Fatah: "All means of struggle until statehood"

Fatah about its military wing:

"When they strike - they cause pain"

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9870
 

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
 

Recent postings on one of Fatah's official Facebook pages reiterate the PA-Fatah strategy documented by Palestinian Media Watch of alternating between violence and diplomacy to put pressure on Israel to give in to the PA's demands.


[Facebook, "Fatah - The Main Page," Sept. 8, 2013]

Under the headline "Fatah - All means of struggle until statehood" the administrator of the Fatah Facebook page posted three pictures showing different "means of struggle." One picture represents diplomacy as a "means of struggle," exemplified by a picture of PA Chairman Abbas speaking at the UN. The other two pictures represent the use of different kinds of violence as a "means of struggle." One shows a man wearing an Arab headscarf throwing a stone, while the other shows a man holding a rifle.

Reversing a Weak Defense

Peter Huessy

At present the military is not being allocated enough money to carry out the tasks it is being asked to do by the realities of our security. "While the military will run to the sound of the guns, we may not be ready to go." — General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Senate Armed Services Committee, July 18, 2013

The U.S. national defense is in jeopardy. So long as important military capabilities are cut to meet arbitrary budget reduction targets, and so long as there is not some long-term budget-and-strategy agreement, the U.S. Department of Defense -- and therefore the nation's security -- are positioned to take a beating.

Palestinian Corruption -- Again

Shoshana Bryen

No word from the "humanitarians" on the [Palestinian] diversion of civilian aid to more nefarious ends.

If the Palestinian movement believes it lives outside the laws of politics, nature and economics, it may be right.

The PA and Hamas occupy a split territory with two feuding governments -- both dictatorships with all the arbitrariness and lack of accountability implied by that; multiple armed services that fight each other and, occasionally, kill Israelis; a school system that teaches children that the IDF ate Mickey Mouse and Jews have no history in the land of the Bible; a civic culture that venerates suicide bombers and the mothers who seem to revel in their children's bloody demise; and an economy that produces nothing of export value. Yet it operates on the principle that it will be bailed out by European and American political support and international largesse. And that Israel will be blamed for the Palestinian failure to thrive.

Who Stole $3 Billion from the PA Cookie Jar?

The money was not used to better the lives of Palestinian Authority Arabs, of that one can be sure.

Mark Langfan

The writer, who writes on security issues, has created an original educational 3d Topographic Map System of Israel to facilitate clear understanding of the dangers facing Israel and its water supply. It has been studied by US lawmakers and can be seen at www.marklangfan.com.

When I was a kid, there was a fun saying when you took a cookie before you were allowed to.

 

We would all declaim in turn: "who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? Not me, not you, couldn't be, then who?"

Well, the Sunday Times just reported that according to a recent report of the European Court of Auditors, a Luxembourg-based watchdog, more than $3 billion dollars (or 2 billion Euros) of European aid given to the Palestinian Authority between 2008 and 2012 "may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption."

Taliban Uses Exploding Koran to Kill Afghan Governor in Mosque

Daniel Greenfield


First came the suicide bomber. There were attempts at suicide donkey. Then the Islamic terrorists began recruiting children. Finally they booby trapped the thing most precious to them.

A Koran.

Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) – the country’s intelligence agency – issued a report on Wednesday that said its initial investigation into the blast that killed Arsala Jamal, the governor of Logar province, showed that the perpetrators had placed the bomb in a copy of the Koran, not a microphone
Jamal was killed at the main mosque in Pul-e-Alam, the provincial capital, on Tuesday as he gave a speech to worshippers to mark the start of Eid al-Adha, the “Festival of Sacrifice.”
The NDS also released a video of a Koran with burned pages inside the mosque and said the attack showed the militants had no respect for the Islamic holy book or the religion’s houses of worship.

Inspired by the "Arab Spring": Saudi Arabia's Volatile Shiite Minority

INSS Insight No. 374

Yoel Guzansky

The eastern province of Saudi Arabia, home to the kingdom’s Shiite minority, has recently been revisited by violence. The latest wave of protests that began in July 2012 in Awamiyah, a radical Shiite town, was sparked by the arrest and injury of Nemer al-Nemer, a popular Shiite cleric. Nemer, a key figure in the protest movement in the province, was known for his outspoken anti-royal family remarks. Particularly popular among the young, Nemer had called for toppling the House of Saud and for independence for the eastern province; he apparently also instructed his followers to celebrate the death of Crown Prince Nayef in June 2012. In late September 2012, the attempt to arrest some "wanted" individuals resulted in shootings, fatalities, and injuries.

A Jewish Majority in the Land of Israel

The Resilient Jewish State

by Yakov Faitelson
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2013, pp. 15-27 (view PDF)

Growth trends and population forecasts have played a significant role in the political landscape of the Middle East, especially over the thorny question of Israel and the disputed territories. The notion that the Jewish majority of Israel is in danger of being swamped by Arab fertility has repeatedly been used as a political and psychological weapon to extract territorial concessions from the Israeli government. In September 2010, U.S. president Barack Obama referred to the so-called "hard realities of demography" that threaten the survival of the Jewish state.[1]

Can Israel be both Jewish and Democratic?

