MB Apologists Arrive In U.S. For Anti-Sisi Rallies - John Rossomando

by John Rossomando

During their 2015 trip, Brotherhood leader they lobbied State Department and White House officials for help against the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fatal al-Sisi.

Three Muslim Brotherhood supporters who caused a row in Egypt last year after they met with Obama administration officials and members of Congress returned to the U.S. Wednesday, according to the Facebook page of Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice (EAFJ).

During their 2015 trip, Brotherhood leader Gamal Heshmat, former Egyptian Judge Waleed Sharaby and Maha Azzam, head of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council (ERC) lobbied State Department and White House officials for help against the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fatal al-Sisi.

The ERC formed in 2014 with the aim of toppling Sisi and bringing the Brotherhood back to power in Egypt. Sisi took power in 2013 after the Egyptian army ousted President Mohamed Morsi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.

Heshmat has a long history of supporting Palestinian terrorists and was photographed in June 2014 with Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal.

The State Department agreed with the delegation's position that Sisi had not brought stability to Egypt, and that his removal would pave the way for a transition to democracy, Sharaby told Egypt's Mekameleen TV in an interview last February. But that has not translated into concrete action to topple Sisi.

EAFJ leaders Mahmoud El-Sharkawy, Hani Elkadi and Aber Mostafa greeted Heshmat, Sharaby and Azzam at New York's JFK airport and posed for a picture with them displaying the Brotherhood's four-fingered Rabaa salute which has become representative among those wanting the Brotherhood's return to power in Egypt.

The three are scheduled to speak Friday at an event titled "Egyptian Revolution from Sacrifices to Victory" in North Bergen, N.J.

The event is timed to commemorate the Jan. 25 anniversary of dictator Hosni Mubarak's fall from power in 2011. Heshmat wrote that his group had no plans to meet with Obama administration representatives during this visit, due to their "position biased" toward Sisi's regime. They hope to speak with some congressmen, academics and others.

El-Sharkawy is a Brotherhood member and serves as liaison with Brotherhood members exiled in Turkey, Egypt's Al-Bawaba newspaper reported last April.

He frequently reposts Muslim Brotherhood communiqués on his Facebook page. In December, El Sharkawy encouraged "all youth and revolutionaries" to distribute the official page of Brotherhood spokesman Muhammad Muntasir.

Elkadi seemed to self-identify as a Brotherhood member in a March 9 Facebook post showing an cartoon of a man holding a sign with the Brotherhood logo and the words which translate to, "I am [Muslim] Brotherhood and I'm not threatened."

Last year, Elkadi, El Sharkawy and Mostafa posted graphics on their Facebook pages seeming to support violence in Egypt.

El Sharkawy and Elkadi posted a Feb. 10 communiqué from the Popular Resistance Movement (PRM) which has launched attacks against Egyptian police and other targets. It features an image of a blood-red map of Egypt with a fist superimposed over it. It claims responsibility for targeting two police cars. "God, martyrs, Revolution," it said.

Mostafa posted the personal information of a pro-Sisi owner of an Egyptian soccer team with the word "Attaaack!" the same day.


John Rossomando

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/5137/mb-apologists-arrive-in-us-for-anti-sisi-rallies

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

When facts get in the way of a good story - Dror Eydar

by Dror Eydar

The Left is still reeling from the Channel 2 expose that caught them with their pants down, trampling human rights • In an embarrassing and aggressive response, the Left is discarding democracy and justice -- because they get in the way of their agenda.

Left-wing activists demonstrate against the occupation | Photo credit: Noam Revkin-Fenton

The outcry coming out of the Israeli Left these past weeks indicates that something big has happened. I am not too concerned with the Channel 2 expose on investigative news program "Uvda" ("Fact") that revealed that left-wing activists had helped expose Palestinians who sold land to Jews, knowing that they would be tortured and killed. After 600 episodes, "Uvda" can now say they devoted one show to criticizing the Left. The apologetic tone taken by "Uvda" host Ilana Dayan and her researchers was unprecedented, and it reflects on the left-wing media's inability to deal with allegations made against it by one of its own. 

Investigative journalism targeting the Right -- right-wing organizations, the Right's representatives in the Knesset, the communities in Judea and Samaria, etc. -- are far more common than the one "Uvda" expose about left-wing activists Ezra Nawi and Nasser Nawajah. History teaches us that when the Left is accused of "collaborating" with the "mechanism of darkness" of the Right, it usually tries to rehabilitate itself and clear its name. After the "Uvda" expose, I wrote that now we can expect a deluge of investigations into the Right. 

