massaged at the top, perhaps reflecting his understanding of how corrupted these agencies have become.

Syria

As the President was entertaining China’s Xi and his wife at Mar-a-Lago, the U.S. struck the airbase in Syria where our military surveillance had observed the planes that dropped chemical toxins -- apparently sarin -- on civilians. While we’ve grown skeptical of news reports from Arab lands, given the use of local stringers and biased or cowed reporters in that region and the slant of editors of outfits like Reuters, these accounts seem to have been well documented and the President‘s response was proportionate and limited. The Russians were warned to remove their personnel from the base ahead of time, and destruction was confined to aircraft and hangars, not civilians. It was a message reflecting serious purpose and might, not the start of a war. At the conclusion of the meeting, Xi offered to help coordinate efforts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear efforts, among other things. In Jordan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, cheers went up. In some parts of the Arab world, the president was dubbed Abu Ivanka (Ivanka’s father) a measure of respect. (Ironically it appears that the seemingly inexplicable act by Assad was due to his belief in the press’s unsubstantiated charges of Putin-Trump collusion which lead him to believe these two were joining forces to oust him.) 

CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin was obviously flabbergasted when a Syrian refugee praised President Trump and slammed Hillary for her hypocritical cheap shot at the President when she said it was ironic that he would not admit as refugees the children whose deaths he said inspired the bombing:

Worse for Susan Rice and John F. Kerry’s reputations, they had previously assured us in 2014 -- either because of dishonesty or naiveté -- that Obama’s “lead from behind” (red line no red line) do-nothing policies had brilliantly resulted in removing all Assad’s chemical weapons.

Russia

The press which had for so long been peddling the Trump-is-in-collusion-with-Putin, (a story so preposterous that lefties like Stephen F. Cohen and Noam Chomsky both ridiculed it) turned on a dime and suggested this was going to lead to war with Russia.
In the words of Richard Fernandez:

The strike on Syria kicked over a whole anthill of self-deception. The Washington Times noted that "Syria produced a 'ridiculously huge amount' of deadly sarin gas," according to an internal Defense Department memo. "That stockpile, which Obama aides declared was reduced to zero by summer 2014, is back in the news." David Nakamura of the Washington Post tweeted H.R. McMaster's assurance that the Navy's missiles very carefully avoided the tanks of sarin gas to avoid collateral damage. This could only be possible if the US knew the location of all the poison the previous administration had already destroyed. In belated acknowledgement of what must now be obvious the "fact-checking website PolitiFact on Wednesday retracted a 2014 article that found it 'Mostly True' the Obama administration helped broker a deal that successfully removed '100 percent' of chemical weapons from Syria." [snip]
Cross off "stooge of Russia". Pencil in "worry about war with Russia". Remove "unwilling to oppose Assad". Insert "may start a new Vietnam". Erase "nuclear Senate option", paste in Neil Gorsuch confirmed by Senate as US Supreme Court justice.

The President’s detractors are riding the loop-the-loop this week. Isn’t it fun to watch?

Clarice Feldman

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/abu_ivanka_and_the_democrats_terrible_horrible_nogood_week.html

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Syrian patient treated in Israel: Assad is our enemy, not Israel - AP and Israel Hayom Staff

by AP and Israel Hayom Staff

Doctors and patients say IDF program that has treated 3,000 wounded Syrians since the start of the civil war in Syria has changed perceptions, eased tensions • Israeli hospital treats seven Syrians, including two children, after deadly chemical attack.

Israeli military medics assist wounded Syrians in the Golan Heights on Thursday | Photo credit: AP

Seven wounded Syrians -- two children, four women and a man -- waited in pain for darkness to fall to cross into enemy territory. Under the faint moonlight, members of the IDF's Medical Corps quickly whisked the patients across the hostile frontier into armored ambulances headed to hospitals for intensive care.

It was a scene that has recurred since 2013, when the Israeli military began treating Syrian civilians wounded in fighting just a few kilometers away. Israel says it has discretely treated 3,000 patients -- a number that it expects to balloon as fighting heats up in neighboring Syria in the wake of a chemical attack and consequent U.S. missile strike.

While the numbers are a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded in the six-year Syrian war, both doctors and patients say the program has changed perceptions and helped ease tensions across the hostile border.

Dr. Salman Zarka, director of Ziv Medical Center in the northern Israeli city of Safed, is a former colonel in the Medical Corps who served on the Syrian border. "I couldn't then have imagined setting up a humanitarian program for Syrians," he says. 

But now, his hospital has delivered 19 Syrian babies and regularly sends prescriptions with patients back into Syria.

"All this makes it more human, more complicated," Zarka says, adding that he worries about patients he knows on a first-name basis who have returned to Syria.

In Thursday night's rescue, medical officers decided that two of the seven patients had wounds that were too urgent to wait for medical care and so they radioed in a helicopter. Soldiers carried the two on stretchers beneath the whirring blades as the helicopter lifted off into the inky night sky.

"We check their breathing, their pulse, their blood pressure -- all their vital signs," said Lt. Omri Caspi, a medical officer. "We take a look at their injuries, we see the cuts, we check the chest, the heads, everything, and then we decide which treatment they need."