October 15, 2013

How Jewish should Israel be? Why does the West recognize that democracy must be accommodated to Arabic culture world over, but not to Judaism in Israel? A thought provoking analysis based on Prof. Paul Eidelberg's "Jewish Statesmanship".

Ted Belman

The author is a retired attorney and the editor of Israpundit. In 2009 he made aliya and is now living in Jerusalem.

PM Netanyahu has made it clearer than ever, that the PA must recognize “Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People.” But Israel must decide how Jewish it wants to be.
Most Israeli Jews embrace the mantra that Israel should be both democratic and Jewish but pay little attention to whether the two ideas are compatible.  The left in Israel say that being democratic should not be compromised and Israel’s High Court agrees with it. The Right in Israel think otherwise, that being Jewish should take precedence over being democratic where the two are in conflict and they want the Knesset to pass the necessary laws to make it so.

Israel’s Justice Minister, Tziporah Livni, recently said to “those who want to claim that the power of the majority in the Knesset is greater than the power ?of the courts,” that “[The] Knesset operates according to the principle of the majority, but the job of the Supreme Court is to ensure that the Knesset abides by the values of justice, and therefore, one needs to defend it.”

Sex jihad of Tunisian girl in Syria: "They promised me paradise, so I gave myself to 152 men"

Robert Spencer

While Islamic apologists insist that the "sex jihad" is a fabrication, stories like this continue to increase in number. "Sex jihad of Tunisian girl in Syria: 'They promised me paradise, so I gave myself to 152 men," by Cheradenine Zakalwe for Islam Versus Europe, October 14 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

I've seen some reports in the mainstream media claiming the Syrian "sex jihad" stories are a myth. Some of the stories I've seen in the Tunisian press strongly suggest otherwise.

"You will go to paradise, my sister" was the promise they made to her before convincing her to leave for jihad in Syria. She was 21. Veiled from the age of 17. She attended history classes at the Faculty of Manouba before abandoning her studies and leave for Syria in the company of her husband "orfi".

Up to 50 UK jihadists may have returned from Syria to the UK to plan jihad terrorist attacks

Jihad Watch

But they were welcomed back; only foes of jihad are kept out. British Home Secretary Theresa May warned of Syrian jihadists returning several days ago. Both she and Dr Sally Leivesley, "security expert," seem to have blandly and complacently accepted that the Muslims who travel from Britain to Syria or Afghanistan and train for jihad simply must be admitted back into Britain. Yet when the jihadist imam Omar Bakri left Britain for Lebanon a few years ago, he wasn't allowed back in -- and May didn't hesitate to ban Pamela Geller and me from the U.K. for opposing the same jihad that these "Britons" are now returning from Syria to spread. Britain is, in other words, quite mad, and not long for this world.

Op-Ed: Netanyahu: Stand Alone And Tell Them To Go To Hell!

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/13956#.UlyePXLn-M-

 

Op-Ed: Netanyahu: Stand Alone And Tell Them To Go To Hell

 

Ze'ev Jabotinsky said it first in 1911, but it is the only appropriate answer to the slanted and vicious NYT attack on the Israeli PM.

Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5WPR

The author is CEO of 5WPR, 1 of the 25 largest PR Agencies in the US.

For a long time, the world complained about Israel’s harsh vow to protect themselves from Iran’s building of nuclear arms. Israel - so far - hasn’t yet acted in a defensive strike, yet the Iranian enemy remains at Israel’s doorstep devoted to her destruction.

And on Sunday, The New York Times ran a profile filled with venom for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  Calling him a "shrill" voice on a one-man "messianic crusade" against Iran's nuclear weapons program and saying he is “taking a lonely stance”, indeed may actually prove he is the one sane man in a world filled with delusional fools.  More likely,  it may mean that, like so many times in the past, the Jewish people stands alone in times of danger.

Worldwide, anyone concerned with the safety of the West should hope Netanyahu and Israel remain on their crusade to stop Iran from reaching nuclear capacity. With a fool in the White House, it is even more vital.
The New York Times profile states “His office wall is dominated by a map, Iran looming large at the center. Iran has been Mr. Netanyahu’s priority — many say obsession — since 1996.”

The Life of a Yom Kippur War Widow

Israel Defense Forces

For Ora and Nechemia, it was love at first sight. They felt they were meant to be together. But just as they began to build their life together, the Yom Kippur War broke out and changed everything. This is the story of Ora Graiver-Dobrish, widow of one of the 2,691 soldiers who lost their lives in the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

“If it wasn’t for this, my life would have been so different,” says Ora Graiver-Dobrish, widow of a Staff Sergeant Nechemia Dobrish, a soldier who fell defending Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

A legal scholar details ICRC bias against Israel over "occupation" of Gaza

Elder of Ziyon

Last week I wrote a post about how the International Committee of the Red Cross was, in my opinion, hypocritical for ignoring the opinions of experts it gathered to discuss the definition of "occupation" and choosing instead to consider Gaza to still be occupied, against all normative legal opinions.

I received two responses from Juan-Pedro Schaerer, ICRC Head of Delegation, Israel and the Occupied Territories, in the comments. The first one:

While this article provides a summary of an important expert's workshop, the author ignores essential facts used by the ICRC when applying of the Law of Occupation to Gaza.