While the "Uvda" scandal was still ongoing, another Channel 2 news program, "Ulpan Shishi" ("Friday Studio"), supplied its own controversy. Producer Omri Kronland was sent to expose the radical Right by posing as the nephew of a rich Texas man interested in funding the publication of a sequel to "Torat Hamelech" -- a book that deals with the question of killing non-Jews during times of war, among other things. The poor journalist was exposed as an imposter rather easily -- he didn't do his homework and couldn't speak the language of the holy texts. A website called "The Jewish Voice" exposed his unconvincing coaxing and posted the recorded conversations with him, which also aired on Channel 20 television. 

In the conversations, Kronland was asked why his rich uncle loved "Torat Hamelech," to which he answered, "He agrees with it very much. ... He believes in a Greater Israel and in settling the land and that all of Israel should be ours. His dream is to create the land of the Bible. ... He identified with its values. He wants to donate to the momentum of the second book."

After saying "Greater Israel" several more times, the hesitant producer tried to get his partner in conversation to explicitly voice support for extreme rightists who carry out "price-tag" attacks -- acts of revenge against Palestinians for terrorist attacks and other perceived injustices. 

"Do you support what they do? ... The youngsters who built communities and fight an active war for greater Israel? Does the book support that? Encourage it?" he asked. 

"What do you mean by 'actively'?" he was asked.

"Uh ... price-tag attacks." 

An important rule of thumb when researching influences on political, artistic or social streams, is to understand the significant role played by the fringes. It is precisely in those unsophisticated places that the naked fundamentals guiding the entire stream can be found. 

"Greater Israel," "settling the land," "land of the Bible," these are terms that many Israelis identify with. But in the journalist's mind, these important terms are associated with bizarre ideology on the despised fringes of the right-wing camp. For this journalist and the bigwigs who sent him, settling Israel and the land of the Bible are just the flip side of "Torat Hamelech" and price-tag attacks. 

The man who spoke to Kronland eventually suggested that the "wealthy uncle" help erect an "'Ulpan Shishi' outpost named after [Channel 2 commentator] Amnon Abramovich." He then sent the uncle -- meaning the Channel 2 bigwigs -- an encrypted message. "Bava Batra, page 22." 

Bava Batra is the third tractate in fourth order of the Mishna, Nezikin. It deals with a person's responsibilities and rights as the owner of property. The page mentioned tells the story of a scholar named Rav Ada Bar Abba who was sent to test the mettle of one Rav Dimi -- to see whether the latter was a wise scholar. Rav Ada Bar Abba did so with one clever question that tested whether the man was well versed in halachic discourse. Check it out -- the lesson is clear. 

Despite the lack of depth in the "Uvda" expose, it was enough to embarrass the left-wing human rights group B'Tselem, which employs people who aren't always interested in human rights. Their response to Dayan and "Uvda" was violent, but that is just one of many examples of B'Tselem's methods.

Right-wing activist Noam Federman was caught by B'Tselem on camera throwing stones at Arabs in Hebron and breaking cartons of eggs. Ostensibly, yet another video of a radical rightist running amok. The State Prosecution filed an indictment against him. This week, Channel 10 reporter Roi Sharon aired the security footage taken from IDF cameras documenting the same incident. This footage tells a far more complex story than was originally thought. The security footage shows a resident of Hebron throwing rocks on IDF patrols, on security cameras and on vehicles belonging to Jews. The man even stands in the middle of an intersection and arrogantly signals to a military vehicle to try and catch him. Federman was driving one of the cars that was pelted by this brave fighter. In response, he exited his car and threw rocks back at this Rambo from Hebron, who fled and hid behind a large commercial vehicle carrying cartons of eggs. In his rage, Federman then smashed a number of cartons. 

It is wrong to smash cartons of eggs, and Federman should be compelled to compensate the owner of the eggs. What I cannot understand is why the IDF patrol simply left the scene, despite being pelted with rocks. Anyway, the thing that stinks here is the method. The skilled B'Tselem camerawoman didn't capture what happened at the intersection -- a main artery for both Jews and Arabs. She didn't film the young Hebron man's rock throwing and taunting, and certainly didn't document the Arab street's tacit cooperation with him. She did what was expected of her. She documented only the end of the story -- the outcome. In this case, Federman can now defend himself in the legal arena. But these carefully edited videos are being distributed around the world, giving Israel and the settlement enterprise a bad name and adding fuel to the fire of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel.

Watchdog organization NGO Monitor, headed by Professor Gerald Steinberg, recently revealed that on Dec. 15, B'Tselem received a 30,000 euro ($33,000) grant from the European Endowment for Democracy to "fight anti-democratic laws aimed at silencing the opposition." In other words, the European Union is intervening in Israel's legislative process. The "anti-democratic" law in question is a bill seeking to compel nongovernmental organizaations to reveal the sources of their funding, when more than 50% of the funding is received from foreign governments. This bill is meant to increase transparency, not to silence anyone. 

In the European mindset, democracy means that instead of respecting Israel's democratic process, they will try to impose a political stance representing the interests of foreign countries. The law does not deal with donations made by private individuals. It deals with the undermining of Israel's sovereignty. 

