Friday, October 03, 2014
Leading American Journalist Slams AP Claim That ‘Vast Majority’ of Gazan Dead Were Civilians
A leading American investigative journalist and political commentator is going on the offensive against the widespread claim that the vast majority of the casualties in Gaza during the summer conflict between Israel and Hamas were civilians.U.N. Debate: Hillel Neuer calls out Hamas for war crimes (h/t Sara)
Forbes contributor Richard Behar is taking the Associated Press (AP) to task for its repeated assertion that the overwhelming proportion of Palestinian deaths during the conflict were civilian. “They report it without any caveats, or any skepticism, or any competing sources of data,” Behar said in a post yesterday on his Facebook page.
In an interview with The Algemeiner, Behar – whose August 21 column entitled “The Media Intifada” offered trenchant criticisms of American media coverage of the Gaza war – expressed grave concern about the AP’s reporting of the conflict. “AP has enormous power and influence in the media world, especially with the big media outlets who pick up their material all the time,” Behar said. “As long as they keep shooting this stuff out, they are doing damage. They should not be saying in their stories that the vast majority of casualties are civilians. They could at least mention that there are other sources reaching different conclusions.”
Melanie Phillips: Fighting the battle while losing the war
Netanyahu’s attempt to educate the world about the hydra-headed global jihad appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Last Monday, the State Department said it did not agree with him that Hamas, Islamic State and Iran were all part of the same Islamist movement. For America, it said, Islamic State posed a different threat. But how can this possibly be worse than Iran? At Wednesday’s joint press conference with Obama, Netanyahu opened an ingenious new front. A “commonality of interest between Israel and leading Arab states,” he said, was now starting to emerge from the current turmoil in the Arab world.Caroline Glick: Netanyahu’s statements and policies
He seemed to be suggesting a possible alliance by Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates not just against Islamic State but also against Iran. Just as Obama was persuaded to proceed against Islamic State only when he gained cover from Arab states, so perhaps Netanyahu hoped to persuade him he could act with similar Arab cover against Iran.
Even more sinuous was the hint that a similar alliance might pull off the prize Obama always hoped would crown his presidency: a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Clever stuff, this, turning Obama’s obsession from a malign threat against Israel to a win-win inducement. Whether it has the slightest chance, though, of shifting the US away from its headlong spiral of Iranian-appeasement is another matter.
The alternatives for the US and its allies are stark.
Either they support Israel in fighting Iran as the principal enemy of the West – or they crumble before Iran and thus inescapably empower its attack on the West. The free world can only hold its breath.
In light of Obama’s absolute commitment to the anti-Israel, PLO-centric policy model for dealing with the Palestinian rejection of Israel, for the next two years there will be no change in US policy on the issue.
Under these circumstances, Netanyahu’s task is to lay the foundation in Washington for support for an Israeli policy that abandons the PLO as a partner and moves beyond the failed two-state model. Here, Netanyahu’s statements at the UN and the White House indicate that this is the path he has embarked upon.
Unfortunately, while Netanyahu may prefer to lay the groundwork for a new policy indirectly and cautiously, Abbas’s bid to convince the US to support the passage of a Security Council resolution that would require Israel to withdraw from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem a week after the 2016 presidential elections will likely force Netanyahu present an alternative to the PLO-centric two-state plan sooner rather than later.
After the 2016 elections, Obama will be unconstrained by concerns for Democratic candidates.
Most of the Security Council resolutions against Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria were passed after the 1980 presidential elections when the then lame duck Jimmy Carter felt free to attack Israel at will.
To avoid a repetition of that experience in late 2016, Netanyahu will have to offer an alternative to the failed two-state plan ahead of the 2016 presidential nominating conventions.
Netanyahu’s statements in the US this week present us with a mixed picture of his leadership.
Netanyahu appears more resolute on the Palestinian threat than he has in the past. This is a good thing. But on the most pressing threat Israel faces today, his strong words rang hollow. The only way to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power is for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Until Israel adopts a policy for doing so, words will not suffice.
