Tuesday, June 14, 2016
World in Chaos, Israel Gets Singular Focus at UN Rights Body
Wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Enforced disappearances, torture and extremist attacks infringe on human rights worldwide. Tyrannical, autocratic leaders and their allies from Belarus to Burundi repel dissent with an iron fist.
But while human rights abuses are legion in these troubled times, only one country has its record inspected at every single session of the United Nations Human Rights Council: Israel, over its policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel, which trumpets its bona fides as a democracy in a difficult neighborhood full of enemies, is crying foul. And it is not entirely alone: Other critics, notably the United States, also decry what they see as an entrenched bias in United Nations institutions and an obsession with the Palestinian issue at the expense of other crises around the globe.
As the council convened Monday in Geneva for its second, weeks-long session this year, "Item 7" considers the human rights implications of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. The standing item at the 10-year-old council has come to exemplify the spotlight on Israel in a number of U.N. bodies.
"I don't know whether it's fair or unfair, but it's obvious that the majority of members want to continue to focus on the situation of Israel and Palestine," council president Choi Kyong-lim told The Associated Press.
Of 233 country-specific HRC resolutions in the last decade, more than a quarter — 65 — focus on Israel. About half of those are "condemnatory." Israel easily tops the second-place country in the infamous rankings: Syria, where since 2011 at least 250,000 have been killed, over 10 million displaced, and swaths of cities destroyed, was the subject of 19 resolutions.
Anne Bayefsky: UN-happy anniversary to the Human Rights Council: The anti-Israel body makes a mockery of its responsibilities
Coinciding with Ramadan, the United Nation's top human rights body — the Human Rights Council — has been celebrating its tenth anniversary in Geneva starting on Monday. Council members like human rights stalwarts Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, along with President Obama's delegation, will be singing the Council's praises — accompanied by a mandatory cacophony of rumbling bellies.Caroline Glick: Is ISIS a GOP franchise?
Here are four reasons that UN bosses & their government cohorts are celebrating — and human rights advocates and victims are not.
3. The Council has a Jewish problem. One-third of all its resolutions and decisions critical of a country for violating human rights are directed at just one state — democratic Israel. That's three times as many condemnations of Israel as its nearest competitor — hellish Syria’ 10 times more than the Al Qaeda vacation spot of Libya and thirteen times more than the execution-per-capita capital of the world, Iran.
As for the millions of women experiencing modern slavery in Ramadan-compliant Saudi Arabia, the millions in Crimea "freed" by Russian tanks, and the billions in China who've never known civil liberties: zip.
4. The biggest and most important fan of the Council is none other than the United States. The Bush administration refused to join or to pay for the Council on the grounds that a human rights body where decision-makers don't respect human rights might not be in sync with American values. But the first major foreign policy decision in 2009 of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to jump on the UN bandwagon and throw taxpayer money at it.
Is Islamic State opposed to gay marriage? Was anger at the US Supreme Court's decision mandating recognition of homosexual marriage what prompted Omar Mateen to massacre fifty Americans at the gay nightclub in Orlando on Saturday night? What about gun control? Is Islamic State, to which Mateen announced his allegiance as he mowed down innocents like blades of grass, a libertarian group that abhors limitations on private ownership of firearms? In other words, are Islamic State and its fellow jihadists from Iran to Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram and al Qaida adjuncts of the Republican Party? Is Omar Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph at the helm of ISIS a social conservative, a libertarian and a card carrying member of the GOP, or just one of the three? Because President Barack Obama seems to think that this is the question most Americans should be asking. In his statement on the massacre on Sunday, Obama placed Mateen's action in the context the partisan debate on gay rights and gun control.
With regard to the former, Obama said that the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which was the site of the attack was more than a mere nightclub. It was, "a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights." In other words, Obama intimated, the victims were murdered because Mateen opposed all of those things, specifically.
Turning to gun rights, Obama said, "The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well." So as the president sees things, if you oppose limitations on firearm ownership, then you're on Mateen's side.
To say that Obama's behavior is unpresidential is an understatement. His behavior is dangerous. It imperils the United States and its citizens.