Just a few years ago, such scenes would have been unthinkable. Israel and the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad were bitter enemies, and contact across the hostile lines of the divided Golan Heights was virtually nonexistent. 

But the outbreak of Syria's civil war in 2011 has radically altered the area. The Syrian side of the Golan Heights is now divided between government troops and a host of rebel groups. Russian, Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces have all joined the fighting to offer support to Assad's beleaguered forces.

Israel has largely stayed out of the fighting in Syria, which has claimed over 400,000 lives. But it has reportedly carried out a number of airstrikes on suspected weapons shipments to Hezbollah in Syria.

Tensions skyrocketed this week after an alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government killed dozens of people. The U.S. responded early Friday by launching 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base -- a dramatic escalation lauded by Sunni states, rebels and Israel but condemned by Assad, Russia and China.

Israel's newest patients started their treatment just as the American missiles struck, a little before dawn, less than 200 kilometers (120 miles) away in Syria.

Two Syrian patients shared their experiences in Syria and Israel with The Associated Press as soldiers from the Israeli military supervised. The two spoke on condition of anonymity, out of fear they or their families would be targeted in Syria if their stay in Israel was made public.

Both young men praised the Israeli people and government while lambasting Assad and his supporters. They said that as patients have returned to Syria from Israel, word has slowly spread that Israel can help those desperately wounded. The medical care is free of charge. The hospital said it doesn't discriminate when it comes to admittance and insists it doesn't collect personal patient information.

One patient, a 26-year-old from Deraa, the city in Syria's south where the revolution broke out in 2011, flashed a toothy smile while sitting in a wheelchair; one leg a bandaged stump, the other gripped in a metal cast. He said he was on the street when a bomb blast mangled his legs. He couldn't find treatment in Syria's devastated medical sector, so he made his way to Israel, a nation he was raised to hate.

"Back then when there were no incidents in Syria, no revolution, no nothing -- the greatest enemy in the world was Israel. It was the first enemy," he said.

His fellow patient used the pseudonym "Baibars," the name of a 12th-century Muslim warrior who defeated the Crusaders and Mongols. A bomb crushed bones in his face, an injury that without medical help festered until he struggled to open his mouth.

After 40 days in Ziv hospital and many surgeries later, the 25-year-old revolutionary now talks incessantly and even sings about lost love -- in addition to praising Israeli pastries.

"We reached countries that my grandparents did not reach and met good people," he says through a jaw yet to fully heal.

From his Israeli hospital room, Baibars said he could see into Syria. In his long list of enemies of the Syrian people -- Assad, Russia, Iran, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Afghanistan -- he no longer includes Israel.

"The regime has used chemical weapons since the beginning of the war," Baibars said, referring to alleged attacks in East Ghouta and Dharaya. "We were just trying to defend ourselves."

"The future of Syria has no Bashar Assad," Baibars said. "Israel is not the enemy. Bashar is the enemy."

AP and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=41651

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U.S. airstrikes in Syria a smackdown for Iran's mullahs - Reza Shafiee

by Reza Shafiee

Since the start of the bloody six-year-old Syrian war, Bashar al-Assad and his allied goons, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- thought that they could get away with anything.

The deadly chemical attack on innocent Syrian men, women and children in Idlib, which killed at least 100 and injured 400 was little more than Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad crossing the “red line” again. It wasn't his first chemical attack, he launched a similar attack in summer of 2013, which left at least 1400 dead, according the opposition sources. At that time, the world stared in disbelief as Assad commit atrocities in Syria without paying a price. 

This time, things were different. On April 7 the U.S. launched an airstrike on an airfield believed to have been used by his forces to drop chemical bombs on Idlib. It was a clear sign of shift in the U.S. attitude toward his regime. Other nations announced support, too, making the attitude shift more than just unilateralism.

President Donald Trump said after the U.S. airstrike: “Tonight, I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types.”

The airfield bombed is significant, because it is also used by members of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Quds Force, according to a report from Asharq Al-Awsat Arabic language website. The field has been used for a long time by IRGC to operate not only in Syria but also in Iraq.

Since the start of the bloody six-year-old Syrian war, Bashar al-Assad and his allied goons, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, thought that they could get away with anything. 

They relied on the notion that the international community is too divided to take any firm action against the massacre of innocent Syrian people. So they thumbed their noses at every element of international law. Soleimani was caught on camera many times in Iraq and later in Aleppo walking around unencumbered as if he was a tourist there and not the international thug he was, blacklisted by UN resolutions banning him from traveling. 

The reaction of the world’s leaders to the attack was a stark contrast to previous years in the Syrian conflict, too. Instead of knee-jerk opposition to Trump, there as almost a consensus about the fact that Assad must face the consequences of his actions; something long overdue. 

In a joint statement, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande laid the blame for the U.S. airstrikes on Assad’s Al-Shayrat airfield solely on Assad.

They said: “President Assad alone bears responsibility for this development.” and “His repeated use of chemical weapons and his crimes against his own population had to be sanctioned.”

The Syrian opposition welcomed the airstrikes with joy and almost disbelief that after so many years of inaction, despite repeated calls on the U.S. to act against Assad regime, the moment finally arrived with the Tomahawk missiles. 