Obama Would Let Middle East Burn to Keep Jews Out of Apartments
Since he took office, President Obama has made opposition to "settlements"--by which he includes apartments bought or built by Jews in Israel's capital city--the cornerstone of his policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He made a "settlement freeze" the precondition for peace talks--a demand not even Palestinians had made until that point, but which they quickly adopted as an excuse for avoiding negotiations with Israel.Eugene Kontorovich: The Peace Camp’s Recycled Outrage
Yet even when Israel did impose temporary halts in construction, the Palestinians refused to talk, and incited war instead, as President Mahmoud Abbas did in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly, in which he accused Israel of "genocide" in its war against Hamas in Gaza. The Obama administration condemned Abbas's speech--and then went right back to encouraging his extremist demands. That reaction is a recipe for disaster.
Recall that it was Secretary of State John Kerry's absurd push towards an imposed deadline for a peace deal earlier this year that encouraged the Gaza war. When the deadline passed, the Palestinian Authority welcomed Hamas back into a governing coalition--and the U.S. did nothing. When Hamas rained rockets over Israel, and Israel, reluctantly, fought back, Obama insisted on a cease-fire that would leave Hamas's terror arsenal in place.
And throughout that war, Obama and Kerry griped about Palestinian civilian casualties--which Israel took great pains to avoid, despite Hamas's use of human shields. Obama repeated those complains Wednesday--a day after he suspended his own rules against civilian casualties to facilitate U.S. bombing against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Such double standards are not due to antisemitic bias, but strategic confusion. No wonder the region is a mess.
The Israeli government has not issued new authorizations for the building of new homes in the “settlements” since before the collapse of negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas. Even Peace Now grudgingly concedes a “semi-freeze.” Yet the absence of new tenders creates a problem for peace processors: they traditionally blame any foot-dragging by Abbas on these tenders, and insist that if Israel desisted, the primary obstacles to fruitful negotiations would be removed.Jew-Free Jerusalem Neighborhoods Won’t Bring Peace
Yet as the moratorium grows longer, Abbas has, contrary to peace-process predictions, only moved farther away from negotiations. Indeed, he has fully adopted a new strategy of using international pressure to give him his demands without the trouble of having to make compromises.
Unable to blame “new settlement activity,” the peace camp, uncritically parroted by the media, has defined settlements down. Anything is now called “new” settlement activity. Last month, Peace Now treated a surveying decision that certain lands were not owned by private parties–Jewish or Arab–as a massive outrage, though the technical and administrative action would not result in a single hut being built for a single Jew.
Now, lacking new activity to decry, the peace camp seizes on old projects, planned by prior governments, and passes them off as new. This is the story behind this week’s outrage over the Givat Hamatos neighborhood in Jerusalem. The area is one where Jews already live, and immediately abuts the huge neighborhood of Gilo. It is “over” the Green Line by a few meters.
However, this project received final approval in 2012. This week’s outrage is literally a rewarming of the statements from two years ago.
After all, if the Palestinians’ main priority was in establishing an independent state alongside Israel they could have accepted peace offers from Israel that would have given them almost all of the West Bank, Gaza, and a large share of Jerusalem. But they turned those offers down in 2000, 2001, and 2008 and refused to negotiate seriously with Israel again this year even though Netanyahu had already signaled a willingness to compromise on territory. It wasn’t settlements that stopped them from grabbing independence but the fact that recognizing the legitimacy of a Jewish no matter where its borders are drawn was still anathema in their political culture. Indeed, when Hamas, which commands the support of the majority of Palestinians and far more than the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas, speaks of the “occupation,” they are not referring to the West Bank but to all of pre-1967 Israel.Obama’s Conflict with Israel Is Sidelined, Not Resolved
While the majority of Israelis have drawn the appropriate conclusions from Palestinian rejectionism and understand that peace is nowhere in sight, most still hope that someday this will change. But there is no chance that the political culture of the Palestinians will one day make it possible for compromise over the land until the West stops giving moral support to demands for Jew-free zones.
Netanyahu does well to ignore these latest complaints just as he has done in the past, to the applause of the vast majority of Israelis, when the U.S. attacked the right of Jews to live in Jerusalem. If the Palestinians someday make peace and Jerusalem is split, does President Obama really think it can be done on the basis that both Jews and Arabs would populate the Israeli parts but that the Palestinian areas will be ethnically cleansed of all Jews? If so, then their bitter criticism of Jews moving into Silwan or the mixed neighborhood of Givat Hamatos makes sense. But if the goal is to have an open city in which coexistence prevails, then these arguments are counter-productive.
