Denying Islam's role in terror
is bad for army morale.
To win a war one must know the
enemy!
As US service members risk their
lives to combat violent jihadists abroad, military leaders,
both uniformed and civilian, capitulate to stealth jihadists
at home. By bending to Islamists' appeals for religious
sensitivity, these leaders ignore the most crucial lesson of
the Fort Hood massacre: Political correctness can kill.
The US Army seems to have succumbed
to PC-Islamist sensitivities. It has issued a special
handbook for soldiers that appears to justify jihad as
"communal military defense... when (Muslims) are
threatened or under attack." In addition, U.S.
servicewomen have been urged to don head scarves when
interacting with Afghan locals while all soldiers are warned
to "respect Islam" in order to prevent violence
there.
The Pentagon's verbal tiptoeing is
not limited to the Fort Hood rampage. The Defense
Department-produced "Quadrennial Defense Review"
(QDR) provides a measure of current trends. Whereas the 2006
QDR features more than a dozen instances of
"Islam," "Muslim," and their variants,
the 2010 QDR has none, instead describing challenges in
vague terms such as "violent extremists." Then
there was the testimony of Paul Stockton, an assistant
secretary of defense, on December 7, 2011. When Congressman
Dan Lungren (Republican, Calif.) asked if America is
"at war with violent Islamist extremism," Stockton
replied, "No, sir. We are at war with al-Qaeda, its
affiliates." Questioned whether al-Qaeda is "an
exponent of violent Islamist extremism," Stockton could
muster only that these "murderers" are
"dedicated to overthrowing the values that we intend to
advance." He added, "I don't believe it's helpful
to frame our adversary as Islamic with any set of
qualifiers."
A full accounting of the military's
myriad concessions to Islamists and its disturbing
relationships with them could fill several articles, but the
following examples offer some taste of their variety. In
2010, the Army rescinded an invitation to evangelist
Franklin Graham to participate in the Pentagon's National
Day of Prayer service, citing his comments critical of
Islam. A year later, the Defense Department gave in to
CAIR's demands that high school students in the Junior
Reserve Officers' Training Corps be allowed to wear hijabs
with their uniforms. (A war
without a clearly identified objective and enemy is bad for
an army's morale and leads nowhere but defeat! These are the
main reasons why the US army personnel are having so many
cases of PTSD, left Iraq in disarray and are still stuck in
Afghanistan after 12 years of useless
war!)
Plot Foiled to Shoot up Jewish
Worshippers at Western Wall
Five East Jerusalem Palestinians
were indicted on Thursday on charges of setting up a
terrorist cell which plotted to kidnap an Israeli and carry
out a shooting attack against Jewish worshippers and police
guards in the Temple Mount and Western Wall area. The cell
commanded by Nour Hamdan of E. Jerusalem contacted the
Hamas's military arm Ezza e-din al-Qassam and the Fatah's Al
Aqsa Martyrs wing on the West Bank for training and
weapons.
Food for Thought
by
Steven Shamrak
Since the destruction of the
Second Temple in
Jerusalem , Jews were founders and builders
of many major towns and cities in Christian Europe and the
Muslim world. Jews were creators of the hubs of prosperous
trade, cultural exchange, scientific and artistic centres.
After Jews were driven away by hateful barbaric neighbours,
most of those places experienced decline and fell apart. No
wonder the Islamists have no emotional attachment to the
Jewish pedigree of Aleppo in
Syria and brought devastation to the
ancient wonder - Europeans have been doing it for quite a
while!
Israel Produces more Advanced
Drones
Germany is in talks with Israel to
buy weaponized drones for its military that are seen as more
technologically advanced than US-made ones. The chief of
Germany's air force, Lieutenant General Karl Muellner, has
recently gone to Israel to attend a presentation of Israel's
Heron TP drone.
bulldozed a part
of the ancient Anthedon Harbor in northern Gaza along the
Mediterranean Sea last month
The 3,000-year-old seaport discovered in 1997 was named an
international heritage site by UNESCO in 2012, and is the
oldest harbor in Gaza. It contains mosaic floors with
historical pillars from the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic
ages. (Islamists have no respect
to any heritage. No international condemnation and UNESCO is
silent!)
Defense
Minister Moshe Yaalon wants America as a partner if at all
possible for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. But if
Washington declines and Iran is on the verge of acquiring an
operational nuclear arsenal - most probably this year -
Israel must go it alone. He plans to do away with the
classical divisions, brigades and professional corps like
artillery and tanks which characterize a conventional army,
and replace them with small, self-contained, armies capable
of operating independently under their own air and artillery
cover.