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council: "The United States took a very measured step last night. We are prepared to do more, but we hope it will not be necessary."

One of the few big exceptions to this moment of moral clarity was in the predictably repellant reaction from Iran.

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani strongly defended Assad regime’s recent sarin attack on his own people. He blasted President Trump for his decision for airstrikes. Rouhani said in a televised speech referring to the U.S. president: "This man who is now in office in America claimed that he wanted to fight terrorism, but today all terrorists in Syria are celebrating the U.S. attack.” He also said: “Why have you attacked the Syrian army which is at war with terrorists? Under what law or authority did you launch your missiles at this independent country?"

The United States Senate was quick to reciprocate President Trump’s action on behalf of the Syrian people by introducing a new bill to ensure further extend measures safeguarding human rights for innocent Syrian citizens. The bill, titled the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act was introduced on April 6 to instruct the Secretary of State to report on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Syria, as well as to authorize assistance for investigations and other credible transitional justice efforts, including a potential hybrid tribunal, in a bid to hold Assad and his regime accountable for their heinous acts.

A durable solution to Syrian crisis is something hardly disputable by anyone. The U.S. administration through its UN Ambassador Nikki Haley reiterated again on an interview with CNN on Sunday that a long term solution for Syria with Assad in the picture is not possible to imagine. She also pointed to Assad’s main sponsor, the mullahs in Iran, as a major obstacle to peace in the war-torn country and the need to end the Iranian regime’s “influence” in Syria.

The mullahs’ “influence” is something which should not be taken lightly. The Syrian people’s peaceful uprising against the Assad’s dictatorship in 2011 could have taking a different turn had it not been for the IRGC and Quds Force stepping up in full support of the regime in Damascus.

The Assad regime was on the edge in 2013 and outside the capital it had no control over the rest of the country. With the aid of mullahs who spent billions in Syria while their own people at home were hungry, and the inaction of Obama administration by turning a blind eye to Assad’s crossing its established “red line,” the Syrian dictator survived.

Now it seems that a new plan is unfolding in Washington to stop the genocide in Syria with the U.S. administration’s firm respond to Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his people. The attack may not have a major military significance but it has firm political tone to it. The action no doubt has resonated as far east as Tehran.

To put more teeth to what U.S. means in terms of ending Iran’s influence in Syria, an even more effective step forward would be to expel the IRGC and all its proxies from Syria. It would certainly help with the broader war in the region against Islamic fundamentalism in all its shapes and forms. To get rid of terrorism, get rid of the Iran's proxies.

Reza Shafiee is a member of Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/04/us_airstrikes_in_syria_a_smackdown_for_irans_mullahs.html

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Jewish values gone haywire - Steve Apfel

by Steve Apfel

All that was thought about Jews in the past has found a home in what trendy movements think about Israel now. The left-wing element is prone to overlook that unlovely aspect.

Jews of Cape Town want their government to retake land bought by a Jewish day school and, in place of a new campus, to erect low-cost housing for poor Gentiles – right in a suburb that many Cape Town Jews find unaffordable.

American Jews direct communal resources to black rights, refugee rights, LGBT rights, women's rights, transgender rights – to any right that is not a Jewish right. Rabbis sign a petition to allow Muslim refugees from Jew-intolerant backgrounds into America. Democrat Jews dote on Barack Obama with a hostility to the State of Israel matched only by a friendliness to powers that would do away with that nation. Jews attend a downtown Johannesburg event to hear a BDS panel confuse the Holocaust with self-governing Palestinians growing at a birthrate above the norm.

All of the above are trendy causes. They also, one and all, pick on Jews and their outlaw country.

All that was thought about Jews in the past has found a home in what trendy movements think about Israel now. The left-wing element is prone to overlook that unlovely aspect.

Every year at Passover, we read in the Haggadah: "Go and learn what Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father Jacob[.] ... He sought to destroy everything." Laban has been the paradigm of anti-Semites from time immemorial. Jews parading and protesting with modern Labanites may be tolerable; but when rabbis defend them, willfully forgetting what Laban sought to do to Israel (né Jacob), such behavior is unfathomable.

The counter-intuitive mind of the Jew is uncanny. From the sin of the golden calf onward, Jews have done things that no one can figure out. Did the Almighty create them to be contrary?

Probably not, when you hear left-wing elements speak out with clarity and moral conviction. Jacob's kindred were created to be a light unto the world. Working with unlikely bedfellows is not aberrant behavior. On the contrary, they as Jews are doing exactly what they were put on earth to do: stand for values and modes of caring as old as the Bible. In their helter-skelter to get Muslim refugees into America, or to help the poor live in a sought after part of Cape Town, Jews of conscience have no qualms about doing what they do. History and tradition (their word for God in the secular?) marked out the Jews to care for the stranger in their midst.

But we are given to believe that the sacred duty is very selective. Caring for the stranger is everything; caring for the Jew is nothing. Kith and kin in parts of Ukraine are caught in crossfire and go hungry; in France, they live, and perish, under dire threat. While Jewish terror victims go unsung, and Zionists on campus are bullied, and the new domain for Laban's kindred is the internet – still the gut instinct of Jews for repairing the world is for that stranger out there.