France terrorist livestreams policeman’s killing on Facebook
A man with links to fundamentalist Islamic terror groups who killed a French policeman and his partner on Monday night was said to have broadcast the attack live on social media via his mobile phone.French attacker pledged loyalty to IS, had public figure ‘hit list’
Larossi Abballa, 25, recorded the attack and posted it on Facebook Live, according to French officials. In the 13-minute video Abballa could be seen stabbing the police commander and his partner to death outside their suburban Paris home as their three-year-old son watched in horror.
French security expert David Thomson said the video, along with 15 photos, appeared on Abballa’s Facebook profile – under the name “Mohamed Ali” – before it was suspended hours after the attack.
Next to one photo, in which the child could be seen in the background, Abella wrote, “I still don’t know what I’m going to do with him,” Thomson said.
During the attack, Abballa reportedly turned to the camera and pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, saying that he was heeding the organization’s call for lone-wolf attacks during the month of Ramadan, which began last week. He then warned that Europe would become a “graveyard.”
A man who stabbed a police commander and police administrator to death at their home in a Paris suburb pledged loyalty to the leader of the Islamic State group and had a list of other targets, including rappers, journalists, police officers and public officials, the Paris prosecutor said Tuesday.French Jews outraged by Islamist’s murder of cop couple
Prosecutor Francois Molins said attacker Larossi Abballa made the declaration of allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in exchanges with officers during a three-hour standoff Monday night in the suburb of Magnanville, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) west of Paris. He was eventually killed by police.
Abballa was responding to IS calls to “kill non-believers where they live,” and with their families, Molins said. IS news agency Amaq cited an unnamed source as saying an IS fighter carried out the attack and prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said French authorities have “no reason” to doubt the claim.
Molins said Abballa stabbed Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, 42, a police commander in the Paris suburb of Les Mureaux, outside his home late Monday. He then went inside and took Salvaing’s partner and 3-year-old son hostage. He killed the woman, who was a police administrator in the suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie, but did not harm the boy, Molins said.
French Jews expressed their outrage over the murder of two police officers, a man and his partner, at their home near Paris by an Islamist.Netanyahu: Orlando casualties were victims of homophobia
Francis Kalifat, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, on Tuesday conveyed the sentiment, along with his solidarity with the family and security forces, on Twitter over the killing of Jean-Baptiste Salvaing near Paris the previous evening.
Moche Lewin, the executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis, also expressed “solidarity” with French police in a post on his Twitter account.
Many French Jews regard attacks by Islamists and others on police and military as closely related to their own safety.
The casualties of Sunday’s deadly nightclub shooting in Orlando were victims of homophobia and intolerance, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday.Douglas Murray: We can’t ignore the religion of the Orlando gay club gunman
“These people were doing nothing wrong,” he said. “They were dancing with friends and enjoying music with loved ones. The terrorist murdered them because he was driven by intolerance to the LGBT community and driven by hatred for freedom and diversity.”
Addressing foreign diplomats in Jerusalem, the prime minister drew a direct parallel between terror attacks in Israel and elsewhere in the world.
“Paris, London, Brussels, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Bali, Mumbai, New York, San Bernardino, now Orlando — so many cities have been struck by the same evil,” he said. “Terror knows no bounds and that’s why our cooperation — the battle against terrorism — must know no bounds as well. One day [the Islamic State] kills gays, the next day Yazidis, then Jews and Muslims and Christians. They have no bounds.”
Here’s a prediction. If the gunman from last night had proved to have been a Christian fundamentalist, every person he had ever associated with would by now be being crawled over not just by law enforcement but by the press. Senior church figures and political leaders across America and the rest of the world would have condemned the act and said how important it is to root out such hatred from people’s hearts. Every group, individual or fellow-traveller who was in any way associated with the gunman’s ideology would be forever tarnished by association even if they had no connection to the gunman himself.Phyllis Chesler: An act of "domestic terrorism" - or part of a larger looming disaster
But the Orlando attack would appear to have been carried out by a radical Muslim, not a radical Christian. And so law enforcement will play down the ideological component. Meantime US and other political leaders will try to deny the ideological connection or say – at the most – that it is important not to single out any one ideology. Almost every single Imam in America and elsewhere will deny that there is any connection between the gunman’s beliefs and theirs. If any journalists do look into which mosques or groups the gunman was associated with the entirety of the American Muslim community leadership will insist that any identification of the gunman’s beliefs is in fact ‘Islamophobic’. And so the hatred that propelled the gunman will not just live on, but grow. Which the rest of us might end up assuming was the aim all along.