In a confrontation with MK Anat Berko over the bill, New Israel Fund President Talia Sasson said recently: "A private individual is far more dangerous. A foreign government is bound by values. An individual is bound by nothing." 

Let us reread the quote above. I have asserted repeatedly that if you look between the lines, you will see a totalitarian ideology underneath many of the Left's arguments. This ideology stems from the Left's inability to trust the intelligence of the public and its desire to impose a "re-education" of the state. The irony is that those who speak loftily about democracy are usually the biggest supporters of enslaving Israel's democratic process to the control of foreign democracies.

Dror Eydar

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=31303

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

State Department tells judge it needs an extra 30 days to release Hillary emails because of snow - Thomas Lifson

by Thomas Lifson

How this could really backfire for the Democrats.

Apparently the snow ate the State Department’s homework. CNN reports:

After misplacing about 7,000 pages of documents for several months, the State Department is now asking a federal judge for more time to release former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails, blaming the blizzard currently slamming Washington.
Lawyers for the department asked Judge Rudolph Contreras on Friday if State can release some of Clinton's emails on February 29, one month after it was initially supposed to turn over the last of the documents. That would also result in many emails not becoming public until after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries.

Unless there is some reason to anticipate the blizzard will last a month, this is a just a lame excuse.

Has anyone else noticed that it seems like the worst (or best depending on your perspective) emails seem to be saved for last?  The disclo[s]ures are getting more and more damning.  In fact, for those who are willing to open their eyes, there are already seven smoking guns, by the count of Investor’s Business Daily.  There is an excellent chance that brave secret agents working for us have been killed because Hillary wanted to evade the laws requiring access to her correspondence.  The New York Post sums up this explosive possibility:

Fox News, which last week disclosed that messages on Clinton’s private server went beyond even Top Secret classification, now reports they even included material on clandestine human-intelligence sources.
That is, secret agents and local assets in the field — people whose very lives are in danger if they’re exposed.
And this comes as President Obama’s own former defense secretary, Robert Gates, admitted, “the odds are pretty high” that her home server was accessed by one or more hostile foreign governments.

I see an excellent chance that all this delay will work to the disadvantage of Hillary and her party – just as the limiting of the number of Democratic presidential debates is now harming her, preventing her from going after the surging Sanders.  It now seems quite possible that Hillary will come in second to Sanders in both Iowa and New Hampshire.  This will energize his base even more.

Thus, if damning evidence comes to the fore and/or if a criminal referral is made by the FBI, the pressure will be on Hillary to withdraw, and for Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, or some other Obama favorite to step forward and attempt to accumulate delegates.

All of this could very well lead to a Democratic convention where the party bosses and superdelegates strong-arm their choice and push aside Sanders, no matter how many delegates he is able to win in the primaries.  The more momentum Sanders generates, the bitterer his followers will be.  So keeping the damaging information from the public and keeping Biden, Warren, or whomever out of the race as long as possible could add to the estrangement the Sanders faction feels, possibly leading some to stay home in November, no matter who else is on top of the ticket.

Thomas Lifson

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/state_department_tells_judge_it_needs_an_extra_30_days_to_release_hillary_emails_because_of_snow.html

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

Judicial Watch Uncovers New State Department Records Confirming Arab Smuggling “Cells,” Al Qaeda Leader in Mexico - Judicial Watch

by Judicial Watch


Hat Tip Jean-Charles Bensoussan

Though the Obama administration has vehemently denied that there is terror-related activity on the southern border, recent revelations tell a very different story

For more than a decade the U.S. government has known that “Arab extremists” are entering the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells,” according to State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch that reveal among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI. Some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States, the government documents say. The top Al Qaeda leader in Mexico was identified in the September 2004 cable from the American consulate in Ciudad Juárez as Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah. The cable was released to Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act.

The new intelligence records were released as a result of an ongoing JW investigation into the critical national security threats on the southern border, specifically those created by Islamic terrorists teaming up with Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate and attack the U.S. In response to JW’s reporting in the last two years the Obama administration—through various spokespeople, including FBI Director James Comey—has vehemently denied that Islamic terrorists are operating in Mexican towns near American cities or entering the U.S. through the famously porous southern border.

The State Department documents, which include substantial redactions supposedly to protect classified and personal information, contradict this. JW obtained them as part of an investigative series into Shukrijumah, an Al Qaeda operative also known as Javier Robles. In December, 2014 Shukrijumah was killed by the Pakistan Army in an intelligence-borne operation in South Waziristan. But before he died Shukrijumah helped plan several U.S. attacks, including plots to bomb Oprah Winfrey’s studio and detonate nuclear devices in multiple American cities. For years Shukrijumah appeared on the FBI’s most wanted list and, despite being sought by the agency, he crossed back and forth into the U.S. from Mexico to meet fellow militant Islamists in Texas. JW has reported that, as one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, Shukrijumah piloted an aircraft into the Cielo Dorado airfield in Anthony, New Mexico.