Israel Put Chip in Muslim Brotherhood Leader to Make him Extremist, says Pal

Daniel Greenfield

Well that explains it.

I was worried that the Muslim Brotherhood was a nasty bunch of sociopaths, but apparently that was all due to a chip being put in a stunt double’s head. As soon as Dubai’s top surgeons get the chip out, the Muslim Brotherhood’s “spiritual leader” Yusuf Al-Qaradawi will stop praising Hitler.

I don’t know why Israel needed to both replace Qaradawi with a stunt double and put a chip in his head. It seems like overkill to me.

Click here to view video

Hassan Youssef: Sheik Al-Qaradhawi is very moderate, and is not an extremist. That is why I cannot believe my ears.
Interviewer: He shocked you. When you say that the Sheik Al-Qaradhawi you know is dead, and you even suspect that Israel has planted a chip in his brain – which is a metaphoric way of saying that it has taken control over his mind…

"Outrage without End"

Late on Thursday night, men who are being presumed likely terrorists broke into the home of Shariya Ofer and his wife, Monique.  Shariya -- a retired IDF colonel who had served as a commander of the elite Sayeret Shaked infantry reconnaissance unit -- was bludgeoned to death by Arabs wielding iron bars and axes. 

Credit: nosnondits

His wife, who ran to seek help, was moderately injured and is in the hospital.

The Ofer home is in the community of Brosh in the Jordan Valley.  The location is thought perhaps to not be a coincidence, as the Palestinian Authority is now claiming that all Israelis must leave this area in any settlement. 

Expulsions threaten Israeli democracy

MOSHE DANN

 

Israel’s violation of basic civil rights stems from “emergency laws” enacted during the British Mandate.

 

“No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”

Written 800 years ago in the Magna Carta, this is one of foundations of English common law and the US Bill of Rights. Prohibiting arbitrary arrest and punishment is a fundamental aspect of every democracy.

Israel, however, seems to be an exception. The expulsion of Boaz Albert and his family from Yitzhar is a good example.

Interview: Khaled Abu Toameh

Charley J. Levine

Photo by Albert Zablit.

Khaled Abu Toameh, 50, an award-winning Israeli journalist and documentary filmmaker, has reported on Arab affairs for three decades. He writes for The Jerusalem Post and the New York-based Gatestone Institute, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think tank, where he is a senior adviser. Since 1989, he also has been a producer and consultant for NBC News. He grew up in the Arab Israeli town of Baqa al-Gharbiyye near Haifa and studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He now lives in Jerusalem.
Q. What are the challenges of working as a journalist in the West Bank and Gaza?A. Before the Oslo peace process began, Arab journalists had almost no problem traveling throughout the West Bank and Gaza, speaking freely with Palestinians. But ever since the Palestinian Authority came to the West Bank and Gaza, the situation has become much more challenging and dangerous. The P.A. expects you to serve as an official spokesperson and avoid criticism of its leaders.
With Hamas in power in Gaza, it’s become even more dangerous for independent Arab journalists. Because of the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement against Israel, journalists representing the Israeli media, like myself, face not only difficulties but threats and even physical violence when we go to Ramallah. The P.A. leadership in the West Bank promotes BDS against Israel and also fights normalization with Israel. It bans meetings between Palestinians and Israelis and condemns the Israeli media as extremely hostile, which makes it impossible to work there and endangers our lives.

NOW 70%MUSLIM, THE REMAINING CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IN NAZARETH IS FURTHER DWINDLING…….

KGS

The only place where Christians are allowed to thrive and practice their religion in peace, as well as being equal contributors in a non-Christian society in the Middle East, is in Israel. But in Muslim dominated areas, like in Europe and elsewhere, we see stark a reminder of what’s happening throughout the Islamic world, Christians on the run.

NOTE: One of the main reasons for public services being poorer in Israeli towns populated mainly by Muslims, is their failure to raise the proper revenue from its residents, as it’s done elsewhere throughout Israel in general. If they refuse to pay their local taxes, then they themselves are much to blame, as they are for making it intolerable for Christians to live there.

H/T: Matti Nevalainen

Nazareth’s dwindling Christian populace torn between moving out, fighting back

Syria Has Non-nuke EMP Bombs

Published: Arutz Sheva 

 Sometimes you need to spend billions to unearth supreme strategic military secrets.  Other times, self-intoxicated leaders let the cat out of the bag.

Mark LangfanThe writer, who writes on security issues, has created an original educational 3d Topographic Map System of Israel to facilitate clear understanding of the dangers facing Israel and its water supply. It has been studied by US lawmakers and can be seen at http://www.marklangfan.com/.

More from this writeror from the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies website:

http://www.freeman.org/m_online/langfana.htm

On 3 March 1917, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman blurted out, "I cannot deny it. It is true." Zimmerman had just admitted that as a German gambit to keep America "busy," Germany had secretly offered Mexico funding to attack America, and regain Texas and virtually America's entire Southwest.

In no small part due to Zimmerman's admission, America entered the war against Germany the next month, April 1917.

