Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 19, 2015

01/19 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Not afraid? What planet are you on?; Miss Israel Responds

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Not afraid? What planet are you on?

Apparently, civilisation is saved! Some 3 million people took to the streets of Paris last Sunday to declare "Je suis Charlie" and that they would fight off the threat to freedom just like the French resistance. "We are not afraid," shouted the crowd.
Oh, but they are. If anyone really thinks the Paris march means Europe is now going to save itself, they are living on a different planet. Virtually nobody is Charlie, because virtually nobody will publish a condemnation of Islam. Some papers gingerly reproduced this week's cover of Charlie Hebdo with its cartoon of a tearful Mohammed holding a "Je suis Charlie" sign. Others refused, out of fear.
Virtually no mainstream media has analysed, let alone condemned, the threatening doctrines and assumptions in Islamic religion and culture. They are not going to start now.
Yes, it was heartening that so many turned out to protest their attachment to freedom of speech. But surely, the real issue is barbaric slaughter?
True, the demonstrators also mourned the slain police officers and Jewish shoppers. But if all 17 victims had been Jews gunned down in that kosher deli, does anyone really think 3 million would have marched through Paris declaring "Je suis Juif"?

Micahel Lumish How does it feel to be targeted for genocide?

When I take a gander at a place like Daily Kos, which simply represents typical left-leaning blog space, it indicates a disinclination to actually focus on the murderers in favor of focusing on the crimes of the murdered. They cannot very well blame the Jews at the kosher grocery for being Jewish, so they generally ignore that aspect, or twist it into something to do with Israel in order to place blame on the victims. Generally, however, they simply leave the Jews out of it and place the blame for Jihadi aggression on western “racism” of the type allegedly published in Charlie Hebdo.
It is for this reason that while almost the entirety of Paris was claiming “Je suis Charlie” many Kossacks were insisting “I am not Charlie.” Rather than condemning the source of the Parisian attacks, which is political Islam, the western left generally prefers to blame other westerners who they consider politically incorrect or not sufficiently progressive to avoid the wrath of justifiably angry Jihadis.
In any case, how does it feel to be targeted for genocide?
Not only do many of our supposed allies actually think that the Jewish people deserve whatever beating we get, but they even refuse to acknowledge the reality and vitality of the political movement doing the genocidal threatening and beating.
It is truly a remarkable thing to see the leadership of many tens or hundreds of millions of people literally screech for the blood of the Jews and then see our western “friends” either blame Israel or simply turn their backs.

Gerald Steinberg: Can Mogherini Repair EU-Israel Relations?

The need for a radical change in the EU approach was recently highlighted by Dennis Ross, the primary American expert on Arab-Israeli peace efforts. Ross pointedly criticized the counterproductive role of Europe through fervent support for the unilateral Palestinian statehood strategy, and for the obsessive focus on condemning Israel. Instead, Ross called on Europe to “focus on how to raise the cost of saying no or not acting at all when there is an offer on the table, rather than backing the Palestinians as they seek to avoid mutual concessions with their UN and ICC gambits.” Mogherini should heed Ross, and start to map out these changes.
Indeed, the EU’s role in the Palestinian campaign to “bring Israel to the dock” at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is another destructive policy. This strategy did not suddenly arise out of Palestinian “frustration” at the failure of the peace talks, the setback at the UN Security Council, or other recent events, and many European pundits speculated. Rather, this line of attack was explicitly adopted during the negotiations of the Rome Statute that led to the establishment of the ICC, and has been moving steadily since then. In 1997, towards the end of this process, the members of the Arab League pushed through language that stretched the definition of war crimes to cover issues related to occupation and population transfers. The purpose was clearly to prepare the grounds for exploiting the ICC for “legal warfare” (lawfare) to target Israel. At the time, Europe could have opposed this maneuver to single-out Israel, but Brussels as well as the EU member states went along.
Since then, this lawfare has been joined by a powerful army of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), largely funded by Europe. While the NGO allocation processes in the European Union under frameworks such as the EU Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) remain top-secret and exempted from Freedom of Information laws (another sore point in relations with Israel), the annual total for anti-Israel campaigning related to lawfare and demonization of Israel is estimated at approximately 100 million Euros.

Amer Abdel Moneim, an Egyptian journalist, weighed in on Facebook about the Jim Clancy story, and his opinion was picked up on at least one news site.

The story is described this way:

Journalist Amer Abdel Moneim writes on the resignation of Jim Clancy, anchor of CNN after he commented on the attack against Charlie Hebdo and he accused the Zionist entity of being behind the publication of cartoons of the Messenger of Allah bless him, stressing that the Jews and their Masonic constituencies are behind wars and strife on Islam.

Abdel Moneim wrote on Facebook today: that the US TV station expelled the broadcaster, because the Zionist hegemony over the money, media and politics imposed a state of fear that prevents them from talking, and he dared to speak.

He added that the role of the Jews is destructive not only in Europe and America , but in Muslim countries as well. Manipulative Masonic rulers created a religious war, pointing out that the Jews are the ones who have the media in our country, and they make the politicians and media haters to their own nations and their religion, and there are hidden business and political links to implement the Jewish agendas.

He continued, saying that the Muslims are waging a constant battle with the Jews until the Day of Resurrection, and the Jewish hatred and hostility against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad is eternal, it is important for Muslims to understand who the enemy is and what the nature of the battle is and the facts about the conflict so as not to fall into the trap of Jewish Freemason cunning.

