Caroline Glick: 'US supported Israel's opponent during Protective Edge'
Jerusalem Post managing editor Caroline Glick called Operation Cast Lead "the most successful operation" in Israeli history in response to the State Comptroller's report blasting the government for its handling of the tunnel threat.PMW: Want to learn 16 languages? Murder 3 Israelis
Glick wrote on her Facebook page that Israel was facing not only Hamas during the 2014 Gaza conflict, but a hostile Obama Administration. "When talking about the political questions regarding Operation Protective Edge, we somehow ignore two important points. The first is that Operation Protective Edge was the first war Israel fought in which the US supported the other side. From the beginning, the unequivocal demand of [former US President Barack] Obama was that Israel accept Hamas' conditions for a ceasefire."
"The second point, which is a result of the first, is that politically, Protective Edge was the most successful operation in the country's history. Israel managed to avoid accepting the dictates of Hamas, which were backed by the Obama Administration, by bypassing Washington and paralyzing the anti-Israel political campaign of the White House. The Americans stood open-mouthed and helpless as the Egyptians and the Saudis went and openly sided with Israel against Hamas.
"We have to learn the details of the State Comptroller report, and I am beginning to read it right now. But make no mistake. Politically the operation was an unparalleled achievement. Israel fought against the US and managed not to surrender."
For a released Palestinian terrorist who murdered 3 Israeli soldiers, the 27 years he spent in Israeli prisons was his ticket to higher education.JordanTimes: Iran’s Israel card
Terrorist murderer Hilal Jaradat:
"In prison I studied at the Hebrew University in the history and political science faculties. I read approximately 6,000 books in prison, and I translated for many of the prisoners."
[Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, Jan. 26, 2017]
While in prison he also developed an interest in learning foreign languages:
"I began with Hebrew and English and then I moved on to many languages such as Russian, Spanish, and French, until I reached approximately 16 languages."
Jaradat was released by Israel in 2011, as part of the Shalit prisoner exchange deal brokered between the Israeli government and Hamas. In that deal, Israel released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for more than 5 years.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday used the podium of a pro-Palestinian gathering in Tehran to call for liberating Palestine from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan.
While it is the not the first time an Iranian leader calls for the destruction of Israel, this time the Iranian supreme leader threatened Israel in response to his perception that there is a sort of a Saudi-Israeli rapprochement.
If anything, Iranian leaders are used to exploiting the Palestinian cause, using it as a smoke screen, to conceal their sectarian agenda in the Levant and the Gulf.
The Arabs are not oblivious to the most recent Iranian ploy.
In fact, a considerable majority of Arabs believes that the Iranians are using the Palestinians cause as a Trojan horse for their negative influence in the Middle East.
By appearing as embracers of the Palestinian cause, many Arabs argue, the Iranian leaders seek to cover up their “terrorist” acts committed in some Arab states.
Political Operatives Pose as Journalists, Human Rights Groups
The same activists and organizations were silent when the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces arrested al-Qiq and harassed his family. Amnesty International neglected to mention that al-Qiq has also been targeted by PA security forces and that, in addition to his work as a newsman, he is also affiliated with Hamas. This detail, according to Amnesty, is evidently not significant.US urges Human Rights Council to end ‘obsession with Israel’
When arrested, such political operatives posing as journalists -- and so-called human rights groups, and the mainstream media in the West -- get to scream about Israel assaulting freedom of the media. This dirty little game has been played by Palestinian and Western journalists and highly politicized, biased human rights groups for years.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), which is headed by Nasser Abu Baker, did not come out in support of journalist, Sami al-Sai when he was arrested (and tortured) for 20 days in the PA's notorious Jericho Central Prison. Nor did Amnesty or most human rights organizations come out in defense of al-Sai.
Instead of calling on the PA leadership to release their detained colleague, Abu Baker and the PJS heads issued a statement in which they justified his arrest and defended the PA against charges of torturing him.
