Melanie Phillips: The Obama doctrine says ‘Israel’s enemy is my friend’
The brouhaha over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed address to the US Congress next month is simply jaw-dropping.Carline Glick: Hamas and the nexus of global jihad
Uproar ensued after Netanyahu was invited by the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner. Democrats have been furiously accusing the prime minister of crude Israeli electioneering. In Israel itself, he has come under widespread attack for putting the delicate relationship between Israel and the Obama administration at risk.
What planet are these people living on? The issue, and it could hardly be more urgent or grave, is not Netanyahu’s behavior. The issue is how to stop Iran.
It is astounding to claim that Netanyahu is putting the relationship with Obama at risk. The wholly artificial storm whipped up by the White House merely illustrates once again Obama’s sustained malice toward Israel, the invaluable bulwark of Western defenses in the Middle East, while he empowers Iran and other enemies of America and the free world.
That is what everyone should be talking about.
In its war against Sunni and Shi’ite jihadist forces that threaten to destroy Egypt, and among other things, cause mass harm to the global economy by imperiling maritime traffic, Egypt finds itself betrayed by the Obama administration.Galloway on Question Time
Last month, just a few days before the Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long and uncompromising jihad” against Egypt, leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood met with senior US officials at the State Department. In response to a reporter’s question about the meeting, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki insisted that despite the Brotherhood’s call for holy war against the US’s closest Arab ally, the administration has no regrets about meeting, and so conferring legitimacy and implying US support for the Brotherhood in its war against the Sisi government.
Opposition leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni have based their electoral campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on blaming him for the crisis in Israel’s relations with the White House. It is hard to think of a more cynical, destructive allegation.
As the administration’s continued embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood despite its full membership in the terrorist nexus that threatens the US and all of its closest allies, along with its desperate courtship of the Iranian mullahs, makes clear, the Obama administration has chosen to appease rather than combat America’s worst enemies.
Perhaps the most sympathetic interpretation of Livni’s and Herzog’s unwarranted and harmful assaults against Netanyahu is that they simply cannot accept that the world has changed.
But the trends are clear. The only responsible thing that Israel can do is to act accordingly.
Today Israel’s closest ally is Egypt. Under Obama, the US is a force to be worked around, not worked with.
There was a worrying and thinly veiled menace in some of Galloway’s remarks. He warned the audience that he and those who support him would resent this section of the programme. He went on to claim that Islamophobia was a bigger problem than antisemitism – that’s both debatable (not that it’s a competition), and beside the point. He implied that those present cared more about antisemitism than anti-Muslim bigotry. This accusation was gratuitous, groundless and divisive. In fact Jonathan Freedland, in particular, has often spoken out against attacks on Muslims. This was particularly worrying.Guardian editor accuses George Galloway of fueling antisemitism
‘I beg you, don’t conflate Zionism, Israel and Jews in London. It’s a very dangerous thing to do.’ … ’It’s a very dangerous game that you are playing here – very, very dangerous’
Again, there’s an implication that Zionist Jews, and Jews who support Israel (and of course you can be a Zionist and supporter of Israel while having strong reservations about the Likud government) are in some way responsible for antisemitism – although one might ask what Zionism has to do with a Kosher supermarket.
Tristram Hunt got an enthusiastic round of applause from the Finchley audience when he pointed out that this is not an arms race between Islamophobia and antisemitism. Galloway, by contrast, seemed intent on stirring up antagonism between Jews and Muslims.
What’s remarkable about the Feb. 5th episode of BBC’s Question Time (from Finchley in north London) is not only that senior Guardian editor Jonathan Freedland criticizes George Galloway for using rhetoric which fuels antisemitism, but that Galloway then proceeds to lash out at the entire British Jewish community.Galloway on Question time
Turkey pulls out of Munich defense conference because of Israel
Turkey is declining to attend an upcoming security conference in Munich due to the expected participation of Israeli officials, Ankara's foreign minister told the Anadolu news agency on Friday.Iranian diplomat in Uruguay said linked to Israeli Embassy blast
The Munich Security Conference is an annual event that brings together some of the world's top policy makers in foreign and defense policy.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was due to attend the conference, which is scheduled to begin on Friday. He told reporters in Berlin that he had withdrawn from the event after he had learned that Israeli representatives would also be present.