It is just two months since we learned that 52 per cent of British Muslims believe that being gay should be made illegal in the UK. When that poll was released very nearly the entirety of the UK’s Muslim leadership and spokespeople attacked not the bigotry of their own community, but the poll. It is always the same story. And yet there is a perfectly straight line from that belief to what happened in Florida last night. With any other religious community we – and they – would admit that. But not with Islam.
According to FBI Special Agent Danny Banks, the Orlando mass murderer had “leanings toward radical Islam.”The Mottle Wolfe Show: Not Because of Guns, Not Because of Homophobia
Leanings? According to reports, he called 911 to announce his allegiance to ISIS - and ISIS was only too glad to accept responsibility.
According to the NY Times, the F.B.I. investigated him for possible terrorist ties in 2013 and 2014 but did not believe him to be a threat. The 2014 investigation centered on a possible link between the murderer and Moner Mohammad Abusalha, an American from Florida who became a suicide bomber for an extremist group in Syria.
Orlando, Florida and Tel Aviv, Israel are not that far apart.
Only days ago, two Jihadist shooters murdered four people in Tel Aviv at Max Brenner’s Café. They were stopped before they could kill any further.
A single Jihadist shooter murdered 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando—yes, Orlando, the home of Disneyworld. He was not stopped in time…..
Who was he and why did he do it?
When we first heard that the massacre took place in a gay nightclub, people assumed that the killer was probably a homophobic right-winger. That is not the case.
As the news sinks in about 50 people slaughtered in a bar in Orlando, many people want to blame anything other than the real culprit, Islam’s war on the West.Michael Totten: Banning Guns and Muslims Isn’t the Answer to Orlando
The United States suffered the worst act of terrorism since 9/11 over the weekend when ISIS supporter Omar Seddique Mateen killed 50 people and wounded another 53 with a handgun and a .223 rifle at a gay nightclub in Orlando.Islamic preacher who called for gays to be 'executed' and lectured in Orlando weeks before nightclub massacre flees Australia after Malcolm Turnbull announced an 'urgent' review of his visa
Americans are good at solving problems. We’ve put men on the moon, cured countless diseases, and invented nearly all modern technology from televisions and telephones to microchips and the Internet. We created a durable democracy that has lasted more than 200 years, ended slavery, destroyed Hitler’s Nazi regime, and bested the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Surely, then, we can solve terrorism, or at least drastically reduce it, but let’s get one thing clear. There is no such thing as The Answer. There is no silver bullet, no magic wand, no perfectly calibrated piece of legislation that Congress can pass to make terrorists leave us alone.
Even if there were such a thing, a government ban wouldn’t be it. If it were so easy, we’d just ban terrorism and be done with it. Yet a large swath of the left wants to solve this with a gun ban, and a large swath of the right wants to ban Muslims.
We’ve never solved any of our great problems with bans. Bans always backfire. Remember Prohibition? How’s the drug war coming along? What does the underground sex industry look like?Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says she wants stricter gun laws after Orlando. Reasonable people can disagree about the particulars of this or that piece of proposed gun regulation, but Clinton is kidding herself or pulling a fast one on voters by suggesting that better background checks, closing the loopholes at gun shows, or an “assault” rifle ban will prevent terrorists from getting guns.
An Islamic preacher who called for gay people to be executed has boarded a flight to leave Australia after [Australian PM] Malcolm Turnbull said there would be an urgent review into his visa.Orlando should raise alarms for security hires by Jewish groups, says security official
Farrokh Sekaleshfar's visa was called into question after it was revealed he gave a sermon in Orlando urging Muslims to 'get rid' of homosexuals in the months before the Pulse nightclub massacre.
The Sheik boarded a flight in Sydney on Tuesday night, ABC's Lateline reported, saying it was the best outcome for the community.
Sekaleshfar expressed sympathy to the families of victims of the worst massacre in US history.
