Tuesday, January 13, 2015
IDF Blog: The True Face of Hamas’ Hypocrisy
Hamas has been advocating violence and hatred since it’s founding in 1987. The organization has executed horrific terror attacks, and continues to glorify martyrdom and indoctrinate youth, encouraging them to become terrorists. Yet, following the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, Hamas suddenly decided to condemn violence, stating that, “differences of opinion and thought cannot justify murder.”Which side are you on?
On Wednesday, January 7, twelve people were murdered by terrorists at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in Paris. The terror attack shocked France and the international community as a brutal offense on freedom and democracy. Many leaders around the world sent their condolences to the French people and condemned the violence and terrorism they have faced.
Surprisingly, one of the organizations to condemn the attack was Hamas. On Saturday, January 10, the terror organization released a statement in French and Arabic saying that Hamas “condemns the attack against Charlie Hebdo magazine and insists on the fact that differences of opinion and thought cannot justify murder.”
This statement is proof of Hamas’ blunt hypocrisy and double standard. Only a few months ago the terror organization celebrated the death of Israeli civilians and praised the terrorists who performed the attacks.
On November 18, 2014, terrorists murdered five Israeli civilians in a synagogue in Har Nof, Jerusalem. The terrorists entered the synagogue during morning prayers and attacked the men with a rifle and a knife. Hamas’ reaction to this attack was far from condemnation.
Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman, called the attack a “heroic action.”
David Singer: Mapping The Truth Erases A Long-running Fiction.
The US State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs has featured a map on its website – which both rejects and corrects the misleading use of the terms “1967 boundaries” and “1967 borders” – which have never existed in relation to any territorial subdivision between Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
As the accompanying map makes clear:
There was a 1950 armistice line that separated Israel from the Gaza Strip
There was a 1949 armistice line that separated Israel from the West Bank.
The use of dishonest and untruthful verbiage such as “boundaries” and “borders” has been a major factor in causing what now appears to have led to an irretrievable breakdown in negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) designed to create a second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan.
Absent from this State Department map is there any mention of these aberrant terms.
Instead the map seeks to present an honest and accurate position of the current territorial relationship that exists between Israel, the West Bank (“Judea and Samaria”) and Gaza.
Reflections on the Murders in Paris
The Islamic world is currently in the midst of a great historic convulsion. This process is giving birth to political trends and movements of a murderously violent nature. These movements offer a supposed escape route from the humiliation felt at the profound societal failure of the Arab and to a slightly lesser extent the broader Muslim world.Largest Islamic Body in the World Calls for More Anti-Free Speech Laws in Wake of Charlie Hebdo Attack
The escape is by way of the most violent and intolerant historic trends of Islam, into a mythologized and imagined past. The route to this old-new imagined utopia is a bloody one. All who oppose or even slight it must die. The simple and brutal laws of 7th century Muslim Arabia are re-applied, in their literal sense. The events of last week in Paris were a manifestation of this trend.
These trends exist not only in the Arab and Muslim worlds themselves. Because of mass immigration from the Arab and Muslim world to western European countries, they are also powerful and present in immigrant communities in these countries. The Kouachi brothers and Amedi Coulibaly are the latest, and no doubt not the last representatives of this political world to impose themselves on us.
The political trend in question is called political Islam. It manifests itself in its most extreme form in the rival global networks of the Al Qaeda movement and the Islamic State. But these, alas, are only the sharp tip of a much larger iceberg.
Last week’s terror attack targeting French magazine Charlie Hebdo‘s office in Paris has sparked a global conversation about the nature of free speech, with the “Je Suis Charlie” hashtag in support of the murdered Charlie Hebdo staff going viral and becoming the most used hashtag in the history of Twitter.In Pictures: France’s Three Weeks of Terror
But this afternoon, the UN representative for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ufuk Gokcen, was expressing another view with respect to free speech.
The OIC is comprised of the 57 Muslim-majority nations and the Palestinian Authority. They are the largest bloc at the UN, and when they meet on the head-of-state level, they literally speak for the Muslim world.