On 26 September 2013, Syrian president Bashar Assad said that Syria possesses "more advanced weaponry, which can serve as a deterrent, and blindside Israel within seconds." Loose lips sink ships.

Hamas top dog Khaled Meshal visits Erdogan in Ankara, calls for end of talks and renewal of armed jihad against Israel

Rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey continues to embrace the jihad against Israel. "Hamas leader calls for end to talks with Israel, urges armed struggle," by Jack Khoury for Haaretz, October 9 (thanks to Maxwell):

The head of the political wing of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, implicitly called on the Palestinian Authority Wednesday to cease peace negotiations with Israel immediately, claiming that continuing the talks would endanger the status of Jerusalem. Meshal, who is living in Qatar with other Hamas leaders, was in Ankara...

Arabs of Safed left Israel on their own in 1948

PMW

Yesterday's bulletin was sent out without the video of Abbas due to a technical error. The following is the video in which Abbas acknowledges that the Arabs of Safed left Israel of their own volition in 1948:

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas:

"The [Arab] Liberation Army retreated from the city [Safed in 1948], causing the [Arab] people to begin emigrating. In Safed, just like Hebron, people were afraid that the Jews would take revenge for the [Arab] massacre [of Jews] in 1929. The 1929 massacre was most severe in Safed and Hebron (Note: 65 Jews were killed in Hebron, 18 in Safed). Let's mention the 3 men from these cities who were executed (by the British Court, for "brutal murders"): Ataa Al-Zir, [Muhammad] Jamjoum and Fuad Hijazi. Hijazi from Safed and the other two from Hebron. The people (of Safed in 1948) were overcome with fear, and it caused the people to leave the city in a disorderly way."

[Official PA TV, Jan. 1, 2013]

Israel Air Force Conducts Long-Range Flight in Special Exercise

Israel Defense Forces

Watch exclusive footage of an aerial refueling as performed in a special Israel Air Force training exercise. According to IAF officials, the exercise developed key operational capabilities.

This past week, fighter squadrons from the Israel Air Force conducted a special long-range flight exercise. The squadrons practiced refueling planes in midair and tested the ability of IAF aircraft to fly exceptionally long distances.

An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: wake up!

Hen Mazzig

 

Hen Mazzig Hen Mazzig is the shaliach (Israeli representative/emissary) for StandWithUs Pacific Northwest chapter. Hen was in the IDF for almost five … 

As a young Israeli who had just completed five years of service in the IDF, I looked forward to my new job educating people in the Pacific Northwest about Israel. I was shocked, however, by the anti-Israel bigotry and hostility I encountered, especially in the greater Seattle area, Oregon, and Berkeley. I had been very liberal, a member of the leftist Zionist party, Meretz, but the anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel that I have seen in the U.S. has changed my outlook personally and politically.

Thoughtful words for American Jews

Dear friends,

Many years ago, even before my aliyah in 2003, I was a writer for 'The Messenger' (not the Bnai Brith Messenger), a privately financed newspaper in LA.  One of the contributors was Dr. Matania Ginosar who has been living in northern CA for many years.  After reading one of his excellent articles I wrote to him, he responded, and we have corresponded since then - never having met in person. 

Matamia wrote a book about his experiences and also a disk; I have both and they are fascinating.  Following is a note that I received from him today - short and to the point.  Wish that some of our American Jewish leaders would read this and get the message. 

Chana 

Sent: 10/10/2013

Friends,

I was born and raised in Israel. I fought in the Lechi underground against the British occupation starting at age 15 and served for 4 years until Israel independence. I was a political prisoner twice, escaped once. I was a founding member of a border kibbutz, near Gaza, where Palestinians murdered 3 of my friends in few short months. I taught new immigrants in Maabarot, and served in the Israeli Air Force.

The Daily TIP: White House decision to reduce Egypt assistance blasted by Middle East allies, Congress‏

White House decision to reduce Egypt assistance blasted by Middle East allies, Congress Top Lebanon leader: Hezbollah trying to spark "another front with Israel" by generating maritime drilling crisis Iran dissident group: Iran moving nuke infrastructure to secure locations Iran telecom chief doubles down on social media ban, after Foreign Minister laughs off hypocrisy charges What we’re watching today:

Obama, Rouhani: Peace in Our Time

JERROLD L. SOBEL 

Poor President Obama and the beleaguered nation he leads.  Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Obama care, the IRS and his most recent diplomatic fiasco, Syria.  Can it get any worse?  Well you may wish to hold onto your hats, this 5 year roller coaster took another deep drop this Thursday when yet another smooth talking  tyrant pulled the wool over our exalted, Quixotic president.
Rumors of an impending encounter with Iran's newly elected president, Hassan Rouhani were quashed not at the behest of Obama but by Rouhani.  Why the snub?  According to senior officials, the Iranians felt a meeting and a handshake posed a significant risk for Rouhani, a new leader grappling with the anti-Americanism that remains a core tenet of Iran's political culture.
No embarrassment too great, Jay Carney, White House press secretary laconically deadpanned, "President Obama was not disappointed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's decision to reject an offer of an informal meeting Tuesday at the United Nations"  If he wasn't, Obama sure sounded like he tripped over the phone when Rouhani like a lover playing hard to get called him and expressed gratitude for the President's hospitality.