He had delivered a final speech at Imam Husain Islamic Centre (IHIC) in Earlwood before his departure, and said he was leaving without the government's direction, but because IHIC asked him to.
Jewish institutions must heed the flaws in the security industry exposed by the mass shooting in Orlando, the top Jewish community security official said.Leftists and Pro-QuAIA Muslims Hijack Toronto Vigil for Orlando Victims
Paul Goldenberg, who directs Secure Community Network, said Omar Mateen’s employment by a prominent security firm, G4S, should raise alarms for Jewish groups that hire security staffers from that firm and other contractors.
“We need to rethink the process and not depend on the lowest bidder,” Goldenberg told JTA on Sunday, emphasizing that he was not singling out G4S, but noting that many Jewish institutions used outside contractors. “The Jewish community has come to rely on private security professionals. We need to consider who to hire.”
Mateen pledged loyalty to the Islamic State in communications with police during his attack on a gay nightclub early Sunday, in which he killed 49 people and wounded 53. He was killed during the attack, the worst mass shooting in US history.
Goldenberg, whose SCN is an affiliate of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said security staff often have minimum screening and training, and are paid minimum wage.
As Sue-Anne Levy, who was disgusted by egregious display of virtue signaling and political correctness, notes, the whole thing turned into "a vigil for Islam."EXCLUSIVE – Top Gaza Terrorist: Throwing Gays from Rooftops ‘The Law of Allah’
Levy is also sickened by the vigilists' highly selective opprobrium:
These are the very same apologists, except for [Toronto mayor John] Tory, I might add, who either propped up QuAIA [Queers Against Israeli Apartheid] or refused to condone its existence in the Pride parade over five long years.
I repeat — while they refused to use the “M” word Sunday night even though the facts are staring them in their politically-correct faces — these are the very same people, who were quite content to allow the only gay-friendly country in the Middle East, the country that takes in gay refugees from the homophobic Arab countries, to be vilified in a parade that is supposed to be about gay rights.
I wonder — if my sources are correct about QuAIA rearing its ugly head in Toronto’s Pride parade yet again this year — whether we can expect the same prayer vigil for Israel at Barbara Hall park.
Ansari made the remarks in an interview that aired Sunday night on this reporter’s radio talk show, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” broadcast on New York’s AM 970 The Answer ad NewsTalk 990 AM in Philadelphia.'Without changes, Arab Peace Initiative is irrelevant'
Stated Ansari: When the Islamic State throws gays from the roofs, it is not a sanction that they decided upon. This is our Sharia. These are the laws of Allah that were made by Allah and implemented by his Prophet and our brothers in the Islamic State are only implementing these laws and instructions of Allah and of his Prophet.
Regarding the targeting of a gay night club, Ansari said:
Now for the target. It is known that gays are people who are challenging Allah. Who are not respecting his instruction. Who are spreading corruption and immorality all around. But I don’t believe they were the target. American and the infidels in America were the target.
…I don’t have any specific information about this specific target but I can tell you from my knowledge that the general goal was the Americans, the Crusaders, the Infidels who are leading this coalition with some Arab countries against the Islamic State.
At a meeting of Likud ministers on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced questions regarding the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. Two weeks ago, Netanyahu said the initiative included "positive elements that can help revive constructive negotiations with Palestinians" and further noted that Israel was "willing to negotiate with Arab states' revisions to that initiative so that it reflects the dramatic changes in the region since 2002."Israel to UNHRC: ‘You’ve never cared for us, how do you expect us to take you seriously?'
On Monday, one Likud minister asked Netanyahu what he would do if Arab states were not willing to revise the initiative. "If the Arab states grasp the fact that they need to revise the Arab League proposal according to the changes Israel demands, then we can talk," Netanyahu replied. "But if they bring the proposal from 2002 and define it as 'take it or leave it' -- we'll choose to leave it."
In response to another question about the Arab Peace Initiative, Netanyahu said the initiative provided a "good foundation, but it clearly must be updated due to the far-reaching changes that have taken place in our region in recent years."
The prime minister went on to say the initiative could be relevant if demands for an Israeli return to the 1967 borders (including in the Golan Heights region) and the granting of a right of return to Palestinian refugees were stricken from it.