This year's meeting is expected to draw 20 heads of states as well as 60 foreign and defense ministers.
"But, we have decided not to participate in the Munich Security Conference because they have subsequently invited Israeli representatives to the Middle East session," Cavusoglu said.
A senior Iranian diplomat in Uruguay was suspected of involvement in planting a small bomb outside the Israeli Embassy in Montevideo several weeks ago, and was subsequently expelled, Haaretz reported Friday, citing sources in Jerusalem.Obama Lectures Religious Leaders: Can't 'Get On Our High Horse' About Extremism
On January 8, an improvised explosive device was discovered outside the Israeli Embassy. At the time, officials insisted the device was a fake, but according to Haaretz, the makeshift bomb partially detonated and was later neutralized by police. There were no injuries in the attack.
The Uruguay intelligence services linked the bombing to an official in the Iranian Embassy, and two weeks ago, following consultations with Tehran, the envoy left the country.
An official in Jerusalem told the Hebrew daily that Israel was updated on the Iranian diplomat’s expulsion, but said Uruguay sought to keep the matter under wraps.
President Obama used the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday as an opportunity to remind religious leaders that radical Islamists are not the only group in history to enact violence in the name of religion. Citing Jim Crow laws and the Crusades, Obama specifically directed his remarks to Christianity, which he suggested had its own extremists too.JPost Editorial: Obama’s retreat
In his remarks on religious extremism, the president said that though religion can be a source for good, adherents of all faiths have at times been willing to "hijack religion" to rationalize "their own murderous ends." To illustrate his point, Obama pointed to past abuses of Christianity:
Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.
So it is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a simple tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.
Putting aside for the moment the question of whether Netanyahu should go through with his speech – which is expected to be critical of the Obama administration’s policy vis-à-vis Tehran – the fact remains that a majority of Israelis are sincerely concerned that the White House has lost its resolve to stop the Islamic Republic’s march to nuclear weapons capability. This concern is well-founded.Shmuley Boteach: Why J Street’s Ben-Ami was forced to apologize to Dermer on CNN
Israel, the Saudis, the Jordanians and other American allies in the Middle East that would be directly threatened if Iran’s mullahs have weapons of mass destruction look around warily at President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and see few reasons to be optimistic.
In May 2009, Obama promised during his first joint press conference with Netanyahu at the White House, “We’re not going to have talks forever. We’re not going to create a situation in which talks become an excuse for inaction while Iran proceeds with developing a nuclear – and deploying a nuclear weapon.”
Yet six years later, Obama has little to show for his policy of engagement with the mullahs. The Iranians continue to develop centrifuges equipped with most advanced technologies, have maintained a stockpile of enriched uranium and have refused to give in to any of the most substantive demands made by the P5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain – and Germany).
Instead of sticking to his word and setting a final deadline for negotiations, Obama has insisted on leaving open the possibility for indefinite talks. He vows to veto a bipartisan bill that would take the modest step of replacing sanctions lifted after the signing of the 2013 Joint Plan of Action if Iran remains intransigent through June, when the third deadline for the interim agreement expires.
What was supposed to be a six-month interim agreement is in its 13th month and there is no end in sight.
I responded that there was nothing new in Bibi addressing Congress and indeed I was personally present when he did so in May 2011. I added that in America we threw out the divine right of kings a quarter of a millennium ago.Rabbi Shmuley Boteach defends Israel's Ambassador on CNN
President Obama deserves respect.
But when the issues are Iran’s nukes and its genocidal ambitions against the six million Jews of Israel, then the prime minister has a responsibility to take his message wherever it will be heard. And if the president feels offended no doubt he’ll get over it. But if Iran gets a nuclear bomb Israel will not get over it.
Smerconish then went to Ben- Ami, who immediately and savagely attacked Ambassador Ron Dermer as having cynically orchestrated the prime minister’s address to kneecap President Obama.
I was stunned.
Ambassador Dermer is my former student and one of my closest friends. He is also one of the people I most admire in the whole world. A stalwart, eloquent champion of his people, he is a man of iron conviction and righteous principle. Few men are as upstanding.
I went on the attack.
