04/08 Links Pt1: The unfolding farce of Obama’s deal with Iran; Decoding the Obama Doctrine

From Ian:

---

David Horovitz: The unfolding farce of Obama’s deal with Iran

In an NPR interview gone horribly wrong on Monday, the president did honestly admit a huge, dire, failing of the accord — the fact that, even if Iran keeps to the deal (and what a colossal, improbable “if” that is), it will be able to break out to the bomb in next-to-no-time when key provisions expire after a decade. (The president had gone part-way down the road to that admission in his New York Times interview on Saturday, saying: “I’ve been very clear that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon on my watch.” — D.H. emphasis)
But there can be no candid acknowledgement of so momentous a flaw, for that would be to confirm Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s endlessly reiterated indictment of the deal as paving Iran’s way to the bomb. And so a State Department spokeswoman was pushed out in front of the cameras on Tuesday to stammer her way through an absurd reinterpretation of Obama’s remarks, an attempt at revisionism that insults our intelligence.
It gets worse. The Iranians’ latest contention is that the deal gives them the right to start injecting gas into their most sophisticated centrifuges — the IR-8s — which they say can enrich uranium 20 times faster than their current IR-1s. And therefore, that smiling, avuncular Foreign Minister Zarif and his nuclear expert colleague Ali Akbar Salehi told Iranian MPs on Tuesday, Iran will begin working with the IR-8s on the first day that the deal goes into effect. This, according to Iran’s own news agencies.
Needless to say, that makes a mockery of the entire deal.
Doubtless there is more of this travesty to come. That’s what you get when you allow a brutal, murderous regime to smell your hesitancy, your weakness, your neglect of your own and your allies’ essential interests.
“This is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon,” Obama asserted to The New York Times. Really, Mr. President? It doesn’t look like that from here. From here, it looks like you could have done a whole lot better.
In fact, it looks like the very outcome you promised you’d avoid: A deal that lifts the economic pressure on an evil regime, and clears its route to the bomb. A bad deal. Far, far worse than no deal at all.

Daniel Pipes: Decoding the Obama Doctrine

The Obama Doctrine is simple and universal: Warm relations with adversaries and cool them with friends.
Several assumptions underlie this approach: The U.S. government morally must compensate for its prior errors. Smiling at hostile states will inspire them to reciprocate. Using force creates more problems than it solves. Historic U.S. allies, partners and helpers are morally inferior accessories. In the Middle East, this means reaching out to revisionists (Erdogan, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Republic of Iran) and pushing away cooperative governments (Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia).
Of these actors, two stand out: Iran and Israel. Establishing good relations with Tehran appears to be Obama's great preoccupation. As Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute has shown, Obama during his entire presidency has worked toward rendering Iran what he calls "a very successful regional power ... abiding by international norms and international rules." Contrarily, his pre-presidential friendships with truculent anti-Zionists such as Ali Abunimah, Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said point to the depth of his hostility toward the Jewish state.
The Obama Doctrine demystifies what is otherwise inscrutable. For example, it explains why the U.S. government blithely ignored the Iranian supreme leader's outrageous "Death to America" yelp in March, dismissing it as mere domestic pandering, even as Obama glommed onto the Israeli prime minister's near simultaneous electoral campaign comment rejecting a two-state solution with the Palestinians during his term of office ("We take him at his word").

JPost Editorial: Obama vs Netanyahu

Unfortunately, Obama’s strategy has left Israel’s leaders with little choice but to take an aggressive tact vis-a-vis the framework deal drafted in Lausanne. Netanyahu has launched a lobbying campaign directed at Americans that severely criticizes the framework agreement. Over the weekend Netanyahu was interviewed on a number of US TV networks, including CNN and NBC. He argued that Americans no less than Israelis are put at risk by Iran – particularly by the Islamic Republic’s intercontinental ballistic missile system, which is not even mentioned in the framework agreement.
Because the framework deal is a capitulation to so many of Iran’s demands and reflects a reneging of Obama’s promises (the US president insisted in the past that Iran cease enrichment and dismantle its facilities, while the framework deal permits Iran to maintain uranium enrichment and makes no demand to dismantle centrifuges), more heated and very public clashes between Jerusalem and Washington are in the offing.
Inevitably, the very vocal clashes over the Iran negotiations will have negative ramifications regarding other aspects of US-Israel relations, perhaps even with regard to intelligence cooperation. And deterioration in relations between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government – particularly if a national unity government is not formed – will spill over to other arenas.
The open hostility that already exists between the Republican- controlled Senate and House of Representatives will likely escalate as criticism of the emerging deal voiced by Republicans and some Democrats becomes more vocal.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Vote on Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act