The United States on Wednesday called on the UN Human Rights Council to drop its “obsession with Israel” amid reports that the Trump administration is considering quitting the body.United States Defends Israel at Human Rights Council, Calls for U.N. Reform
In a speech before the Geneva-based council, US envoy Erin Barclay said the United States’ commitment to human rights “is stronger than ever.”
“Regrettably, too many of the actions of this council do not support these universal principles. Indeed, they contradict them,” said Barclay, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs.
She cited ongoing abuses in Syria and North Korea, and noted in particular the top UN human rights body’s “consistent, unfair and unbalanced focus” on Israel, which she said “deeply troubled” Washington.
Saudi tells UNHRC of its “empowerment of women” & “Israel’s flagrant violations of human rights”
Bandar bin Mohammed Alaiban, Minister and President of the Human Rights Commission of Saudi Arabia: “Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Our lofty [U.N. Human Rights] Council is playing an important role in the protection and promotion of human rights across the world. We continue our membership for the fourth time…. We have continued our efforts to promote and protect human rights based on the tenets and principles of Islamic Shariah.Hillel Neuer on Al Jazeera slams Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses
We have set up a Bar Association, and the council on women and family affairs…
Our vision is focused on the promotion and protection of human rights and the protection of the family and the empowerment of women as well as the setting of women’s organizations with the right to fully participate in the society…
Mr. President, what the Palestinian people are facing in terms of flagrant violations of human rights by the Israeli occupation forces requires the international community to undertake its responsibility to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia continues to support the Palestinian people and the unity of its capital in Jerusalem…
Abbas Aide: In Coming Months, Palestinian Authority Plans to Pressure International Bodies to Act Against Israel
In the coming months, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to pressure international institutions to act against Israel, a top Abbas aide said on Tuesday, the Hebrew news site nrg reported.Trump opens joint session of Congress with condemnation of anti-Semitism
According to Majdi al-Khalidi — Abbas’ diplomatic affairs adviser — the PA president’s address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday was just the start of a new diplomatic push against the Jewish state.
“There can’t be a dialogue about human rights without condemning the dark Israeli occupation,” al-Khalidi was quoted as telling Palestinian media outlets.
Israel, al-Khalidi asserted, considers itself to be “above international law” and he called for the implementation of Security Council resolutions against the Jewish state.
Israel has long called for Abbas to return to the negotiating table for direct peace talks, while the 81-year-old PA leader — now in the 13th year of a four-year presidential term — has largely preferred to seek to undermine Israel’s global standing via unilateral initiatives involving international bodies. The most recent round of negotiations — mediated by then-US Secretary of State John Kerry — broke down in April 2014.
US President Donald Trump opened his first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night by speaking out against the recent wave of anti-Semitic attacks across the country.Trump reportedly said JCC threats may be trying to ‘make others look bad’
Noting his February 28 speech came at the end of Black History Month, Trump said the recurrent surges of bomb threats to Jewish institutions and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries were a reminder “of our nation’s path toward civil rights and the work that remains.”
“Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms,” he said.
In just the last week, hundreds of Jewish tombstones in Pennsylvania and Missouri were vandalized and numerous Jewish institutions received bomb threats, including 29 on Monday alone — the fifth wave of such scares since January.
US President Donald Trump reportedly said that a wave of threats against Jewish communal institutions may be a false flag.Official says phone threats to Jewish community centers appear coordinated
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish and a Democrat, described a meeting of state attorneys general and Trump on Tuesday to a BuzzFeed reporter.
Trump called the wave of bomb threats in recent weeks, which forced the evacuation of nearly 100 Jewish community centers and other institutions countrywide, “reprehensible,” Shapiro said. But the US president also added: “Sometimes it’s the reverse, to make people – or to make others – look bad,” according to Shapiro’s account.
Shapiro said Trump said it was “the reverse” two or three times but did not clarify what he meant.
A U.S. law enforcement official says the threatening phone calls to Jewish community centers appear to be coordinated. The calls range from individuals phoning in bomb threats to “robo calls,” which are either machine-generated voice threats or recordings. It appears the calls are coming from both within the U.S. and from overseas.Trump’s Big Achievement: Making the New York Times Care About Antisemitism
The FBI is also examining whether hacked communication devices were used. Whoever is behind the calls may have hacked into other people’s phones, communication devices, and/or email addresses and is using those means to make the threats.