Memo Reveals Plan of U.S.-Funded Groups to Influence the Israeli Elections
A coalition of U.S.-funded progressive groups has planned a massive get-out-the-vote effort to influence the Israeli elections, targeting communities that are most likely to vote against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-leaning Likud Party, according to a confidential strategy memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.V15 Opens Office in Jerusalem
The U.S.-based 501(c)(3) group Ameinu sent out the fundraising proposal for the campaign to American donors on Dec. 17, 2014.
The $3 million initiative is described in the document as “a massive, non-partisan Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaign targeting selected demographic and geographic segments of Israeli society.”
The targeted groups listed in the memo—young secular Israelis, low-income secular Jews, and Arab Israelis—are communities that traditionally oppose right-leaning parties such as Likud.
The Arab Israeli community in particular is expected to play a larger role than usual in Israel’s March elections. The four major parties that represent Arab Israelis merged in January, a move that could make it easier for the left-leaning Labor Party to form a government. (h/t Yenta Press)
V15, the political campaign effort funded by the American non-profit, tax-exempt OneVoice, opened an office in Jerusalem on Thursday, the Washington Free Beacon has discovered.Herzog Blasts Bibi: Half Israeli Incomes Below National Average (satire)
The office, festooned with signs promising a change in Israeli leadership, was staffed with a few twenty-something Israelis. It is located on Shamai Street, one block over from the iconic pedestrian mall, Ben Yehuda Street, which starts just beyond the Nachlaot neighborhood and runs down to the very edges of the Old City of Jerusalem.
The only people knocking at the door of V15 on its opening day were some reporters, hoping for an interview.
The young people setting up the Jerusalem V15 office, including a male with a man-bun, were not speaking to reporters Thursday.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog laced into incumbent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the economic front today, citing Netanyahu’s failure to bring the incomes of the bottom half of Israeli households above the national average.Firebomb Terrorist Shot in the Act
Central Bureau of Statistics data indicate that during every year that Netanyahu has been in office, fully half of Israeli families failed to earn more than the median figure for all Israeli households. Herzog called a press conference to discuss the findings at the “Zionist Union” campaign headquarters, and to trumpet what he called “Bibi’s unwillingness to help struggling families.”
“It is long past time for Binyamin Netanyahu to retire from politics,” asserted Herzog, whose political alliance with Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni is polling at a dead heat with Netanyahu’s Likud. “Half of this country’s households cannot hope to bring in more than the median income. This statistic is a searing indictment of Netanyahu’s policies on the domestic front. Only a socialist-minded government that we would assemble can hope to bridge that gap.”
Herzog’s ally, former Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni, seconded his remarks. “The math is so simple I am not entirely certain why it took us this long to notice,” she said. “But as the statistics indicate, this inequality has been going on for years. “It’s a documented feature of the Israeli economy that you can see right from the day Netanyahu took office.”
IDF forces on Thursday night opened fire on an Arab terrorist who hurled a potentially lethal firebomb at soldiers adjacent to the town of Kokhav Ya'akov in the Binyamin region of Samaria.Terrorist Shot Trying to Snatch a Soldier's Gun
The terrorist was wounded, with his condition being defined as between lightly and moderately wounded.
He was nevertheless able to flee the scene and make it on his own to a hospital in Ramallah, the stronghold of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
An Arab terrorist in his 20s on Thursday evening tried to steal the weapon of a Border Patrol officer at the entrance to the Border Patrol base in Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hevron in Judea.Israeli Driver Attacked Near Hebrew U
The terrorist was shot in the leg and lightly wounded.
He was then arrested and is currently being administered with medical treatment at the site. Security forces will then take him in for investigation.
Two stabbing attempts were foiled on Sunday at Hevron's Cave of Machpelah where the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs are buried.
An Israeli driver was attacked by about 25 Arab rioters who were lying in wait to attack Jewish cars – just 300 meters from Hebrew University. Koby Goldstein was on his way to pick up his children in the Maale Zeitim neighborhood of Jerusalem the News1 site reported Thursday night, when over two dozen Arabs emerged as he turned a corner entering the Abu Tor neighborhood.Zionist Camp joins bid to ban Hanin Zoabi from running
Fortunately for Goldstein, he was driving an armored vehicle, which was able to withstand the onslaught of large stones and rocks the Arabs lobbed at the vehicle. Still they tried to damage the vehicle, using sticks and poles to try to break in the windows.