On April 14, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to vote on the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, which would require the Obama administration to submit the final nuclear deal with Iran to Congress for review and approval.
“We cannot forget that Iran is pursuing a full-spectrum campaign to expand its sphere of influence in the greater Middle East,” said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in a statement on Monday.
“The administration needs to explain to the Congress and the American people why an interim agreement should result in reduced pressure on the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” he said.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) also said on Fox News Sunday that ”it’s very important that Congress is in the middle of this, understanding, teasing out, asking those important questions.”

Ex-secretaries of state Kissinger, Shultz pan Obama's Iran nuclear deal

Two former US secretaries of state - Henry Kissinger and George Shultz - penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday criticizing President Barack Obama for the framework agreement his administration reached with Iran last week.
The former top diplomats said that the framework agreement with Iran effectively concedes any option of using military force to compel Iranian compliance.
“Mixing shrewd diplomacy with open defiance of UN resolutions, Iran has gradually turned the negotiation on its head,” Kissinger and Shultz wrote in the Journal. “Iran’s centrifuges have multiplied from about 100 at the beginning of the negotiation to almost 20,000 today. The threat of war now constrains the West more than Iran.”
“While Iran treated the mere fact of its willingness to negotiate as a concession, the West has felt compelled to break every deadlock with a new proposal. In the process, the Iranian program has reached a point officially described as being within two to three months of building a nuclear weapon. Under the proposed agreement, for 10 years Iran will never be further than one year from a nuclear weapon and, after a decade, will be significantly closer.”

Thomas Sowell: The Iran ‘agreement’ charade

There was a time when either Israel or the United States could have destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, with far less risk of war than there will be after Iran already has its own stockpile of nuclear bombs. Indeed, the choice then will no longer be between a nuclear Iran and war. The choice may be between surrender to Iran and nuclear devastation.
Barack Obama dismissed the thought of America being vulnerable to “a small country” like Iran. Iran is in fact larger than Japan was when it attacked Pearl Harbor, and Iran has a larger population. If Japan had nuclear bombs, World War II could have turned out very differently.
If anyone examines the hard, cold facts about the Obama administration’s actions and inactions in the Middle East from the beginning, it is far more difficult to reconcile those actions and inactions with a belief that Obama was trying to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons than it is to reconcile those facts with his trying to stop Israel from stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
This latest “agreement” with Iran—with which Iran has publicly and loudly disagreed—is only the latest episode in that political charade.

Iran could build a bomb ‘anytime’ but won’t, Zarif reportedly says

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Iranian atomic bureau officials briefed the plenum on the deal’s outline, and the moves the Islamic Republic will agree to adopt in exchange for easing economic sanctions.
During the meeting, Zarif told lawmakers that Iran is capable of producing an atomic bomb at any given moment, but will refrain from doing so due to religious Islamic injunctions against such a move, Israel Radio reported.
“We achieved major gains in the talks and made unimportant concessions,” Nozar Shafiei, a parliament member, told the Iranian Republic News Agency Tuesday.
Zarif returned to Tehran following a week of intensive, high-stakes talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, with the six world powers — known as the P5+1 — to formulate an outline for a nuclear accord.

Report: Zarif Says Iran Will Allow No Cameras at Nuclear Sites

Iran’s foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif told a closed parliamentary hearing that Iran would not allow cameras into any of its nuclear sites, the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, reported today.
Zarif told the parliament that Tehran is not going to permit online cameras for inspection purposes, said the lawmaker.
Imenabadi made the remarks while talking to IRNA Tuesday morning after the end of the in-camera session in which Zarif briefed the parliament members on the process of nuclear talks which led to Swiss Statement last week.
President Barack Obama has said that the emerging nuclear deal would allow international inspectors “unprecedented access … to Iranian nuclear facilities.” The understandings reached in last week’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action included “continuous surveillance” of Iran’s known centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities, as well as its uranium mills.