Is Abbas Losing Control Over Fatah?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

What has been happening in Fatah lately is more than differences of opinion among the faction's top brass.

A series of incidents over the past few weeks indicate that the Palestinian Fatah faction, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, is witnessing a sharp power struggle between some of its top leaders.
The infighting in Fatah is a sign of the growing challenges facing Abbas as he continues to conduct peace talks with Israel.
Moreover, the internal squabbling raises questions about Abbas's ability to reach any agreement with Israel that would be acceptable to most Palestinians.
What has been happening in Fatah lately is more than differences of opinion among the faction's top brass.
Some Palestinians have gone as far as saying that the infighting marks the beginning of a revolt against Abbas's leadership.
Fatah gunmen have returned to the streets of some West Bank cities and refugee camps are openly challenging Abbas's leadership.

Finanace Minister Yair Lapid is interviewed by CBS’s Charlie Rose in New York. Lapid: Unlike Netanyahu, I'm devoted supporter of peace process

By MAYA SHWAYDER IN NEW YORK, LAHAV HARKOV

 

"Israel shouldn't seek recognition from potential Palestinian state."

Finanace Minister Yair Lapid is interviewed by CBS’s Charlie Rose in New York. Photo: Joyce Culver/92Y

 

Israel shouldn’t seek recognition from the potential Palestinian state, Finance Minister Yair Lapid told CBS’s Charlie Rose in New York Monday.

“We recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” he said. “We don’t need authorization from anyone else.”

At the end of the day, Lapid said, the difference between the Palestinians and the Israelis is that “the Palestinians want peace and justice. We want peace and security.”

Rose, in true journalistic fashion, quoted Lapid’s own words back at him, words in which Lapid had said he does not support splitting Jerusalem for a Palestinian state and that “Israel should not change its policies to revive the peace process.”
Given this, Rose asked, “how do you differ from Netanyahu?” “I’m a devoted supporter of the peace process,” Lapid said.

What Netanyahu said and didn’t say in Bar Ilan II

http://www.israpundit.com/archives/58192

By Ted Belman

This analysis deals only with PM Netanyahu’s remarks concerning the Palestinian issue.

An overview suggests that he wanted to give assurances to his right flank that he hadn’t abandoned any of his requirements and to convince that world that Israelis really want peace and have striven to achieve it.

While the speech was generally well received, one must look carefully at what Netanyahu said and didn’t say.

The blame, he said, sits with the Arabs who are not willing to accept Israel as a Jewish state.

“The simple truth is that the root of the conflict has been – and remains – the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland.”

“The fundamental condition for ending the conflict is the public, binding and sincere Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People.”

Iran: Men Allowed to Marry Adopted Daughters

A controversial Iranian law allows men to marry their adopted daughters at the age of 13. Critics say the law ‘legalizes pedophilia.’

By Maayana Miskin

Muslim schoolgirls

Iran’s parliament has passed a controversial law allowing men to marry their adopted daughters at the age of just 13, the British paper The Guardian reports.
Iranian law already allowed girls to marry at age 13, and boys at age 15. In addition, girls were allowed to marry at younger ages with court approval.
In 2010, at least 75 children under age 10 were married in Tehran alone, and as many as 42,000 children ages 10-14 were married across the country, The Guardian reported, citing the Iranian site Tabnak.

Canadian Muslims Protest "Honor Killing" Label As Racist

Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News http://www.investigativeproject.org/4183/canadian-muslims-protest-honor-killing-label-as Are they willfully misleading? Or are Canadian Muslims who are fighting federal funding to investigate honor violence in the Muslim (and other) communities simply naïve victims of the same propaganda used routinely to explain away the religio-culturally-based murders of Muslim women? Every year, according to United Nations reports, 5,000 women worldwide are killed for reasons of "honor" that relate to matters of modesty and obeyance, though most experts maintain the numbers are far higher. And the number of victims of honor violence, which can involve beatings, acid attacks, or locking a woman in her home, is literally incalculable. In the United Kingdom alone, more than 3,000 such honor crimes occurred just in 2010, according to a study by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organization (IKWRO). The vast majority of those crimes, the organization states, were committed by Muslims, though Sikhs and Hindus have also been known to commit honor-related crimes.

Three ways to save American Jewry from extinction

  http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/10/04/three-ways-to-save-american-jewry-from-extinction/

Shmuley Boteach 

                    

Shmuley Boteach Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek and The Washington Post call ‘the most famous Rabbi in America’, is the international best-selling … [More] author of 29 books, and will shortly publish The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering

By now you’ve heard about the Pew Research poll, published this week, which concludes that American Jewry is on its way to oblivion. No need to wait for Hassan Rouhani of Iran to drop a bomb on us. We’re doing an incredibly fine job of destroying ourselves, thank you very much.

What all this shows is that what my friend mega-philanthropist Michael Steinhardt and I have been saying for years is unfortunately correct. Despite the untold billions that have been sunk into Jewish communal outreach for the last half century, it has barely made a dent in the rate of assimilation.              

Here are three ways to give mouth-to-mouth to our dying community.

Stop creating a divide between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds.