The left-of-center Zionist Camp Knesset list on Thursday signed on to an initiative to disqualify the controversial Arab Israeli Knesset member Hanin Zoabi from running in the elections in March. Zoabi, of the Joint Arab List, has already been sanctioned over past comments that were deemed inflammatory, and a six-month ban against her participating in Knesset debates expired last Thursday.Israeli Christian Leader Calls Out Teachers’ Union Pamphlet That Incites Against IDF
In a statement, the Zionist Camp, which united the Labor Party and its leader, MK Isaac Herzog, with MK Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party, said that it would also seek to bar the far-right activist Baruch Marzel from running for parliament.
Father Gabriel Nadaf, who advocates for Christian enlistment into the IDF as the spiritual leader of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, has raised concerns with Israeli Teachers’ Union Chairman Yossi Wasserman and the Israeli Education Ministry about an Arabic-language union pamphlet distributed to teachers that includes a story encouraging readers to harm Israeli soldiers.In first, Palestinian-Israeli soccer cooperation
In a complaint, Nadaf wrote, “To my astonishment, I came across the July-August 2014 edition of a pamphlet called the ‘Echo of Education,’ written in Arabic, and published by the Teachers’ Union and funded by the Education Ministry, in which, on Page 26, there is a story more inciting than any Palestinian resistance literature I have seen. … It is a story in which the protagonist is an 8-month-old fetus in the womb of a Palestinian mother, ‘who, like all the other women in the village, stands before wild soldiers armed with lethal weapons.’ The author writes that if the fetus could express itself, it would say, ‘Oh Mother, I am an 8-month-old fetus but I would love to die as a martyr in the struggle against the occupation. I don’t want my mother to die at the hands of the soldiers, which would make me only a passive martyr.”
Until recently, the Palestinian association refused to cooperate with the Israel Football Association, hampering attempts by Palestinian players to transfer between the two leagues.The Palestinian Authority Has No Future Leader
The Palestinian soccer group issued Mohammad Zuabi and Mohammad Fudi transfer certificates Monday, freeing them to “pursue sports activities and register with another national association affiliated to FIFA.”
The decision is likely related to previous complaints Israeli officials lodged with FIFA over the Palestinian refusal to cooperate, as stipulated under FIFA rules.
Mohammad Zuabi will be allowed to move from his Palestinian team of Shabab Yatta to the northern Israeli club of Sandala Gilboa, part of the fourth tier of the Israeli soccer league system. Mohammad Fudi will leave his Hebron team in favor of the Beitar Tel Aviv-Ramla club, playing in the second tier of the Israeli system.
Despite frequently toying with the idea of a No. 2, however, Abbas has yet to make such a move. In part, that’s likely because the president is not a fan of competition—when he learned, last year, that his arch-rival, the former Gaza security chief Muhammad Dahlan, was sponsoring a group wedding in the embattled strip, Abbas spent more than a million dollars to overshadow his political enemy with a bigger, snazzier wedding. But even if Abbas were to awaken to the benefits of appointing and nurturing successors, it’s unclear exactly whom he would nurture and appoint. Salam Fayyad, the mild-mannered economist whose emphasis on good governance and economic growth catapulted him to the prime minister’s office in 2007, resigned in 2013 after tensions with Abbas became untenable. Even though he was popular with Palestinian voters and credited by the World Bank with strengthening a number of key state institutions, it’s unlikely he’ll get a shot at the throne. The same is true for Dahlan. There’s Marwan Barghouti, currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his involvement in three terrorist attacks that killed five people, and Majid Faraj, the Palestinian chief of intelligence, who is well-liked by Israeli and American officials but who may not possess the qualities necessary to rise from a senior military post to the leadership of the Palestinian people.Abbas to Visit Fatah Leader Hospitalized in Israel
“The problem with all of these possible candidates is that they cannot put their hat in the ring until Mahmoud Abbas steps down, dies, or is incapacitated,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and our finest observer, perhaps, of the Palestinian Authority. “He does not stand for political challengers. This has led to an utterly stagnant political environment in Ramallah. And that’s before you look to Gaza, where Hamas has stifled the political environment completely. The bottom line here is that the Palestinians are suffering from political paralysis under Abbas and Hamas.”