It’s a nationwide investigation -- the FBI is working with several police departments to determine whether in fact the threat calls are organized. Federal officials advise that when threatening calls are received, the local police should be alerted so immediate evacuation or other action can be undertaken.
It should be noted however, that nearly a year ago, school systems around the country were receiving calls like this, causing large school districts to cancel classes. In that case, the calls were a mixture of robo-calls, human calls and emailed threats. School systems ranging from Los Angeles to Miami-Dade were affected. One of the faxed threats at that time said that C-4 explosive charges had been planted in schools. The threats were false and nothing was ever found.
President Trump has been in office for barely a month, but he already deserves credit for at least one major accomplishment: He’s gotten the New York Times to discover a new interest in intensively covering antisemitism.The Israeli Media Is Out to Get Trump
What am I talking about?
Consider the following brief recent history of vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and their coverage, or lack of it, in the New York Times.
January, 2008: In New Jersey, 499 gravestones are knocked over at a Jewish cemetery. The Times covered it with a news article that ran in New York-area copies of the paper and that made no connection to national or international politics. A follow-up article in the Times after four teenagers were arrested reported that “the vandalism did not appear to be a bias attack.”
February, 2008: Police in Cook County, Ill. arrest a man “in connection with the vandalism of nearly 60 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in unincorporated Norwood Park Township,” the Chicago Tribune reports. “Police said they think the man…spray-painted anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas…and was trying to impress members of a neo-Nazi group.” The event doesn’t attract any coverage at all from the New York Times.
If you asked most Israelis, they’d say they never really liked or trusted Barack Obama. But if you asked most Israelis today, they’d say they like Donald Trump. This is one of the things that separates Israel’s people from Israel’s press corps.'Rabin wanted the embassy in Jerusalem back in 1989'
If you watch Channel 2’s Arad Nir or Channel 10’s Gil Tamari, or listen to any of the anchors on Israel TV or Israel Radio, you will discover that they not only despise Donald Trump (and pine for Obama), but think he is mentally ill, antisemitic, or both.
These are the same press outlets that believed that Trump could never win. In fact, on election eve, many Israeli pundits cited two-week-old polls by Reuters showing Hillary Clinton beating Trump by 15% or more. They ignored more up-to-date polls from Gallup, Rasmussen and the Los Angeles Times showing that Trump had a real chance to become president.
And now, despite the fact that Trump’s inner circle is full of Jews, even religious and Zionist Jews, these Israeli pundits still suspect that Trump is personally antisemitic.
“He is surrounded by people and by advisers who are antisemites,” asserted Arad Nir on Channel 2, without a shred of evidence.
When Trump later condemned the antisemitic desecration of graves in St. Louis, after an initial silence — and even sent Vice President Mike Pence to condemn the attack and personally help clean up the desecration, it “was not enough,” according to Nir.
Jewish-American diplomat Dennis Ross, who among his many roles served as former President Barack Obama's Middle East adviser, revealed on Tuesday that already in 1989, then-Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin approached him and asked for preparations to begin to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.Trump Admin, Congress Behind Effort to Cut U.S. Aid to Palestinians
“In 1989, Rabin asked me to act to move the embassy to Jerusalem,” said Ross at a panel he hosted at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem.
“I think we need to prepare the ground and the public opinion around the world for this. The Trump administration realizes that moving the embassy is an emotional issue and should not be done in haste,” he added.
Tuesday’s panel, which dealt with the changes, challenges and dilemmas in the geopolitical arena, was also attended by Elliot Abrams, former deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration, and by General Amos Gilad, who until recently served as the director of the Defense Ministry's Political-Military Affairs Bureau.
Abrams, who is considered close to President Donald Trump, spoke about the potential embassy move as well, saying, “In June we will know what is going on. Moving to Jerusalem is not a simple process. I would like to see steps being made in that direction - finding a location for the embassy, construction and so on. I would be happy if Trump would show that he took some steps in that direction. At the moment it does not seem that something is being done.”