Iran news report: Tehran will start using fastest centrifuges on day deal takes effect

Iran will begin using its latest generation IR-8 centrifuges as soon as its nuclear deal with the world powers goes into effect, Iran’s foreign minister and nuclear chief told members of parliament on Tuesday, according to Iran’s semi-official FARS news agency.
If accurate, the report makes a mockery of the world powers’ much-hailed framework agreement with Iran, since such a move clearly breaches the US-published terms of the deal, and would dramatically accelerate Iran’s potential progress to the bomb.
Iran has said that its IR-8 centrifuges enrich uranium 20 times faster than the IR-1 centrifuges it currently uses.
According to the FARS report, “Iran’s foreign minister and nuclear chief both told a closed-door session of the parliament on Tuesday that the country would inject UF6 gas into the latest generation of its centrifuge machines as soon as a final nuclear deal goes into effect by Tehran and the six world powers.” (h/t Yenta Press)

Iran deal links sanctions relief to explanation of military nuclear work

Last week in Switzerland, Iran publicly agreed that long-standing international questions over its suspected military nuclear work, “past and present,” will be addressed in a comprehensive accord reached with world powers by June 30.
But Tehran has not yet agreed on the extent to which it will answer questions posed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has sought data-based explanations to its concerns over the nature of Iran’s program for nearly a decade.
“Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of its program,” the White House said in a fact sheet on the deal released on Thursday.
The Obama administration has not yet explained what those measures will entail.

CIA head says critics of Iran nuclear deal 'disingenuous'

Opponents of Iran's initial agreement to curb its nuclear program are being "disingenuous" when they say the deal could still allow the Middle Eastern state to build nuclear weapons, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency said on Tuesday.
The initial accord reached last week between Iran and major world powers - which would lift crippling economic sanctions in exchange for Iran's agreement to step back from developing nuclear weapons - is likely the most realistic deal that could be reached, CIA Director John Brennan told an audience of students and faculty at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside Boston.
"The individuals who say that this deal provides a pathway for Iran to a bomb are being wholly disingenuous, in my view, if they know the facts and understand what is required for a program," Brennan said at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "I certainly am pleasantly surprised that the Iranians have agreed to so much here."

Obama's palace of illusions

U.S. President Barack Obama has made it clear that he will not present Iran with a demand to recognize Israel as part of the nuclear deal being negotiated, saying a demand of this nature was akin to asking Tehran to replace its regime.
Nevertheless, the empathetic president has pledged to stand by Israel should it be attacked, meaning Obama is beginning to come to grips with a chronicle of violence foretold.
And so, under the aegis of the deal being negotiated, Iran will continue with its military and nuclear preparations for Israel's destruction, with no one publicly demanding it cease its actions.
The final battle in Congress to put together a majority vote against the impending deal, which for itself is "shielded" by the threat of a presidential veto, has become bipartisan, indicating more than anything else that something is rotten in the American kingdom of illusions and that many in Congress have heeded Israel's warnings.

New York Times calls Israel ‘unrealistic’ on Iran

The New York Times on Wednesday said Israel was “unrealistic” in its demands for the terms of a nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s protestations offered no reasonable alternatives.
In an editorial titled “Israel’s Unworkable Demands on Iran” the paper asserted that Netanyahu, who has insisted on the dismantling of key aspects of Iran’s nuclear program as well as Tehran ending hostilities toward Israel, is chasing a deal to which the the Iranians would never agree.
“The new demands are unrealistic and, if pursued, would not mean a better deal but no deal at all,” the newspaper said, criticizing Netanyahu’s insistence that world powers could achieve a better result than the one announced after a year and a half of negotiations.
“Mr. Netanyahu is acting as if he alone can dictate the terms of an agreement that took 18 months and involved not just Iran and the United States but Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.”
Furthermore, despite the Israeli leader’s rejection of the framework deal — announced after a week of marathon talks last week — “he offers no workable options.”
Speaking to CNN as part of a US media blitz over the weekend, Netanyahu said the deal wouldn’t roll back Iran’s nuclear program.