There are reasons why Israelis are wary about the idea of leaving behind Jews in areas that will, at least in theory, become a Palestinian state. Most revolve around the fact that such holdouts will become immediate targets for terrorist murderers. But if the Palestinians are told by the United States that it is perfectly OK for them to demand that no Jew is allowed to live in areas that they might control, including in Jerusalem, then there is no incentive for them to make peace on any terms. (h/t Bob Knot)
The chief source of tension is obviously Iran. Though Netanyahu tried to make the analogy between the threat from ISIS and that of the Islamist regime and Hamas, the U.S. is not buying it. Both Obama and Kerry are determined to make some sort of nuclear deal with Tehran. If the interim accord they signed last year is any indication, if they get their wish it will be a weak and unenforceable agreement that will do little to stop the Iranians from realizing their ambition. Nor is there any U.S. inducement that can or should cause the Israelis to cease to worry that such a strategy puts them and the West in mortal peril.Stand With Us: Gaza: A Story of Choices
As for the Palestinians, though Obama will have his own reasons for thwarting any end run around the peace process by Abbas to get the UN to enact new anti-Israel measures, the administration looks as if it is determined to resume hounding Israel on settlements even though the Hamas war demonstrated anew that the Palestinian impulse to conflict has nothing to do with the location of a future border or the presence of Jews in any particular place. Moreover, even if talks with the Arab states do proceed, it should be clear even to the dullest staffer in the West Wing or Foggy Bottom that moderate Arab states want Israel’s help in fighting Islamists and have little interest in risking their own popularity trying to broker a deal that the Palestinians don’t want no matter how much the Israelis are prepared to give.
If there is anything we have learned about Barack Obama in the last six years it is that he is not a man prepared to admit mistakes (just ask Jim Clapper). For relations between Israel and the United States to really improve—as opposed to the arguments just cooling down every now and then—it will require the president to admit that his idée fixe about settlements won’t bring peace or help the U.S. rally allies in the fight against genuine threats to American security. He will also need to realize that his never-flagging desire for engagement with Iran is bringing the world closer to the nuclear brink, not averting that danger.
For now, Obama’s feud with Netanyahu is on his back burner as he tries to avoid disaster in Iraq and Syria and his party is poised to be beaten in the midterm elections. But it will be back soon. Israelis should be prepared for being back in his cross hairs sooner rather than later.
Netanyahu Hits Back at US Criticism in Foreign Press
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been on a whirlwind American tour, speaking before the UN General Assembly, meeting US President Barack Obama, and starting Wednesday night speaking to several international media networks. That point has raised eyebrows given the fact he hasn't given Israeli media an interview for many long years.PM Netanyahu Interviewed on Six International Media Networks
Two issues have caused ire in the White House since Netanyahu's arrival, namely Israel's announced construction plan for 2,610 homes in Jerusalem on Wednesday which the US harshly condemned, and dozens of Jewish families moving into eleven apartments in the Shiloach neighborhood (known as Silwan by local Arabs) in Jerusalem.
'Israel's Most Bitter Western Enemy is America'
According to Sheftel, "soon they will come out with condemnations on construction in Tel Aviv. Peace Now are both traitors and slanderers that serve the US, all under the support of foreign governments. They turned the treachery industry into a financial business" he added, in a reference to the group's large foreign funding.Why Would Obama Oppose Housing for Black and Muslim Families? Because They Are in Israel
For the remaining two years of Obama's presidency, Sheftel called on Netanyahu not to meet with him.
"When you hear the blatant speech of the White House spokesperson about building in Givat Hamatos you understand how bad they are for the Jews, therefore this is a completely unnecessary meeting. Netanyahu could have found tens of thousands of reasons not to arrive at the White House," concluded Sheftel.
Why would President Obama, a champion for the rights of underprivileged blacks and Muslims, try to prevent the construction of new housing for those groups?US Jewish Leaders Slam Obama Administration’s Attack on Israeli Residency in Eastern Jerusalem
Because the blacks are Jewish, the Muslims are in Israel, and the housing is in Jerusalem.