So it is noteworthy that after the Charlie Hebdo attack, Gokcen is now calling for more implementation of the OIC-sponsored UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 and the follow-up Rabat Plan of Action that would criminalize the very type of speech that Charlie Hebdo engaged in:
In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, hostage takings and a four-million strong ‘unity’ march, considering this latest Islamist outrage in isolation is a deceptively easy trap to fall into.Student Nurse who Radicalised Kouachi Brothers Worked in Paris Hospital that Treated Victims
In reality France has endured an intense three weeks of ‘lone wolf’ attackers screaming “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is the Greatest) before visiting terrible violence upon innocent French targets
Saturday December 20th – First of the lone wolves
Bertrand Nzohabonayo barely made a ripple in the mainstream media when he stormed a small police station in Tours, France with a knife and screamed “Allahu Akbar” last month, badly injuring three police officers before being shot dead. Although the Burundian-born French citizen was known to police for petty criminality, security services had never considered him a terror threat – despite his brother being on a terrorism watchlist.
An Islamist alleged to have mentored the Kouachi brothers who were behind the Charlie Hebdo attack on Wednesday now works as a trainee nurse at the very same Accident and Emergency department that some of the victims of that attack were brought to. He was off-duty at the time of the attack, and authorities have since barred him from returning to work.Paris march: TV wide shots reveal a different perspective on world leaders at largest demonstration in France’s history
Farid Benyettou is known to have recruited a number of candidates from the 19th arrondissement of Paris for jihad in the early 2000s. At the time, the public prosecutor, Jean-Julien Xavier-Rolai, described him as the Kouachi brothers’ “spiritual guide”, and “the link between the suburbs of Fallujah and the 19th arrondissement”, the Telegraph has reported.
Benyettou was jailed in 2008 for criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise, but was released in 2011, whereupon he started training a nurse. Last month he began a work placement at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, where the Charlie Hebdo victims were brought after the attack.
Never mind those who did attend – the US President Barack Obama “let the world down” by failing to make the journey to France, according to the front page of the New York Daily News.Cameron Pledges To Bring Back ‘Snoopers’ Charter’
Now, a different perspective on the leader’s portion of the march has emerged in the form of a wide shot displayed on French TV news reports.
It shows that the front line of leaders was followed by just over a dozen rows other dignitaries and officials – after which there was a large security presence maintaining a significant gap with the throngs of other marchers.
The measure was presumably taken for security reasons – but political commentators have suggested that it raises doubts as to whether the leaders were really part of the march at all.
David Cameron has pledged to bring back the ‘snoopers’ charter’ if the Conservatives win the election in May. The Communications Data Bill would force telecoms companies to collect information on their customer’s use of the internet, under the auspices of fighting terrorism.Giuliani Cautions Mayor de Blasio To Put The Police Back In NYC Mosques
The draft legislation was announced in the 2012 Queen’s Speech, and the Home Secretary Theresa May had hoped it would be law by 2014. However, support for the bill was dropped by the Liberal Democrats, making it impossible to introduce whilst the Conservatives are still in coalition.
But speaking in Paris, after attending the rally for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Mr Cameron confirmed the bill will be in the Conservative manifesto. The Prime Minister claimed the powers were needed because Britain was facing a “fanatical death cult of Islamist extremist violence”.
Mr Cameron told ITV News: “We do need to modernise our rules about interception… I think we cannot allow modern forms of communication to be exempt from the ability — in extremis, with a warrant signed by the home secretary — to be exempt from being listened to. If I am prime minister after the next election, I will make sure we legislate accordingly.”
The recent attack in Paris on a kosher market has raised concern about their security amongst the Jews of France. Former Mayor of New York City Giuliani has similar concerns about security for New York City and has expressed them to present Mayor Bill de Blasio.Pope Denounces Jihad as ‘Deviant Forms of Religion’
With an estimated 600,000 Muslims and over 165 mosques in the Five Boroughs making Islam the third largest religion, his concern is a large one indeed.
