03/08 Links: PA praises terrorists of the 60's; Obama’s Main Achievement: Iran in Iraq

From Ian:

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PMW Palestinian terrorists of the 60s - Palestinian heroes of today

A man who attacked an Israeli plane in 1968 and a woman who placed a bomb in a movie theater in Jerusalem in 1967 are today's Palestinian heroes according to the Palestinian Authority and Fatah.
In 1968, PFLP terrorist Mahmoud Muhammad Issa Al-Naarani carried out an attack on an Israeli El-Al airplane at the airport in Athens with an accomplice. One passenger was killed and a stewardess seriously wounded. When terrorist Al-Naarani recently died, Fatah posted an obituary on its Facebook page, calling him a "hero":
Similarly, official PA TV recently honored Fatima Barnawi as "a role model and example and a pioneer of sacrifice." Barnawi placed a bomb in a movie theater in Jerusalem in 1967 that failed to explode. She was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released in 1977 after serving 10 years. In February, she was honored in Egypt. PA TV broadcast from the event, referring to Barnawi as "an honor to the world's female fighters" and "an honor for the [Palestinian] cause... a positive symbol of the Palestinian woman."

PA TV honors terrorist who attempted to place a bomb in a movie theater


Obama’s Main Achievement: Iran in Iraq

The president’s apologists may blame this on George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq in the first place as well as his kicking the can down the road on Iran’s nuclear program. There’s some truth to that but Bush left Obama a war that was already won by the 2007 U.S. surge. Bush may have laid the groundwork for the current mess. But its shape and the scale of the disaster is Obama’s responsibility.
Iranian influence among fellow Shiites in Iraq is nothing new. But the scale of the current effort and the open nature of the way Iran’s forces are now flexing their muscles — even in the Tikrit region where Sunnis dominate — demonstrates that the rise of ISIS was not the only negative consequence of President Obama’s decision to completely pull U.S. forces out of Iraq when negotiations about their staying got sticky. That enabled him to brag during the 2012 presidential campaign that he had “ended” the Iraq War (the same campaign where he pledged Iran would not be allowed to keep a nuclear program) but neither ISIS nor Iran got that memo. The war continues but the difference is that instead of an Iraq influenced by the U.S., it is now Iran that is the dominant force.
The same is true throughout the region. President Obama spent years dithering about the collapse of Syria even while demanding that Bashar Assad give up power and enunciating “red lines” about the use of chemical weapons. But while he stalled, moderate rebels withered, ISIS grew and Iran’s ally Assad stayed in Damascus, bucked up by Iranian help and troops supplied by Tehran’s Hezbollah auxiliaries.
So when the Saudis look at a potential deal that will allow Iran to keep its nuclear infrastructure and ultimately expire in ten years, they know that it is directly connected to America’s apparent decision to acquiesce to Iranian dominance in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

'Netanyahu never agreed to '67 borders or dividing Jerusalem'

Dennis Ross, the man allegedly behind the "concessions document" published by Yedioth Ahronoth over the weekend, told Israel Hayom that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "never agreed to Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders, dividing Jerusalem or the right of return."
The document, which the Likud party claims is part of an orchestrated campaign to topple the current leadership, purports to have been presented in August 2013 and appears to detail the framework for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, suggesting a willingness by the Netanyahu-led government to make dramatic concessions.
According to Ross, the American diplomat who mediated the talks between Israeli negotiator Isaac Molho and Palestinian negotiator Hussein Agha, which included the document in question, "I always felt the best way to [negotiate] would be in a brainstorming set of discussions that could be informal. To that end, starting before I left the administration and continuing after I left, I worked with two long-time friends of mine, Isaac Molho and Hussein Agha, with the aim of coming up with a U.S. proposal for a framework. The idea was that both sides would agree to negotiate using the U.S. proposal, while making clear that they had reservations about provisions that ran counter to their positions."