Hezbollah possesses chemical weapons stockpiles

A Saudi website quotes a Lebanese MP as claiming that Hezbollah possesses chemical weapons that were sent to them by Syrian President Assad. According to the report, Iran also helps the terror organization and manufactured delivery systems for them. “These devices are a threat to regional stability,” he said.

  Rachel Avraham

"We received chemical weapons from Assad," Hezbollah activist Photo Credit: AP

 “Hezbollah has rockets that have the ability to be launched with chemical warheads on them in the long term,” Lebanese MP Khaled Daher claimed on the Saudi website Al Watan.  He stated that the Hezbollah terrorist organization received chemical weapons from Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

 According to the Saudi report, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards manufactured delivery systems for the Shiite terror organization and they are located in “Southern Rimal, Jaroud, and Sanin in the area of Baalbek.  Additional mounds were found at Bakir and other sites, some of them underground.”   The Lebanese Interior Ministry fears that Hezbollah will use the rockets against Assad’s opponents in Syria.

Was The Pal. Terrorist American-Trained?

My Right Word
Who trained that Pal. sniper?  US? Canda? England?

I have written much about the "Dayton Force", the original US involvement effort in training the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority in military sciences.  As Elyakim HaEtzni wrote exactly six years ago in 2007 of Condoleeza Rice:

She sent General Dayton to train terrorists disguised as policemen, and forced us to permit their arming, even though many of those arms and APCs fell into the hands of the Hamas, snipers who were trained after Oslo sniped and killed Jews, and Palestinian bomb disposal experts, trained in the United States used their new skills to operate explosive charges, murdering hundreds.

What training?  This:

Substance of Training

New recruits and newly-formed battalions generally undergo basic training at PA facilities in or around Jericho, then travel to JIPTC for 19 weeks of U.S.-sponsored training...[The 19-week basic training course provides instruction in the following skill sets: supply and logistics management, tactical training (to include a range of subjects), rapid reaction, crowd control, civil disorder management, tactical police response in high risk environments, cordons, basic administrative and personnel management/reform, organizational operations and planning, agency command and management, first line supervision, unarmed defensive tactics, basic patrol operations, high risk arrest, human rights, communications, basic medical, standard operating procedures, ethics/human rights, command and control, discipline, law enforcement intelligence gathering, physical fitness, border security, and security at crossing points.

Germany gave Syria ingredients for deadly gas in 2011

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL

Chemical materials and gas masks are pictured in a warehouse at the front line of clashes in Syria. Photo: REUTERS

German companies supplied Syria’s regime with dual-usage chemicals, which can be applied for military and civilian use, as late as 2011.

The chemicals involved – sodium fluoride, hydrofluoric acid and ammonium hydrogen fluoride – can be used to manufacture sarin, the deadly nerve gas used during the August 21 attack on the edge of Damascus, which killed more than 1,400 people, according to the US government.

The firms delivered larger volumes of these chemicals than previously disclosed in September, German broadcaster ARD reported last week.

Is there such a thing as an 'Israeli' people? Supreme Court says no

"Israeli" describes citizenship, not nationality in an ethnic sense, court rules.

Petitioners seek "Israeli" ethnicity to be listed in government registry, but court claims there is insufficient evidence to suggest such a group exists.

Edna Adato

Is there such a thing as an Israeli people? Israel's courts don't think so.


Picture above: the Israeli Supreme Court
Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin
Israeli nationality only refers to one's citizenship, not ethnic identity, the Supreme Court's Civilian Appeals Court ruled on Wednesday.

Professor Uzzi Ornan, a longtime proponent of separation of religion and state, and journalist Uri Avnery, recently spearheaded an appeal seeking to reverse a lower court's ruling that denied their request to be listed as members of the Israeli nation in the government's population registry. The Supreme Court disagreed with the lower court's claim that this matter was not justiciable, but it nevertheless upheld the decision, saying that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate the existence of an Israeli nation. It added that this debate should be held and resolved outside the court as part of the country's political discourse.

More white evangelicals than American Jews say God gave Israel to the Jewish people

Michael Lipka
Israel defines itself as a Jewish state, and most Jews in the United States say that emotionally they are either very attached (30%) or somewhat attached (39%) to Israel. But on some measures, Jews’ feelings for Israel are equaled or even exceeded by those of white evangelical Protestants.
82^% A majority of white evangelicals believe God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people, compared with 40% of American Jews who believe the same.

Iranian espionage plot uncovered by Shin Bet shows a new level of sophistication

By LIOR AKERMAN

 

The arrest of Iranian agent Ali Mansouri in Israel forces Israeli intel officials to come to grips with the fact that the Iranians have shown themselves to be a sophisticated, patient and calculating adversary.

Suspected Iranian spy Ali Mansouri attends a remand hearing in a Petah Tikva court, Sept. 30, 2013. Photo: Ben Hartman

 

The incident cleared for publication this week, in which the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) arrested alleged Iranian intelligence agent Ali Mansouri in Israel differs from previous cases which have occured in the last decade.

This time, it appears that the recruitment and running of the agent was carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's special operations unit (Quds Force), rather than by the Iranian intelligence agency.