Speaking on Fox News, he was directly critical of the change in policy instituted by his successor. “The mayor of New York, one of the first things he did was he pulled all of the police out of the mosques. Well, you know who put the police in the mosques? I did. You know who increased the number of police in the mosques? Kelly and Bloomberg,” Mr. Giuliani told host Greta Van Susteren. “And why did I do it? Because the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 was organized in a mosque. The blind sheikh, who went to jail for a hundred years, was planning to blow up our subways in a mosque.”
“I think it is becoming more difficult for us,” he said. “I think we have to expect this is going to happen in the United States, I hate to say that.”
In his yearly address to the Vatican Diplomatic Corps on Monday, Pope Francis decried the breakdown of society “spawning violence and death.” Referencing the “tragic slayings which took place in Paris,” Francis blamed enslavement to “deviant forms of religion.” This fundamentalism, Francis said, which uses religion as a pretext for evil, is “born of a corrupt heart, a heart incapable of recognizing and doing good, of pursuing peace.”Shame On You, Stephen Sizer! Shame On You!
One sees the “tragic consequences” of this mentality “in the never-ending spread of conflicts,” Francis said. “Like a true world war fought piecemeal, they affect, albeit in different forms and degrees of intensity, a number of areas in our world.”
Francis said that his thoughts “turn above all to the Middle East, beginning with the beloved land of Jesus which I had the joy of visiting last May, and for whose peace we constantly pray.”
“The Middle East,” the Pope said, is tragically embroiled in “conflicts which have lasted far too long, with chilling repercussions, due also to the spread of fundamentalist terrorism in Syria and in Iraq.”
Soon they will rest in the soil of Eretz Israel, in the same cemetery as four of the victims of the Islamist monster who targeted a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, the four victims of the Islamist monster who deliberately made Jews his target, and blasted them to death in a kosher supermarket in Paris while other terrified hostages cowered. They were (from right to left in the picture) a retired gentleman, a teacher, and two young men who had their entire adult lives ahead of them, one of whom, Yoav, was the son of the chief rabbi of Tunis. The other, Yohan, was killed when he made a heroic attempt to disarm the Islamist monster.Conspiracy Theorists Blame Paris Attack on Israel
Indeed, it appears that Elsa Cayat, the only woman slaughtered at the Charlie Hebdo offices, was killed owing to her Jewishness (video interview with her cousin, who also tells how Elsa had been receiving antisemitic death threats over her association with the magazine). No other woman at Charlie Hebdo was murdered by the killers, who reportedly had a self-declared policy of sparing women.
In addition, it's widely assumed, certainly by the school administration itself, that the supermarket monster who killed a young policewoman and blasted a council worker in the face.had been on his way to cause mayhem and carnage at a Jewish primary school around the corner.
I've a little more to say on the topic of France in the wake of the recent atrocities, but right now I'd like to bring readers' attention to the shameful behaviour of the Anglican vicar of Virginia Water, the Reverend Stephen Sizer, who's been posting his usual propaganda against Israel with breakneck speed.
Among all of these par-for-the-course items he has also posted items that have more than a whiff of the sewer about them, and are surely unworthy of a professed Christian, let alone a man of the cloth. Shame on him. And that goes double for some of his followers.
The Free Gaza movement of Berlin and Hughes-Thompson boasts endorsements from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and MIT professor Noam Chomsky, even as prominent commentators have called for Tutu in particular to disassociate himself from the movement since Berlin’s anti-Semitism came to light.IsraellyCool: Abbas Bombing
Meanwhile, the same conspiracy theories about the Charlie Hebdo killings began circulating in other popular radical forums. Anonymous Kollektiv, a German spin-off of the online hacking group, told its more than 660,000 Facebook followers that “The precision with which the perpetrators acted brings to mind Mossad hit squads from the recent past,” and offered evidence of a joint CIA-Mossad “false flag” operation. In case this wasn’t clear enough, Anonymous then posted a picture of a smiling Benjamin Netanyahu, alongside a quotation of him criticizing France’s recognition of Palestine.