The new State Department records show that U.S. authorities knew Shukrijumah was in Mexico because they say that the Regional Security Office (RSO) at the consulate in Ciudad Juárez used newspapers to distribute information throughout Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico about the Al Qaeda operative at the request of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in El Paso. This appears on page 17 of the documents, which are linked above in their entirety. Of interesting note is that the government uses an exemption that applies to classified information to continue to withhold some of the records when the entire file was already declassified back in September, 2014.

Information about Middle Eastern terrorists entering the U.S. through Mexico appears in a September 2, 2004 cable—declassified 10 years later—titled “CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANT, A PROVEN CI TO USG IN THE PAST, REPORTS ARAB CELLS WITHIN MEXICO.” It explains that a reputable government informant went to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez and provided information pertaining to suspect Arab extremists who have been smuggled into the U.S. through the Mexican border. “The confidential source (SUBJECT) stated his family member, who is a human trafficker, knows the exact whereabouts of three Arabs who are currently being hidden in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico,” the State Department cable reads. “Although not absolutely positive, one of the three is likely Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, alleged to be a Saudi Arabian terrorist cell leader thought to be in Mexico. SUBJECT also provided information on two smuggling networks, “cells,” that specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States.”

Many questions remain about the U.S. government’s relationship with Shukrijumah, but last spring JW obtained records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) that indicate he was a Confidential Source/Informant for the government. Shukrijumah lived in South Florida’s Broward County and graduated from Broward Community College with a degree in computer engineering. Four months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks Shukrijumah fled the U.S. He was one of the suspected actors in a number of planned terror attacks in the U.S., including a plot to simultaneously detonate nuclear devices in several U.S. cities. Convicted terrorist Jose Padilla claimed to have trained with Shukrijumah to blow up U.S. apartment buildings using natural gas explosions.

In 2010 Shukrijumah was indicted in the Eastern District of New York for his role in a terrorist plot to attack targets in the United States—including New York City’s subway system—and the United Kingdom, according the FBI. The plot against New York City’s subway system was directed by senior Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, the FBI says, and was directly related to a scheme by Al Qaeda plotters in Pakistan to use Western operatives to attack a target in the United States.

A year earlier Shukrijumah helped plan a terrorist truck-bomb targeting Winfrey’s Harpo Studios in Chicago as well as the iconic Sears Tower. Two of his fellow conspirators—Emad Karakrah and Hector Pedroza Huerta—were arrested in 2014 for unrelated state crimes in different parts of the country. Karakrah got busted in Chicago on charges of making a false car bomb threat after leading police on a high-speed chase with an ISIS flag waving from his vehicle. Huerta, an illegal alien twice convicted for driving intoxicated, got nabbed in El Paso for drunk driving. Both Karakrah and Pedroza were released from custody in 2015 under highly unusual plea deals.

The men formed part of a sophisticated narco-terror ring, exposed in a JW investigative series, with connections running from El Paso to Chicago to New York City. The operation includes an all-star lineup of logistics and transportation operatives for militant Islamists in the United State, drug and weapons smugglers for the Juarez drug cartel in Mexico, an FBI confidential informant gone rogue and two of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists. Shukrijumah was one of them and, though he’s dead, he is an important part of the puzzle and extremely relevant when connecting the dots in the narco-terror ring.


Judicial Watch

Source: http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/01/judicial-watch-uncovers-2004-state-department-records-confirming-arab-smuggling-cells-al-qaeda-leader-in-mexico/

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

High Court To Hear Amnesty Challenge - Matthew Vadum

by Matthew Vadum

Will Democrats' gain 5 million new voters with the stroke of a pen?

The Supreme Court has decided to hear 26 states' challenge to President Obama's unpopular and constitutionally dubious plan that amnesties up to 5.5 million illegal aliens and provides incentives for foreigners to have so-called anchor babies in order to gain legal immigrant status here.

After the Obama administration lost twice in lower courts, the high court gave the administration a win Tuesday when it decided to review a November ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upholding Brownsville, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen's order earlier last year halting implementation of Obama's executive amnesty.

As attorney Gabriel Malor writes at The Federalist:

"At the most basic level, this case is about stopping yet another President Obama end-run around Congress. In accordance with its constitutional authority, Congress has established an elaborate immigration scheme governing which aliens may enter the United States, how long they may stay, and which aliens must be removed. Obama and the Democrats do not like Congress’ immigration scheme, but they lack the votes to change it."

The decision to take up the politically explosive issue sets the high court up for high drama in this election year in which illegal immigration, and immigration policies in general, figure prominently. The Supreme Court is expected to render its decision on the merits of the case by June. Led by Donald Trump, most Republican presidential candidates oppose amnesty in varying degrees while all Democrats favor it.