In any other part of the world, such housing would be regarded as progressive government intervention to aid the downtrodden. But such housing in Israel is being denounced by President Obama’s spokespeople as “poisonous” and “anti-peace.”
The controversy involves a neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem called Givat HaMatos. It was settled back in the 1990s by Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia. Rescued by Israel from the poverty and civil strife of eastern Africa, these black Jews began a hopeful new life in the city that filled their prayers for 2,000 years.
Leading Jewish personalities in the United States have reacted angrily to the Obama Administration’s blistering attack upon Israel’s announcement – based on a plan already approved by the Jerusalem Municipality two years ago – that it will construct 2,500 residential units in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos. The administration also expressed displeasure at the news that a group of Jewish residents had moved into property purchased from Arabs in the Silwan neighborhood.US Slammed for Calling Israeli Land Purchase 'Occupation'
“Anyone who thinks that Jews buying a few handfuls of homes in areas of Jerusalem in any way contributes to the problems in the Middle East just doesn’t understand the reality of how deep the antagonism is to the nation state of the Jewish people,” said the former Harvard University scholar and influential political commentator, Professor Alan Dershowitz.
Dershowitz, who has been generally critical of Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank, was responding to White House spokesman Josh Earnest’s comment about the “occupation of residential buildings in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem – this is near the Old City – by individuals who are associated with an organization whose agenda, by definition, stokes tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Harsh criticism has been sounded in several quarters for the White House condemnation of Jerusalem housing plans – especially the use of the term "occupation."Netanyahu Slams Peace Now for Sabotaging Obama Meeting
The OU (Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America) issued a statement "strongly reject[ing]" the "harsh rhetoric" employed by American officials regarding recent Jerusalem housing plans.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Wednesday, "The US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan." He added that the new residents have an "agenda [that] only serves to escalate tensions."
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu expressed his anger at extreme leftist group Peace Now for what he said was an intentional attempt to sabotage his meeting Wednesday with US President Barack Obama.Israeli Minister: Peace Now ‘Poisoning the Atmosphere’ With New Settlements Claim
The organization leaked to the press that a plan for construction in Jerusalem had been approved, just as he met Obama – and the US responded with a statement of denouncement.
"This is irresponsibility on the international level, for some element to publish a statutory plan in order to sabotage a very important meeting that dealt with the Iranian nuclear program, our basic security questions and Islamic State (ISIS),” Netanyahu told Channel 2's Amit Segal in an interview that will be aired after Yom Kippur.
Israeli Transportation Minister Israel Katz on Thursday came out swinging against the US Administration’s scathing comments that Israeli construction in a disputed Jerusalem neighborhood would “poison” Israel’s relations with its allies, and the Israeli NGO that leaked details of the move, NRG News reported.ADL Slams Obama Over 'Myopic' Criticism of Israel`
“Construction in Givat Matos strengthens Jerusalem from the south – which is good,” Katz said in the interview, referring to some 2,600 units set to be constructed on a hillside in southern Jerusalem, just over the Green Line, but within the city’s municipal jurisdiction.
“The final approval was signed a week ago, but Peace Now, a fringe group that gets most of its funding from foreign sources, leaked [details of the decision] – on the day of the Prime Minister’s meeting with the President of the United States – in order to poison the atmosphere. Many places would have shunned them, but here, we roll out the red carpet. We will continue to build and strengthen Jerusalem, our eternal capital.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Thursday criticized the tone and timing of what it called the Obama administration’s “intensified critique” of Israel for movement on housing plans in eastern Jerusalem.Ya'alon: We'll Build in Jerusalem And Won't Apologize for It
In a statement, the ADL called the criticism “myopic” and said it reinforces Palestinian intransigence regarding reconciliation with Israel.
“The Obama administration’s intensified critique of Israel for housing plans in East Jerusalem, saying it will poison the atmosphere and even come between Israel and ‘its closest allies,’ is myopic, ill-timed and off the mark,” said ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman.
“The United States and Israel should remain solidly focused on the issues the President and Prime Minister outlined in public comments before their private meeting -- shared concerns about the global threat of Iran’s nuclear program, the battle against the peril to the region from brutal extremists, and a way forward for Israel and the Palestinians -- after the seven weeks of fighting -- to stop Hamas rocket attacks against Israel,” he added.