The idea that Israel carried out the massacre became so widespread that it was picked up by a more reputable publication, the International Business Times, which gave a respectful airing to the possibility in a piece titled “Charlie Hebdo Attack and Mossad Link: Is Israel Venting Its Fury For France’s Recognition of Palestine State?” After public outcry from readers and journalists, the article was taken down and replaced with a forthright apology deeming the piece “beneath our standards” and a “basic lapse in judgement.”
On Sunday, I posted about Mahmoud Abbas’ presence at the Paris solidarity rally in honor of the terror attack victims and noted him smiling like a Cheshire cat.Nigerian Archbishop: After Paris Massacre, ‘Do Not Forget that We Are Here’
Heads of state attend the solidarity march (Marche Republicaine) in the streets of Paris
Highly inappropriate, but then again, so was his very presence at the rally.
So incensed have I been that I stewed on it yesterday and came up with the idea to start an Abbas-bombing meme. The idea: placing smiling Abbas at the scene of various tragedies and atrocities. (h/t Yoel)
Learning of the massive international response to the recent Islamist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Ignatius Kaigama, the Archbishop of Jos, wonders whether the world has forgotten about Nigerians who suffer the ongoing assault of Boko Haram.'Terrified' Ten Year Old Girls Used as Suicide Bombers by Boko Haram
“Do not forget that we are here,” Kaigam pleads. “Hundreds of people have been killed, and thousands have been displaced and have place no place to live. We need help and practical support for put an end to these attacks.”
On Sunday, as many as 3 million people, including 40 world leaders, filled the streets of Paris in an unprecedented rally for unity after two separate terrorist attacks claimed 17 innocent lives last week. The rally was the largest demonstration in France’s history, and the French ministry said the demonstrators were so numerous they spread beyond the official route, making them impossible to count.
The same day that Islamic radicals attacked the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram laid siege to Baga, a city that had held out against them. The militants went on a killing spree, burning buildings to the ground and murdering residents indiscriminately, leaving a death toll exceeding 2,000. Hundreds more plunged into Lake Chad in an attempt to swim to a nearby island. Many drowned along the way and some 20,000 others are now displaced.
Two young girls killed at least three people yesterday when they blew themselves up in a market place in Potiskum, northern Nigeria. They were thought to have been around ten years of age. The attack comes just days after another young girl killed herself in a similar attack in Maiduguri, Nigeria. It is thought that Boko Haram are behind the deadly explosions.Bipartisan Momentum Grows for Halt to US Funding of Palestinian Authority
In Potiskum, at mid-afternoon yesterday, an explosion went off in an open market place where mobile phones are sold. According to sources at the local hospital, three people were killed, excluding the two bombers, and 46 were injured, although United Press International are putting the figure at six dead.
“I saw their dead bodies. They are two young girls of about 10 years of age … you only see the plaited hair and part of the upper torso,” said Sani Abdu Potiskum, a trader at the market, according to Al Jazeera.
A security official who took part in the rescue operation said: “The second bomber was terrified by the explosion and she tried to dash across the road but she also exploded.”
US Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Bob Corker (R-TN) on Friday released a joint statement calling on the US government to defund the Palestinian Authority (PA) over its decision to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas in Turkey vows to return to Security Council with renewed statehood bid
At the same time, three Republican senators who are rumored to be running for president in 2016—Marco Rubio (FL), Rand Paul (KY), and Ted Cruz (TX)—have similar stances on how the ICC bid should affect American funding to the PA, with Paul going so far as initiating a bill to end that funding.
The PA will become the 123rd member of the ICC on April 1, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Jan. 6. But for the Palestinians’ membership to become official, the ICC must make a decision on the legal question of whether or not the PA has the status of a state.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Monday that the Palestinians would become full members of the International Criminal Court as of April 1.Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas threatens to exit national unity government with PA
Abbas made the announcement during a joint press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
Abbas said that the Palestinians would soon go back to the UN Security Council to seek a resolution establishing a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.