Bibi Unbowed

This is like a contest. Everybody gets to throw a dart to see who will be first to make Bibi buckle and drop.
The topic, naturally, is Iran, and the deal Bibi won’t buy because what’s good for Iran cannot be good for Israel.
Iran gets to keep its ICBM program, according to a framework that had John Kerry pleased with himself as he left Tehran with the ayatollahs laughing behind his back. All that remains is for Bibi to join the celebration in what is surely the dumbest gamble of the century.
Relax, says President Obama. But when Soviet missiles in Cuba threatened our own security, we reacted with alarm. More on this in a moment.
So far Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel is standing tall. It’s Bibi against the world.

‘Open Confusion’ at State Department as Marie Harf Tries to Walk Back Obama’s Zero Breakout Time Admission (VIDEO)

In the interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, the President acknowledged that, after year 13, the current deal being worked out with Iran would not provide the international community with the promised 1-year warning should Iran decide to violate the deal and go for a nuclear weapon.
The President said that, “in year 13, 14, 15″ of the deal, “they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point, the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero,” and that the assurances of a 1-year warning time would be available to the international community for “at least well over a decade. And then in years 13 and 14, it is possible that those breakout times would have been much shorter.”
The Israel Project noted that “under that scenario there will be no way to physically prevent them from building a nuclear weapon, and they would be able to go nuclear at will.”
In the State Department’s attempted response to queries about the President’s statement on Tuesday, Spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters that the President was talking about a hypothetical sscneario in which the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) had not been enacted.
Harf asserted that while the President’s words “were a little mixed up there,” he was in fact “referring to a scenario in which there was no deal,” adding that the President’s scenario was “more of a hypothetical, ‘well look, without a deal, this is what could possibly happen.’ He was not indicating what would happen under an agreement in those years.”

MEMRI: Pakistani Urdu Daily: 'By Offering The Enticement Of A Nuclear Pact To Iran, Which Is Supporting The Houthi Rebels,' America And Its Allies Are 'Following A Policy Of Weakening The Muslim World'

In an April 4, 2015 editorial titled "Support of the Great Satan Is Not Without a Cause," Pakistan’s leading Urdu-language daily, Roznama Ummat, stated that the U.S. and its allies are following a policy of weakening the Islamic world by enticing Iran to agree a nuclear deal. The phrase "Great Satan," referring to the U.S., was instituted by the founder of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Roznama Ummat is a staunch supporter of Islamist political parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan.
The editorial notes that the "most painful aspect" of U.S. policy is that it does not object to Israel's nuclear arsenal. Underlining this double standard, it notes that when India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, the "anti-Muslim powers remained silent," but when Pakistan decided to conduct nuclear tests in 1998, it was threatened with being pushed back to the Stone Age.
Roznama Ummat's claim notwithstanding, it should be noted that as following its nuclear testing, India was indeed subjected to with U.S. sanctions, lasting several decades.

The Two State Solution: It is Never Going to Happen

A “Two-State Solution” is a “Final Solution.” We Jews do not do so well with other people’s Final Solutions for us.
France has other ideas? So be it. In a century, if not sooner, the French will be knocking on Israel’s doors, pounding and pleading, like today’s immigrants into Israel from Africa, begging to be granted asylum and refuge from the demographic change that will end their way of life. They do not know it yet. But tell your children that you read it first here.
As for “American guarantees” that “we have Israel’s back,” ask the South Vietnam government how those guarantees worked for them. South Vietnam disappeared from the map, watching all the guaranteeing Americans race for the helicopters to get out. It made for a great musical scene on Broadway. The Americans came in to secure South Lebanon. One day, 241 marines were blown up by Arab terrorists, and America left the region. Israel does not have that luxury.
And Obama? His word does not matter. He does not matter. The plain fact, after six years, is that he now is revealed to be a shameless public liar. Ask the former government of Yemen how Obama’s protection helped. Obama? He promised Americans that, if they liked their health plans and doctors, they could keep their health plans and doctors under a new Obamacare health law. It was a lie. He drew a red line with Syria. He backed down. 