Better to give underprivileged people the right to live in a swanky suburb than to allow Jews the right to build a school. Better to worry over a dedicated bathroom for transgender types than to lose sleep over Jewish victims of terror. Better to debate the right of Israel to exist than to debate the right of Palestinians to yet another sharia-ruled fiefdom. Better to lose sleep over the plight of the "other" than to lose sleep over the plight of a Jew. Can no kosher cause hold a candle to the wants and needs of the stranger? Homespun Judaism may have a lot to answer for.

Steve Apfel

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/04/jewish_values_gone_haywire.html

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Russian-Iranian Relations to be Elevated to Strategic Partnership - IsraelDefense

by IsraelDefense

Following President Rouhani’s visit to Russia, Senior INSS researchers Sima Shine and Zvi Magen discuss the strategic significance of Iran's growing closeness to Russia, and the implications for Israel

Hassan Rouhani made his first official visit to Russia on March 27-28, 2017, accompanied by Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and Iran’s Communications Minister, as well as a large economic delegation. The highlight of his visit was the meeting with President Vladimir Putin, during which the leaders discussed options for strengthening bilateral economic ties, trade, and investments. Noting the 70 percent growth in bilateral trade last year, President Rouhani stated that economic relations had moved from the stage of ordinary relations to long term projects. In a joint statement, Rouhani and Putin mentioned treaties in the fields of oil and gas, media and information technology, nuclear energy (construction has already started on one of two additional power stations in Bushehr), construction of a thermal power station in Bandar Abbas, and tourism. Indeed, an agreement was already signed eliminating the need for visas for tourist groups from Russia to Iran, concluded in discussions about possible full elimination of the need for visas to Iran by individual Russian visitors.

At a joint press conference, Putin stressed that "Iran is a good and reliable neighbor, as well as a stable partner for Russia," and was careful to mention the valuable cooperation of the two countries in the international arena. He underscored the joint achievements of Russia and Iran in the struggle against the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, the efforts to stabilize the Syrian arena by means of a ceasefire in wide areas of the country, and the fact that Iran, alongside Turkey and Russia, is a guarantor of the ceasefire. Finally, Putin announced that the intention is to bring the relations between Iran and Russia to the level of a "strategic partnership."

As to the sensitive issue of the nuclear agreement, the joint statement emphasized that the JCPOA is an international treaty adopted by the Security Council. It also stressed the commitment of all parties involved in the treaty to its full implementation, fulfillment of its requirements by Iran, and the fact that according to the NPT, Iran is permitted to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. In addition, the parties rejected the use of sanctions against countries and defined the measure as illegitimate – reflecting their opposition to the existing sanctions against Iran and Russia. In a loosely veiled hint to Israel, they asserted their support for the Middle East becoming a nuclear free zone. These statements, which were particularly important to Iran, are directed against President Trump, who even before he entered the White House raised ideas about canceling the JCPOA or reopening it in renewed negotiations, and should be seen as clear indications that Russia will not support such moves.

At the international level, Iran and Russia have similar views on many important issues. They have common geopolitical interests, both in the Middle East and in the Russian Commonwealth (CIS) – in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Caspian Sea region. In the international arena Russia identifies Iran as its main partner on the anti-Western front, where they share an interest in challenging the existing order. Thus, Rouhani’s visit marks the high point of a process of upgrading relations between these countries, which gained momentum after the nuclear treaty, when it was possible for the two countries to renew their military cooperation.

The first and most important expression of this development was the supply of the S-300 air defense missile system, which was suspended for a decade due to pressure from Israel and the United States, and has already become operational in Iran. Russia and Iran are also in talks about the purchase of other weapon systems, including Sukhoi-30 fighter plans and T90 tanks. Both states have been involved in the Syrian civil war from the start, and are cooperating in supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime. Since Russia's military involvement in the war (September 2015), they have worked as a military coalition, sharing the management of the fighting on the ground. This also explains why Russia sees Iran as an important component in any future settlement in Syria.

Rouhani's visit to Moscow (which followed visits by the President of Turkey and the Prime Minister of Israel) took place in a significant context: the joint military effort in Syria, which is the first of its kind for both Iran and Russia, has changed the military balance in favor of Assad, their ally. The talks to formulate a settlement in Syria, underway in Astana under Russian leadership, brought the representatives of the rebels against the Assad regime to agree to a ceasefire for the first time. Iran, alongside Turkey and with Russian leadership, was defined as a guarantor of the ceasefire. This status is extremely important for Iran, since it establishes its role in Syria, which it wishes to leverage to further its hold over the country – if and when an arrangement is reached that ends the civil war. In addition, with the entry of the Trump administration into the White House, and against a background of talks about strengthening American cooperation with Russia, Iran was worried by the possibility that Moscow would be ready to trade its relations with Tehran as a bargaining card with Washington. Therefore, the agreements reached during the visit regarding Iran's role in Syria, and in particular the strengthening of its relations with Russia, should in Tehran's view, reinforce Russia's commitment not to "trade in" its relations with Iran. 