“We’ll go back to the Security Council after consulting with our brothers and friends,” Abbas said.
Hamas announced on Monday that it has taken a “political decision” to abandon the national consensus government with the Palestinian Authority.Confusing The World With the Facts on “Palestine”
The announcement came amid rising tensions between Hamas and the PA following the latter’s refusal to pay salaries to Palestinians employed by the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.
The two rival parties are also continuing to fight over responsibility for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following Operation Protective Edge.
Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri accused the PA government of turning its back on the Gaza Strip.
He said that in light of the decision not to pay Hamas public workers, his movement has taken a “political decision” to quit the government, which was established following last year’s reconciliation pact between the two parties.
The Arabs invented a special national entity in the 1960s called the Palestinians, specifically for political gain. They brand Israelis as invaders and claim the geographic area called Palestine belongs exclusively to the Arabs.Police close Islamic charities that ‘instigated unrest’ on Temple Mt.
The word Palestine is not even Arabic. It is a word coined by the Romans around 135 CE from the name of a seagoing Aegean people who settled on the coast of Canaan in antiquity – the Philistines. The name was chosen to replace Judea, as a sign that Jewish sovereignty had been eradicated following the Jewish revolts against Rome at that time.
In the course of time, the Latin name Philistia was further bastardized into Palistina or Palestine. During the next 2,000 years, What had been renamed Palestine was never an independent state belonging to any people, nor did a Palestinian people, distinct from other Arabs, appear during 1,300 years of Muslim hegemony in Palestine under Arab and Ottoman rule.
Palestine was and is solely a geographic name. Therefore, it is not surprising that in modern times the name ‘Palestine’ or ‘Palestinian’ was applied as an adjective to all inhabitants of the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River – Palestine Jews and Palestine Arabs alike. In fact, until the 1960s, most Arabs in Palestine preferred to identify themselves merely as part of the great Arab nation or citizens of “southern Syria.”
Israeli security officials closed three Nazareth charities Monday for allegedly provoking tensions on the Temple Mount.Two east Jerusalem men convicted of plotting to bomb Mamilla open mall in Jerusalem
Authorities said the charities, which belonged to the radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement, were used to undermine Israeli security at the Temple Mount and inflame recent tensions between Arabs and Israel’s security forces.
Palestinian activists were allegedly paid by the groups to visit the compound on a daily basis, taunt Jewish visitors and otherwise foment unrest at the site, according to investigators from the Shin Bet and anti-corruption police unit Lahav 443.
Two Hamas members who plotted to bomb the Mamilla mall in downtown Jerusalem during the High Holy Days in 2013 were convicted Monday by the Jerusalem District Court of terrorism charges.Rock-Throwing Terrorists Injure Two Women
The two – Ahmad Rishak, 23, from Shuafat, and Ismail Abu Mfalfal, 27, from Abu Dis – were indicted in September 2013. The court’s three-judge panel comprised Judges Zvi Segel, Ben Tzion Greenberg, and Arnon Darel.
Both men were convicted of conspiracy to aid an enemy during war and attempted manufacturing of a weapon.
They were not charged with attempted murder, which carries a more serious sentence, because they were caught early in the planning stage.
Rock attacks on vehicles in Judea and Samaria continued Monday after Palestinians threw stones at a car near Shilo Junction in Binyamin.Israeli Arab who crossed into Syria 'captured, tortured by Assad security forces'
The passengers, two women from the Yitzhar village in Samaria, were both injured.
As a result of the rocks, one woman was struck in her stomach, the other in her head. Both are fully conscious.
Magen David Adom teams were called to the scene where they provided medical treatment to the two women.
IDF soldiers arrived and began searching the area for perpetrators.
Security forces arrested an Israeli Arab in December who had returned to the country after attempting to join a jihadist group in Syria, but instead was captured by Assad regime security forces and tortured, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said on Monday.Hamas workers in Gaza begin sit-in over salary dispute
The Shin Bet named Yousef Yaakub Nasrallah, 20, of Kalansuwa, in central Israel, as the suspect. Nasrallah was arrested at the Jordan River crossing (also known as the Sheikh Hussein crossing).