After the court acted, Senate Democrats succeeded in blocking a common-sense measure that would have paused the resettling of refugees from terrorist-producing  Syria and Iraq in the U.S. until the FBI could certify they didn't constitute a threat to the U.S. The vote Wednesday was 55 to 43, which fell short of the 60-vote threshold needed for the Senate to move forward. The House approved the legislation in November. The president vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

Obsessed with his legacy, President Obama is determined to unravel America's immigration system in order to flood the country with desperately poor, illiterate peasants from the Third World, especially those from Mexico, who come to the U.S. and depress labor markets while they suck the nation's welfare state dry. Obama wants to do this in order to wash away the rule of law tainted as it is by Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, along with whatever stubborn residue of American Revolutionary enlightenment that remains deeply embedded within the tissues of our culture and free institutions.

Conservative champion Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) has previously accused President Obama of “systematically” dismantling the nation’s immigration enforcement system. Obama’s attacks on America’s immigration laws, including his embrace of so-called sanctuary cities that unlawfully shield illegals from the law, are “undermining the very rule of law upon which our nation was founded and upon which its greatness depends.”

The litigation arises from Obama's post-2014 election maneuvering. Obama stuck his finger in voters' eyes and embarked on his massive Democrat-voter importation plan in late 2014 after his party's policies were dramatically repudiated by voters in congressional elections.

Trotting out tired old mantras like "coming out of the shadows," the president said at the time:

"So we’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve been in America more than five years. If you have children who are American citizens or illegal residents. If you register, pass a criminal background check and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes, you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. That’s what this deal is."

Texas and 25 other states are suing to halt the amnesty.

Obama's executive actions aim to shield from deportation illegal alien parents of U.S. citizens and children who were raised in this country, by way of his legally haphazard Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program and by expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

DAPA institutionalizes "anchor babies," which are children born in the United States to a mother who is not legally present in the country. Under current law, the child is automatically a U.S. citizen who can eventually sponsor other family members as immigrants to the U.S., but that doesn't mean its parents get to stay in the U.S. in the meantime.

DAPA lets the illegal alien parents obtain temporary lawful immigration status if their child is an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident (green card holder).

"In other words, for the first time, the Obama administration brought the 'anchor baby' concept into practice in the United States," attorney Malor explains.

The high court is also asking counsel in the case to address whether Obama's actions run afoul of a provision of the U.S. Constitution that requires the president to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." (The Heritage Foundation has a good primer on the Take Care Clause, also known as the Faithful Execution Clause.)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said Obama went beyond his legitimate presidential powers and usurped the authority of Congress.

"The court should affirm what President Obama said himself on more than 20 occasions: that he cannot unilaterally rewrite congressional laws and circumvent the people's representatives," Paxton said.

"President Obama is not a king, and impatient presidents don't get to change the law," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice. "This executive overreach is both unlawful and unconstitutional."

On the left, Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, urged the court to let Obama's questionable executive fiats slide. "We believe the Supreme Court will use common sense to advance the common good. Justice is finally near."

Progressives have long complained that the immigration system is broken, but they attach a special meaning to the word broken.

They mean it is functioning in a less than optimal manner, failing to lure every single prospective illegal alien available to wade across the Rio Grande or walk across the nation’s largely undefended border with Mexico. To them, immigration policy is a taxpayer-subsidized get-out-the-vote scheme for Democrats and the best reform they could imagine would be to abolish America’s borders altogether.

Obama's amnesty plan is a step in that direction.

Which is why the Left is praying the Supreme Court sides with Obama.

Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative reporter and the author of the book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261542/high-court-hear-amnesty-challenge-matthew-vadum

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

ISIS Is Not the Main Problem in the Middle East - Jonathan Spyer

by Jonathan Spyer

ISIS is not a unique organization; rather, it exists at one of the most extreme points along a continuum of movements committed to Sunni political Islam.

^{Originally published under the title "We've Got It Wrong: ISIS Is Not the Main Problem in the Middle East."}


On a recent reporting trip to Iraq and northern Syria, two things were made apparent to me -- one of them relatively encouraging, the other far less so. The encouraging news is that ISIS is currently in a state of retreat. Not headlong rout, but contraction.

The bad news? Our single-minded focus on ISIS as if it were the main or sole source of regional dysfunction is the result of faulty analysis, which in turn is producing flawed policy.

Regarding the first issue, 2015 was not a particularly good year for ISIS. In the course of it, the jihadis lost Kobani and then a large area to its east, bringing the Syrian Kurdish fighters of the YPG and their allies to within 30 km of the Caliphate's "capital" in Raqqa city.

In late December, the jihadis lost the last bridge over the Euphrates that they controlled, at the Tishreen Dam. This matters because it isolates Raqqa, making it difficult for the Islamic State to rush reinforcements from Aleppo province to the city in the event of an attack. Similarly, the Kurdish YPG advanced south of the town of al-Hawl to Raqqa's east.