Rouhani's visit to Moscow, two months before the Iranian presidential elections and his prospective reelection to a second term of office, helps him against his domestic opponents. Rouhani has been the target of severe criticism in recent months, as the one who spearheaded the nuclear treaty and who saw the removal of sanctions and the opening of the Iranian market to Western investments as the main way of saving the Iranian economy. Critics point to the limited contribution of the lifting of sanctions to the Iranian economy, and to the Trump administration and the possibility discussed in Congress of imposing new sanctions against Iran as proof of this policy's failure. Rouhani’s visit to Moscow and the several economic treaties signed there thus balance the picture and undermine the accusations that he prefers the "non-credible" United States and Western countries over their allies. In other words, the visit to Moscow allows Rouhani to present a balanced policy and concrete achievements. Moreover, the Rouhani government was aware of the Russian complaint regarding the absence of significant economic projects benefiting Moscow, compared to the effort made to promote projects with European countries. The agreements achieved during Rouhani’s visit take the economic relations between Iran and Russia to a higher, long-term level.

There is thus no doubt that Rouhani's visit to Moscow is a positive and important milestone in the developing relations between Iran and Russia. However, it appears that ultimately, the driving force behind Russia's ties to Iran is opportunistic more than strategic. Moreover, the more it appears that the civil war in Syria is nearing a decision, the more disputes may emerge: Russia and Iran are partners in the effort to save the Assad regime, but they have different perceptions regarding the future shape of Syria. Also, the rebels against Assad, mostly Sunnis, recoil from a future Iranian presence in Syria, and this hampers progress toward peace.

Within Russia there are conflicting attitudes to cooperation with Iran. Supporters see Iran as the main partner in the struggle against the West and praise the regime for its strong stance against the challenges posed by the West. They also clearly uphold Iran's right to promote its nuclear program and strengthen its position as a power. This camp includes portions of the security establishment, particularly nationalist, anti-Western elements that support the return of Russia to its status as a world power. On the other hand, others argue that the presence of Hezbollah and other Shiite militias, which were brought to Syria by Iran, does not serve the Russian interest. 

In addition, Russia is experiencing some concern due to Israel, which has become a regional player of influence, particularly given its activity on Syrian soil against weapon shipments to Hezbollah, and a player that sees the intentions of Iran to remain in Syria as a threat to its security. Israeli conduct challenges Russian leadership, which is now looking for a suitable response. Iran for its part is suspicious of Russia's stance in this context, and in recent weeks criticism has been voiced in Iran of the Russian position, which continues to ignore what are allegedly Israeli attacks in Syria. This issue was likely discussed during Rouhani's visit to Moscow, in a Russian attempt to persuade the Iranians to make some concessions that could be presented to Israel as a basis for future understandings between Jerusalem and Moscow. 

For Israel, stronger ties between Iran and Russia represent a significant development with many uncertain future implications, assuming that Russia continues to see its relations with Israel as an important asset in connection with its role in the Syrian arena, and in a range of other contexts. In any event, Israel will have to consider its actions in Syria in light of the relations between Iran and Russia.

This article was originally published on the INSS website.

IsraelDefense

Source: http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/29202

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Trump is 'in,' Putin is 'out' - Prof. Eyal Zisser

by Prof. Eyal Zisser

The important thing is that after the American attack it is now clear to everyone, including Assad, that his fate and the fate of Syria are no longer in his hands. More importantly, they are also no longer in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The American airstrike in Syria has sent U.S. President Donald Trump's stock soaring in the Arab world. No American president in years has been thanked, let alone praised or encouraged, by the Arabs the way that Trump has been these past few days. Messages of support are flooding in from Arab states and even social media users, who are imploring him to keep it up and not stop until order and balance -- not to mention stability -- are restored in Syria and the region. 

But in truth, the American attack was limited in terms of scope and targets, which is why it managed to achieve its main goal of punishing the Syrian tyrant for using chemical weapons against his own people. But if this attack remains an isolated, pinpoint event, it will not be enough to change the direction of the Syrian war. Syrian President Bashar Assad can easily take the American punch. He has lost many airfields to the rebels over the course of the six-year war, and every day dozens of his soldiers die in battle. So for him, the American attack is yet another glancing blow he can survive and even live with. If he is smart and refrains from responding, just like he has every time he's been attacked by Israel, he can go on and, with the help of his Russian and Iranian friends, continue killing his people -- as long as he sticks to conventional weapons. 

But the important thing is that after the American attack it is now clear to everyone, including Assad, that his fate and the fate of Syria are no longer in his hands. More importantly, they are also no longer in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump is holding the keys. If he wants, he can keep attacking Syria, and maybe even change the course of the war. Alternately, if he wants to, he can let Assad remain in power. 

One of the main victims of Trump's attack in Syria is Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama, who explained back in the day that American action in Syria would require hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and trillions of dollars. Trump used a mere 59 Tomahawk missiles to carry out an important action that will stop the regime from using chemical weapons. 

Another victim of the attack is Putin, whom Trump exposed as a paper tiger. After all, Russia is a big, strong country, but it certainly doesn't measure up to a superpower like the U.S. in terms of strength or capabilities. 