During subsequent questioning, he confessed to traveling to Syria via Jordan on April 19.
Nasrallah was arrested by Syrian regime security forces hours after crossing into Syria and underwent multiple interrogations, during which he was asked to pass on information on Israeli security installations.
Nasrallah suffered extreme torture during the interrogations and returned to Israel after his release in a poor state of health, the Shin Bet said, stressing that it only began questioning him after receiving authorization from doctors, who carried out thorough medical examinations.
Hundreds of Hamas employees began a sit-in in front of the headquarters of the Palestinian unity government in Gaza on Tuesday, vowing to stay until their salaries were paid.Hizbullah Secretary-General Nasrallah Compares Bahraini Rulers to Zionists
“Our sit-in is peaceful and we do not want to destroy public property, but we will stay here until our members are recognized and their salaries paid,” union spokesman Khalil al-Zayan said.
Zayan noted that staff recruited by the former Hamas administration had not received any wages for seven months.
“They can no longer support their families, this is unacceptable,” he said of the crisis looming over a spring reconciliation agreement between the Islamist group and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement.
Hassan Nasrallah is no champion of free speech
It is not surprising that a merchant of death like Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, has attempted to use the terrorist attack on the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo to burnish the public image of his group. Nasrallah claimed Sunni takfirist groups, such as those assumed to have carried out the attack, had insulted the Prophet Muhammad more severely than those they attacked ever had.Iranian Ayatollah Khatami in Response to Paris Terror Attacks: The West Is Responsible for Terrorism
But the truth—which everyone in our region knows—is that Hezbollah is hardly concerned with people’s freedom, nor protecting them, and that the group is not one that seeks to avoid bloodshed, or even respect the religious beliefs of others. Hezbollah, and all Iran’s allies in the region, are guilty of inflaming sectarian tensions there—and, of course, guilty of much more than that. Nasrallah claims that through carrying out the attacks in Paris, the takfirists themselves have managed to besmirch the image of the Prophet more than their enemies were ever able to. At this juncture, one might put to him the following question: why then did you, and Bashar Al-Assad, support the many marches through Lebanon and Syria which condemned the cartoons by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten depicting the Prophet Muhammad? Abdulrahman Al-Rashed has also pointed out in this paper recently how Iran issued a fatwa against the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie, threatening to kill him and arm anyone or any group willing to do so. He also reminded us how “Iran, which fumed over Rushdie’s novel, also allows thousands of books to be printed each year which directly insult the Prophet’s companions.”
Saudi cleric prohibits snowmen
In the wake of a large storm that covered large swaths of the Middle East in snow, a prominent Saudi cleric has issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, forbidding “un-Islamic” snowmen with facial features, Reuters reported Monday.Hate the NYPD? Blame Israel
Asked after the storm if it is permissible under Islamic law to fashion snowmen, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid reportedly replied that “if the snowman has clear facial features, then… it is prohibited,” adding that “a similar ruling applies to figures that are made out of dough and other sweets.”
However, the sheikh added, “if the head is cut off or the features are erased, then the prohibition no longer applies.” Snowmen are only allowed if they resemble a “three-dimensional figure with no features,” he said.
Taking Israel-hating to loony new heights, activists stood on the steps of City Hall Monday to attack members of the City Council for having the temerity to visit the Jewish state.NIAC Board Should Denounce Anti-Semitic Fundraising
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and 14 members will make the trip in February. (Taxpayers won’t be footing the bill.)
Enter Jews Against Islamophobia, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, the Direct Action Front for Palestine and other groups — who have added a new count to their shopworn indictments of the Jewish state: Israel is bad because its security forces have cooperated with the New York Police Department.
Read that again. The delusional double-smear makes no more sense the second time.
The rantings are of a piece with protests that linked the fatal police shooting in Ferguson and the Middle East — because St. Louis cops had traveled to Israel for invaluable training exercises. Suddenly, crazies chanted Ferguson was Gaza, and Gaza Ferguson.