Egypt's
foreign ministry summoned Canada's charge d'affaires in
Cairo, over Foreign Minister John Baird's visit to eastern
Jerusalem. Egypt's foreign ministry expressed its
"astonishment" at Baird's meeting with Israeli
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and demanded "a
clarification of the reasons for convening the meeting in
the occupied capital of Palestine," it said in a
statement.
President Shimon Peres said that he does not regret the Oslo
Accords, despite the fact that their signing brought about
hundreds of Israeli victims who were killed in terror
attacks. As part of the Oslo Accords, large numbers of
weapons were given to the PA. The agreements were signed
with the PLO in 1993 and, according to statistics, in the
four years after the Oslo Accords, between 1993 and 1996,
256 Israelis were killed in terror attacks, compared to 97
during the four years prior to the signing, between 1989 and
1992.
Obama
Peacemaking in Tatters
PA
Minister Salam Fayyad has called it quits. With Fayyad gone,
the Obama administration has suffered a huge setback in its
peace-making efforts - a quixotic undertaking to begin with.
Twenty-four hours before Fayyad and Abbas officially parted
ways, Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned Fayyad in a
last-ditch effort to get him to rescind his resignation. Now
there definitely is no serious or even halfway dependable
Palestinian leader left with whom to kick-start
negotiations. (It is a
well-known secret - Israel has no peace partners in the
Middle East!)
Hours
following a pair of blasts at the Boston Marathon that left
2 dead and up to 100 wounded according to reports, a chief
doctor at the hospital where many of the patients are being
treated credited Israelis with teaching his team how to
respond to such disastrous attacks. "About two years
ago in actual fact we asked the Israelis to come across and
they helped us set up our disaster team so that we could
respond in this kind of manner," said Alastair Conn,
Chief of Emergency Services at Massachusetts General
Hospital, responding to a question about the preparedness of
his staff to handle trauma on this scale.
Turkey
has declined to agree to a meeting of NATO's Mediterranean
Dialogue group, which includes Israel and six Arab
countries. They said Egypt also declined to convene the
group for the first time in five years. A NATO official in
Brussels declined to comment. The Mediterranean Dialogue,
founded in 2004, is intended to contribute to regional
security. Along with Israel and Egypt, the other
participating countries are Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania,
Algeria and Jordan.
Another Violation of Peace
Agreement
At least two Grad-style
rockets were fired at
Israel 's southern resort town
Eilat from Egypt's
Sinai
Peninsula early Wednesday.
Egypt was the first Arab
country to sign a peace treaty with
Israel but relations are cool.
Sinai was until recently a popular destination for Israeli
travellers. (Maybe Israel needs to retake Sinai,
If Egypt is unable to keep peace)
PA Village in a bid to get UNESCO Funds
A village near
Bethlehem applied to be listed as a UNESCO World
Heritage site. The people of Battir are hopeful that world
heritage status will help preserve the village's traditions
and culture. Families living in the quiet valley cultivate
their crops using an irrigation system dating back to the
Roman era. (Recently a UNESCO site
was destroyed in Gaza to accommodate a terrorist training
facility)
Quote of the Week:
"It does not seem that the
leadership of the Palestinian Authority is really and truly
aiming for the end of the conflict. In any case, we will
continue to turn over every stone to try to end the
conflict. But if we go into the diplomatic process, we must
do so with open eyes." - Israel Defense Minister
Moshe Yaalon -
Ending the occupation of Jewish land by enemies and
reunification of Eretz-Israel is the only way to end
the conflict.
US Senate Approved Assistance in Iran Strike
by Elad
Benari
The US
Senate Foreign Relations Committee adopted on Tuesday a
resolution which stipulates that the
US will assist
Israel if it is forced to take action
against Iran
.
It states
that the United States has a vital national interest in and
unbreakable commitment to, ensuring the existence, survival,
and security of the State of Israel; reaffirms the United
States support for Israel's right to self-defense; and urges
that if Israel is compelled to take military action in
self-defense, the United States will stand with Israel and
provide diplomatic, military, and economic support in its
defense of its territory, people, and existence.
It also
states that U.S. policy is to halt Iranian nuclear
ambitions. Senate Resolution 65 gained the support of 70 of
the 100 senators.
Defense
Minister Moshe Yaalon said that "the regime in Tehran
does not see the western world as determined to stop the
nuclear project, so it allows itself to continue with its
plans. Only putting the Iranian regime before the dilemma of
'bomb, or survival' will lead to the end of the
project".
"The
world must take the lead in the standoff with Iran, but
Israel must prepare for the possibility that it will need to
protect itself alone," he added.
Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu also referred to the Iranian
nuclear threat on Tuesday, comparing it to the recent
behavior of North Korea. He made the comments during a
reception for foreign diplomats. "We have recently seen
the results of a wild regime that possesses nuclear
weapons," he said. "We have also seen that heavy
sanctions are not always effective against a sufficiently
determined regime."
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