Wednesday, October 01, 2014
In Iraq, Syria, US lifts rules meant to protect civilians
The White House revealed on Tuesday that its usually strict rules of engagement, intended to prevent civilian casualties of US airstrikes, have been relaxed in the current offensive against the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups.Apologize to Israel, Mr. President
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Yahoo News in an email that a much-publicized statement last year by President Barack Obama that US drone strikes would only be carried out if there is a “near certainty” of no civilian injuries would not apply to the US campaign against jihadi forces in Syria and Iraq.
Hayden wrote that the “near certainty” rule was intended “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.
“That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” she continued, but added that the strikes, “like all US military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”
This summer, as Hamas was raining rockets on Israeli civilians, storing munitions in civilian buildings, and firing rockets from mosques, schools, and clinics, the Obama administration had the audacity to say that it was “appalled” by Israeli attacks that unintentionally killed civilians, even calling them “disgraceful.”UN Watch: Exclusive: Schabas’ own colleague, human rights icon Aryeh Neier, calls for him to quit UN Gaza probe due to prior statements
In response, I observed that the administration holds Israel to a higher standard than it holds itself, demanding stricter rules of engagement for Israelis than Americans.
Now, as we drop our own bombs in Syria (and civilians die), the administration is further exempting itself from its own standards:
A top figure in the human rights world has called for William Schabas to “recuse himself” from the new UN probe on Gaza, undermining Schabas’ claim that the only people who believe he should go are critics of the UN.
The statement was made last week by Aryeh Neier, founding director of Human Rights Watch, former head of the ACLU, and President Emeritus of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and revealed today in a Wall Street Journal interview with UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
In a lecture at the SciencesPo Paris School of International Affairs, where Neier teaches together with Schabas, the former said that commissions of inquiry are one of the few good things to come out of the UN Human Rights Council.
Turning to Schabas, Neier called him a well known and leading scholar. However, given Schabas’ statement on bringing Netanyahu to ICC, Neier said that “Schabas should recuse himself.”
Neier said that “any judge who had previously called for the indictment of the defendant would recuse himself.”
Schabas’ appointment gives Israel a perfect excuse to denounce the UN commission of inquiry, said Neier. “Why make it so easy for Israel to do so?” he asked.
Neier went on to say that the sheer quantity of resolutions against Israel at the UN Human Rights Council gives Israel the ability to cast the HRC as “anti-Israel” and therefore to “justify its own rejections of the HRC.”
Michael Oren: Abbas' strategic threat could be more dangerous than Hamas
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas proved that he is not a partner for peace.The true Palestinian dream
And a Palestinian leader who accuses the State of Israel, which arose from the ashes of the Holocaust, of committing genocide in Gaza, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, has no intention of becoming a partner for peace either.
In his previous General Assembly speeches, Abbas denied the Jewish people's historical connection to the Land of Israel and Jerusalem. But this time he conveyed an unprecedented message: He does not want negotiations – not even American-brokered talks – and is not interested in durable pace based on security arrangements and mutual recognition.
The fact that Israel doesn't have a partner for peace has been accepted by the Israeli public a long time ago. But now we are forced to acknowledge a new fact: That Abbas poses a danger which may be revealed as strategically more serious than the tactical dangers posed by Hamas.
Accusing Israel of genocide achieves another goal in that it is a particularly disgraceful type of Holocaust denial. If Jews are committing genocide, then apparently the genocide committed against them was either justified or not so bad. Moreover, Palestinians share the widespread view that Israel exists because of the Holocaust, and therefore believe that if it is denied, or it turns out that the Jews themselves are carrying out genocide, Israel will lose the justification for its existence.Steinitz: Abbas outdoes Arafat as enemy
It seems that someone needs to explain to the Palestinians that Israel was established through the desire and work of its founders and builders, and not because a guilty world gave it to us as some kind of compensation.