With no one on deck at the PA, any talk of moving forward with a diplomatic process is moot. Agreements, by their very nature, depend on both sides knowing that the other is stable and likely to honor the terms of the deal regardless of political tribulations. Rather than attempt to engineer the terms of a future peace deal, those concerned about stability in the region should adopt a much more modest goal: insist that the PA come up with a viable plan for succession, one that would assure Palestinians, Israelis, and the world at large that whatever agreement ends up being signed is likely to be honored no matter who is at the PA’s helm.
Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade terrorist organizations - but apparently that isn't going to stop him being allowed to visit a senior Fatah member receiving treatment in an Israeli hospital.Khaled Abu Toameh: Gaza groups condemn Egypt's branding of Hamas as terror group
Senior Fatah member Zakaria Alala is currently hospitalized in Petah Tikva's Beilinson Hospital, where he is being treated for kidney failure and other health issues, apparently at the expense of Israeli taxpayers.
Health system sources revealed to Channel 2 that the hospital is preparing for the possibility that Abbas will visit Alala in the very near future; the hospital refused to comment on the issue when queried.
As shocking as the prospect of Abbas visiting an Israeli hospital with total impugnity is, it in fact isn't the first time he has benefited from Israeli medical services.
Various armed groups in the Gaza Strip on Thursday condemned an Egyptian court’s decision to ban Hamas’s military wing, Izzadin Kassam.Egypt’s War in the Sinai Peninsula: A Struggle that Goes beyond Egypt
Masked representatives told reporters during a press conference in Gaza City that the Palestinians do not meddle in the internal affairs of Arab countries, including Egypt.
“The [Egyptian] decision serves the interests of Israel,” they said, referring to the court ruling that the Hamas military wing is a terrorist group. “The decision also causes harm to the Egyptian people,” they added, calling on Egyptians to reject it and support Palestinian “resistance” groups.
The armed groups called on Palestinians to stage protests against the Egyptian court’s ruling following Friday prayers.
Egypt is in the midst of a war that can be categorized as a low-intensity conflict. This category represents a common pattern of military campaigns in the early twenty-first century: sub-conventional wars fought by armies and security services belonging to states against armies of terrorilla- fully armed and hierarchical organizations that operate among civilian populations, combining guerilla and terror warfare tactics with the logic of terrorism. Egypt’s campaign in Sinai has tremendous significance for Israel. Any intelligence, operational, or political assistance that Israel can provide to the el-Sisi regime, including support for improving its ties with the United States and a willingness to favorably consider requests by Egypt to expand its military presence in the Sinai, will serve Israel’s security interests, the overall relationship between Israel and Egypt, and the necessary international campaign to block the spread of IS and its partners.Jordan Fights the Enemy, and It's Not Israel
Following the brutal execution of a captive Jordanian pilot at the hands of ISIS, this would be the perfect time for sensible Arab leaders to realize that all along they’ve been mistaken. The enemy was never the Jews. The enemy came from within their tents, and it was always so.MEMRI: Hamas Reaction To ISIS Execution Of Jordanian Pilot: We Condemn It, But Jordan Is To Blame
Think of the benefits if they would only smarten up to that unassailable fact. We would all be in the same fight.
Blaming the Jews – for everything – is a convenience and luxury the world can no longer afford. It is getting late.
While they armed and warred against Israel, ISIS happened.
We have it no less than from the United Nations that “the Islamic State group is systematically killing, torturing and raping children and families in Iraq.” The report cites “several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive.”
That’s only Iraq.
Following ISIS's execution of Jordanian pilot Mu'adh Al-Kasasbeh by burning him alive, Hamas and its leaders condemned the act, but also took the opportunity to express their principled objection to foreign intervention in the region and to foreign military action against Muslims, and to the cooperation of Arab countries with such intervention. They held Jordan responsible for the death of the pilot due to its participation in the anti-ISIS coalition alongside Western countries. One official even said explicitly that it was forbidden to "help the enemies of Allah against the believers."Edgar Davidson: Jordanian - and world - hypocrisy over Islamic terrorists
Fatah's spokesman, in response, compared Hamas to ISIS and the Taliban.