The White House is signaling its support for a new congressional effort to cut all U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority due to its continued support of terrorism against Israelis and Americans, according to senior lawmakers and senior White House officials.MEMRI: Saudi Optimistic Regarding Trump Policy
Leading lawmakers in the House and Senate gathered Tuesday on Capitol Hill to introduce legislation that would cut all U.S. funding to the Palestinian government, which has been criticized for providing financial incentives to terrorists who kill American and Israeli civilians.
The White House signaled its support for the legislation in a vast departure from the Obama administration, which worked against similar efforts when in power.
A senior White House official familiar with the effort told the Free Beacon that the Trump administration welcomes this effort and will sign it into law if it passes Congress.
"The Palestinian Authority's use of its resources to provide material support for terrorism—indiscriminately targeted at American and Israeli civilians—is a grotesque example of how well-intentioned U.S. generosity can be turned against us," a senior White House official told the Free Beacon.
The legislation, which aims to tighten the financial noose on the Palestinian government and force it to abandon its practice of paying terrorists, is a first step to reforming the notoriously corrupt government, the official said.
The beginning of the presidency of Donald Trump in the U.S. generated optimism in Saudi Arabia about the new American administration. This was especially the case in light of the previous presidency, that of Barack Obama, during which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia grew apart, and the Obama administration's measures in the Middle East that were contradictory to Saudi political positions – the apex of which was the JCPOA agreement.Muslim Brotherhood: We’re Spending $5 Million on PR in U.S.
Although during the elections the Saudis expressed no explicit support for Trump, since his inauguration they are expecting the next four years to bring U.S. action aimed at weakening Iran and supporting Saudi policy, and at strengthening U.S.-Saudi ties as well as U.S. ties with other Sunni countries.
These Saudi expectations have been bolstered by some anti-Iran statements made and measures taken by the new U.S. administration. Among other things, President Trump attacked the JCPOA, calling it a bad deal that saved Iran from bankruptcy, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated that Iran the world's "biggest state sponsor of terrorism." President Trump also tweeted criticism of Iran's takeover of increasingly large parts of Iraq. Additionally, following the January 30, 2017 attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis on a Saudi frigate on the Yemeni border, the U.S. deployed the USS Cole to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb off the coast of Yemen. Furthermore, according to recent reports, the administration is considering designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.
Saudi expectations of U.S. policy under Donald Trump and praise for the new administration and its perceived policies are being expressed in statements by Saudi officials as well as in numerous articles and cartoons in the Saudi press. Additionally, many of the articles discussing the administration predicted that future American moves in the Middle East would serve Saudi interests, particularly in its rivalry with Iran.
A senior Muslim Brotherhood official in Sudan told an Arab newspaper* that the group’s international leadership has launched a major PR campaign to influence the U.S. media and members of Congress to oppose the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.On Netanyahu’s historic visit to Australia
The Brotherhood official predicted that the group would not be designated by the Trump Administration and that the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act introduced into Congress would fail.
He claimed that his organization had made contact with governmental officials and members of Congress and convinced them that the Brotherhood is opposed to terrorism, even though the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing—Hamas—is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department.
The author of the article reports that, according to sources within the Brotherhood, the group has spent $5 million on the PR campaign, with contracts being signed last month. Individuals close to Hillary Clinton put Brotherhood officials in touch with PR firms.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s historic visit to Australia, the first by a sitting Israeli prime minister, made a lasting mark on the Australian Jewish community and on the Australia-Israel relationship. On the ground for a mere four days, the Israeli leader leaves a business and political leadership eager to capitalize on Israel’s increasing engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, and a Jewish community further invigorated in its support for Israel.Zambian president joins parade of African leaders visiting Israel
The Australian public learned much of the common bond of nations, of shared values and destinies as liberal democracies and secular states governed by the rule of law. And of Australia’s hand in the formation of the Jewish state in 1948. It was the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade that captured Beersheba on October 31, 1917, dealing a critical blow to the Ottoman Empire’s hold on the neglected backwater that had become Palestine.