“You have an obsessive, compulsive disorder regarding Israel,” the country's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Eviatar Manor, told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on the second day of its 32nd session.Arab League head cancels visit to Ramallah
In a short, but highly charged speech he accused the UNHRC of overly focusing on Israel’s actions against the Palestinians at the expense of other more serious human rights situations in the Middle East.
“Politicized debates, biased resolutions, preposterous reports, discriminatory conduct and unfounded accusations characterize the attitude of this Council and of the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights towards Israel,” Manor said.
The Israeli Ambassador took particular issue with a UNHRC mandate that alleged Israeli human rights violations must be addressed at every session under Agenda Item 7. Israel is the only country that is singled out in this way. All other human rights issues around the world are addressed under Agenda Item 4.
“This Council’s priorities are wide off the mark,” said Manor.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby canceled at the last minute a scheduled two-day trip to Ramallah, where he was expected to discuss with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas both the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and the more recent French one.Man shot twice in the head in Tel Aviv attack goes home, with bullet
According to the Palestinian News Agency Ma’an, Elaraby canceled the trip scheduled for Tuesday after coming under criticism from various Palestinian and Arab circles that it signaled “normalization” with Israel.
Elaraby’s trip to Ramallah would have had to be approved by Jerusalem, since – according to a statement put out by the Palestinian Authority – he was originally scheduled to fly by helicopter from Amman to Ramallah on Tuesday, and return to Jordan via helicopter on Wednesday.
In March, Israel prevented Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi from traveling to and from Ramallah via Jordan, because she refused to hold any meetings with Israeli officials. Elaraby also had no meetings planned with Israeli officials.
An Israeli shot twice in the head in the Tel Aviv terror attack last week was released from the hospital on Tuesday and was expected to make a full recovery.Woman who died of heart attack recognized as terror victim
Assaf Bar, 27, a Haifa resident, was one of the first people injured at the Sarona complex on Wednesday night. Four Israelis were killed in the terror attack, carried out by two Palestinian relatives from the West Bank village of Yatta at the Sarona Market.
Doctors have decided not to remove one of the bullets from Bar’s head, which penetrated some 2 centimeters (less than one inch) from the back, and was not posing an immediate danger to his life, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported on Tuesday. The other bullet, which entered behind his ear, was extracted in surgery immediately after the attack.
Bar was in good condition post-surgery, and on Tuesday, he was discharged, according to the Walla news website.
The Defense Ministry has announced that it will recognize Ilana Naveh, who died during last Wednesday's shooting attack at Tel Aviv's Sarona Market, as a victim of terror.Guardian, like the New York Times, fails to use word ‘terror’ in Tel Aviv attack reports
The decision will allow her family to receive the full rights and compensation granted to terror victims' relatives.
Unlike the other three people murdered in the attack, Naveh died of a heart attack during the shooting spree, and was not directly killed by the terrorists' gunfire.
Nevertheless, the defense ministry has confirmed she will be considered a victim of terror, since there is no doubt that the attack caused her death.
Naveh's death was at the center of some controversy, after police and prosecutors insisted on an autopsy despite her family's opposition, after her body was found at the scene of the terror attack without any gunshot wounds.
On June 9th, CAMERA’s Alex Safian commented on the New York Times’ failure to use the word “terror” to refer to the deadly Palestinian attack on civilians in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, despite the fact that the Times used the root word “terror” fourteen times in a different June 8th story about a hypothetical attack in France in preparation for the Euro 2016 football tournament.'Palestinian who stabbed IDF soldier in Tel Aviv sought to kill to become "martyr"'
Similarly, our review of four separate reports by the Guardian showed that the media group also failed to use the term “terror” in describing the Tel Aviv attack – except when quoting Israeli officials.
(In contrast, The Times, Telegraph and Independent all used the term “terror” or “terrorist” at least once – without quotes – in their reports on the killings.)
Instead of “terror” attack, the Guardian opted instead for “shooting” or just “attack”. And, instead of “terrorist” to describe the perpetrator, they used the more neutral words “shooter” or “attacker”.