ISIS is not the sole, or even the main, source of Middle East dysfunction.

In Iraq, the Iraqi Shia militias and government forces have now recaptured Ramadi city (lost earlier in 2015) following the expulsion of ISIS from Tikrit and Baiji. The Kurdish Pesh Merga, meanwhile, have revenged the humiliation they suffered at the hands of ISIS in the summer of 2014. The Kurds have now driven the jihadis back across the plain between Erbil and Mosul, bringing them to the banks of the Tigris river. They have also liberated the town of Sinjar.

The city of Mosul nestles on the western side of the river. It remains ISIS's most substantial conquest. Its recapture does not appear immediately imminent, yet the general trend has been clear. The main slogan of ISIS is "Baqiya wa'tatamaddad," "Remaining and Expanding." At the present time, however, the Islamic State may be said to be remaining, but retreating.

This situation is reflected in the confidence of the fighters facing ISIS along the long front line. In interviews as I traversed the lines, I heard the same details again and again regarding changing ISIS tactics, all clearly designed to preserve manpower.

This stalling of the Islamic State is the background to its turn towards international terror, which was also a notable element of the latter half of 2015. The downing of the Russian airliner in October, the events in Paris in November, and the series of suicide bombings in Turkey since July attest to a need that the Islamic State has for achievement and for action. They need to keep the flow of recruits coming and to maintain the image of victory essential to it.

Regarding the second issue: seen from close up, the Islamic State is very obviously only a part, and not necessarily the main part, of a much larger problem. When talking both with those fighting with ISIS and with those who sympathize with it in the region, this observation stands out as a stark difference in perception between the Middle Eastern view of ISIS and the view of it presented in Western media. The latter tends to present ISIS as a strange and unique development, a dreadfully evil organization of unclear origins, which is the natural enemy of all mainstream forces in the Middle East.

ISIS has the same ideological roots and similar practices as other Salafi jihadi groups in Syria.

From closer up, the situation looks rather different.

ISIS has the same ideological roots and similar practices as other Salafi jihadi organizations active in the Syrian arena. ISIS treats non-Muslims brutally in the areas it controls, and adheres to a rigid and fanatical ideology based on a literalist interpretation and application of religious texts. But this description also applies to Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda franchise in Syria.

Nusra opposes ISIS, and is part of a rebel alliance supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. In March 2015, when Nusra captured Idleb City in northern Syria, the city's 150 Christian families were forced to flee to Turkey. Nusra has also forcibly converted a small Druze community in Idleb. The alliance Nusra was a part of also included Muslim Brotherhood-oriented groups, such as the Faylaq al-Sham militia, which apparently had no problem operating alongside the jihadis.

ISIS is not a unique organization; rather, it exists at one of the most extreme points along a continuum of movements committed to Sunni political Islam.

Meanwhile, the inchoate mass of Sunni Islamist groups -- of which ISIS constitutes a single component -- is engaged in a region-wide struggle with a much more centralized bloc of states and movements organized around the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is committed to a Shia version of political Islam.

The Middle East -- in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and to a lesser extent Lebanon, all along the sectarian faultline of the region -- is witnessing a clash between rival models of political Islam, of which ISIS is but a single manifestation.

The local players find sponsorship and support from powerful regional states, themselves committed to various different versions of political Islam: Iran for the Shias; Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Muslim Brotherhood-supporting Qatar for the Sunnis.

The long awakening of political Islam as the dominant form of popular politics in the Middle East started decades ago. But the eclipse of the political order in the region, and of the nationalist dictatorships in Iraq, Syria, Egypt (temporarily), Tunisia, and Yemen in recent years, has brought it to a new level of intensity.

States, indifferent to any norms and rules, using terror and subversion to advance their interests, jihadi armed groups, and the refugee crises and disorder that result from all this are the practical manifestations of it.

This, and not the fate of a single, fairly ramshackle jihadi entity in the badlands of eastern Syria and western Iraq, is the matter at hand in the Middle East.


Jonathan Spyer is director of the Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/5801/isis-is-not-the-main-problem-in-mideast

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

The Inside Track From Israel's Gaza Border Defenders - Paul Alster

by Paul Alster

Israel remains alert for the jihadists turning their attention and firepower from Sinai, but for now believes that Gazan-based terror poses its most immediate threat.

Photos courtesy of IDF Spokesperson.

Like it or not, the Iran nuclear deal is done. In much of the Middle East, defense officials in many states believe that a sizeable proportion of the soon-to-be released $100 billion Iranian windfall will be directed toward funding proxy armies of the Islamic Republic, for whom the Jewish state remains the prime target. Israel's focus is now, more than ever, on defense and surveillance.