Every Arab in the Middle East now understands that. When it looked like Obama was pulling out of the region and it was doubtful whether he would come to the aid of his allies, everyone wanted to cozy up to Putin, who was smart enough to fill the vacuum left by Obama's America. But now Trump has a chance to restore the U.S.'s status as the leading superpower in the region. Trump still has the war against the Islamic State group ahead of him, but if he demonstrates the same kind of determination he showed with last week's attack, he can make significant inroads on that front, too, without any help from the Russians, who aren't fighting Islamic State anyway. 

There is a new sheriff in town and the residents, or at least Arab leaders and major sectors of the Arab public, aren't hiding their satisfaction and their hope that the new sheriff will punish Assad for his murderousness, as well as deter Iran.

Prof. Eyal Zisser

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=18795

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Why Does the West Keep Colluding with Terrorists? - Douglas Murray

by Douglas Murray

That speakers can be stopped from speaking in Western democracies because of the implicit or explicit threat of violence -- is a problem our societies need to face.

• Like other criticisms of Hirsi Ali, the effort was to portray her as the problem itself rather than as the response to a problem.
• That this type of campaign can succeed -- that speakers can be stopped from speaking in Western democracies because of the implicit or explicit threat of violence -- is a problem our societies need to face.
• There is a whole pile of reasons why Islamists want to stop her explanations from being aired. But why -- when the attacks keep on happening -- do our own societies collude with such sinister people to keep ourselves the dark?

Only a fortnight after a vehicular terrorist attack in Westminster, London, another similar attack took place in Stockholm, Sweden. On one of the city's main shopping streets, a vehicle was once again used as a battering-ram against the bodies of members of the public. As in Nice, France. As in Berlin. As so many times in Israel.

Amid this regular news there is an air of defeatism -- a terrible lack of policy and lack of solutions. How can governments stop people driving trucks into pedestrians? Is it something we must simply get used to, as France's former Prime Minister Manuel Valls and London's Mayor Sadiq Khan have both suggested? Must we come to recognise acts of terror as something like the weather? Or is there anything we can do to limit, if not stop, them? If so, where would we start? One place would be to have a frank public discussion about these matters. Yet, even that is easier said than done.

There is a terrible symmetry to this past week in the West. The week began with the news that the Somali-born author and human-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali had been forced to cancel a speaking tour in Australia. "Security concerns" were among the given reasons. A notable aspect of this issue, which has been made public, is that one of the venues at which Hirsi Ali was due to speak was contacted last month by something calling itself "'The Council for the Prevention of Islamophobia Incorporated". Nobody appears to know where this "incorporated" organisation comes from, but its purported founder -- Syed Murtaza Hussain -- claimed that the group would bring 5000 protestors to the hall at which Hirsi Ali was scheduled to talk. This threat is reminiscent of the occasion in 2009 when the British peer, Lord Ahmed, threatened to mobilise 10,000 British Muslims to protest at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster if the Dutch politician Geert Wilders were allowed to speak. On that occasion -- as on this one -- the event was cancelled. Promises to mobilise thousands of angry Muslims can have such an effect. But the long-term implications often get lost in the short-term outrage.

Other attacks on Hirsi Ali began, in fact, weeks before her now-cancelled tour had been due to start. On the web, for instance, a widely-watched video was disseminated showing a group of headscarf-covered Australian Muslim women. All were attacking Hirsi Ali and protesting her appearance in the country. Addressing her directly, they complained that, "Your narrative doesn't support our struggles. It erases them."

Like other criticisms of Hirsi Ali, the effort was to portray her as the problem itself rather than the response to a problem. Once again, mixing up (deliberately or otherwise) the arsonist and the firefighter, such groups present a homogenous, agreed-upon opinion -- or "narrative" -- as the only necessary answer to any problems that may or may not exist. Hirsi Ali, according to them, thinks the "wrong" things and says the wrong things. Therefore she must be stopped.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author and human-rights activist. (Image source: The Aspen Institute)

That this type of campaign can succeed -- that speakers can be stopped from speaking in Western democracies because of the implicit or explicit threat of violence -- is a problem our societies need to face. But in the meantime, we also have to face the reality that a shut-down of opinion has on our public policy as well as our public discourse.

What, after all, is the acceptable discourse -- or "narrative" -- on which we can agree to speak about the attacks in Stockholm, Berlin, Nice and elsewhere? Can the discussion be allowed to include the Islamic portion? Can anyone be allowed to say that the attackers act in the name of Islam, or must we continue to present all jihadist terrorists as people suffering from any affliction apart from that one?

In the middle of the week, at a memorial service in Westminster Abbey, the Very Reverend John Hall, Dean of Westminster, said that the UK was "bewildered" after the terrorist attacks of a fortnight earlier. He went on in his sermon to ask:

"What could possibly motivate a man to hire a car and take it from Birmingham to Brighton to London, and then drive it fast at people he had never met, couldn't possibly know, against whom he had no personal grudge, no reason to hate them and then run at the gates of the Palace of Westminster to cause another death? It seems likely that we shall never know."

If it is true that our societies are "bewildered", as the Dean says, might it be because we have not heard a wide-enough range of possible explanations for such outrages -- because we have deliberately cut ourselves off, by choice,- from the warnings of ex-Muslims such as Hirsi Ali? Amid the "narratives" that are acceptable and to be tolerated, perhaps we have failed to listen to the explanations that outline the sheer scale of the religious and societal problem now in front of us?