A Tel Aviv court on Tuesday indicted an 18-year-old Palestinian man for attempted murder after he stabbed and wounded an IDF soldier on May 30 in Tel Aviv.Terrorist convicted of 3 counts of murder, 7 counts of attempted murder in J’lem bus massacre
According to the indictment, Omar Jandav from the West Bank town of Salfit, illegally entered Israel and carried out the attack with the intent to kill an Israel soldier in order to be recognized as a "shaheed" - Arabic for martyr.
Jandav had been illegally residing in Israeli territory while working at a construction site in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim for some 10 days before the stabbing, noted the indictment filed in the Tel Aviv District Court.
The Tel Aviv prosecutor's office requested that Jandav remain in police custody until the end of legal proceedings in his case.
According to the indictment, Jandav decided to attack an IDF soldier after finishing work at the construction site on May 30, and informed his friends of his intentions.
Afterward, Jandav took a 19-centimeter-long (7.5-inch) screwdriver from the construction site and set out to the Tel Aviv's busy Yigal Alon thoroughfare searching for a target.
Balal Abu Gaanam, an east Jerusalem resident accused of brutally murdering three Jewish men and wounding 10 others on an Egged bus in the capital last October, was convicted of multiple murder and attempted murder charges by Jerusalem District Court on Monday.‘Palestinians must learn to properly condemn terrorist attacks’
The prosecution is requesting that Gaanam, 21, of Jabel Mukaber, be sentenced to three consecutive life sentences for the murders in neighboring Armon Hanatziv, and an additional 70 years’ imprisonment for seven convictions of attempted murder.
Gaanam was also convicted of aiding an enemy during wartime.
Haim Haviv, 78, Alon Govberg, 51, and Richard Lakin, 76, were killed in the bloody October 13 attack, which made international headlines and rattled the nation.
State Prosecutor Uri Korb said that Ghanem “did not express regret for his actions.”
In its indictment, the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office stated that Gaanam had been a Hamas supporter for several years when his accomplice in the murders, Baha Elian, told him he obtained NIS 20,000 to carry out a terrorist attack against Jews.
The indictment stated that the two were enraged about “breakins at Al-Aksa [Mosque]” and at “settlers for murdering Palestinian children” – false allegations that have been regularly propagated by radical Islamist groups to incite deadly violence.
Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) said he was shocked by the hateful massacre against the LGBTQ community in Florida. “Our hearts are with the American people who must deal with radical Islamic terrorism that not only threatens them and Israel, but the entire Western civilization.”Watch: Temple Mount preacher calls to 'annihilate the Jews'
He called on the Palestinians to learn how to condemn terrorist attacks. “I heard some of the condemnations by Islamic community leaders in the United States. They strongly condemned the terrible hatred and murder and prayed for the souls of the victims and the healing of injured.”
“[Mahmoud] Abbas must watch and learn what it is for Arabs and Muslims to properly condemn terrorist attack and hatred,” said Steinitz, referring to the gleeful Palestinian response following the Wednesday shooting attack in Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market which claimed the lives of four.
“It turns out that unlike Abbas, there are Arabs and Muslims who condemn attacks, who know that terrorism is terrorism and murder is murder,” he said, calling the Palestinians Authority Chairman’s condemnation “shabby, pathetic and meaningless.”
"I'm not going to argue with anyone on why the US president refrained from defining the attack as an action of radical Islam. Our hearts are with the United States, the President and the American people.”
While Israel has cracked down on Muslim incitement on the Temple Mount - jailing a number of clerics who incited violence and banning several violent Islamist groups - it appears that anti-Semitic preaching is still continuing in the Al Aqsa Mosque.
In footage translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), preacher Ali Abu Ahmad can be seen calling for Muslim armies throughout the world to rise up and impose a "Caliphate," and ending with a prayer for the annihilation of the Jewish people.
The speech took place on May 20, in the run up to Ramadan, which Abu Ahmad references.
The Islamic holy month is consistently a time of heightened terrorist violence by Islamists in the Middle East and throughout the world. Not long after the start of Ramadan last week, two Muslim terrorists murdered four people and seriously wounded several others in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv. Security forces are on high alert for further attacks in the coming weeks, as terror groups from Hamas to ISIS have urged their followers to attack non-Muslims in "honor" of the 30-day period.