In the north, Hizballah, Iran's proxy Lebanese army, remains a massive threat to regional stability, siding with Syria's disgraced President Bashar Assad and his saviors from Russia. In Gaza, it is no secret that a previous rift between Iran and Hamas has been smoothed over to further mutual objectives and that another, and possibly more brutal round of hostilities between Israel and Hamas may not be far away.

"The sanctions relief and the nuclear deal with Iran represent a strategic shift that the IDF will have to tackle over the next decade," Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot said Monday in a speech at the INSS conference in Tel Aviv. "We also see [Iran's] attempt to influence Arab Israelis and those in the Gaza Strip, and the estimation is that as Iran's economic situation improves, over the next one-to-two years, it will divert considerably more resources into opposing Israel, via the Iranian military industry."

Last week, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) saw first-hand the situation on Israel's south-western border, meeting with a senior IDF source who cannot be identified for security reasons. Close to the Kerem Shalom border crossing, where Israel oversees the transfer of many hundreds of tons of goods and supplies every day into Gaza,  we scrambled up a sizeable sand dune that offered a panoramic view of the situation on the ground toward the closed Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza.

"We hear the explosions and the fighting [against the Islamists] on the Egyptian side. The Egyptian army is taking it seriously," the senior IDF source explained as we looked across the triangular border junction and heard distant noises, apparently explosions. "We hear this every day. Terrorists continue to try to cross from Egypt into Gaza."

Minutes later, a text message announced that the Keren Shalom crossing suddenly had been closed. It turned out that the Egyptian army reportedly engaged and killed 13 jihadists  just a couple of miles away. Two days earlier, an attempt to breach the Israel-Gaza border fence and plant an IED resulted in an Israeli airstrike reportedly eliminating a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

Meanwhile, Hamas continues to test fire rockets into the sea, and in recent months other Islamic militants in Gaza sporadically lob rockets toward Israel. On the other side of the border triangle, Egypt is doing its best to keep a lid on ISIS and other Islamist forces in the Sinai Peninsula.

It's clear that relations between the Israeli and Egyptian militaries are good, a dangerous common enemy helping to focus minds. Under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt (despite a lack of support from the United States), has taken the fight to the terror organizations, often at a significant cost in Egyptian military lives. The horrific October downing of the Russian passenger jet out of Sharm el-Sheikh brought the scale of the task facing Egypt into focus. Israel remains alert for the jihadists turning their attention and firepower from Sinai, but for now believes that Gazan-based terror poses its most immediate threat.

"It's been quite quiet with Hamas [since the 2014 Protective Edge war], but they don't keep quiet for long," the IDF source said. "We're not looking for a fight – we have an interest that there will be quiet here – but if we have to deal with Hamas, this time we'll deal with them properly."

Many Israelis were dismayed when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2014 without a ceasefire, some criticism coming notably from members of the left-wing opposition and media for allowing Hamas off the hook when many believed it was in utter disarray. Now, despite ongoing attempts to stem the flow of weapons, reports suggest Hamas is rebuilding fast and may have some surprises in store for Israel if there's another round of fighting.

"Look, we're quite certain they are still building tunnels," the official said, planting his heel in the sand and showing how easy it is to dig. "And yes, I'm sure they have new weapons – anti-tank, anti-aircraft etc. Like us, they will want to be better next time, but we understand more. The reality is different. We're learning all the time what is going in Gaza. The army is always preparing for the war to come and [Hamas] won't meet the same thing as in [Protective Edge]."

While Israeli soldiers and advanced technology such as its Guardium unmanned patrol vehicles are the first line of defense – the IDF indicated last year that the development of underground tunnel detection systems is also a priority project – the eyes of the military are actually in special units of female soldiers, known as the tazpitanyot. They monitor all movements, looking for suspicious activity, known terror operatives, and attempts to breach the border.

They work in a series of non-descript trailers and shipping containers belying the fact that inside are massed banks of video screens and radar images, and the ability to combine pictures filmed from aerial blimps with other cameras – both day and night vision. This arrangement allows operatives to zoom in and see Gazans as far as a mile from the border fence.
When anything, or anyone suspicious pops up, there are pictures of 'Wanted' terror suspects close to the screens.  They instruct 
the on-the-ground forces to investigate. Never averting their gaze from the screen during a four-hour shift, each soldier has been trained to identify every landmark, tree, or rock within her specific area of surveillance. "If there's even a single branch missing from a tree, they'll spot it" the women's commanding officer said. They also have remote control of the machine guns sited on border watch towers.

No security system is 100 percent foolproof, and during the first two weeks of the last round of fighting, four terror tunnels emerged on the Israeli side, only being detected at the last moment.  In two cases, the IDF fought gun-battles leaving  at least 10 terrorists and six Israeli soldiers dead. Hamas had hoped to kill civilians before luring Israeli soldiers back through the tunnels then kidnapping them or causing mass casualties.