Abbas' speech maintained the strategy of hiding the true Palestinian dream behind a screen of wanting peace. The dream of a Greater Palestine and wiping out Zionism expressed in the demand for a Palestinian right of return is the holiest part of the Palestinian identity, but most world leaders don't take it seriously and believe that the Palestinians have given up on the idea of Greater Palestine for dividing the land into an Arab and a Jewish state. Thus far, there is nothing in the words or acts of Palestinian leaders that supports that, and the wool has been pulled over the eyes of the world.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “is a more serious enemy” than his predecessor Yasser Arafat because he rejects the existence of a Jewish state, charged Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz.JPost Editorial: Paradigm change
“Abu Mazen’s ideology is stronger and [he] negates the existence of a Jewish state and the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own. For Abu Mazen there is no Jewish people. He is only willing to recognize the Jewish religion,” said Steinitz, using Abbas’s non de guerre.
Arafat did speak a few times of the Jewish people or the Jewish state, Steinitz said.
The Likud minister spoke on Monday evening at a conference on Operation Protective Edge held by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan.
Just a few days earlier Abbas had charged that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza over the summer during its military operation, which was conducted to halt Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
Steinitz said that Abbas had launched such bitter accusations against Israel at the UN in New York to deflect attention from his own shortcomings and that of the Palestinian Authority, which he heads.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned to many tried-and-true motifs in his speech Monday before the UN General Assembly in New York. He prioritized the Iranian nuclear weapon threat, arguing Islamic State’s pickup trucks and Kalashnikov rifles are not in the same league as a nuclear-armed Iran.Netanyahu bid to seek peace via Arab world a tall order, experts say
He quoted from Islamic State’s self-declared caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Hamas’s Khaled Mashaal and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and showed how all shared the same goal of “expanding enclaves of militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance – where women are treated as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes given the stark choice to convert or to die.”
He pointed to Hamas’s cult of death, noting how during Operation Protective Edge, Hamas purposely increased the number of civilian casualties by using Palestinian men, women and children as human shields.
But Netanyahu also broke new ground in his speech, speaking of a “historic opportunity.” Countries in the region that were antagonistic toward Israel – ostensibly because of its conflict with the Palestinians – increasingly realize that they share common interests with the Jewish state. Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all see a nuclear Iran, an exultant Islamic State and a reactionary Muslim Brotherhood as direct threats to political stability.
Jews share with the Christians, Kurds and Yazidis of the region similar threats and interests as well. For all these groups, defeating militant Islamists is an existential imperative.
But the reasoning for cooperation with Israel should not be based solely on the axiom “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Israel: After a failed round of peace talks last spring and a war against Hamas that inflicted heavy damage in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu is under pressure to seize the diplomatic initiative.Netanyahu to sell Obama on Arab states’ role in peace process
Seeking to rally international support, Netanyahu said in his address Monday that Hamas and the Islamic State extremist group are ideological brethren — an oft-repeated claim that has gained little traction around the world. He then urged moderate Arab countries to join him in the battle against Sunni Islamic extremists and an empowered Shiite Iran.
“Our challenge is to transform these common interests to create a productive partnership,” he said, adding that such an alliance could even “facilitate peace” between Israel and the Palestinians. He mentioned Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as possible allies.
Netanyahu’s proposal was largely devoid of details. A top adviser, Dore Gold, in a radio interview on Tuesday, said Netanyahu would elaborate “at the right time.”
Netanyahu’s intended partners, however, appear to be in no hurry to take him up on his offer.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak with US President Barack Obama about the possibility of involving Arab states in attempts to rekindle the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, the prime minister told a group of American Jewish leaders late Tuesday morning.PM to tell Obama: Iran is a greater danger than ISIS
In an address to some 300 attendees, Netanyahu doubled down on the main messages delivered in his speech a day earlier before the United Nations General Assembly, including the dangers of Iran and the Islamic State.