Ya’alon made the comments at a ceremony in memory of Israel’s fallen paratroopers, and they come in the wake of international criticism over Israel’s approval of new housing units in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos.IDF Patrol Escapes Injury in Explosion in Golan Heights
Ya’alon said that over the years, Israeli paratroopers fought on the Golan Heights and in the Sinai, in Judea and Samaria, in Gaza, in Lebanon and the Jordan Valley.
"They liberated Jerusalem, our eternal united capital, Jerusalem that even today there are those who question our right to it. Jerusalem will forever remain the capital of Israel, the Jewish people's capital, the city that we will continue to build and develop without apologizing for it," he declared.
An IDF patrol escaped injury Friday morning when an explosive device was detonated as their vehicle was travelling in the Golan Heights along the Syrian border.Gantz Warns Hezbollah: 'We Can Hit You Like Gaza'
No damage was reported.
The IDF has not confirmed that the blast was intentional and it might have come from an old land mine, but most military sources concluded that a bomb was intentionally placed by fighters at war with Syrian President Bassar al-Assad. ISIS and Al Qaeda control most of the Syrian aside of the Golan Heights.
Last week, Israel fired a Patriot missile to shot down a Syrian fighter that had strayed into Israeli air space, prompting Syrian officials to charge Israel with an “act of aggression.”
The chief of staff reminded that Gaza is not the only front troubling Israel, and that Israel's other enemies - such as the Lebanese-based Iran-proxy terror group Hezbollah - would do well to learn from the capabilities demonstrated by the IDF in the recent campaign.Released Shalit Terrorist Caught Smuggling Drugs from Jordan
"(Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah sees that the Israeli society didn't break apart and was ready to pay the price (in Gaza), and that we know to do in Lebanon what we did in Gaza," warned the IDF head.
While the Arab world has been engaged in bloody infighting, from Iraq and Syria to Sinai and many other places as well, the common enemy remains Israel, reminds Gantz.
"Our enemies are currently busy with other problems, but who is next in line for all of them? Us!" stated Gantz. "If Hezbollah weren't busy now doing what Iran tells them to do in Syria who is their fixed enemy? Us."
In further proof of the destructive effects of the 2011 Gilad Shalit terrorist release deal, another of the 1,027 terrorists released has been re-arrested for returning to crime.Testimony: Terrorist 'Pulled a Gun' in Thwarted Samaria Attack
The terrorist, a resident of Al-Jiftlik in the Jordan Valley located north of Jericho in Samaria, was arrested and will have an indictment submitted against him for trying to smuggle 23 kilograms (50 pounds) of drugs from Jordan into Israel.
The arrest, which was cleared for publication by the police on Thursday afternoon, was conducted by Judea and Samaria detectives in August as part of a campaign against drug running.
The released Shalit terrorist was spotted crossing the border fence from Jordan, but managed to escape back into Jordan from police pursuit - in the process dropping behind him a sack with 23 kilograms of hash, a canabis product.
Border Patrol officer First Sgt. Almog Ohana, commander of the checkpoint at Kfar Tapuach in Samaria, revealed on Thursday how his forces managed to subdue two Arab terrorists earlier in the day as they tried to conduct a terror attack at Tapuach Junction.Women, Children Barely Escape Terrifying Jerusalem Rock Ambush
The two Arab youths in their twenties arrived at the bus station adjacent to the checkpoint from the direction of Shechem (Nablus), reports Ohana, noting he sent two troops to check the pair. "At the start they claimed they were headed for Ramallah," he added.
During the check, Ohana recounts that one of the terrorists tried to pull an improvised pistol on the officers: "a Border Patrol officer cocked her weapon and aimed at him (the terrorist) while another officer with her knocked the pistol from the terrorist's hand."
"The two suspects were arrested at the scene," said Ohana. "The forces noticed a black backpack on one of the suspect's backs; he refused to comply with their demands to open it."
According to M., who also lives in Maaleh Zeitim, the driver had decided to take the less-used road through A-Tur because the Old City is full of traffic due to the holiday and tourist season. “In addition, there were riots recently near Shaar Shchem (the Damascus Gate); the Wadi Joz road is trafficky and also runs through an Arab neighborhood, so they decided to take the a-Tur road. It's not a road that we drive through a lot but they thought this was their only option.”Arab MK Calls for Establishment of 'United Islamic States'
“There was a lot of traffic,” M. told Arutz Sheva. “They noticed that a crowd was forming behind their car. They felt that something was going on, and the feeling was verified when a rock hit the car. As Jerusalem residents – this in itself is something we are familiar with. It has happened to all of us before.
After Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) said Israel is like the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group, and Palestinian Authority (PA) chief negotiator Saeb Erekat likened the Jewish state and "Islamic state," Arab MK Ibrahim Sarsour (Ra'am-Ta'al) has now raised the bar.Abbas to seek $4 billion for Gaza reconstruction
Sarsour, who heads his Arab Islamist party, was asked what its position is on ISIS by Prof. Marwan Dwairy of the Oranim Academic College located near Haifa. According to the Arab member of Israel's Knesset, Israel is "crueler" than the brutal jihadist regime.
The MK began his response by saying he considers the terrorist groups Muslim Brotherhood and its Gaza offshoot Hamas to be "moderate" Islamic movements that are being "pursued" in Egypt, Syria and the Gulf States
The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will ask donor countries for $4 billion for Gaza reconstruction after a summer war between Israel and Hamas damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes and more than 5,000 businesses, according to a report he is to present to a pledging conference this month.Hamas Agrees with Netanyahu: 'We want an Islamic State'
During the 50-day war, Israel launched several thousand air strikes and unleashed artillery barrages at Hamas-linked targets in Gaza, flattening entire neighborhoods. Hamas fired thousands of rockets and mortar shells at Israeli communities during the fighting.
According to the 72-page reconstruction report, obtained by The Associated Press late Thursday, the Palestinian Authority government will request $4 billion in emergency relief and reconstruction funds. It will also ask donors to pledge an additional $4.5 billion in support for the Palestinian government’s budget through 2017.
While it may reject Israel’s existence, Hamas certainly agrees with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - and disagrees with the US State Department - that its “ultimate goal” is to establish an “Islamic state” (caliphate) over what it sees as the “occupied lands of Palestine.”Hamas Says IDF Didn't Destroy All Terror Tunnels
In short, while the US disputes PM Netanyahu’s statement that “Hamas is ISIS, and ISIS is Hamas” – Hamas itself does not.
China Weekly reported that, on Tuesday, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said in a ceremony to honor police officers killed in the latest Gaza operation that "we don't want to establish an Islamic emirate in Gaza; we want an Islamic state in all Palestine."
Hamas spokesperson Mushir Al-Masri said on Thursday night that his terrorist organization, despite returning to truce talks with Israel in Cairo in the last week of October, still remains fully committed to armed conflict.Gaza Terrorists Fire Rocket into Sea in Apparent Test
"The 'resistance' is the basis for the clash with Israel. Only through the 'resistance' can victory and liberation (i.e. the occupation of Israel by Hamas - ed.) be accomplished," Al-Masri told the Hamas journal Al-Risala in Gaza, reports Walla!.
The spokesperson continued by saying "there is no doubt that Gaza succeeded in achieving victory by the nation standing firm and the courage of the 'resistance,' which surprised the enemy on land, sea and air."
Al-Masri concluded with a troubling pronouncement, saying "the enemy did not succeed in stopping the rocket fire, and also didn't succeed in destroying the military tunnels."
Just a little over a month after the November 26 ceasefire with Israel that ended Hamas's terror war and the 50-day Operation Protective Edge, terrorists in Gaza fired a rocket into the sea Friday morning.Pro-ISIS sympathies simmer in Jordanian city
No one was wounded by the projectile, which Walla! speculates was part of a missile test to check the capabilities of the terror group's lethal arsenal.
In recent months, videos of small but vocal pro-ISIS demonstrations have circulated on social media, with some Ma'an residents waving the black flag of the hardline extremist group which has taken massive swaths of land in Syria and Iraq.The New "Moderates": ISIS Fig Leaf for Other Extremists
Demonstrators brazenly called for an Islamic state and chanted anti-government slogans.
The government says it has the situation in Ma'an under control, despite the apparent tensions.
"The very few Jordanians who carried ISIS flag were arrested," government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani told CNN on Tuesday of the demonstrations.
