Thursday, April 17, 2014
Daniel Pipes: "Antisemite Max Blumenthal Incites Murder of Three in Kansas"
Daniel Greenfield suggests that Miller referred here to "a Blumenthal interview on Putin's propaganda channel RT, which he has since defended, in which he claimed that Netanyahu was targeting Ron Paul and Obama." (That interview, from January 2012, can be seen on YouTube.)Two in Thai custody over possible Hezbollah ties
Greenfield found in total 382 results for "Max Blumenthal" on vnnforum.com. One discussion is titled "Max Blumenthal is insightful & sometimes funny." Participants at Stormfront, the premier American Neo-Nazi site, mentioned Blumenthal 80 times, often approvingly.
Breivik, it is now clear, intentionally sought to discredit counter-jihadis like me; but Miller gives every appearance of being a true believer inspired in part by Blumenthal's ravings. And so, applying Blumenthal's own standards to him, I wrote the headline of this weblog entry as "Antisemite Max Blumenthal Incited the Murder of Three in Kansas."
Next is for Blumenthal's fellow leftists to denounce him and shun him. But will they?
Two Lebanese men suspected of having ties with the terror group Hezbollah were detained in Thailand this week by authorities apparently skittish over possible plans to attack Israelis during the Passover holiday.Merah affair: Sister and mother of Islamist terrorist arrested
Lebanese-French citizen Daud Farhat and Lebanese-Philippine citizen Yousef Ayyad, both who have been on the Thai immigration watch list for possible Hezbollah ties, were taken from their homes in the Bangkok district of Sukhumvit for questioning on Tuesday, Thai daily The Nation reported.
Most of the suspects have been released, except for three that are still under arrest: Abdelkader Merah, the older brother of the killer, Muhammad Mounir Miskine, a friend, and Fetha Malki, the arms supplier.
The website of the local daily, La Depeche du Midi, reported on Tuesday that the sister was arrested on Monday evening in Toulouse.
The sister, Souad, had been arrested once before for condoning terrorism, after she was secretly recorded – in a conversation with another one of her brothers – saying she was proud of Muhammad. Following the arrest she condemned the seven murders.
The national radio station, Europe 1, said that the mother, Zoulikha Aziri, had also been interrogated for by police two weeks ago, for 24 hours, then released.
Why The Antisemitic Shooting in Overland Park Kansas Happened Just Before Passover
It is no coincidence that the Antisemitic shooting in Overland Park, Kansas happened the day before the Jewish Holiday of Passover. Passover is a key season for violence against Jews, because Passover is blood libel season.The Golden Opportunity
Blood libel is a term with a specific and terrible history. It refers to the scurrilous accusation that Jews kidnapped and murdered Christian children to use their blood to prepare Passover matzoh. Charges of blood libel have spurred massacres of Jews throughout the centuries; the myth was revived by Hitler, and persists today in places like Russia, the Muslim world, and even in the United States.
Israel’s willingness to retreat from parts of its land, to freeze construction in Jerusalem, and to transfer the Temple Mount to Jordanian rule, and much more, have dealt a severe blow to Israel’s sovereign achievements. Since Oslo, Israel is less and less a sovereign nation. Before Oslo, Israel’s position ensured that the U.S. would not recognize the PLO. Today, Israel recognizes the PLO, but the PLO does not recognize Israel – but still merits American backing. Instead of demanding an apology from Turkey for the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, Israel apologizes and reimburses Turkey. Israel’s loss of sovereignty is also closely linked to the rise of the underworld in Israel. Where government is weak, the Bedouin law rules the Negev and gangster law rules Israel’s cities.The peace problem, in two stories
Most severe of all is the security damage brought about by the Oslo Accords. It is not only the narrow dimension of our technical ability to defend ourselves, namely due to the thousands of Israeli terror victims and the rocket attacks on Sderot and Tel Aviv. It is also the deeper dimension of the loss of legitimacy for Jewish existence. Israel’s willingness to free convicted murderers has returned the status of Jewish existence to something less than sanctified. First, the murderers were freed for the sake of “peace.” Today, they are being freed for the privilege of talking with their leaders. For when you have agreed that you are nothing more than a colonialist in their land, you need a peace process to justify your continued occupancy of both Beit El and Tel Aviv. (h/t Jewess)
1. Auschwitz trip: ‘I have no regrets,’ says Palestinian professorTwo-State Solution Coffin Now Made Entirely Of Nails (satire)
Professor Mohammed Dajani took 27 Palestinian college students to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland a few weeks ago as part of a project designed to teach empathy and tolerance to both Palestinians and Israelis. Upon his return, his university disowned the trip, his fellow Palestinians branded him a traitor and friends advised a quick holiday abroad.