Netanyahu told the audience that he will speak with Obama about the “possibility of involving the Arab states in the peace process,” a day after he suggested at the UN that the road to peace with the Palestinians might first entail improving relations with moderate Arab regimes. Netanyahu reiterated Tuesday that letting Arab states participate in developing a solution would “promote peace” with the Palestinians.
According to the official, Netanyahu's main message to Obama would be that the West must not grant concessions to Iran in exchange for enlisting Iran in the campaign against Islamic State. The official said it would be a mistake if the U.S. eased its stance in the nuclear negotiations with Iran.Despite enmity, Netanyahu would still meet with Abbas, officials say
"Iran is a greater danger than Islamic State," the official said, adding that Iran and Islamic State have "similar aspirations."
"There is no reason to make concessions to Iran due to fears about Islamic State," the official said.
Israel's demand continues to be that Iran be prevented from becoming a nuclear threshold state, meaning that Iran must not be allowed to enrich uranium or produce heavy water.
"The Iranians have only one goal -- to develop military nuclear capabilities," the official said.
Despite seemingly unprecedented diplomatic tensions, a one-on-one meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas to salvage the fledgling peace process is not out of the question, Israeli officials said Tuesday.Top Israeli official holds secret talks with Palestinian PM on Gaza
Relations between the two leaders were never great, and Abbas’s “genocide” speech last week made a possible tête-à-tête much more difficult to arrange, officials said.
However, several current and former officials close to Netanyahu insisted the theoretical chance of a diplomatic breakthrough leading to the resumption of direct negotiations in the future should never be dismissed.
A senior Israeli official met Tuesday with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in the West Bank city of Ramallah to discuss mutual cooperation and the rehabilitation of Gaza, senior sources from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have confirmed to Ynet.Abbas: If Security Council bid fails, we may end security cooperation with Israel
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been trading verbal blows from the podium at the UN General Assembly, it seems that, behind the scenes and far from the public eye, Israeli and Palestinian officials are working to hatch out a political plan to tighten coordination and cooperation between the two sides.
This secret backchannel of communications puts senior Israeli officials in contact with Hamdallah, and runs in parallel to indirect talks in Cairo between Israel and Hamas and other Gaza terror factions. Israel and Palestinians agreed last Tuesday to resume talks late next month on cementing a Gaza ceasefire, allowing time for Palestinian factions to resolve their divisions.
The Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency quoted Abbas as telling reporters in Ramallah: "We started work on the resolution to get a state on the '67 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital which we will submit to the Security Council."Why Erekat’s Anti-Israel Slander Matters
He said under the plan, "the occupation would be ended in two or three years."
Abbas said he would submit the plan, mandating an Israeli withdrawal within a defined time frame, in two to three weeks to the UN Security Council. Should the US choose to veto the resolution, Abbas said he would then go the ICC route, which could potentially lead to a war crimes probe against Israel, and even against the Palestinians themselves.
Abbas also said the Palestinian Authority would reconsider relations with Israel, including security coordination, should the bid fail.
The PA president added however, that he would not allow for the protest against Israel to turn violent. "I will not allow the firing of a single bullet," he said.
Abbas described relations with the US as tense after the Obama administration criticized the PA president's speech to the UN General Assembly last week.
The Palestinians’ refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state is a refusal to accept the existence of Jews among them. This is why Israel wants the acknowledgement of Israel’s Jewish character: it would mean an end to the Palestinians’ campaign of extermination against the Jewish people. It’s the difference between a “peace process” and actual peace. The Israelis want peace; Western diplomats and their media cheerleaders want a peace process. The Palestinians want neither, but they’ll participate in the charade of a peace process as long as they continue to get concessions without having to give anything up. They are not yet ready to consider peace with Jews as a goal.PM to Ban: Absurd UN Human Rights Council will not investigate Hamas war crimes
Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, and thus a guarantor of Jewish survival and continuity in a world that often appears indifferent to both, should not be controversial. But the survival of the Jewish people nonetheless remains a point of contention, something to be put on the table for the purposes of negotiation but not agreed to ahead of time. John Kerry, who led the last round of negotiations, has wavered on this, to his immense discredit. (h/t Bob Knot)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took the bitter criticism he leveled against the UN Human Rights Council in the UN General Assembly on Monday directly into the office of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday, saying the forum was badly stacked against Israel and defended Hamas.IDF Blog: The IDF Invests in Life – The Reason For Israel’s Low Civilian Casualty Rate
Netanyahu, according to a statement issued from his office, complained to Ban that the council was focusing its investigation on Israel, rather than on Hamas which used UN facilities over the summer to attack Israel.
Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, will fight against this.
The prime minister stressed, as he did in his speech, that Israel did not intentionally target Palestinian civilians, and was sorry for every civilian casualty. He said that Hamas has taken the local population hostage, and compared the organization to Islamic State. He repeated his position that Hamas carried out a double war crime over the summer: firing on Israeli civilians, while hiding behind Palestinian civilians.
“I will not apologize for Israel having the Iron Dome to protect its citizens,” he said.
More than 4,500 Hamas rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel during Operation Protective Edge, but due to the dedicated work of thousands of soldiers, Israel’s civilian casualty rate remained low.Watch: Netanyahu Shows in Pictures How 'Hamas is ISIS'
The reason that the number of Israeli civilian casualties was relatively low during the 50 days of Operation Protective Edge, is because the IDF’s top priority is to defend and protect Israeli civilians. Unlike Hamas, who uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, the IDF is constantly investing in saving lives in every possible way. The following are four of the IDF’s most crucial life-saving systems.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with leaders of the Jewish Federations of North America on Tuesday, a day after addressing the UN General Assembly in New York where he argued the Hamas terror group is just like Islamic State (ISIS).IDF Blog: At Only 20 Years Old, She Has Foiled Two Terrorist Infiltrations
"Every time I come to the UN I try to tell the truth as it is," Netanyahu said. During his address Netanyahu showed a picture of Hamas terrorists firing a rocket near small children.
"But here's a picture I didn't show in the UN yesterday. This is an impending execution. But this isn't ISIS, this is Hamas. And during the recent fighting in Gaza, right around the time that ISIS was doing its grisly deeds, Hamas executed dozens of Palestinians just to impose fear and force the population of Gaza into submission," said Netanyahu.
The IDF Field Intelligence Corps is responsible for monitoring Israel’s most sensitive borders. Hundreds of observers, most of them female soldiers, scan video monitors around the clock, searching for the smallest details.Northern Israeli Residents Hire Private Contractor to Dig Up Feared Hezbollah Attack Tunnels (VIDEO)
These soldiers are the eyes of the nation, ensuring the safety of Israel’s civilians on a daily basis. Corporal Lihi Meir is one of the soldiers responsible for Gaza’s northern border. Pressure, adrenaline and speed – these are the words she used to describe when she spotted and thwarted a terrorist infiltration during Operation Protective Edge.
On July 8, armed terrorists attempted to infiltrate an army base through from the Mediterranean Sea. The base was located next to the sea, near Israel’s southern community of Zikim. Corporel Lihi was part of the team of observers who identified and thwarted the infiltration.
In turn, a number of concerned residents who live in communities close to the northern border – at times, only several hundred meters away – fearing the Hezbollah threat to copy the Hamas model, have long complained to the army and local authorities that they hear sounds of digging under their land and homes.Canadian ISIS Fighter Threatens to Behead Netanyahu [video]
Recently a resident in Zarit decided to stop asking others to investigate the potentially catastrophic situation, and hired a contractor to begin boring test holes, to see what may be awaiting them from below.
“The army knows all this and is not doing anything,” Zarit resident Kobi Cohen recently told Channel 10 News. “The army should have already started digging with a D9 tractor, but, instead of providing answers, is leaving us in fear,” Cohen complained.
However, when the contractor arrived, residents said the IDF refused to allow him to start work, unless it was under army auspices and direction.