JPost Editorial: Turkish hypocrisy

The excesses of chutzpah never cease to amaze. A galling example was provided by Turkey’s purportedly big-hearted recent memorial for the 768 Jewish refugees (including 103 babies and children) who drowned off its coast on February 24, 1942, when WWII raged.
These refugees from Nazi horrors were packed like sardines on the unseaworthy Danube barge Struma which left the Rumanian port of Constanta heading “illegally” toward British-mandated Eretz Yisrael. It barely made it into Istanbul Harbor. It couldn’t continue. Its makeshift motor failed. There was no fuel, food or water.
Contrary to what was asserted at the ceremony, Turkey was hardly magnanimous.
Moreover, for the first time in 73 years, official Turkey saw fit to remember, but not to apologize – although it insisted on Israel’s apology for foiling the 2010 Mavi Marmara provocation. In its first-ever Struma commemoration, Ankara’s Foreign Ministry belatedly – almost three-quarters of a century late – “extended condolences to the victims’ relatives and to Turkish-Jewish citizens.”
The ministry averred that “Turkey always adopts a humane approach with respect to humanitarian tragedies that occur in its vicinity.” It was content to blame the Struma’s sinking on the Soviets, realizing full well that they only unknowingly delivered the coup de grace to the helpless refugees.

White House names Israel critic to top Mideast post

Malley, whose appointment was announced on Friday afternoon, since last year has handled the Iraq-Iran-Syria-Gulf States desk. In replacing Philip Gordon, who has been Middle East coordinator since 2013, he assumes responsibility for Israel and the Palestinians as well as North Africa and the Persian Gulf.
He also assumes a more senior title, moving from senior director to special assistant. Malley already deals with Israel, and has attended meetings on the Iran-nuclear issue between his boss, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and her Israeli counterpart, Yossi Cohen.
Malley drew some pro-Israel criticism for his published assessment in 2001 of the 2000 Camp David talks, in which he said that the prevailing narrative, that the Palestinians were at fault for their collapse, was a misapprehension and ignored Palestinian concessions and Israeli failures at the talks.
As the director of the Middle East Program at the International Crisis Group, a think tank, he also met multiple times with Hamas officials and said parties to the peace process must at some stage engage with the terrorist group, which controls the Gaza Strip.
At least two pro-Israel groups expressed concerns about the appointment over the weekend.

Is Obama a Manchurian Candidate?

One of my readers (you know who you are) argues that Barack Obama has one overriding policy objective to his presidency, an agenda to which he subordinates every other issue, foreign and domestic: to put an end to the Jewish state. Obama, he thinks, was supported throughout his career by Israel’s enemies, who succeeded beyond their wildest dreams when their anti-Israel ‘Manchurian Candidate‘ reached the pinnacle of American politics.
Nah, I always say, you’re paranoid. Yes, he is the least pro-Israel president ever. But to think that the President of the United States is fixated on one tiny state in the Middle East? That would be crazy.
But as time goes by and I note Obama’s incompetence about and inattentiveness to other issues, as well as his invariably taking the path that will be most painful to Israel, especially when that path doesn’t advance — or even harms — US interests, I begin to wonder.
Given all of this, Obama’s latest act is anticlimactic, but telling. Almost as if to make a statement about the future direction of policy toward Israel, the White House has appointed his advisor Robert Malley as “White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region” on the National Security Council.
Malley, whom many know as the guy who continues to insist — despite statements to the contrary by former President Clinton and his Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross — that the failure of the Camp David and Taba talks in 2000-1 was Israel’s fault and not that of Yasser Arafat, has devoted his career to anti-Israel activism and propaganda. It’s hard to think of anyone much worse from Israel’s point of view unless Obama were to recruit in Gaza.
Moving Malley up isn’t likely to change much. His predecessor, Philip Gordon, was not particularly pro-Israel. But it is emblematic of the one-sided approach taken by the administration, what my reader calls the “laser-like focus” on Israel which characterizes an administration which is bumbling and inconsistent on almost everything else.
Can it be proven that Obama is a Manchurian Candidate? No — at least not unless the LA Times releases the tape of Rashid Khalidi’s dinner party. But as Hillary Clinton might put it, “what difference at this point does it make?”