Professor Dajani said he expected criticism. “I believe a trip like this, for an organised group of Palestinian youths going to visit Auschwitz, is not only rare, but a first,” he said. “I thought there would be some complaints, then it would be forgotten.”
2. Hamas praises fatal Hebron attack, warns of more:
The prime minister of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday praised a shooting that killed an Israeli and wounded his wife and son as they drove through the West Bank the previous evening en route to a Seder, the traditional Passover meal that starts the weeklong Jewish holiday.
Speaking in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh said the attack outside the city of Hebron “brought back life to the path of resistance” against Israel and warned of more attacks in the territory. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest incident to threaten peace talks with the Palestinians….
Long an indicator of repeated disappointments, the application of additional nails to the coffin of a notion or goal is generally meant to highlight the insurmountability of maintaining the pursuit of that goal, but has not previously resulted in the accumulation of nails to the extent that they effectively replaced the wood in the coffin, according to historian Klee Schay. “In all documented cases, at some point the party or parties pursuing the goal contained within the coffin had the sense to give up long before the situation deteriorated this far past pointlessness,” he explained. “But for some reason, successive American presidential administrations have kept at pushing Israel and the Palestinians toward an unattainable compromise, compromise that, one way or another, would deny the historical legitimacy of somebody’s narrative and attachment to the land.”Shin Bet arrests Israeli Arab journalist for contact with Hezbollah
An Israeli-Arab journalist was arrested on Saturday for allegedly contacting a foreign Hezbollah agent in Lebanon, the Shin Bet announced on Thursday after a gag order was lifted.Fearing riots, police bar non-Muslims from Temple Mount
The journalist, Majd Kayyal, the editor of the website for Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, is suspected of traveling to Lebanon for a conference commemorating 40-years of the Lebanese newspaper As-Saphir, where he came in contact with Hezbollah agents.
The move was made even though there were no disturbances during the morning, Israel Radio reported.Hamas’ Role in Temple Mount Unrest Suggests Greater West Bank Influence
The closure order came as tens of thousands of Jews gathered at the Western Wall plaza for the traditional priestly blessing ceremony that takes place during the Passover and Sukkot festivals. Following the ceremony, the Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis were scheduled to publicly meet and greet those who arrived for the event.
On Wednesday, riots broke out on the Temple Mount compound, as Palestinians protested a visit to the holy site by Jewish pilgrims and tourists.
Dozens of Palestinian protesters and an Israeli policeman were wounded during clashes, the second such incident in a week.
Police officers closed Jerusalem’s Temple Mount to Jewish and other visitors on April 13, after Arabs atop the compound began rioting, seemingly in part at the behest of Hamas.Israel: Palestinians stockpiling rocks inside al-Aqsa Mosque
"Hamas Movement has called for defending al-Aqsa Mosque in light of Israeli settlers’ intention to break into the mosque next Monday…Al-Aqsa Mosque is wholly owned by Muslims and it will never be temporally or spatially divided, the statement stressed. Hamas called on the PA to stop negotiations with the occupation in response to Israeli continued attacks and Judaization policy. The Islamic movement also called for intensifying Palestinian presence in al-Aqsa Mosque in face of all Israeli attempts to storm it."
Israeli security officials said on Wednesday evening that they would ultimately have to force their way into al-Aqsa mosque, atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, because hundreds of young Palestinian men are now routinely stockpiling large quantities of rocks and slabs of stone there to attack security forces.Jordan Blames Israel, Jews for Temple Mount Riots - Again
The unnamed officials, quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 news, were speaking hours after dozens of Palestinian protesters and an Israeli policeman were wounded on the Mount when clashes broke out soon after the holy site was opened to Jewish visitors on Wednesday morning.