A Canadian who joined ISIS in Iraq threatened to behead Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.Police investigating falling death as possible nationalistic murder
Abu Usamah Somali, thought to be Canadian Farah Mohamed Shirdon of Calgary and who had been considered killed showed up in an interview with ViceNews and said “maybe” ISIS will stop fighting after lopping off the Prime Minister’s head.
Somali, 21, added, unsurprisingly, that President Barack Obama also is targeted.
Refuting initial police claims that his death was an accident, she added that her son had been certified and highly skilled at rappelling, reiterating that he was the victim of a cover-up.Finding gold in Israel’s ties with the Hashemites
“Our people are not stupid, and the truth will come out in the end,” she said.
Noting that the family had received far more support from the public than from the government and police, she thanked “all the people of Israel who have supported us” and beseeched the government to ensure “Nathaniel will be the last victim.”
At the press conference, Arami’s wife, who is three months pregnant, described her husband as a loving and caring father with no enemies.
“My husband left for work in the morning and did not return,” she said. “Now my children ask, ‘Mommy, where’s daddy?’” Meanwhile, MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud) echoed the family’s allegation of murder, adding that this was not the first time police had attempted to cover up the murder of Jews by Arabs.
“We see that in every case where it is possible to ignore [reality], the police and other authorities prefer to bury their heads in the sand...because it’s easier and they don’t want demonstrations and fear of the consequences,” said Feiglin.
Since the Yom Kippur War, a great many things have changed. The threat of an Iraqi Army infiltration through Jordan into Israel no longer exists. Syrian Army action against Israel, through Jordan or the Golan Heights, is highly unlikely, in part because of the domestic preoccupation and considerable disintegration of Assad Jr.’s forces. Most importantly, Egypt and Jordan have since become allies of Israel, on the defense level at least, and to a certain degree on the political level.PA Illegal Land Grab to Block Road North of Jerusalem
And while many words have been written and spoken about the security coordination between Cairo and Jerusalem, especially during the summer’s Israel-Hamas conflict, deep cooperation exists between Amman and Jerusalem, as well.
The discovery, and subsequent removal, of those spy installations is an example of such cooperation. According to the Jordanians, this only took place after an explosion took place at one of the sites, but the fact remains that coordination between the IDF and the Jordanian military was able to bring about a jointly agreed solution to the problem. That would have been unthinkable before the 1994 treaty.
The IDF Civil Administration ordered the expropriation on Tuesday of land between the Samaria communities of Hizmeh and Adam, both of which are located just north of Jerusalem, so as to widen the local road there to have two lanes and ease traffic congestion.Nasrallah: Our Priority is Fighting Terrorism (not satire)
However, Arutz Sheva has learned that just hours after the order was given, the Palestinian Authority (PA) sent representatives to the area and started illegally building corrugated iron structures to establish facts on the ground and prevent the usage of the previously empty land.
Shortly after learning about the development, members of the Regavim watchdog group for Jewish national property rights sent an urgent petition to the Civil Administration.
Thanks to the swift action, inspectors were sent to the scene, where they distributed orders against the illegal construction.
Apparently, an immediate demolition of the illegal structures was not possible due to juridical reasons, but the Civil Administration is expected to arrive on the scene on Wednesday with a large force to prevent the land grab.
Counterterrorism and preserving stability in Lebanon are Hezbollah’s main priorities, the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said Tuesday.Intelligence sources: Assad has secret stash of chemical weapons
According to The Daily Star, Nasrallah’s comments were made during a meeting with the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani.
In light of “complex and unprecedented threats” constituting an “existential threat” to the region, “Hezbollah made it a priority to confront terrorism and prevent the spillover of the [Syrian] crisis into Lebanon,” read a statement released by the group’s media office Tuesday.
Nasrallah stressed that counterterrorism required “real action and not theatrics,” especially now that terrorist groups have threatened to execute their Lebanese hostages.