The thinking, which belongs on the wacko fringe, gets a serious hearing in today’s New York. What a joke.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a group which consistently lobbies to end sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran, has a new fundraising plea out on Facebook, which asks “Should the U.S. Congress follow Israel’s lead on #Iran, or yours?” Accompanying the question is a photo suggesting that Senator Lindsey Graham is telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Congress will take marching orders from him.UK charity loses government funding over alleged links to Hamas, Brotherhood
The “We will follow your lead” Graham quote was taken out of context and then promoted by the Ron Paul Institute and notorious racist David Duke. That’s probably not the company that most Iranian Americans want to keep, but for NIAC it’s nothing out of the ordinary. While NIAC claims to be mainstream (and has been welcomed into the White House under the Obama administration), it consistently aligns itself with not only Ron Paul, but also fringe or hard-left organizations like Code Pink and WarIsACrime.org. As for the Graham speech from which NIAC pulls its suggestion that Netanyahu is directing American policy, here it is:
The Muslim Charities Forum has been stripped of £250,000 ($380,000) funding by Britain’s Communities Secretary Eric Pickles after its alleged links with extremist organizations were discovered.Interpal Bradford’s Man: Time for Awlaki
The UK charity had been given the funds for running a major faith project, but when Pickles was advised of its alleged involvement with Islamic extremism, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, initially uncovered by the Daily Telegraph, further government investigations followed. This triggered wider concerns and criticism of its links, including the use of extremist speakers around the UK.
Pickles told the Sunday Telegraph he was determined to cut off funding to any group that is linked to “individuals who fuel hatred, division and violence.”
Established in 2007, the Muslim Charities Forum has acted as an umbrella group for Muslim aid organizations that operate in 71 countries, with a combined income of £108 million. It supports member groups by acting as a voice for the sector and by providing training, research and a central point of contact for other Muslim organizations.
Readers of this blog may recall a man named Ibrahim Dar, who also goes by Ebrahim Darr. He works for the registered charity Interpal in Bradford.UN to hold meeting on growth of anti-Semitism
Interpal serves Hamas. Here is Mr Dar himself meeting the charity’s master, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. Oh happy days for Mr Dar.
Let’s take a look now at Dar’s activities since the atrocities in Paris. His thoughts turned to one of his favourite men: al-Qaeda preacher and recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki.
Over the past three days Dar has posted three Awlaki videos on his own Facebook page and on “Youth Talk Dawah”, an Islamist propaganda operation he runs.
This one is particularly disturbing. Awlaki tells Muslims they must show their love for Mohammed by following his actions and not by making statements alone. These actions include “jihad in the path of Allah”. This is raw incitement to the worst terrorist violence of the very kind we have just seen in Paris.
The UN General Assembly will hold an informal meeting on the growth of anti-Semitism on January 22 in response to a request from dozens of nations, including Israel, the United States and all European Union members.Russia: Putin wasn’t invited to Auschwitz ceremony
The 37 countries sent a letter to assembly President Sam Kutesa on October 1 calling for a meeting in response to “an alarming outbreak of anti-Semitism worldwide.” That was well before last week’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor said Monday: “We have a great deal of work to do to move this issue from the headlines to the history books.”
The killing of four French Jews in last week’s hostage standoff at the Paris kosher market was just the latest to raise fears among European Jews. It follows killings at a Belgian Jewish Museum and a Jewish school in southwestern France.
The January 22 meeting will feature a keynote address by French philosopher and author Bernard Henri Levy and speeches by representatives from several countries.
The Kremlin says President Vladimir Putin hasn’t been invited to a ceremony in Poland marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops.China's Hainan Airlines to launch Tel Aviv-Beijing route
The Interfax news agency quoted Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Tuesday that Putin hasn’t received an invitation and therefore will not attend the event later this month.
China's Hainan Airlines has filed a request with Israel's Civil Aviation Authority to operate three weekly direct flights between Beijing and Tel Aviv from September.Cleaning up Negev oil spill with new tech
The flights will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, days on which Israel's El Al Airlines does not operate flights on the Tel Aviv-Beijing route.