Just two days later, the British foreign secretary delivered the famous Balfour Declaration which supported returning Palestine to the Jews, nearly two millennia after the collapse of the last Jewish kingdom there at the hands of Rome.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has accepted an invitation by his Israeli counterpart to attend events in Beersheba later this year marking the centenary of that fateful battle.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday asked visiting Zambian leader Edgar Lungu to help Israel regain its observer status at the African Union, a position it lost in 2002 and has had trouble regaining, primarily because of the objection of South Africa and the North African Muslim states.Israeli shoots, kills terrorist during attack in family home
The Palestinian Authority enjoys this status in the pan-African body, and as a result Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is able each year to address the annual summit, something denied to Israel.
Lungu, one of the seven African leaders Netanyahu met at a three-hour summit in Uganda in July, arrived on Monday for a five-day visit. He arrived here with a bevy of government ministers, including his ministers for foreign affairs, agriculture, trade, energy, tourism, water development and environment, transportation, health, and industry and employment.
In an interview with The Zambia Daily Mail, he said that Zambia stands to reap substantial benefits from the visit.
A terrorist was shot and killed inside an Israeli civilian's West Bank home after the assailant left him with light stab wounds Wednesday.IDF Soldier Lightly Wounded in West Bank Shooting Attack
The incident occurred in the Havat Mor outpost, which is located outside of theTaneh OmaimTeneh Omarim (h/t Joshua Fox) settlement in the South Hebron Hills.
According to an initial investigation into the event, the Israeli civilian heard a noise outside his family home. When he went outside to investigate the source of the noise, he was encountered by a Palestinian holding multiple knives.
The civilian returned back inside his home to retrieve his gun. The Palestinian followed him inside, stabbing him in the back.
The civilian managed to escape the assault, turning around and shooting the suspect. The civilian's wife and young child were present inside the home during the assault.
Magen David Adom responders arrived at the scene and treated a man in his 30's who sustained light stab wounds, according to a spokesperson.
The Palestinian attacker died after succumbing to his wounds.
An Israel Defense Forces soldier sustained minor injuries Tuesday when Israeli troops on routine patrol in Judea and Samaria came under fire.‘Go Figure a Guy I Drank Coffee With Was Suddenly the Enemy,’ Recounts Israeli Who Miraculously Survived Ax Bludgeoning at Hands of Palestinian Co-Worker
The incident took place on the outskirts of the community of Efrat in the Gush Etzion region. The soldier was treated onsite. Security forces canvassed the area for the terrorist, who remained at large as of Tuesday.
Overnight, Israeli military forces and Shin Bet security agents operating in several locations across Judea and Samaria arrested four Palestinians wanted for questioning by the defense establishment.
An Israeli security guard who miraculously survived an ax attack at the hands of a Palestinian co-worker in a West Bank mall a year ago described slowly putting the pieces of his life back together in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 on Monday.Soldier convicted of Hebron shooting appeals jail sentence
Zvika Cohen sustained serious wounds to his head and torso last February when a young man he considered to be his friend bludgeoned him with the deadly instrument and left him for dead.
“This was a guy I ate and drank coffee with,” Cohen said with the slurred speech he has been in therapy to repair. “He was 19 — younger than my son. [He would say,] ‘How are you, Zvika? How’s it going?’ We would bum cigarettes from each other… So go figure that he’s suddenly your enemy.”
Cohen, who has spent the past year in and out of the hospital undergoing rehabilitation, missed his eldest son’s induction into the IDF and the bar mitzvah of his middle child. He also has frequent nightmares about the attack, a reminder of which he is faced with every time he looks out his window.
A lawyer for Elor Azaria, the IDF soldier convicted of manslaughter for shooting to death a subdued, wounded Palestinian stabber, on Wednesday appealed his 18-month military prison sentence.Ofra settlement homes razed after final protesters evacuated
Also filed was a motion requesting that Azaria’s entry into prison, set for March 5, be delayed until the end of the appeals process.