Among other things, the role of the Quds Force is to execute terror attacks against Israel and additional targets in the West and in the Middle East. The signifigance of this is that Mansouri was not sent to Israel to spy and collect intelligence like his predecessors, but rather to establish an infrastructure to carry out terror attacks within Israel.

A short document, and better than some (including a somewhat distorted statement of the Israeli concerns) this should be used as the basis for attacking the standard European emotional support for the refugee narrative. Groups like Badil, Adalah, PCHR, etc might respond with rage against this EU paper. Certainly, there are arguments here that undermine their campaigns. 

GMS 

http://www.iss.europa.eu/

Summary (full document on website) 

Palestinians as ‘strategic’ refugees

Download document
Refugees are generally not perceived as a ‘strategic’ issue: humanitarian, economic or tactical security concerns come to mind when thinking of people displaced by conflict, but not strategic ones. This is different in the case of Israel and the Palestinians. The refugee question is not only one of the top three remaining issues obstructing the way to peace (along with the status of Jerusalem and borders); it is also the most difficult one to solve.

If You Want to Shoot, Shoot. Don't Talk

Moshe Feiglin

29 Tishrei, 5774

Translated from Makor Rishon

This week we witnessed the collapse of the preconception that has guided Israel’s strategy for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat. 

The preconception goes as follows: Iran threatens not only Israel, but the entire free world. Why attack by ourselves, pay a steep price and become the target of international criticism? Let us pass on the responsibility to the rest of the world, while reminding them that if the necessary measures are not taken, we will attack Iran. This is a win-win situation. If the world solves the problem for us, well and good. If not, we will at least enjoy international legitimacy for our own attack. 

In reality, this strategy was not win-win; it was lose-lose. Today it is clearer than ever that the world does not intend to solve the Iranian problem, while the legitimacy for an Israeli attack has severely declined. Even worse is the fact that the technical military challenge has become much more difficult and complex because Iran has progressed with and fortified its nuclear facilities.

From Israel: Maximum Effort‏

Prime Minister Netanyahu approached the podium at the UN this week with courage and determination.  He spoke with impeccable logic and eloquence. 

 

(If you would like to see a video of his talk:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCDcdnEjJHA )

 

Following his talk, he remained in the US an additional day in order to give numerous media interviews on the subject of the dangers of Iran and the necessity of fully dismantling its nuclear capability.

 

In other words, he is putting out that maximum effort to alert the world to a critical danger.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

In many quarters here in Israel his words were received with high praise (all emphasis below added).

 

Wrote Boaz Bismuth in "The speech the world needed to hear":

On same day that Abbas talked peace at the UN: Abbas' speech read by Fatah official praised a terrorist who killed 15 as "the most noble among the noble... (with his death) Fatah lost a beacon"

Abbas: "He lived as a giant and died as a giant.

He should remain in our hearts with this glory,
this greatness"

Fatah official about bomb killing 15:

"A wonderful and high quality operation...

that made the enemies lose sleep"

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9813

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

During the current peace talks, and on the same day Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas asserted at the UN the Palestinians' goal of achieving peace, an Abbas representative and other PA and Fatah officials were busy honoring terrorist Abu Sukkar.

The PA and Fatah held a well-attended memorial in Ramallah for Ahmad Jabara Abu Sukkar who planned a bombing attack, using a refrigerator filled with explosives, that killed 15 Israelis and wounded over 60 in Jerusalem in 1975.

Believed Iranian Cyberwar Official Dead in Apparent Assassination

  FP Morning Brief
Top News: Mojtaba Atabi, an official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who was widely believed to be the head of the organization's cyberwarfare division, has been shot and killed. His body was found in a wooded area outside Tehran with two bullet holes through his heart. Local police say that he was killed by two men on a motorbike.
The death has the hallmarks of an assassination, and many have pointed toward Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Atabi's death is being likened to the killing of five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007, some of whom were also killed by motorcycle-borne assassins.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has said that it is investigating a "horrific incident," but did not identify the person killed and denied it was an assassination.
Kuwait: More than 50 U.S. citizens have been held in Kuwait for three months in a sort of legal limbo after taking jobs there as contracted translators, Foreign Policy reports. They are confined to makeshift barracks in airplane hangars as a result of a legal dispute between a U.S.-based contractor and its Kuwaiti business partner.

ROP: Kenya mall jihad mass murderers promise more: "We will strike Kenyans where it hurts the most, turn their cities into graveyards and rivers of blood will flow in Nairobi"

Jihad Watch

Note: ROP means Religion Of Peace

In the name of Islam. "Somalia’s al-Shabaab pledge terror campaign against Kenya," from Al Arabiya, October 2 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Somalia’s Islamist group al-Shabaab threatened on Wednesday to increase militant action in Kenya, after the country refused to withdraw its troops from Somalia, reported Agence France-Presse. The al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for last week’s attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall, in which at least 67 people died, with 39 more listed as missing by the Red Cross.
“We will strike Kenyans where it hurts the most, turn their cities into graveyards and rivers of blood will flow in Nairobi,” al-Shabaab said in a recent statement.
“The Kenyan government’s decision to keep its invading force in Somalia is an indication that they haven’t yet learnt any valuable lessons from the Westgate attacks,” the extremists added, warning that Kenya was “inviting unprecedented levels of insecurity, bloodshed and destruction.”