Jordan urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to end Israeli "escalation" at the Temple Mount after it was opened to Jewish visitors, according to AFP.PMW: Abbas honored suicide bombers - Netanyahu blames PA incitement for this week's murder
"Legal, humanitarian and ethical duties of the UN Security Council and the international community require that they stop Israeli escalation and violations committed by Jewish radicals at Al-Aqsa," Information Minister Mohammad Momani told the state-run Petra news agency.
This week, Israeli PM Netanyahu blamed the murder of an Israeli and the injuring of a child on the Palestinian Authority because of its continued incitement:PMW: PA duplicity: Glorify terrorists to Palestinians, condemn terror to Israelis
"This reprehensible murder of a man who was traveling with his family to a meal for the Festival of Freedom is the result of the incitement for which the Palestinian Authority is responsible." [Jerusalem Post, April 16, 2014]
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that even during this period of peace talks, PA incitement to hatred, terror promotion and glorification has continued unabated.
The PA's terror promotion is not coming from fringe groups but from the top leaders of the PA. Recently, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Dr. Rami Hamdallah honored two suicide bombers who murdered 16 in 2001. Hamdallah chose to visit the families of the two terrorists following Israel's transfer of their bodies to the PA.
PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash met with Israeli journalists today and condemned this week's murder of an Israeli:Kuwait, Saudi Arabia deny ties with Israel
"This Israeli who was murdered, it hurts... We condemn the killing of any person. The principle of killing and violence is completely unacceptable." [Israel Army Radio, April, 16, 2014]
Yet, just two weeks ago, this same Al-Habbash defended and honored all Palestinian terrorists who are in Israeli prisons:
"All the Palestinian prisoners who protected [our] land, honor and homeland are prisoners of freedom; they are prisoners of war. They are not criminals, will never be and have never been. Their hands committed no crime. They were defending themselves. They are an inseparable part of this national Palestinian movement and one of its authentic elements." [Official PA TV March 28, 2014]
Officials in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia categorically denied on Tuesday claims by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman that Jerusalem was forging ties with governments in the Gulf states.Salafi Kuwaiti MP Justifies Business Ties with Israel
In an interview published Monday in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Liberman claimed that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were but two of a number of Arab countries that were quietly in contact with Israel, despite the countries not having diplomatic ties.
However, both governments dismissed his assertion as false.
Interviewer: So you say that there is nothing wrong with dealing with the Jews?
Abd Al-Rahman Al-Jiran: There are global companies... You yourself have a mobile phone in your pocket, right?
Interviewer: Right.
Abd Al-Rahman Al-Jiran: And your phone has Google... Well, Google too is a Jewish company.
Tehran Castigates Syrian Opposition Leader, Says in “Coalition” with Israel
Iran’s propaganda machine suggested April 13 that the leading figure in the Syrian opposition demanded “a coalition with Israel,” even being prepared to accept Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Tehran frequently uses its manifold media outlets to diss its opponents by hinting at or saying outright they enjoy relations with Israel.JPost Editorial: 'Turkey's Erdogan following in footsteps of Hitler, Mussolini'
"Kamal al-Labwani, of the so-called Syrian National Coalition (SNC), said that a coalition with Tel Aviv is the only way to oust the Syrian government, Al-Alam reported. Labwani noted that the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad is among Israel’s main interests in Syria…According to al-Alam, Labwani had earlier offered handing the Golan Heights to Tel Aviv in return for receiving military aid from the Israeli regime and using Israel’s assistance to enforce a no-fly zone over Southern Syria."
According to Today’s Zaman, Kemal Kilcdaroglu is quoted as telling deputies from his Republican People’s Party (CHP) that the Turkish premier, who has consolidated power by stifling dissent in the press while undercutting rivals in the military and other key centers of power in Turkey, is following the same path of Hitler and Mussolini.Turkey No Longer Respects Europe
“Hitler was elected by popular vote,” Today’s Zaman quotes him as saying. “Mussolini was elected. They were elected, but after a while, they started to see themselves as the state. And humanity had to pay a very high price. Such events also took place in our democracy. We sent prime ministers, young people to the gallows. Supremacy of law is a most important concept. Everyone should internalize it.”