Obama says US will ‘walk away’ from bad Iran deal

President Barack Obama said Sunday that the United States would “walk away” from nuclear talks with Iran if there’s no acceptable deal.
Obama said that any agreement must allow Western powers to verify that Tehran isn’t going to obtain an atomic weapon, and that even if Iran “cheated,” the US and others would have “enough time to take action.”
Speaking on CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” the president noted that that “if we don’t have that kind of deal, then we’re not going to take it.”
Big gaps remain to bridge if the sides are to reach a deal by the end of March deadline set by negotiators. The next round of talks is set to begin March 15.

Report: 64 senators back requiring a Congress vote on Iran deal

Wall Street Journal: Bill that would require President Barack Obama to submit text of final nuclear deal with Iran to Congress for approval nears veto-proof level of support
At least 64 U.S. senators support a bill that would require President Barack Obama to submit the text of any final nuclear deal with Iran to Congress for approval, the Wall Street Journal reported late last week. If the bill receives three more supporters, it would be immune to a veto by Obama.

Poll: 84% of Americans oppose terms of Iran nuclear deal

According to a survey conducted ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March 3 speech to the US Congress, 57 percent of American voters asked said that the United States was not doing enough to stop Iran from advancing toward a nuclear bomb.
The poll, commissioned by Fox News, found 84% of voters thought it was a bad idea to allow the Iranians to obtain nuclear weapons in 10 years, in return for agreeing to freeze their program now.
Some 55% of the 1,011 polled said it would be a “disaster” if Iran obtained nuclear weapons, while 40% categorized it as “a problem that could be managed.”
Last week, Netanyahu delivered a speech to US lawmakers warning of the dangers posed by Tehran’s apparent pursuit of nuclear weapons.
In his speech, Netanyahu called the emerging deal “very bad” and said it “paves the path” for Iran to get a bomb.

Giuliani slams Obama’s ‘reckless’ stance on Iran

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Saturday that the US should take a stronger stance against Iran — or risk appeasing what he called an “insane” regime.
Giuliani spoke at a rally in Berlin organized by the exiled opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran. The organization is associated with the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, an armed resistance group that was taken off U.S. terror lists in 2012.
Giuliani claimed that the government in Tehran, which is seeking to reach a deal with world powers to lift crippling international sanctions, “has proven to us that it shouldn’t be trusted with any kind of nuclear capacity.”
Anyone who thought otherwise was “stupid” or risking the kind of appeasement that Britain tried with Nazi Germany in 1938, he said.

Are booming German-Iran business relations hurting Israel?

Fresh trade data show Germany’s industry secured a windfall in revenue due to the easing of Iran sanctions.
According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, German exports to the Islamic Republic in 2014 climbed by 30 percent to reach €2.4 billion.
The strong revival of German-Iranian relations comes at a sensitive time for Israel. Germany and Israel are immersed in a series of celebratory events to remember the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
The boost in German-Iran trade – and a late-February pro-Iran business event sponsored by the Hannover chamber of industry and commerce – triggered a public rebuke from Israel.
“Obviously the organizing body aims to enhance trade relations with Iran, but now is not the time for such initiatives – both because of the fact that the international sanctions are still in place and because of the sensitive stage of the current negotiations between the E3+3 [China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States] and Iran,” a spokeswoman for Israel’s embassy told The Jerusalem Post.

Khamenei Alive, Makes Public Appearance to Stop Death Rumors

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is alive, the semi-official Fars news agency reports Sunday, and made a public appearance in Tehran to dispel "Israeli-driven" rumors of his death.
Khamenei appeared alive and healthy in his address to environment activists and state officials, broadcasted on state television Sunday, where he pushed reduction of air and water pollution, among other measures.
However, it is unclear when the footage was recorded - and while state media says outright that the appearance was to dispel rumors of his death, it remains unclear whether he acknowledged these rumors within the address itself.
Khamenei has accused Israel of lies on multiple occasions, but has apparently remained silent on this point.
The Fars report also denies that Khamenei was ever hospitalized for cancer treatments - even though Iranian media admitted this outright on Friday.

Iran announces new long-range cruise missile

Iran announced a new surface-to-surface cruise missile system Sunday, broadening its arsenal of long-range rockets that analysts say can hit targets in Europe and beyond.
Officials claimed that the new missile, known as “Soumar,” enjoys improved range and pinpoint accuracy over previous systems, although its statistical capabilities have not been publicly released.
In a ceremony in Tehran, Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan hailed the Islamic Republic’s deterrence measures and military achievements amid economic sanctions imposed on the country over its controversial nuclear program.