In a surprise move, three members of his defense team, Ilan Katz, Eyal Besserglick, and Karmit Shahiber announced they were resigning from the case after the appeal was filed, saying that they had disagreed with the family’s decision to pursue an appeal.
The lawyers said in a statement that they believed Azaria would have been better served by pursuing a different route, an apparent reference to plans to request a pardon from the president.
However, the Azaria family wants to have his name cleared, Israel Radio quoted the lawyers as saying.
Security forces were bulldozing nine homes built on private Palestinian land in the West Bank settlement of Ofra Wednesday afternoon, after police finished evacuating the last remaining protesters from the roof of one of the houses.PreOccupiedTerritory: Diversity Advocates Denounce Absence Of Nazis From Knesset (satire)
The operation to evacuate the nine houses built on private Palestinian land began on Tuesday, with police removing right-wing activists from the houses in intermittently violent clashes throughout the day.
After successfully evacuating all but one of the structures on Tuesday, police decided to wait until Wednesday morning to remove dozens of demonstrators who had barricaded themselves on the second floor and roof of the last occupied house. Some 15 youths spent the night in the rain on the roof, Israel Radio reported.
Police told The Times of Israel on Tuesday that they did not intend to forcefully remove the protesters from the rooftops and would instead close off the buildings and wait for them to come down on their own.
Social activists decried the composition of Israel’s legislature today, calling the lack of Nazis, ISIS members, and other marginalized groups a stain on the body’s ostensible democratic character.Hamas Begins Court-Martial of Islamic State Detainees
The Broad Union of Citizens for Honest Engagement with National Wokeness and Acceptance of Legislative Diversity (BUCHENWALD) demonstrated across from the Knesset this morning to condemn the parliament’s failure to represent all populations, and to demand that it institute an allocation system whereby every identity group receives a seat in the plenum.
A dozen BUCHENWALD activists pointed to the absence of Nazis and Islamic terrorists, as well as of militant vegans, Heaven’s Gate death cult members, convicted murderer-rapists, and numerous other demographics that the group contends are denied participation in the democratic process because they have no one to represent them.
A BUCHENWALD spokeswoman who identified herself as a transsexual queer juggler cancer survivor, but declined to give her name because it would not reflect her identity, explained to reporters that for a country that claims to be democratic and to offer equal opportunity to all citizens to vote and run for office, Israel scores poorly. “Only a tiny fraction of identities are represented in the Knesset,” she asserted. “If Israel were truly democratic, its parliament would make sure that its composition accurately reflects the diversity of the polity. But nowhere do I see in its 120 members any former SS members, who have never enjoyed representation in Israel. The same goes for followers of Osama Bin Laden – how can this country make a serious claim to diversity without such people in the legislature? It’s laughable.”
Hamas has started court-martialing detainee jihadists accused of associations with the Islamic State as well as the relatives of accused militants, according to jihadi sources in Gaza affiliated with IS ideology.Russia and China veto new UN sanctions on Syria
The sources said that since last week 13 jihadists have been court-martialed, including a ring of four who were charged with belonging to a single Islamic State cell. No verdict has been delivered to date.
Close to 700 jihadi detainees are expected to be court-martialed in the coming weeks. Only 23 have been released, the sources said.
The sources said that Hamas’ interrogations unit has forwarded the cases of the detainees to the organization’s military prosecutor ahead of being indicted.
The defendants will be court-martialed even though none of them belong to Hamas or Palestinian Authority security forces, according to the sources.
“This is unprecedented in Palestine,” Abu Baker Almaqdesi, an IS-supporting jihadi in Gaza, told Breitbart Jerusalem. “Hamas prosecutes jihadists who support the Islamic State and fired rockets at the Jews.”