The move by Hainan Airlines, China's fourth-largest airline overall and largest privately owned one, to launch a Tel Aviv-Beijing route is the result of efforts by Tourism Minister Uzi Landau, Tourism Ministry Director-General Amir Halevy and Israeli Ambassador to China Matan Vilnai.
Over the past year, Israeli officials highlighted to Hainan Airlines officials the economic viability of operating regular flights between Beijing and Ben-Gurion International Airport. Until now, only El Al has operated flights on this route.
In one of the worst environmental disasters in Israel’s history, between three and five million liters of raw crude oil gushed from a burst pipeline near the Evrona Nature Reserve in the Arava Desert on December 3 last year.Tensions aside, Israel and Egypt do booming business
In the chaotic days that followed, nature authorities employed many methods in the desperate race to contain the four-mile river of toxic oil and mitigate the deadly damage it caused to the Evrona’s plants and wildlife. This emergency also provided an unexpected opportunity for Israeli innovators to test their solutions for treating contaminated soil, and results have been encouraging.
Prof. Yoel Sasson tells ISRAEL21c that he and Dr. Uri Stoin from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem set up a pilot trial together with the Swiss Man Oil Group (MOG) to test their breakthrough technology for treating contaminated soil. Less than a year ago, MOG licensed the solution from Yissum, the university’s technology-transfer company, and has been using it to clean up polluted sites from Siberia to Nigeria.
Sasson and Stoin’s chemical reagent spray quickly decomposes hydrocarbon molecules from the oil into carbon dioxide and water, which are safe in nature and sewage systems.
Despite the ongoing talk of boycotts against Israeli products, trade between Israel and the rest of the world continues apace – sometimes in the most surprising of places, according to Ohad Cohen, who heads the Foreign Trade Administration in the Israeli Economy Ministry.Israel and India sign agricultural pact
For example, there’s Israel’s annual $100 million trade with Egypt, the result of an economic deal worked out in 2004 between Israel, Egypt, and the US.
“Our QIZ agreement with Egypt keeps getting stronger,” said Cohen, referring to the Qualifying Industrial Zone. “It was strong under the Mubarak administration, but surprisingly got even stronger when Mohammed Morsi took over the leadership of Egypt in 2012 – and now, with Abdel el-Sissi leading the country, it continues to flourish.”
India and Israel have signed a joint agreement to implement the third phase of the agriculture cooperation project for next three years.Alcoa, Israeli company collaborate on aluminum-air battery
A joint declaration 'the Indo-Israel Agricultural Cooperation Project ( IIAP) entering its third phase' was signed on the sidelines of the 'Vibrant Gujarat' summit by Israel's Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir, an official statement said.
In a meeting with India's Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kalyanjibhai Kundariya, the Israeli Minister reviewed the 'Joint Agriculture Project' being implementing in the country since 2008.
The two countries recognised the need to extend the existing cooperation, the statement added.
India and Israel have agreed to establish a 'joint team' to finalise the 'third phase' of the three years action plan (2015-2018) for further strengthening and widening the scope of bilateral agricultural development cooperation between the two countries, said Indian government officials.
Aluminum's light weight is giving Alcoa Inc. a leg up on other metals in making vehicles go farther on a gallon of gas, but the world's most abundant metal may help motorists drive even longer distances without using any gasoline.
Alcoa has been working for two years with Phinergy Inc. of Israel on technology that taps energy in aluminum. The aluminum-air battery would work in tandem with a lithium-ion main battery, recharging it to extend the range of hybrid and electric vehicles by 1,000 miles, they say.
A “breakthrough” by Phinergy removed a roadblock and raised hope that the technology, abandoned in the 1980s by researchers, can become a reality, Alcoa's chief technology officer said.
“This is a substantial technology,” Alcoa's Ray Kilmer said. “When we saw it, we said, ‘Wow. That's the opportunity to make the aluminum-air battery work.' ”