Of course, for many Muslims, such as those critics of Hirsi Ali in Australia, there is a clear reason why they want to stop her speaking. Were people to hear her, they would realise the vast enormity of the challenge ahead of us and the depth and breadth of its nature. Her audiences would discover the defensive play around the world in which many Muslim organisations are engaged -- a campaign to limit speech precisely in order to protect their own interpretation of their religion and keep out any other.

It is, however, the dissenting, silenced voices such as Hirsi Ali's that are precisely the voices the world needs to hear at present. How tragic that a week that began with a silencing, should end with yet another all-too-predictable terrorist attack -- one which Sweden will do as much to fail at comprehending as Britain did two weeks before her.

Hearing from voices such as that of Hirsi Ali could lift the fog of our "bewilderment" and explain, for instance, what does motivate some people to drive a car or truck into crowds of people going about their lives. There is a whole pile of reasons why Islamists want to stop her explanations from being aired. But why -- when the attacks keep on happening -- do our own societies collude with such sinister people to keep ourselves in the dark?

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

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10177/ayaan-hirsi-ali-islam-terrorism

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Ousting Syrian President Assad is a US priority, UN envoy says - Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

by Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley's statement marks departure from her recent assertion that toppling the Syrian regime was no longer a priority • U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says defeating Islamic State is still more pressing than stabilizing Syria.

Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks during an interview to a Croatian newspaper in Damascus on April 6 | Photo credit: SANA / Handout via Reuters

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in an interview that she sees regime change in Syria as one of the Trump administration's priorities in the country wracked by civil war.

Defeating Islamic State, pushing Iranian influence out of Syria, and the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad are priorities for Washington, Haley said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," which was to air in full Sunday.

"We don't see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there," Haley said.

The comments represented a departure from what Haley said before the United States hit a Syrian air base with 59 Tomahawk missiles on Thursday in response to what it said was a chemical weapons attack by Assad's forces on Syrian civilians.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the missile strike after watching television images of infants suffering from chemical weapons injuries.

On March 30, just days before dozens of people were killed and hundreds were wounded in a chemical attack in Syria's Idlib Province, Haley told reporters that "You pick and choose your battles and when we're looking at this, it's about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed to take a more patient stance in regard to Assad, saying on Saturday that Washington's first priority was still to defeat of Islamic State.

Once the threat from Islamic State has been reduced or eliminated, "I think we can turn our attention directly to stabilizing the situation in Syria," Tillerson said in excerpts from an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," that was also to air Sunday.

Tillerson said the United States was hopeful it could help bring parties together to begin the process of hammering out a political solution.

"If we can achieve cease-fires in zones of stabilization in Syria, then I believe -- we hope we will have the conditions to begin a useful political process," Tillerson said.

Syrian forces launched further airstrikes on Saturday that killed 18 people including five children in rebel-controlled Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the civil defense rescue service reported.

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=41653

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US Air Force to quit Incirlik, move to Syria base - debkaFile

by debkaFile

When the work is finished, the rising complex of air bases will enable America to deploy twice as many warplanes and helicopters in Syria as the Russians currently maintain.

Several US engineering teams are working round the clock to build a big new air base in northern Syria after completing the expansion of another four. They are all situated in the Syrian borderland with Iraq, debkafile’s military forces report.

This was going on over the weekend as senators, news correspondents and commentators were outguessing each other over whether the US missile attack on the Syrian Shayrat air base Friday, in retaliation for the Assad regime’s chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, was a one-off or the start of a new series.

As the White House parried those questions, the Trump administration was going full steam ahead on the massive project of preparing to pull US air force units out of the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, in active American use since 2002. Those units were in the middle of a big moving job to the five new and expanded air bases in Syria. Their hub is to be Tabqa, which is just 40km west of the Islamic State’s Syrian capital, Raqqa. The other five are Hajar airport in the Rmelan region, two small air fields serving farm transport in Qamishli, which have been converted to military use; and a fifth in the Kurdish Kobani enclave north of Aleppo near the Syrian-Turkish border.

Tabqa is also becoming the main assembly-point for the joint US, Kurdish, tribal Arab force that is coming together in readiness for a major charge on Raqqa.

When the work is finished, the rising complex of air bases will enable America to deploy twice as many warplanes and helicopters in Syria as the Russians currently maintain.

The site of the Tabqa air field was captured as recently as late March by the Syrian Democratic Force (Kurdish-Arab fighters) which were flown in and dropped there by the US Air Force’s Air Mobility Command. It was quickly dubbed “Incirlik 2” or “Qayyarah-2” after the US command center running the Iraqi military offensive against ISIS in Mosul.

Tabqa is designed to accommodate the 2,500 US military personnel housed at Incirlik. Like the Americans, the German Bundeswehr is also on the point of quitting Incirlik and eying a number of new locations in Cyprus and Jordan. The Germans are pulling out over the crisis in their relations with Ankara. The Americans are quitting because President Donald Trump wants to chill US ties with Turkish President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan and cooperation with the Turkish army.