Economist cartoon contrasts peaceful Iran with belligerent Israel

The Economist fancies itself a centrist magazine, one which provides “authoritative insight and opinion” to its 1.4 million subscribers, and stands in opposition to “privilege, pomposity and predictability”. On Israel, however, it continues to lean in a decidedly predictable direction - one which conforms to the egregious bias adopted by the ‘herd of independent thinkers’ within the British radical left.
Indeed, the facile paradigm adopted in the following graphic commentary on the speech delivered last week to the US Congress by Israel’s prime minister, published in the March 6th print edition of The Economist, evokes the agitprop routinely expressed in Guardian cartoons by propagandists such as Steve Bell and Martin Rowson.
The cartoon isn’t difficult to unpack. Whilst the Americans and Iranians are both trying to reach a peaceful solution, an adolescent, attention-seeking Netanyahu – led by Republican House Speaker John Boehner – is causing trouble by attempting to scuttle a diplomatic agreement.

There Will Be Plenty Of Time To Discuss Iran Deal After It’s Signed By US Secretary of State John Kerry (satire)

The president is well aware of the criticism of his policies in this arena, from both domestic and foreign figures. Mr. Netanyahu may be the most prominent international leader to express opposition to an emerging deal, but he is hardly the only one. The Gulf states all have their issues with a deal that would, allegedly, sign away the entire region to growing Iranian influence, but none of that opposition changes the basic fact that we can all talk about such a deal when it is already in place. Doing so in the absence of such a deal would be a waste of everyone’s time and energy.
From a practical standpoint, the wisest course of action at this point involves a measured, disciplined level of discussion. Alarmist rhetoric such as Mr. Netanyahu’s, not to mention rash steps such as Saudi Arabia’s recent agreement with South Korea to develop nuclear technology, detract from the very real point that there will be all the time in the world to talk about the deal with Iran after the president approves it.
All the second-guessing, the criticism, the worst-case-scenarioing, the dramatic denunciations, the fiery, standing-ovation-punctuated orations to joint sessions of Congress – that can wait. In the meantime, we have an agreement to negotiate. So please let us do our job on that front.
Everything else can wait. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads about all that right now.

PA Planning Post-Election Violence

Some security sources claim that following the Israeli elections and leading into the Passover holiday the Palestinian Authority is planning to initiate an extremely violent Initfada and series of terrorist attacks throughout Judea and Samaria, leading into the summer.
Last week, the IDF ran its largest exercise in recent years specifically preparing for such a contingency.

Mother of car-ramming attacker: 'He is like any other martyr'

Family members of the Palestinian terrorist who rammed his vehicle into a group of Israeli pedestrians In Jerusalem on Friday morning and wounded five said they had not known anything about his intentions.
Mohammad Al-Salaymeh drove his car into a group of people standing near a Jerusalem light rail stop and then ran out of his car with an axe and attempted stab a passerby, before being shot and wounded by an Israeli police officer. Five people were wounded in the attack, including four security personnel, Israeli police said.
Al-Salaymeh's mother, Um Rami, not knowing the state of her son at the time, gave her first reaction to Reuters.
"I feel that he is dead," she said. "He is like any other martyr, he's not better than them, its normal. With everything happening in Jerusalem, any guy would do something like that and even more. It's a normal reaction from the young."

Mughayyir Mosque 'Arson' Story Flares Up Again

Months after Haaretz initially reported that an Israeli investigation concluded that the Nov. 11, 2014 fire in the mosque of the West Bank village of al-Mughayyir was the result of an electrical malfunction, and not an arson attack and had been widely reported, the Israeli daily again reported that the mosque had been torched.
The English edition of Haaretz erroneously reported Friday ("Cars torched and racist graffiti scrawled in Palestinian village," Jack Khoury):
Last year, al-Mughayyir's mosque was torched and spray-painted with racist slogans. Villagers said the arson caused major damage to the first floor and minor damage to the second floor.
In addition, the caption of the photograph accompanying the online article incorrectly states:
The scorched interior of a mosque that was set on fire in November in the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, where another suspected hate crime was committed early Thursday morning.
Furthermore, Friday's article falsely reported that racist slogans were spray-pained at the al-Mughayyir mosque last year. In fact, as Haaretz's Chaim Levinson reported on Dec. 11 about the incident in question: ". . . nor was any racist graffiti found at the scene."