No International Amnesty for the Palestinians

The White House should note that neither the Palestinian authorities nor the Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip have been willing to open investigations into their violations of international humanitarian law. Nor has Amnesty received any response from the Palestinian authorities about the cases it has been investigating.
Amnesty indicates that Palestinians have not investigated similar violations on previous occasions. It also points out that Palestinians have long claimed impunity for abuses inflicted by their security forces, such as arbitrary detention, torture, and the use of unlawful force against protestors in both the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
The Amnesty report is an important contribution to the accurate history of the activities of Palestinians.
It is incumbent on senior officials in the White House to read it and consider the circumstances that Prime Minister Netanyahu says must change if a Palestinian state is to be established.

2 IDF soldiers stabbed in West Bank, attacker killed

An IDF soldier was stabbed in the neck and seriously injured near the West Bank settlement of Shiloh Wednesday, and a second was stabbed and lightly injured.
The Palestinian attacker was shot dead by First Sergeant Tomer Lan, who was lightly injured in the attack and received treatment on site.
The seriously hurt soldier, 20, received medical treatment on site and was airlifted to a Jerusalem hospital, a Magen David Adom paramedic said.
“He came running at me shouting,” Lan told Army Radio. “He drew the knife, stabbed me twice in the back. I got up, cocked my weapon, shot and killed him.”
The incident took place around 10 a.m. north of Ramallah on Route 60, the main artery in the West Bank, outside the West Bank settlement of Shiloh.

Three hurt in separate rock-throwing attacks in West Bank

Three people were lightly injured in two separate incident involving rock-throwing in the West Bank on Tuesday.
A bus traveling from Jerusalem to the West Bank settlement of Adam, northeast of the capital, was pelted with stones near the Palestinian village of Hizma. The driver and one passenger were lightly hurt from shattered glass and received medical treatment by medics on site.
Near the settlement of Efrat in Gush Etzion, southwest of Jerusalem, a private vehicle was also pelted with rocks causing damage to the car.
The driver was lightly hurt and did not require medical treatment beyond that provided on site.

Man beaten to death in Berlin may have been Israeli

German police are investigating whether a man beaten to death beyond recognition in Berlin, whose body was found Sunday, was an Israeli citizen, local media reported on Wednesday.
A police spokesman confirmed that investigators had found the passport of a 22-year-old Israeli man in the back pocket of the sweatpants of the victim. However, the victim’s head was so badly beaten that police were unable to identify him as the passport holder.
The Chabad rabbi in Berlin, Yehuda Teichtal, told the NRG news site that the Israeli man to whom the passport belonged was supposed to celebrate the Passover seder at the local Chabad House on Friday night, but didn’t arrive.
Passersby found the body at 6.20 a.m. on Sunday morning in the ruins of an old Franciscan monastery in central Berlin. The site, which is open at all times, is known as a gathering place for drunks and homeless, local media said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that it was aware of the reports and was investigating the matter.

Gaza Terrorists Ramp Up Rocket Research For Next War

Arab terrorists in the Hamas stronghold of Gaza fired five rockets on Tuesday afternoon, as part of a program of rocket testing in preparation for the next war against Israel.
Of the five rockets fired at the Mediterranean Sea, one failed, while the other four launches were successful, reports Walla!.
Israel has been strictly supervising the influx of all goods into Gaza, so as to prevent weapons from reaching Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists to be used against the Jewish state.
As a result, Hamas has been putting a lot of energy into developing its production of domestic rockets within Gaza, such as the M-75 long-range projectile and other models. The research and development has been aided by massive smuggling activities.
Early last month a senior Hamas leader emphasized this point, saying Hamas is producing rockets to attack Israel.