Methods and practices of surveillance are being continually reviewed, but no-one in the Israeli military doubts the tatzpitanyot's crucial front-line role in its border security, both north and south.


Paul Alster is an Israel-based journalist. Follow him on Twitter @paul_alster and visit his website: www.paulalster.com.

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/5136/the-inside-track-from-israel-gaza-border-defenders

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

The nuclear agreement and reform in Iran - Elliot Abrams

by Elliot Abrams

Having more money will embolden Iran's rulers and do ‎nothing for its citizens, who detest the tyranny under which they live.

It was widely assumed that with the end of sanctions, Iran would "join the world" and ‎become a less repressive state. To take just one example, the Iranian philosopher Ramin ‎Jahanbegloo argued in Huffington Post that the nuclear deal created "the opportunity for ‎Iranian civic actors to enable and empower Iran's civil society space" and "help the country ‎to become more open, transparent and susceptible to international pressure on issues like ‎the death penalty and the imprisonment of civic actors in Iran." Last summer, Reuters ‎carried this story: "Iranian pro-democracy activists, lawyers and artists have thrown their ‎weight behind last month's nuclear deal with world powers, hoping it will lead to a promised ‎political opening that President Hassan Rouhani has so far failed to deliver."‎

Oh well. That was the last thing Iran's rulers had in mind, and they have acted quickly this ‎week to crush such reformist efforts. Here's The Wall Street Journal account:‎

"Days after Iran secured relief from economic sanctions under a contentious nuclear deal, ‎the country's powerful hard-liners are moving to sideline more moderate leaders who stand ‎to gain from a historic opening with the West.‎

"Almost two-thirds of the 12,000 candidates who applied to run in next month's ‎parliamentary elections were either disqualified by Iran's Guardian Council or withdrew.‎"

Actually the picture is even worse: 99% of reformist candidates were rejected.‎

So the hopes that the nuclear agreement would lead to reform are vanishing very quickly. ‎As is, and always was, logical: Reform was never the intention of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ‎the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, the Basij thugs, or any of the groups and individuals that hold a ‎monopoly on force and hold real political power in Iran. As we just saw in the seizure of ‎American sailors in the Gulf, having more money will embolden Iran's rulers -- and do ‎nothing for the vast majority of its citizens who detest the tyranny under which they live.‎

That's the real problem with the nuclear deal, and with the whole Obama approach to Iran ‎since he became president. He has always sought an improved relationship with the Iranian ‎regime, not with the Iranian people. When the people rose up in 2009, he was silent in the ‎crucial early days -- because the uprising was inconvenient, threatening to spoil his ‎diplomacy with the ayatollahs.‎

One cannot condemn Iranian reformers for seeing some hope in the nuclear deal. One can ‎only feel sorry that the United States and others in the P5+1 made an arrangement with ‎their oppressors that will likely lengthen the life of this criminal regime.‎

Elliot Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This piece is reprinted from Abrams' blog "Pressure Points."

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=15043

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Senate Dems thwart Syrian refugee bill - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

Bill would have drastically tightened screening procedures

Senate Democrats narrowly blocked a bill that would have severely slowed the flood of Syrian refugees who are headed for America by drastically tightening the vetting process that's supposed to screen out criminals and terrorists.

Common sense has left the building.

Reuters:

"This bipartisan bill would allow Washington to step back, take a breath and ensure it has the correct policies and security screenings in place," Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in the Senate before the vote.
Democrats called the legislation an attack on people who are fleeing war. They accused Republicans of holding the vote to allow their 2016 presidential candidates serving in the Senate to back legislation touted as tough on security.
All three Senate Republican 2016 presidential hopefuls, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, backed the bill. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders missed the vote.
Democrats also sought to play politics. They tried and failed to reach a deal with Republicans to set up a vote on an amendment establishing a religious test for would-be immigrants.
That vote was planned to see if Republicans would side against presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has advocated barring Muslims from entering the United States.
The Syria refugee bill passed the House by a large margin days after the Nov. 13 Islamic State attacks in Paris. The bill was supported by dozens of Democrats who defied Democratic President Barack Obama's veto threat.
"We need to talk about efforts to defeat ISIS, not creating more paperwork for cabinet secretaries," Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, told reporters before the vote.
It currently takes 18-24 months for Syrian refugees to be screened before they can move to the United States.

It was recently revealed that 113 refugees have been ordered deported for ties to terrorists discovered after they arrived in the U.S.  The government has lost track of most of them.  So the question of whether the screening process is adequate to keep terrorists from sneaking into the country has already been answered.  The question that should be asked is why Democrats are so cavalier about our security when it is so obviously threatened by bureaucratic incompetence.

Besotted with political correctness and fearing to be seen as "intolerant," Democrats would rather see you dead than sacrifice their perceived political advantage with the American people.  That says all we need to know about what will happen if the Democrats win back the Congress in November.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/senate_dems_thwart_syrian_refugee_bill.html

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