The five US bases in Syria are part of Trump’s three-pronged strategy which aims at a) fighting Islamist terror; b) blocking Iran’s land and air access to Syria; and c) providing the enclaves of the Syrian Kurdish-PYD-YPG with a military shield against the Turkish army.


debkaFile

Source: http://debka.com/article/26004/US-Air-Force-to-quit-Incirlik-move-to-Syria-base

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Palestinians Exploiting Children to Fight Israel - Noah Beck

by Noah Beck

Where is the international outrage?

Originally written for the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The new Palestinian curriculum for grades 1 to 4 “is significantly more radical than previous curricula,” concludes a new study by Hebrew University’s Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). It “teaches students to be martyrs, demonizes and denies the existence of Israel, and focuses on a ‘return’ to an exclusively Palestinian homeland.”

In response to pressure from President Trump, Israel reportedly is preparing a series of concessions to Palestinians in a bid to re-launch peace talks. Trump may want to consider pressuring the Palestinians for parallel gestures, including correcting educational policies that are antithetical to peace.

Indeed, the IMPACT-se study warns that the “educational system has created a Palestinian nationalism that absolutely rejects the Other and is therefore incompatible with Israel’s existence.” Even more alarming, the report notes that the “Struggle against Israel and its disappearance is the main theme,” and “The 1974 PLO’s Phased Plan for the conquest of the Land of Israel/Palestine is taught. The curriculum reflects a strategy of violence and pressure in place of peaceful negotiations.”

The “Palestinian school curricula are inspected by the international donors who finance the Palestinian Authority and, by extension, its public education system,” the Times of Israel reported.

That includes huge investment from Britain, the Daily Mail reported, money that goes “into Palestinian schools named after mass murderers and Islamist militants, which openly promote terrorism and encourage pupils to see child killers as role models.”

Incredibly, European countries pressure Israel to freeze settlement growth and take other steps towards peace, while funding pro-war messages targeted at future generations of Palestinians.

Islam is not used as a radical political tool in grades 1–4, but the educational message “includes biases towards non-Muslims,” the IMPACT-se study says. And, in grades 11-12, “Religion is clearly abused...to foment hate amid calls for eternal war in the Levant.”

The Palestinian curriculum of violence and hate highlighted by the IMPACT-se study is just one of the many ways in which Palestinian leaders have forced their violent agendas onto children.

Islamists have a particularly robust history of weaponizing children in their war against Israel. Last summer, a Gaza kindergarten graduation ceremony sponsored by Islamic Jihad, featured children dressed in military fatigues, holding toy weapons, acting out attacks on an Israeli army base, firing mortar shells, planting explosive devices, kidnapping soldiers, and even delivering mosque sermons that praise martyrdom. Absurdly, one of the senior Islamic Jihad members present at the event, which the terror group filmed in high definition and broadcast on YouTube, declares to spectators that the show was meant to spread a message of peace and love. “We are a life-loving people,” affirms Hader Habib, a senior member of Islamic Jihad. “We honor and appreciate mankind...The message of Palestine’s children today is a message of love to the whole world.”

In 2012, senior Hamas commander Zaher Jabarin told Hamas’ Al-Quds TV that Hamas labors “day and night” to educate Palestinian children in Gaza to become suicide bombers. In 2013, Gaza’s Hamas-run al-Aqsa TV showed children singing the virtues of suicide attacks and wishing to blow themselves up to liberate Jerusalem and Palestine, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“Jihad bestows pride and glory upon you when you become a martyrdom-seeker,” the elementary school-aged children sing. “Oh explosive device of glory – with her blood she created freedom.”

Islamist abuse of Palestinian children extends beyond the educational context. Tens of millions of foreign aid dollars intended to benefit injured children “was instead taken by families of Hamas members who falsely registered their children in the program,” the Times of Israel reported last August.

The use and abuse of children by Islamists also occurs outside of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Islamic State uses child soldiers and brainwashes them to perform gruesome acts at an early age, including mock beheadings of dolls.

In 2015, Boko Haram, an Islamic extremist group based in Nigeria, sent 44 children on suicide missions in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. The use of children as suicide bombers in Islamic countries is explored in greater depth by Lawrence A. Franklin, a former Defense Department Iran Desk officer.

But radical Islam isn’t always the main factor in Palestinian terrorism committed by children. Last month, a report by Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) found that children from troubled backgrounds were often ripe for radicalization because they viewed attacks as a way to commit suicide with glory. Child terrorists might be further motivated to die trying to kill Israelis because the Palestinian Authority often rewards such deaths by paying the bereaved families a monthly stipend.

According to COGAT, non-ideological reasons for lone-wolf attacks include “domestic violence within the household ... social criticism for an immoral act such as adultery, lack of respect for the family, matriculation failure and more; and serious psychological issues stemming from depression, despair, and mental illness.”

Reforming the anti-Israel indoctrination of Palestinian children will not be easy. Palestinians reportedly responded with threats over reports that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) is considering curricular changes that might curtail incitement.

Nevertheless, if world powers are serious about promoting a genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace, they must pressure Palestinian leaders to start preparing future generations for peace by replacing anti-Israel incitement and “martyrdom” adulation with messages of peaceful coexistence, including maps and history that acknowledge Jewish claims to Israel proper and territories in dispute.


Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266353/palestinians-exploiting-children-fight-israel-noah-beck

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