Russia and China vetoed new UN sanctions on Syria Tuesday and the US ambassador accused both countries of refusing to hold President Bashar Assad’s regime accountable for the use of chemical weapons.PreOccupiedTerritory: 2 Syrian Prisons Make TripAdvisor List Of World’s Top Ten Torture Facilities (satire)
“They put their friends in the Assad regime ahead of our global security,” new American envoy Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council after the vote. “They turned away from defenseless men, women and children who died gasping for breath when Assad’s forces dropped their poisonous gas.”
The Trump administration recently joined France and Britain in sponsoring the resolution, and Haley minced no words in denouncing the “outrageous and indefensible choice” that Russia and China made on Tuesday. President Donald Trump had warm words for Russian President Vladimir Putin while campaigning but Haley has now criticized Russia over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula as well as Syria.
Syrian authorities expressed satisfaction today that their work has been recognized, pointing to the TripAdvisor ranking of worldwide prison and torture facilities that placed the country’s Saydnaya and Adra Prison complexes in the top ten.WATCH: Iran Tests New Laser-Guided Anti-Ship Missile During Massive War Games
TripAdviosr released its ranking last week, placing the notorious centers of abuse and murder third and seventh, respectively, among all such facilities around the world, edging out such infamous venues as Guantanamo Bay, Russian labor camps, and most of China’s vast penal system. China grabbed the top two spots and numbers eight and nine for their achievements in state-sanctioned prison atrocities. Rounding out the top ten were a Belorussian interrogation and incarceration center outside Minsk in second place, an Islamic State dungeon-like prison on the Iraq-Syria border in fourth, a Palestinian “detention” center for President Mahmoud Abbas’s political opponents in fifth, and Pakistani and North Korean facilities rounding out sixth and tenth places.
At a press conference at Adra Prison this morning, Minister of Public Security Dees Membr praised his staff and the vast array of guards, soldiers, police, and interrogators who have contributed to the success. “This achievement belong to all of you,” he gushed, with uncharacteristic magnanimity. “Never before has our glorious nation secured a spot in the top five, let alone two in the top ten. All of you, from the fingernail-pullers and the skin-flayers to the stranglers and the bludgeoners, from the gang-rapers to the castraters – the glory of this milestone belongs to you.”
The Iranian Navy announced on Monday that it had successfully tested the new domestically-developed Dehlaviyeh anti-ship missile during large-scale war games in the Strait of Hormuz.PreOccupiedTerritory: Success Of Israel Prompts Suspicions That Allah A Zionist (satire)
Iran’s naval drills, which began on Sunday, will reportedly take place over two million square kilometers (772,000 square miles—nearly three times the size of Texas). The military drills will cover parts of the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.
Iranian media reported that the navy also tested the Nasir, described as the “latest version of its home-made coast-to-sea cruise missile.” Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan said that the Nasir hit its intended target with maximum precision.
The Trump administration has condemned Iran’s missile development program. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn said that Iran’s missile tests were “violations of international norms” that demonstrated the country’s history of “destabilizing behavior across the Middle East.”
Scholars at the Islamic University of Cairo have raised the possibility that Allah, the all-powerful deity who created and sustains the world, supports the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, given the rapid and increasing success the Jewish State has enjoyed since its creation in 1948.
A small group of senior figures at the institution invoked the idea this week at a closed symposium aimed at grappling with problematic issues in Islamic thought. Chief among the concerns of the assembled scholars was the challenge of assimilating the dramatic rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land, which had been under the dominion of Islam for most of the last 1,400 years. Despite the nobility, sanctity, and righteousness of Israel’s opponents, the Jewish State has only grown stronger and economically powerful. Since Islam’s proof of its own divine sanction rests on its initial period of rapid expansion and conquest, Israel’s feat of fighting off Muslims and eventually capturing even more territory from them, followed by its emergence as an economic powerhouse, have several authorities on the will of Allah wondering whether the all-wise and omnipotent Creator is also a Zionist.
“The notion is a painful one,” admitted Imam Muhammad Wazfagli. “But Islam has always been about submitting to the will of Allah. If the evidence becomes overwhelming that the will of Allah involves Jewish ascendancy in this part of the world, who are we to oppose it? This is a radical application of traditional principles, but we must confront it.”