The Syrian regime is hiding a secret cache of chemical weapons, estimated at hundreds of kilograms, according to Western intelligence sources. The U.S. has called on the Syrian government to reveal and destroy the hidden stockpile, but has not succeeded.Syrian Demonstrations against Airstrikes: "Obama, We Are Digging Your Grave"
Over the past year, Syrian President Bashar Assad's stockpile of more than 1,000 tons of chemical weapons -- including VX nerve gas, sarin, and mustard gas -- was transferred to United Nations specialists, who disposed of the material.
The West believed Syria had surrendered all of its chemical weapons, but Assad apparently kept a small amount of the material, most likely if he felt his regime or his life to be in immediate danger.
Michael J Totten: Islamic State Using Human Shields
The Pentagon says Islamic State fighters in Syria are using human shields to protect themselves from American airstrikes. I can’t verify that claim, but it’s a little like saying the Islamists breathe oxygen. Of course they’re using human shields. It’s what terrorist armies in the Middle East do when facing a civilized enemy.Professor Says Global Warming Led to ISIL
It wouldn’t accomplish squat against a war criminal like Bashar al-Assad. His regime would happily take out a thousand Sunni civilians to kill a single Islamist fighter. He’d see the thousand civilians as bonus points. But the West doesn’t fight like that and the Islamic State knows it.
Civilians always die in war zones. It’s unavoidable. The United States, however, takes great care to keep that number as low as possible. When the US Army and Marines took Fallujah back from Al Qaeda in Iraq (the Islamic State under its previous name) in 2004, for instance, they first spent weeks evacuating the city of as many civilians as they could before going in.
The US cares more about the welfare of Sunni Muslims in Syria and Iraq than the Islamic State does—which is not likely to help the medieval head-choppers and crucifixion enthusiasts much in the hearts-and-minds department.
Hamas gets an almost-free pass for this gruesome behavior in Gaza, but that’s only because no one but Israelis and Palestinians fear Hamas might one day come after them. Dozens of countries are involved in the war against the Islamic State, including Arab countries, and the Islamic State is clearly at war with the entire human race, beginning with the very civilians it’s hiding behind.
A professor from John Jay College co-authored a piece for the Huffington Post saying that global warming is what really led to the rise of ISIL. Professor Strozier connected a drought in Syria with the terrorist group, according to Campus Reform.'Islamic State may become world's first terrorist state'
"Charles Strozier, Professor of History and the founding Director of the John Jay College Center on Terrorism and Kelly Berkell, research assistant at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, wrote a blog piece in the Huffington Post called “ How Climate Change Helped ISIS,” where they argue that a four-year drought in Syria, from 2006 through 2010, “devastated the livelihoods of 800,000 farmers and herders; and knocked two to three million people into extreme poverty.”
“As the Obama administration undertakes a highly public, multilateral campaign to degrade and destroy the militant jihadists known as ISIS, ISIL ,and the Islamic State,” the two write, “many in the West remain unaware that climate played a significant role in the rise of Syria’s extremists.”
"If [Islamic State] succeed in firmly consolidating their grip on the land they occupy in Syria and Iraq, we will see the world's first truly terrorist state established within a few hours flying time of our country," British Home Secretary Theresa May said at a Conservative Party meeting in Birmingham on Tuesday.WSJ Suggests US Has Made Nuclear Concessions to Iran
Based on May's comments, Britain is very concerned by the growing strength of the extremist Sunni organization Islamic State and its will to carry out attacks in Britain.
"We will see terrorists given the space to plot attacks against us, train their men and women, and devise new methods to kill indiscriminately. We will see the risk, often prophesied but thank God not yet fulfilled, that with the capability of a state behind them, the terrorists will acquire chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons to attack us," May said "History tells us that when our enemies say they want to attack us, they mean it."