Iranian President Turned Down Obama 5 Times

Daniel Greenfield


International diplomacy is a lot like dating. Sure you’re the leader of the free world and most of Europe and Asia would love to meet with you. But you want the Iranian dreamboat you can’t have.

So you beg and you whine and you stalk. And you send a million dollar gift just because the President of Iran took your phone call after turning you down 5 times.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani’s “charm offensive,” by his own admission, stopped short of meeting personally with President Barack Obama. “Before my trip (to New York), the Americans had sent 5 messages to arrange a meeting between me and Obama, but I turned them down,” he told the government-run Fars News Agency
“Then they raised a plan for a brief meeting, but I didn’t agree (with it) much; we didn’t disagree with (the idea to have) a meeting, but its grounds weren’t prepared,” he added.

Poll: Majority of Palestinians expect third intifada if peace talks fail

KHALED ABU TOAMEH

Survey finds 60% of Palestinians satisfied with Abbas.

New Palestinian group announces 3rd intifada Photo: YouTube screenshot

Fifty-eight percent of Palestinians expect a third intifada if the peace talks with Israel fail, a poll published on Wednesday showed.

The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion conducted the survey, which covered a random sample of 1,110 Palestinians representing a demographic sample of adults in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip. It has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

Fifty percent of Palestinians support the resumption of the peace negotiations with Israel, while 39% oppose it, the survey showed.

Asked how an agreement with Israel should be ratified, 46% said that it should be approved through a referendum, while 25% said that a decision by the Palestinian Authority would be sufficient.

Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts Livni vows to end Mideast conflict with final-status accord

By GIL HOFFMAN

 

Justice minister refutes claims she is aiming for interim deal with the Palestinian Authority; avoids commenting on Netanyahu's remarks at UNGA.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post

In her negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is seeking a final-status agreement that would end the Israeli-Arab conflict, she said on Wednesday.

In an interview that will be distributed at The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in Herzliya on October 24, in which she will be a featured speaker, Livni said she had not changed her negotiating tactic from her previous talks with the Palestinians that ended in 2008: There is no deal on anything until there is a deal on everything.

She denied repeated accusations by Likud deputy ministers Danny Danon and Ze’ev Elkin that she is working on achieving an interim agreement with the PA that would create a Palestinian state in temporary borders.

Al-Qaida-linked Rebels Desecrate Churches in Syrian Town

John Rossomando  
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4181/al-qaida-linked-rebels-desecrate-churches-in

Al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant sacked a Melkite Greek-Catholic Church in the Syrian town of al-Raqqa.
The Melkites follow the Roman Catholic pope but use the rituals of the Greek Orthodox. They have remained loyal to the Assad regime out of fear of heightened persecution by Islamic extremists.

Footage shown on al-Aan TV shows the rebels systematically disassembling the church. They tear down the cross on top of the church and replace it with a black jihadist flag. They chant "Allahu akbar!" and sing hymns throughout the operation.
The video also shows young children desecrating the cross taken from the church.

A Saudi militant is heard saying of the cross, "The 'Nazarenes' (Christians) worship it." And a child is heard saying, "This is the 'Messiah' (Christ) they worship."

An Armenian Orthodox church was also attacked.

Ruh roh: US Senators buying into Rohani's charm offensive

 http://israelmatzav.blogspot.hu/2013/10/ruh-roh-us-senators-buying-into-rohanis.html

It's not just the Obama administration that's buying into 'moderate' Iranian President Hassan Rohani's charm offensive. After all, the Obami have been looking for an excuse to 'engage' with Iran for the last six years. But some US Senators are also buying into the 'new tone' from Iran, and that could mean a delay in more sanctions against Iran.

The Senate Banking Committee had been due in September to look at a new package of sanctions passed in July by the House of Representatives, but now it will not do so for at least a few more weeks, an aide said.

That could create a better atmosphere at talks between Iran and six major nations in Geneva on October 15-16, the first such encounter since President Barack Obama and new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani held a historic phone call last week.

While the sanctions issue has been slowed by congressional wrangling over the US government shutdown, lawmakers acknowledged that the idea had come up of deliberately delaying new sanctions to improve the mood at the Geneva talks.

Israel's Failing Strategy

The Jewish state cannot rely on the United States for its security.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on Monday. Photo: chris kleponis / pool/European Pressphoto Agency

By 

• BRET STEPHENS

So Israel's prime minister is now left to play the part of querulous Uncle Ben, who arrives the day after the funeral convinced his scheming siblings have already absconded with mother's finest jewelry.

Uncle Ben's suspicions may well be right. But he largely has himself to blame for not acting in time.

Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House on Monday and on Tuesday addresses the United Nations. It's a predictable routine. First he obtains the stylized assurances from PresidentObama—still exulting from his 15 minute phone call Friday with Iran's Hasan Rouhani—that Iran will not be allowed to get a bomb and that "all options are on the table." Then Mr. Netanyahu denounces Iran at the U.N. and issues unspecified, and increasingly noncredible, warnings that Israel may act on its own.

All hat and no cattle, as they say.