Amnesty slams IDF for administrative detention of circus clown
Most of the international community is critical of Israel’s administrative detention policy. But in this particular case, due to Abu Saha’s job as a clown and the children he helps, clowns from the US, England, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil and a list of other countries have loudly protested the detention even more than usual.Hamas Allows Iranian NGO’s to Deliver Food to Gaza’s Needy For Ramadan
An Amnesty spokesman said that all they had been told was that Abu Saha was accused of being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, but with no details about him being dangerous or concrete evidence to back up the claim.
The spokesman added that Abu Saha was convicted of low-grade stone throwing when he was 17 in 2009, but that the IDF presented no new evidence against him. The IDF has not responded to press inquiries about the case.
The military court also said that the security threat posed by Abu Saha was “decisive... and high-level” and that his activities were “not political.”
In marking the month of Ramadan, which began last week, Gaza’s Hamas leadership allowed Iranian-funded NGOs into the strip to deliver food to the needy.Report: Hezbollah Has More Rockets Than 27 NATO Countries Combined
Some of the NGOs are connected to the Iran-supported Al-Sabireen and Islamic Jihad terror groups based in the Gaza Strip. The distribution of food is carried out daily as part of a campaign called “The Aid of Imam Khomeini,” and represents a part of a wider campaign covering many Middle Eastern countries including Iraq, Syria and Lebanon led by “The World Association of Religious Scholars and Opposition Supporters.”
Hamas’ leadership permitted the NGOs to work in Gaza after months during which they were significantly limited in the territory and political assessments suggest that Hamas made the decision in order to improve relations with Iran, which in recent months renewed financial support for Hamas’ military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades.
Hamas officials expressed their displeasure with the campaign named after Khomeini with a large advertisement portraying Gaza as an Iranian satellite state. These same officials however, were unsuccessful in stopping the Iranian campaign in Gaza.
Any future war between Israel and Hezbollah will take a devastating toll on civilians due to the Iran-backed terrorist group’s practice of embedding its military assets in residential areas, Willy Stern wrote in the June 20 issue of The Weekly Standard.Hezbollah Suspected in Bombing of Beirut Bank that Enforced Sanctions
Hezbollah currently has a stockpile of over 130,000 rockets, more than the combined arsenal of all NATO countries, with the exception of the United States. This number includes long-range rockets and M-600 ballistic missiles, which carry a high payload and would be able to “wipe out a good chunk of Times Square and maim and kill people four football fields away from the point of impact,” Stern noted. Hezbollah also has approximately 100,000 short-range rockets trained on schools, homes, and hospitals in northern Israel, which could potentially kill hundreds of civilians.
“You don’t collect 130,000 missiles if you don’t intend to use them,” said Matthew Levitt, an expert on counter-terrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Hezbollah’s positioning of this weaponry in civilian areas poses a challenge to Israeli officers, added Geoff Corn, an international military law expert at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. “After exhausting all feasible efforts to reduce civilian risk, IDF commanders must resolve the decisive question: Is the potential for civilian harm excessive in comparison to the advantages the attack would provide? When you talk of an M-600 in the hands of an enemy that targets vital military assets or the civilian population—even if that apartment building is full—launching the attack will be necessary to mitigate the threat,” he explained.
Two people were injured on Sunday after a bomb exploded outside the headquarters of a Beirut bank that had enforced sanctions on the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.Is Hezbollah involved in the biggest prostitution network ever exposed in Lebanon?
Blom Bank has recently closed the accounts of individuals suspected of having links to Hezbollah in order to comply with U.S. law, Reuters reported. The Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act, which was signed into law in December, requires banks to cease any business dealings with the group to avoid being blocked from the American financial system. Though there has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, Hezbollah is suspected to have been involved, Al-Jazeera reported.
The bomb was hidden in a flower pot and contained roughly 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of explosives, according to Ibrahim Basbous, Lebanon’s internal security chief. The blast left a hole in a concrete wall and shattered glass on the ground.
“Politically it is clear that the target was Blom Bank only,” said Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk. He added that the bombing was not linked to the Islamic State.