‘Dampened by Iron Dome, Hamas shifts to short-range rockets’

According to a report in the Hebrew-language newspaper Makor Rishon over the weekend, Hamas’s decision to focus on producing and testing – by firing out to sea — rockets with a range of up to 30 kilometers is also due to a shortage in explosives.
“Almost all of the tests that are aimed at the sea are of short-range rockets,” a senior IDF officer was quoted by the report as saying. “They’ve recently been putting a lot of effort into short-range rockets.”
Hamas, the anonymous officer said, had likely “drawn its conclusions” from the war in Gaza, and realized that Iron Dome had limited its ability to inflict casualties on Israel through the use of mid-range and longer-range rockets.
According to official IDF figures, Iron Dome intercepted roughly 90 percent of the projectiles it targeted during the war, including rockets fired at Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv region.

Privation Driving Gazans To Penile Enlargement (satire)

Life in this Palestinian coastal enclave has become so challenging under enforced Israeli and Egyptian border closures that the residents are displaying classic signs of suffering under siege: skyrocketing demand for cosmetic surgery, especially penis enlargement.
Blockaded on one side by an anti-Hamas Egypt and on the other by unlimited free electricity from Israel, men in Gaza now increasingly fall into desperation, with little choice but to make appointments for the implantation of supplementary erectile tissue in their reproductive organs. The crushing poverty and unemployment have translated into a sixfold increase in demand for several types of elective cosmetic surgery, a figure unmatched in any of the surrounding countries.
Plastic surgeons in the Gaza Strip report that Gaza residents are now asking for more breast enlargements, tummy tucks, Botox treatments, wrinkle removals, and male augmentation than ever before, a telltale sign of the economic doldrums and international isolation born of a years-old Israeli blockade of the territory. The blockade lets nothing in but everything essential for everyday living, including fuel oil, foodstuffs, cosmetics, free electricity, baby supplies, toiletries, paper goods, cleaning products, and anything else for which there is commercial demand.
“We have already expressed our concerns at the continuation of this worrisome trend,” says Chris Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA, the UN agency that provides Palestinian refugees and their descendants with tens of millions of dollars in annual aid, and with education toward any solution to their plight that involves the destruction of Israel. “While it is true that these types of surgeries are less expensive in Gaza than most anywhere else in the world, the statistics nevertheless speak for themselves.”

We will not tolerate abuse, London University director says

According to reports, the atmosphere for Jewish and pro-Israel students started seriously deteriorating in January as the SOAS students’ union in cooperation with the BDS movement and the university’s Palestinian Society made preparations for Israel Apartheid Week, which was held in the last week of February.
It coincided with the referendum demanding SOAS cut all its relations with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which the university authorities dismissed as just an opinion poll.
Of those voting, the majority were clearly in favor of a boycotts policy – 1,283 students voting for a boycott, and 425 against (a 75 percent to 25% split), while of the 300 participating academics, 182 supported the BDS motion with 123 opposing, representing a much closer 60% to 40% divide. But critics of the vote, including the SOAS, administration made clear the vote had no real meaning as most of their 8,500 students had not participated in the poll; only 14% had bothered to vote.
But for Jewish students on the campus, the atmosphere soured considerably during the Apartheid Week, especially as the five-day ballot was being conducted. Those who participated in a “say no to BDS” meeting last Wednesday and others who actively canvassed for a “no” vote felt especially vulnerable. Since the results were published last weekend the number of incidents started mounting and several Jewish students expressed fear of even walking around the campus to attend lectures.

Jewish Voice for Peace. Aiding and Abetting Anti-Semites. Again.