The emergence of ultra-violent groups in the Middle East has allowed non-violent extremist groups in the West to claim an undeserved moral credibility. ISIS is the ideal fig-leaf. Even al-Qaeda, by comparison, now looks "moderate."The Case Against Qatar
Many of those Muslim groups that condemned ISIS have a long history of promoting extremism themselves. It turns out, for example, that senior officials at Al Muntada Trust -- which recently published a statement condemning ISIS, signed by nine other Islamic organizations -- have worked closely with Nabil al-Awadi, a "key financier" of ISIS.
QIASS [Qatar International Academy for Security Studies] also appears to have given former Obama White House spokesman Robert Gibbs's new PR group, the Incite Agency, one of its first jobs. Just weeks after it opened, Incite handled RSVPs for an event co-hosted by the Soufan Group and QIASS on "countering violent extremism." The Incite Agency did not return repeated calls from FP seeking to clarify its relationship with QIASS.Turkish Vote Less than Meets the Eye
But the biggest reason that Qatar is likely to remain in good favor with Washington isn't money or influence, but necessity. As the United States ramps up a coalition against the Islamic State militants, it will need first and foremost its air base in Qatar, which is serving as the command center for operations -- and then once again, the cover of Arab support.
With Syria and Iraq in chaos, both countries are now populated by a range of extremist actors whom Washington won't want to negotiate with. Doha's up for that job. Most recently, Qatar was called in to help negotiate the release of 45 U.N. peacekeepers taken captive by al-Nusra Front -- and on Sept. 12 it announced that it had successfully won the soldiers' release. Qatar insists that a ransom was not paid; perhaps the network of Doha-based funders gave the government a certain leverage over the group. Or it just may be that the al Qaeda affiliate wants something even more valuable.
"I think what Qatar can give them is legitimacy," suggests Krieg. In al-Nusra Front's official demands regarding the peacekeeper hostages, for example, it had asked to be taken off the U.N. sanctions list. "Nusra wants to be seen as a legitimate partner against [the Islamic State]; Qatar might be able to offer them a platform in the future," Krieg says.
That's essentially what Qatar has long offered its friends: a platform, with access to money, media, and political capital. Washington has so far played along, but the question is whether the United States is actually getting played.
CNN is reporting that the Turkish parliament has approved military action against the Islamic State (ISIS). This may be the headline that Turkey wants, but it is not actually what the Turkish parliament has done. The Turkish parliament has instead voted to authorize its army to operate in Iraq and Syria. This extends a mandate that was approved two years ago but was about to expire. Hence, had Turkey previously wanted to operate against ISIS, it could have. More importantly, the Turkish motion did not specify a target. This means that the Turkish authorization could just as readily allow operation against Syrian Kurds who are fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked groups, or against the Bashar al-Assad regime.Iran Warns Turkey Against Fighting ISIS
The warning came after the parliament in Ankara voted to authorize military intervention in Syria and Iraq.Report: Close Ties Between Turkey’s AKP and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Exposed
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke by telephone with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, and "criticized the method chosen to fight terrorism, expressing concern about any action that might aggravate the situation," state news agency IRNA reported.
"In the current situation, the countries of the region must act with responsibility and avoid aggravating" matters, he added.
Benjamin Weinthal of The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday about revelations that an Iranian backed terrorists group has strong ties with Turkey’s ruling AKP party. Citing the work of counter-intelligence expert John Schindler, Weinthal writes that the “dismissal of an investigation into an Iranian-linked terrorist group” suggested that “[t]he decision to pull the plug on the investigation had to have come ‘from the highest level of government.'” Though secular opponents of the government opposed the decision to drop the case, they were unable to gain any traction.
“Ali Fuat Yılmazer, former head of the Istanbul police’s intelligence unit, conducted an extensive investigation that revealed Tawhid-Salam had penetrated the Turkish government and the AKP at the highest levels, and was a tool of the Pasdaran. For this, he was thrown in jail on trumped-up charges,” he said.
Pasdaran is an informal name for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Schindler continued, “Tawhid-Salam, which also goes by the revealing name ‘Jerusalem Army,’ has long been believed to be a front for Iranian intelligence, particularly its most feared component, the elite Quds [“Jerusalem”] Force of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, which handles covert action abroad.”