Theresa May is considered one of the front-runners to lead the British Conservative Party and has been called the "Second Iron Lady," after former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
On the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the United Nations General assembly focusing on the Iranian threat, The Wall Street Journal described Washington as failing to maintain its position regarding Tehran’s nuclear program.Terror victims ask US court to seize Iranian Internet assets
An in-house opinion piece (via Google) from the WSJ suggested “Tehran holds firm while the U.S. keeps making nuclear concessions.”
… nuclear negotiations have gone nowhere after nearly a year—and after President Obama made a point of quashing a Congressional effort to revive sanctions if Iran fails to negotiate in good faith. Harder to explain is why the Administration is now seeking ever more creative ways to give the mullahs what they want
American victims of terrorist attacks funded by Iran, North Korea and Syria are taking the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to court in an unprecedented effort to seize those countries' Internet assets.Iran executes prisoner of conscience
ICANN is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is the administrator of the World Wide Web. The agency is in charge of domain names.
In June, the families of terror victims submitted an appeal with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to subpoena ICANN to confiscate Iran's Internet licenses and domain assets.
The Shurat Hadin legal rights group, which represents the plaintiffs, is demanding that ICANN produce information and key staff members to be deposed in the plaintiffs' efforts to seize Iranian Internet assets.
ICANN has asked a federal court to prevent the handover of the country code top-level domain names (ccTLD) of North Korea, Syria, and Iran. Those would include the .KP, .SY and .IR names.
Iranian prisoner of conscience Moshen Amir-Aslani was executed last week after being found guilty of heresy and insulting the prophet Jonah, according to human rights organizations.Iran Postpones Rayhaneh Jabbari's Execution for Killing Attempted Rapist
Aslani, 37 was hanged at Rajaei Shahr Prison after eight years of imprisonment for “spreading corruption on earth” and making “innovations in the religion.”
Aslani was first arrested eight years ago for heresy after hosting Koranic study groups where he reportedly said that he believed the story of Jonah to be symbolic.
Iranian courts have decided to uphold a death sentence by hanging for Rayhaneh Jabbari, a woman found guilty of murdering a man who attempted to rape her. New reports indicate that the hanging will be postponed, however, from its originally scheduled date, September 30.Saudi overhaul reshapes Islam’s holiest city, Mecca
Her mother, Shole Paravan, told FOX News Iran postponed the execution at the last minute. She did not provide more details on why the execution was postponed or if it is rescheduled. Jabbari already told her mother goodbye in a phone call early Tuesday morning.
“I am currently handcuffed and there is a car waiting outside to take me for the execution of the sentence,” she said. “Goodbye, dear Mum. All of my pains will finish early tomorrow morning. I’m sorry I cannot lessen your pain. Be patient. We believe in life after death. I’ll see you in the next world and I will never leave you again because being separated from you is the most difficult thing to do in the world.”
As Muslims from around the world stream into Mecca for the annual hajj pilgrimage this week, they come to a city undergoing the biggest transformation in its history.
Decades ago, this was a low-built city of centuries-old neighborhoods Over the years, it saw piecemeal renewal projects. But in the mid-2000s, the kingdom launched its most ambitious overhaul ever with a series of mega-projects that, though incomplete, have already reshaped Mecca.
Old neighborhoods have been erased for hotel towers and malls built right up to the edge of the Grand Mosque. Historic sites significant for Islam have been demolished. Next to the Kaaba soars the world’s third tallest skyscraper, topped by a gigantic clock, which is splashed with colored lights at night.
“It’s not Mecca. It’s Mecca-hattan. This tower and the lights in it are like Vegas,” said Sami Angawi, an architect who spent his life studying hajj and is one of the most outspoken critics of the changes. “The truth of the history of Mecca is wiped out … with bulldozers and dynamite. Is this development?”
Critics complain the result is stripping the holy city of its spirituality. They also say it is robbing the hajj of its more 1,400-year-old message that all Muslims, rich or poor, are equal before God as they perform the rites meant to cleanse them of sin, starting and ending by circling the Kaaba seven times.