Palestinians: Israel cuts back Gaza's lumber imports

Israel has cut back lumber shipments to the Gaza Strip, Palestinian importers said on Monday, adding to restrictions that could hamper housing reconstruction after last summer's war.
Israeli authorities overseeing the transfer of goods to the Hamas Islamist-run enclave were not immediately available to comment.
Israel tightly controls the transfer of construction material to Gaza, saying Hamas could use it to rebuild military infrastructure. Palestinian political in-fighting has also delayed widescale reconstruction of tens of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed in 50 days of fighting.
According to Gaza importers, 200 cubic meters (260 cubic yards) of lumber used in the construction industry had been brought into the territory daily, and those shipments would now be banned.

Arab MKs: IS assault on Yarmouk ‘serves Israeli occupation’

The MKs argued that that the Palestinian cause “unites all Arabs everywhere” and should give Palestinian refugees immunity from the internal strife of host states.
“What is happening in the Yarmouk refugee camp with IS fighters who have taken control of the area and are using the refugees as human shields, only serves the enemies of the Arab nations and the enemies of the Palestinian people and their just cause,” reads the statement, which was posted Tuesday to the Joint List’s Facebook page in Arabic. “It especially serves the Israeli occupation, which aims to settle the refugee issue as an internal, local problem of the camps.
The Islamic State launched an attack on the camp last week, reportedly killing and beheading Palestinian men and imprisoning women and children.The heavy clashes that have raged since then have added yet another layer of misery for up to 18,000 Yarmouk residents who have already endured desperate conditions marked by a lack of basic food, medicine and water.

ISIS-Besieged Yarmouk: Not Your Average 'Refugee Camp'

Yarmouk was established in 1957 on an area outside Damascus to accommodate refugees who were squatters, according to UNRWA, which largely administers the area. One is left to wonder what the Syrian authorities did with these "squatters" for nearly a decade, after they supposedly left Israel during the 1948 War of Independence.
The area later developed into a thriving neighborhood. Lina Sinjab reported for BBC in August 2010 that "although [Yarmouk] is identified as a [refugee] camp, there are no tents or slums in sight. It is a residential area with beauty salons and internet cafes. The Palestinians who live here are well integrated into society, some even hold government posts."
Residents of the camp number many professionals, including doctors, engineers and civil servants.
This of course raises the question: what is UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees – still doing there?

Turkish president visits Iran despite tensions over Yemen

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Iran Tuesday amid deep differences between the two nations over the conflicts in Yemen and Syria.
Erdogan has publicly backed the Saudi-led airstrike campaign targeting Shiite rebels who have overrun the Yemeni capital Sanaa and forced the Western-backed president to flee the country. Iran, which backs the rebels but denies any military support, has repeatedly called for an end to the coalition campaign.
The two nations are also on opposite sides of the Syrian civil war. Iran strongly supports Syrian President Bashar Assad, including direct military aid, while Turkey openly seeks regime change in Damascus. Last month, Erdogan lashed out at Iran, accusing it of trying to “dominate the region.”
On Tuesday, Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani downplayed their differences.

Journalist receives jail sentence for 'liking Erdogan insult'

A journalist from a local daily in southeastern Turkey has received a suspended prison sentence for "liking" a remark criticising President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Facebook, which the court deemed as an "insult."
The 19th Criminal Court of First Instance in the Gaziantep province convicted Yaşar Elma on charges of "insulting a public servant" in the second hearing of the trial on April 4, in which Erdoğan's lawyer also attended.
The court originally ruled to send Elma to prison for 28 months, but decreased the sentence to 23 months before suspending it.
"I had just used the 'like' feature of Facebook when I saw a comment on Mr. President one day. I deleted it after half an hour, but the police came up and the court convicted me in the second hearing of the trial," Elma said in an interview to the Doğan News Agency, noting that he "did not know that liking a comment was a crime."
His lawyer, Dilber Demirel, stressed that they would appeal the ruling, while stressing that the conviction stems from a single word that the court deemed an insult, without specifying it.