“We have entered a cycle of attacks,” Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze minority’s Progressive Socialist Party, told LBC television. He called for a “roadmap between Hezbollah and [Lebanese] banks” to alleviate tensions.
“Our battle with terrorism, bombings, killings, assassinations and direct and indirect messages is long,” said MP Saad al-Hariri, leader of the Future Movement, which is primarily supported by Lebanese Sunnis. “Terrorism will not intimidate the Lebanese,” he added. Hariri’s father Rafic, the former prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated in 2004. A United Nations investigation implicated Hezbollah in the killing.
Lebanon has been bustling in the past few days following the discovery of the biggest prostitution network ever operated in the country. While pro-Hezbollah newspapers deem that the Lebanese organization aided in exposing the network, anti-Hezbollah social media activists have launched an attack against the organization, claiming that one of its members was the network's head.Former DEA Chief: Hezbollah ‘Moving Tons of Cocaine’ Out of Latin America
The prostitution network, revealed by the Lebanese police in the coastal city of Jounieh, north of Beirut, included 75 women, most of them Syrian. The network's operators convinced the women to leave their homeland and move to Lebanon by offering them apparent jobs at Lebanese restaurants.
Inspected by 18 guards at the brothel, the women were obliged to serve as prostitutes 20 hours a day. If a woman's client did not like the way he was treated by her, she would have been hit, tortured or sexually harassed by the network's operators.
The network, which started operating in 2011, was not only a prostitution network, but also an ISIS-like human trafficking network, in which the operators sold or hired out women to other networks.
Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah is generating hundreds of millions from a “cocaine money laundering scheme” in Latin America that “provides a never-ending source of funding” for its terrorist operations, a former DEA operations chief recently told U.S. lawmakers.Reports: ISIS leader Baghdadi killed in US-led airstrike
The official comments came nearly a week after the U.S. State Department reported that Latin America and the Caribbean “served as areas of financial and ideological support” for the Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), Shiite Hezbollah, and other Islamic terrorist groups from the Middle East and South Asia.
Michael Braun, the former federal law enforcement official, was one of three terror financing experts who told the House Financial Services Committee on June 8 that Hezbollah’s narco-terrorism operations in the Latin American region were flourishing.
“The global drug trade generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year in contraband revenue for Hezbollah and it provides a never-ending source of funding for their war chest,” he testified in his prepared remarks. “Hezbollah uses cocaine, other drugs and other contraband as an alternative form of currency. And they have used drugs as payment for information and to successfully corrupt Israeli Defense Force personnel, as well as soldiers in other militaries.”
A recent DEA investigation revealed that the Lebanese-Canadian Bank alone was “facilitating a [Hezbollah] cocaine money laundering scheme involving as much as $200 million per month,” added Braun, who now serves as the managing partner of the government contractor SGI Global that he co-founded.
Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in a U.S.-led airstrike in the northeastern Syrian city of Raqqa, according to numerous unconfirmed media reports circulating on Tuesday.IsraellyCool: Guest Post (Dickie Sliverstein): Archaeological Proof Of Palestinian Presence 6,000 Years Ago (satire)
The reports cited the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency as saying, "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed by coalition airstrikes on Raqqa on the fifth day of Ramadan," which, if true, means that Baghdadi was killed late last week.
A spokesperson for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition declined to confirm the reports "at this time."
A previous report by an Iraqi news outlet said Baghdadi and other ISIS leaders were wounded in a coalition airstrike near the Iraq-Syria border last Thursday.
There have been numerous past reports of Baghdadi's death that later proved to be false.
Zionist shmatteh the Jerusalem Post reports on a supposed “discovery” showing a Jewish presence in the land over 2,000 years ago.
Typical hasbara by the hasbarafia.
This is all well and good, but as PA president Mahmoud Abbas recently said, the Palestinians have been here for over 6,000 years, protestations of Zio-trash hasbarati like PMW notwithstanding.
I can now reveal from my secret sauce that Mahmoud Abbas is in fact about to make an announcement of his own, regarding an archaeological discovery made by his crack team of Palestinian archaeologists, which proves his assertion: a 6,000 year old coin that shows the Palestinian presence in the land back then without a shred of doubt. My secret sauce has also sent me a photo of the coin in question.
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