The 2015 AIPAC Policy conference was the largest ever, with over 16,000 supporters of strong bonds between Israel and America attending. Of those, 3,000 were college students, ground zero in the campaign against Israel. A variety of fringe groups protested the event. Jewish Voice for Peace proudly stood shoulder to shoulder with notoriously anti-Semitic groups in its protest of the conference. The group was silent as a Hezbollah terror flag was unfurled at their protest. Later that week, the same groups joined forces to protest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech to Congress
In an email, Hatem Bazians' American Muslims for Palestine boasted of the alliance, which also included such fringe groups as the Neturai Karta and Code Pink

Edgar Davidson: Why you should not give a penny to Comic Relief

No matter how many times I warn people about this it seems they do not get it, so let me spell it out this time in very simple terms:
- Comic Relief is an enormous scam run by leftist political extremists that is deceiving the decent British public (especially kids) into giving their hard earned money for campaigns that are generally far removed from the 'feeding the starving Africans' portrayed on the BBC.
- If you look at the projects Comic Relief funds it is clear that the bulk of the money raised actually goes to political and environmental activists under the guise of 'social justice' (a euphemism for communism).
- A large proportion of Comic Relief's funding goes to the four charities that are most involved in pure anti-Israel propaganda: War on Want, Christian Aid, Oxfam, and Save the Children. While Comic Relief claims that it is careful to ensure the money it gives to these charities is not directly spent on anti-Israel propaganda, one of these charities - War on Want - essentially does nothing other than campaign for the destruction of the Jewish State. In the case of Oxfam some of their funding has been used to pay for pure antisemitic incitement among Palestinians, including resurrecting the blood libel that Jews ritually slaughter Christian children and consume their blood on Passover. Yes it really is that bad.
- Because of the free publicity the BBC provides Comic Relief with its farcical jamboree, other genuinely worthy charities suffer reduced donations.
So, unless you are an antisemite or an international socialist, I am sure you can find many more deserving charities to give your hard-earned cash to than Comic Relief (just make sure it also is not any of these). It is always best to give direct to a specific charity whose work you know you want to help.

Clear And Present Danger: Jim Clancy’s Anti Israel Views

Israellycool covered Jim Clancy’s initial rant here and followed up with his blocking spree. His Twitter account then disappeared for a while before returning (after his sudden departure from CNN) but with his new name missing the CNN mark.
From Press TV:
Veteran US journalist and former CNN anchor Jim Clancy has spoken out against the Israeli media less than two months after stepping down from the news network following his anti-Israeli tweets.
Clancy told Lebanese journalists in Beirut on Friday that the Israeli media is particularly well-funded and is acting in an organized manner in their propaganda campaign, according to The Daily Star.
The veteran journalist noted, however, that the Israeli lobby’s propaganda efforts have failed because an increasing number of young people on university campuses across the US now support the Palestinian cause.
“Hasbara [propaganda] funding has increased for the Israeli lobby, but its propaganda efforts have failed. I mean the number of young people on campuses who now support the Palestinian cause has risen,” he told the audience.

BBC News recycles three year old factual failures in Abu Nidal report

On March 4th the BBC News website published a report on its Europe page titled “Rue des Rosiers: France seeks three men for 1982 attack“.
The report relates to the issue of arrest warrants for three men suspected of having been among those responsible for the terror attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris in which six people were killed and 22 wounded. The wording used by the BBC to describe both the Abu Nidal Organisation, on behalf of which the suspects allegedly carried out the terror attack, and the attack itself conforms to the corporation’s usual template of avoidance of the use of the word terror.

UN Shrinks Food Aid to Syria Refugees in Turkey

The United Nations food agency said Friday it had been forced to withdraw aid from nine Syrian refugee camps in Turkey due to a lack of funds, calling on donors to step up.
"Unfortunately, in February, we were forced to ask the Turkish government to take over assistance in nine camps where we could not continue providing aid because we lack funds," said World Food Program spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Byrs said WFP was facing a $71-million (65-million-euro) shortfall for its aid program in Turkey this year.
"Getting more funding is really essential," she said.
The UN agency needs $9 million each month to provide hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in the country with food aid, she said.