The brutal burning execution of a Jordanian Muslim pilot by Islamic terrorists is, according to the world media, far worse than the similarly brutal murders that Islamic terrorists carry out on a daily basis in many parts of the world. Presumably, Muslim lives matter more. They certainly seem to matter a lot more than Jews murdered by Islamic terrorists.AIR JORDAN: Country Releases Video Of Its F-16s Bombing ISIS
Clearly it is so much worse than the kidnap, torture and burning of Israeli teenagers by Hamas terrorists last year. Those kids, unlike the Jordanian pilot who was actually bombing the very terrorists who captured him, posed no threat to the terrorists at all. Yet, while the world hysterically applauds Jordan for both killing Islamist prisoners in revenge and launching a massive bombing attack against ISIS, the same world (including especially Jordan) hysterically condemned Israel first for daring to arrest the Hamas terrorists who had actually killed the teenagers, and then for defending itself against the Hamas terrorists who launched a rocket war to stop the arrests.
And is this the same Jordan which, after the slaughter of Jews in a synagogue in Jerusalem in November, honoured the Islamic terrorists who carried out the attack in the opening session of their Parliament? Or even the Jordan which not only welcomed the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi behind the Sbarro restaurant massacre (which killed many children in Jerusalem in 2001) but made her into a TV celebrity after her release as part of the Gilad Shalit 'deal'. Here is Tamimi explaining - on Jordanian TV - her thrill at killing so many Jewish children:
The Jordanian military published a video online Thursday of its F-16 fleet flying sorties and bombing ISIS in retaliation for the death of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbe, who was burned to death in a video released by the militant group earlier this week.Jordanian Warplanes Fly Over Pilot’s Hometown on Return from ‘Mission’
Dozens of fighters bombed ISIS training and weapon storage sites Thursday as part of Jordan’s aggressive new campaign, which will now stretch beyond Syria and into Iraq, according to the Associated Press.
In the video, which aired on state television before being published online, Jordan said the strikes will continue ”until we eliminate them,” and showed military personnel reportedly writing ”for you, the enemies of Islam,” in chalk on the missiles of aircraft that were deployed in Thursday’s operations.
Jordanian pilots honored their dead wing man Thursday in a flyby over his hometown as they returned from an unnamed “mission,” Jordan state-run television reported.Mother of Jordanian Pilot Dies One Day After Her Son
King Abdullah II was visiting the pilot’s family in Karak also on Thursday, just two days after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror group released the barbaric video showing the captured pilot being burned alive in a cage.
Jordan’s military vowed to take full revenge on the group. The force is participating in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.
Only one day after ISIS burned Moath al-Kasasbeh alive, his mother died after growing ill from the news of her son’s horrific death.Muslim Cleric Choudary: Allah Approves Of ISIS Jordanian Pilot Burning
According to Gateway Pundit, Saafia el-Kasasbeh became heart-broken and inconsolable after video of her son being burned alive was released by ISIS.
Radical Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary, who is certainly never shy to make an opinion, echoed the claims of the ISIS murderers, saying that Allah approves of the killing, which has escalated tensions in the Middle East.ISIS Fires Cleric for Opposing Burning Alive of Jordanian Pilot
Choudary made the remarks to NewsmaxTV host Steve Malzberg Thursday afternoon, with whom the cleric has sparred with in the past.
“And what these people are saying is this is reciprocation. So they have a juristic argument to retaliate in a similar manner,” Choudary continued, “this is what Allah said in the Quran: fight them back the way that they fight you.”
“So I’m asking you, this is condoned by Muhammad?” This is what Muhammad taught and would teach? Is that what you’re saying?” asked an exasperated Malzberg. “Is this justified?”
“In defensive jihad…in this scenario, whatever the Muslims can do within the realms of the acceptable behavior, they are doing. And part of that is terrorizing the enemy.”
A Saudi cleric with the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) jihadist group has been removed from his post after objecting to the burning alive of a captured Jordanian pilot, a monitoring group said Friday.IS manifesto for women: Marriage at nine, two years’ maternity leave
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the cleric, known by the nom-de-guerre Abu Musab al-Jazrawi, raised objections during a Thursday meeting to the way pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh was killed.
"He raised objections during the weekly meeting that takes place between clerics and IS leaders in the Aleppo area," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
"He said the way Kassasbeh had been killed violated religious traditions."
Isil jihadists have published a manifesto for women living under their rule, including marriage at nine, education to the age of 15, and an escape from the harsh dictates of western feminism.Woman in ISIS ‘Blow up France’ Video May Be Linked to Attack on Jews
The document, published only in Arabic and translated by the anti-militant group Quilliam, says it is wrong to deny a woman education but that “the greatness of her position, the purpose of her existence is the Divine duty of motherhood”.