The way in which the EU has mismanaged the crisis in the Ukraine, creating the situation which allowed Putin to annex Crimea and leaving a diplomatic and geopolitical mess which the Americans now have to solve, will only have reinforced Ankara's view that the EU is powerless.Erdogan's Theological Justification for His Dictatorial Stance
But Europe's biggest failure vis-à-vis Turkey is another example of its unwillingness to face unwelcome truths. Ironically, this unwillingness has so far benefitted Erdogan, although it did not lead him to respect the EU.
The truth, which Europe fails to confront, is that whenever Islamists go into politics, they never turn out to be moderates. For years, EU leaders such as Merkel saw Erdogan and his Islamist AKP party as the proof that there was a moderate political Islam. They are now, belatedly, coming to realize that he is not their friend. They hope that he will lift his ban on the social media, so that they can welcome him back into their midst, but they refuse to see that his agenda is one of Islamic imperialism. And that the only politicians whose power he fears are Putin's and, to half of that, Obama's.
A world where Turkey no longer respects, let alone fears, Europe, is a more dangerous world than one in which the opposite was the case. David McAllister announced on Merkel's behalf that there is no room for the Erdogan Turkey of 2014 in the European Union. The really sad thing, however, is that there is no longer any room for Europe and its values in contemporary Turkey. And Europe is at least as much to blame for that situation as Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan was saying: "You cannot be both secular and a Muslim. You will either be a Muslim, or secular. When both are together, they create reverse magnetism [they repel one another]. For them to exist together is not a possibility. Therefore, it is not possible for a person who says, 'I am a Muslim' to go on and say, 'I am secular, too.' And why is that? Because Allah, the creator of the Muslim, has absolute power and rule.... When [does the sovereignty belong to the people]? It is only when they go to the polls [every five years] that sovereignty belongs to the people. But both materially, and in essence, sovereignty unconditionally and always belongs to Allah."
Although statements such as that might sound arbitrary and irrelevant to Western readers, they are not. The overarching theological drive of many Islamists is – as for example re-emphasized by one of the founder fathers of modern political Islam, Sayyid Qutb – the implementation of the sovereignty of Allah on earth, Hakimiyyat Allah. The Sovereignty of Allah, a divinely mandated set of laws, known as Sharia, may not be undone by men: all sovereignty of the people is inferior to the sovereignty of Allah. This means that Islamist doctrine does not allow Islamist rulers to be removed from power democratically. Such a view makes such a form of government inherently autocratic.
Turkey condemns 'Armenian genocide' resolution in U.S. Senate
Turkey condemned on Friday a U.S. Senate committee resolution branding the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces during World War One as genocide and warned Congress against taking steps that would harm Turkish-American ties.Turkey: Twitter agrees to close some accounts
The nature and scale of the killings remain highly contentious nearly a century after they took place. Turkey accepts that many Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning in 1915, but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that this constituted an act of genocide - a term used by many Western historians and foreign parliaments.
The resolution, adopted by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Thursday, called "to remember and observe the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide on April 24, 2014".
The Twitter block was lifted 11 days ago after the constitutional court ruled that it breached freedom of expression, a decision Erdogan has since said was wrong and should be overturned. YouTube remains blocked in Turkey.Cameron met with Muslim Brotherhood official last year
Some accounts about which Turkey has complained will be closed and a more formal mechanism established under which Twitter will consider Turkish court rulings on other accounts, the official at the prime minister's office said.
But there was no immediate deal to open a Twitter office in Turkey or for it to pay Turkish tax, two of Ankara's key requests, in the first direct talks since the ban.
British Prime Minister David Cameron held a two-hour meeting with Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Gehad el-Hadad on May 17, 2013, and offered his support for the group in Egypt.
According to the Middle East Eye, the meeting took place during President Mohammed Morsi’s brief reign, and was the first of a series of official visits between Downing Street officials and Brotherhood members, some of whom — including el-Hadad — are presently awaiting custody in Egypt.
During the prime minister’s meeting with el-Hadad, the two discussed Egypt’s free market potential, with Cameron offering Britain’s support.