Fanaticism conquers Turkey

For the past two years, Turkey has been in a downward political spiral where the language of hatred and demonization overshadows everything else. The spiral is only getting deeper and deeper by jumping to new levels with every new political crisis and drama.
The terror attack against prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz, which took place last Tuesday within the colossal courthouse in central Istanbul, was one such level-jumper. The late Mr. Kiraz was overlooking the case of Berkin Elvan, a 15-year-old boy who had tragically died because of an injury he took to his head during the Gezi Park protests of summer 2013. The injury was caused by a police tear-gas canister and prosecutor Kiraz was really trying his best to figure out which police officers were responsible.
But in the eyes of the DHKP-C, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party–Front, an illegal Marxist-Leninist terror group, the entire “state” was responsible for the murder of Berkin, who they wanted to avenge. That is the background of why two members of the DHKP-C entered the courthouse last Tuesday cloaked as lawyers, entered prosecutor Kiraz’s room, took out their guns and held him captive. After six hours of bargaining, a police operation began, only to end with the two terrorists killed and the prosecutor found dead. There was no doubt this was a terrorist crime, the DHKP-C is a terror threat and Turkey’s courthouses need better security. But since the murder, the ongoing political madness focused on something else: The demonization of non-pro-government newspapers, including Hurriyet, as “supporters of terrorism.”

Twitter and Facebook vow to challenge Turkey over ban

Twitter and Facebook have vowed to fight a Turkish ban that briefly blocked access to social media sites this week, a clampdown critics said was further evidence of Ankara's growing authoritarianism.
Turkey has taken a tough stance on social media under President Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party he founded, temporarily stopping access to some sites last year and making it easier for authorities to introduce such bans.
In the second half of last year alone, Turkey filed more than five times more content-removal requests to Twitter than any other country, data from the micro-blogging company shows.
Both Twitter and video-sharing service YouTube were inaccessible for hours on Monday, after a Turkish court ordered the removal of images of a prosecutor held at gunpoint by far-left militants.

Turkish Religious Body Issues Fatwa Allowing Muslims to Use Toilet Paper

Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, known as the Diyanet, issued a fatwa that allows Muslims to use toilet paper. However, the department reminded people “that water should be the primary source of cleansing.”
“If water cannot be found for cleansing, other cleaning materials can be used,” the Diyanet claimed in a statement. “Even though some sources deem paper to be unsuitable as a cleaning material, as it is an apparatus for writing, there is no problem in using toilet paper.”
Islam requires believers to adhere to strict rules regarding bathroom use. When a Muslim enters the bathroom, “one should say the A’udhu (isti’adha) and Basmala and then recite the prayer ‘Allahumma innee a’oodhu bika minal khubthi wal khabaa-ith,’” which means “O Allah! I seek refuge in you from male and female noxious beings (devils or evil Jinn).” The person must enter the bathroom “with one’s left foot and exit with one’s right foot.” No one should “face or have one’s back toward the qibla (direction of prayer – the Ka’ba in Mecca) when urinating or defecating.” One website claimed people must clean their private parts with their fingers and dry with a cloth. Toilet paper is allowed if a proper cloth is not available.

Half of Kingdom’s population will be diabetic by 2030

Half of the Kingdom’s population will be diabetic by 2030 if precautionary measures are not taken, according to official statistics from the International Diabetes Federation.
Dr. Kamel Salama, secretary general of the Diabetes and Endocrine Glands Association in the Eastern Region and former director of surgery and diagnosis at Dhahran Health Center at Saudi Aramco, said the Kingdom occupies first place in the prevalence of diabetes in the MENA region with nearly 24 percent of the population having been diagnosed with the disease.
Globally, the Kingdom comes seventh in the prevalence of diabetes, according to official statistics. Thirty-one out of every 100 children in the Kingdom aged between 10 and 14 are diagnosed with type I diabetes.
Statistics from the International Diabetes Federation reveal the Kingdom ranks fifth globally and third among Gulf countries in obesity.
Thirty-six percent of the population is obese, 44 percent of whom are women and 26 percent men. Eighteen percent, or nearly 3 million children in the Kingdom are obese, 50 percent of whom are diabetic. The population survey in 2012 revealed 7.5 million Saudis are obese due to lack of physical activity, as nearly 33 percent of men and 50 percent of women do not exercise.