It repeatedly attacks the oppression of women in the West and elsewhere in the Arab world, describing a repeated cycle of poverty, state violence, and women having to submit to men's gaze and "receive from them what women have to when faced with men".
The document repeatedly stresses that it is supportive of women's rights - just that it has a different view of why she needs those rights.
It says women should be educated because they cannot fulfil their duty if they are illiterate or ignorant. However, the curriculum it advises focuses strongly on religious education, with sidelines in basic science, and “skills like textiles and knitting, basic cooking”.
A woman holding a rifle in a new ISIS video may be Hayat Boumeddiene, who is wanted by French authorities for possible involvement in the murderous attack on a Paris kosher deli where four people were killed by her husband, Amedy Coulibaly.Former White House Official: Administration Committed to Empowering Iran to Stabilize Region
The new video is called “Blow Up France 2″ and shows a woman with a camouflage uniform and holding a weapon.
“French authorities are investigating the possibility this woman could be Hayat Boumeddiene,” a source told CNN.
The new video encourages more terrorist attack in France as part of the “fight for Islam” against French soldiers and police officers.
President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy shows a consistent favoritism of Iran, according to an analysis written Monday by Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute.Turkish-Israeli trade booms despite harsh rhetoric
Citing the 2006 report of the Iraq Study Group, Doran’s central thesis is that Obama has embrace the report’s conclusion that Washington should work more closely with Iran and Syria because “[t]hose two regimes, supposedly, shared with Washington the twin goals of stabilizing Iraq and defeating al-Qaeda and other Sunni jihadi groups.” Doran summed up the expectation that such an alliance would bring about.
In turn, this shared interest would provide a foundation for building a concert system of states—a club of stable powers that could work together to contain the worst pathologies of the Middle East and lead the way to a sunnier future.
Put a different way, Doran wrote that the rationale behind the policy was, “To rid the world of rogues and tyrants, one must embrace and soften them.”
Doran then analyzed a number of episodes of American-Iranian engagement during the Obama administration through the lens of this worldview.
Turkey's mutual trade volume with Israel reached over $5.6 billion in 2014, representing a nearly 50 percent rise over 2009 despite lingering diplomatic tension between the two, official figures show.Israeli Businessman Jailed in Turkey Over ‘Stealing’ Bag of Soup Mix on Flight
Data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) shows that mutual trade volume reached $2.6 billion in 2009. Turkish exports to Israel jumped to $2.92 billion in 2014 from $1.5 billion in 2009, while imports from Israel increased to $2.7 billion from $1.1 billion in the same period.
The escalation in tension between Turkey and Israel after the Davos crisis, when then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stormed out of a panel discussion after lambasting Israeli President Shimon Perez, and over the Mavi Marmara attack, in which nine Turkish civilians were killed by Israeli marines who boarded a Gaza-bound flotilla ship, did not prevent trade between the two from rising steadily.
Government figures recently moved to deny the fact that Turkey and Israel are enjoying a boom in mutual trade, suggesting that much of the Turkish sales to Gaza and the West Bank also go through Israeli customs. Official data, however, reveals that only a small portion of Turkish exports to Palestine constituted total sales to Israel. In 2009, Turkey sent goods worth $29.8 million to Palestine, this figure surged to $75 million in 2013.
An Israeli businessman was arrested and spent three days in a Turkish prison because the Turkish carrier Pegasus Airlines accused him of stealing a bag of dry soup mix on a flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul.
“Never in my life was I as afraid as when I was in the prison cell,” said 57-year-old Ben Gal, who owns a perfume wholesale distribution business, Yedioth Achronoth reported.
“During the flight, I brought myself breakfast and paid the flight attendant with dollars. After a few minutes, she came back and mumbled the word ‘soup.’ I told her that I didn’t understand what she wanted from me,” Gal said.Later, the flight attendant returned with another attendant and requested that Gal empty his pockets. Annoyed at the request, Gal reportedly asked the attendants not disturb him for the remainder of the flight. After landing in Turkey, he was arrested and questioned by three detectives, first at the airport and later at a police station. Several hours later, Gal was transferred to a detention facility full of detainees from Arab nations hostile to Israel.