ISIS Hangs Eight in Gruesome Display Before Entrance to Iraqi City

Eight dead bodies hang from a metal frame in the Iraq’s Kirkuk province in Islamic State’s latest public display of barbarity.
The gruesome images which emerged on social media show the men’s limp bodies suspended from their feet off a tall structure in the town of Hawija. The notorious black flag used by Islamist groups like ISIS is displayed above them as horrified onlookers inspect the scene.
Some of the deceased men appear to be wearing military fatigues but it is not known if they were Iraqi soldiers.
An ISIS fighter believed to be Abu Al-Rahman poses triumphantly in one of the pictures — giving the one-fingered salute in front of a bloodied victim’s corpse. The same tyrant has been been pictured before alongside severed heads and masked ISIS fighters.
A shocking video released in February showed orange-clad captives being paraded in cages in the same city of Hawija.

ISIS Commander Receives Medical Treatment In Turkey

Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman reports that the government has officially confirmed that an Islamic State commander is receiving treatment for his battle wounds at the Pamukkale University Hospital.
The situation is a bit sticky for the Turkish government, as they have already taken heat for “allegedly turning a blind eye to foreign fighters crossing into Syria and Iraq from Turkey to join ISIL,” and displaying little enthusiasm for the multi-national effort against the terror state. There are lingering suspicions that elements within the Turkish government “are ideologically close to the terrorist group.”
Discovering that a Turkish citizen who threw in his lot with ISIS was able to come back across the border and seek treatment for his bomb wounds at a Turkish hospital will not dispel those suspicions. The commander, named in other sources as Emrah Cakan, is said to be one of about 1,000 Turks who have joined the Islamic State.

Turkey Blocks 68,000 'Blasphemous' Websites, Including Charlie Hebdo

The government of Turkey has banned French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo‘s website from being accessed anywhere in the country along with a total of blocked websites in the tens of thousands.
That Hurriyet Daily News says the total of blocked websites is approaching 68,000. The French provocateurs got kicked off Turkey’s Internet thanks to TİB, the Turkish Telecommunications Directorate, asking the Ankara Golbasi Civil Court of Peace to intervene. “The ruling imposes a blanket ban on the websites of Charlie Hebdo and Turkey’s first atheism association, while blocking individual pages of Ekşi Sözlük (Sour Dictionary) and İnci Sözlük (Pearl Dictionary), two hugely popular forums, as well as pages on news website T24, which recently published the controversial Charlie Hebdo cartoons,” the Daily News reports.
“The court imposed sanctions on a total of 49 websites, ruling that they ‘humiliated the religious values of the people,'” the Daily News explains. “In its criminal complaint, the TİB claimed that ‘insults against religious and holy values could breach public peace.’ It enforced the court’s ruling for many of the targeted websites on March 3, although it acted quicker for a number of others.”

Happy Women's Day in Turkey!

"A woman without a veil (headscarf) is like a home without a curtain. A home without a curtain is either for sale or for rent." — Suleyman Demirci, head of the Promotion and Media Department of the AKP.
Women are oppressed at home and outside; continually insulted by state authorities or the clergy, and even beaten or murdered for not being "obedient" enough, or for wanting to get a divorce. Why would anyone hang around to get beaten? Worse, why would anyone be forced by law to hang around to get beaten?
Perhaps to many men, such a loss of control over another human being is to be dreaded, just as the slave-owner dreads how hugely inconvenient it would be to him if he were not to have his slaves.
Male domination and belittling women is so deeply rooted in the Islamic culture that most Muslim men do not even see that what they do to women is, in reality, merely a way to justify treating them badly -- and all under the mask of "honoring" them and "protecting" them, supposedly for their own good!
Sadly, locking up women in the nursery or the kitchen is not "protecting" or "honoring" anyone. It is merely imprisoning an unpaid servant. In this sense, it is a form of slavery. It is simply abuse trying to pass itself off as chivalry.

Dutch Muslim pupils resist Holocaust education

A number of Dutch schools refrain from teaching about the Holocaust because of resistance from Muslim pupils, teachers told lawmakers.
The centrist Christian Union party held a roundtable discussion about Holocaust education with teachers and other professionals Wednesday in parliament in The Hague, The Algemeen Dagblad daily reported.
“Holocaust survivor Bloeme Evers does not dare give guest lessons in some schools,” Arie Slob, the party’s parliamentary leader and a former history teacher, told the daily , describing the discussion. “I am horrified by this. It is unacceptable that 70 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism in the Netherlands is growing.”
Among the teachers in attendance was Wissam Feriani, a social studies teacher who works at a vocational high school in Amsterdam where approximately half of the students are Muslim.

New York symphony pulls composition with Nazi anthem

A composition from a budding young composer set to be performed Sunday at New York’s Carnegie Hall was pulled because it contained a musical quotation from the Nazi anthem.
Estonian-born composer Jonas Tarm, 21, won a commission to write the piece from the prestigious New York Youth Symphony’s First Music composer’s contest. But Tarm’s nine-minute composition, entitled “Marsh u Nebuttya,” or “March to Oblivion” in Ukrainian, contained a 45-second musical quotation from “Horst-Wessel-Lied,” the Nazi anthem still banned in Germany and Austria.
The composition also featured a 45-second quotation from the anthem of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
NYYS Executive Director Shauna Quill told The New York Times that the move was “highly unusual,” but was undertaken “thoughtfully, but firmly, as soon as we learned the piece incorporated significant portions of music written by others that we determined were problematic for an orchestra such as ours to be asked to perform.”

An Israeli Suez Canal

In technological terms, Israel has always been absurdly ambitious.
Irrigating its desert, designing microprocessors, developing drones, shooting down rockets, being – by far – the smallest country to launch its own satellites: Israel is a superpower of science and engineering. So proposing Israel undertake absurdly complex infrastructure projects isn’t altogether absurd.
Israel is working with China to build a railway from Eilat to the Mediterranean; it’s intended to serve as an overland alternative to the Suez Canal. Ships will arrive on one end and unload; the cargo will be rolled to the other end and loaded onto another boat to continue its trip around the world. It certainly makes sense for Israel to have a parallel to the Suez canal: needless to say, as the Red Sea approaches the Med, it breaks into two prongs. The Suez is at one tip, Eilat is at the other.
What Israel ought to do is dig its own canal, from Eilat to Ashkelon. This would be very complicated, very difficult, and very, very expensive.

The Ottoman Empire Archives -- A New Source for the History of the Holy Land The Istanbouli Synagogue in Jerusalem

We thank the Ottoman Empire Archives for digitizing their photographs and drawings. We encourage all archivists and librarians to save their treasures and digitize them.
We recently posted rare photos from the Ottoman Archives showing the forced conscription of (apparently Jewish) residents and looting of Jerusalem homes by the Turkish army prior to World War I. We present here an illustration found in the archives drawn almost 100 years earlier, prior to the invention of photography.
The illustration above appeared in the travelogue of a British writer, John Carne, who published Syria, The Holy Land, Asia Minor, &c. Illustrated in 1836 It is believed to show the Istanbouli Synagogue, established in Jerusalem's Old City in the 1760s by Turkish Jews.

'Women can do anything men can do, and even do it better'

The first woman has been appointed to the position of deputy squad commander for an Israeli Air Force squadron of unmanned aircraft at the Palmachim Air Force Base.
In a special interview with Israel Hayom to mark International Women's Day, Capt. Bar, 26, whose full name cannot be published for security reasons, said: "Women can do anything men can do, and even do it better."
Bar began her military service in the IAF pilots course, but after a year and a half was dropped and reassigned to the air force's drones. After a six-month course, she was assigned to work as a junior Shoval drone operator. Over the years, Bar was promoted to successive command posts and trained as a senior drone operator. Eventually, she was transferred to a position at the IAF's operational headquarters. Two months ago, she was informed that this coming summer, she would be appointed second in command of a drone squadron.
"There are a number of women among us, a few more than in the pilots course," Bar said. "I think that it was just by chance that only now was a woman appointed deputy squadron commander, because they needed a woman who wanted a military career and whom the army wanted to have a military career. Up until now, there was no one like that."

Happy Women's Day from the IDF

Even in 2015, many women around the world are still subject to discrimination, gender inequality, endless stereotypes and sexual objectification. In light of International Women’s Day, female soldiers in the IDF stand up and speak out against these injustices with a striking message to women around the world.