He might have nailed Clancy's point of view perfectly!

In 2010 video, Jim Clancy says Twitter reveals one's true personality

There are some great parts in this 2010 interview of Jim Clancy, but here I edited the best part:

"I think more personality does come out in the social media, and in many ways, that's a good thing."

Thanks for revealing yours, Jim!

(h/t Ian)

01/19 Links Pt1: Six Iranians killed in Israeli strike in Syria, including Revolutionary Guards general

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: Doing the Islamic terrorists' job

The master of history deceives us. There was a time when Jews had to be protected from Christians. Today the Christians are the ones protecting the Jews from the Muslims. Not all Muslims. Not even the majority of them. Far from that. But the threat is there. Sometimes it materializes.
In the past few decades, after the Holocaust, Europe was kind to the Jews. They integrated. They prospered. But the old anti-Semitism was in the background, joined by the new anti-Semitism – the new anti-Semitism of some of the anti-Zionist elites and the new anti-Semitism of some of the Muslims. The former turn Israel into a monster. The latter want to crush the monster's head. According to them, Europe's Jews are also part of the monster.
While the international community is forced to defend itself, and the Jews, against Islamic terror with one hand, its other hand is busy pointing an accusing finger at Israel through the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Hamas welcomes this situation. It's the same Hamas which calls for the annihilation of Jews, which carries out attacks against Jews and which welcomes every terror attack against Jews.
When Jews need protection, when the international community points an accusing finger at Israel, and when Hamas welcomes it – the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly can smile from their graves. They won. The enlightened Europe is doing their job for them, intentionally and unintentionally.

Report: Six Iranians killed in Israeli strike in Syria, including Revolutionary Guards general

The air strike attributed in foreign media reports to Israel which killed six Hezbollah agents in Syria on Sunday also killed six Iranian soldiers, including commanders, AFP quoted a source close to Hezbollah as saying on Monday.
"The Israeli strike killed six Iranian soldiers, including commanders, as well as the six members of Hezbollah. They were all in a convoy of three cars," the source said.
An Iranian semi-official news site reported that an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general was among those killed in the strike.
"Following the Zionist aggressions against the resistance in Syria, General Mohammad Allahdadi, a former commander of the Sarollah Brigade of the Revolutionary Guard, was martyred along with Jihad Mughniyeh and three others in the same car," the Dana news website said, referring to the son of Hezbollah's late military leader Imad Mughniyeh.

Footage released allegedly showing aftermath of Israeli attack in Syria

Syrian rebels release video of Quneitra area after IAF helicopters reportedly fired missiles at two armed vehicles
Opposition groups in Syria released video footage on Monday purporting to show the moments immediately following a reported Israeli air strike in Syria that killed six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranian soldiers.
The footage appears to show a large cloud of smoke allegedly caused by the two missiles fired from IAF helicopters at two armed vehicles.
A man is later seen fleeing from the scene of the alleged Israeli attack.

Saudi Sheikh Mohammed Al-Barrak, member of the Muslim Scholars Association, said that believers should rejoice over the the death of Jihad Mughniyeh in Syria, "even if the killer is the Israeli occupation," reports Sabr.cc.

Al Barrak has a series of tweets on the matter, slamming Hezbollah and the Syrian regime. He points out that far more Arabs have been killed by Syria in four years than by the Jews in 66 years.

He also asks Allah to allow Hassan Nasrallah to join Mugniyeh in hell, and he thanked Allah that the "oppressors of Muslims" have been destroyed.

Meanwhile:

Sources in Hezbollah said on Monday that retaliation for an alleged Israeli airstrike that killed several of its members was inevitable, but would be restrained enough to not provoke a war.

The Lebanese daily As-Safir, which is identified with Hezbollah, cited sources close to the Shiite terror group as saying that it would choose a time and place to hit back, but would do so in a manner that wouldn’t cause an escalation in the conflict.

The attack would “draw a painful and unexpected response, but we can assume that it will be controlled and beneath the level that could escalate into all-out war,” the Hezbollah sources told As-Safir, and recalled a roadside bomb attack in October 2014 that injured two IDF soldiers.

At the time, Hezbollah claimed the bombing was revenge for the killing of one of its members, Hussein Ali Haidar, in a September 5 explosion that Lebanese officials claimed was caused when Israel destroyed one of its own surveillance devices that had been uncovered inside Lebanon.

“Even though Hezbollah doesn’t intend to up the ante, the organization is planning for a worst-case scenario in which Israel decides to venture into Lebanon,” the Hezbollah sources were quoted as saying.

There have been rumors that Hezbollah has built a series of attack tunnels into Israel as Hamas had previously. I'm not sure that an attack by tunnel wouldn't be considered by Israel to be a major escalation, though.

Abbas says he would turn down free land if it wasn't claimed by Israel

Mahmoud Abbas gave an interview yesterday to an Egyptian paper where he explained how things are in his alternative universe.

He claims that Israel and Hamas had an agreement with Egypt's Mohamed Morsi to give some Sinai land to Hamas and allow Hamas to declare an Islamic Emirate in the enlarged Gaza.

Really.

Here are some excerpts:

- What if Israel decided to directly negotiate with Hamas, bypassing the Palestinian Authority which Tel Aviv and Washington now consider uncooperative?

I've already had to sit down with Hamas about the famous project 'Igor Island', of a Palestinian state in Gaza, plus on Egyptian land, and give up Jerusalem, the right of return, and an end to the Palestinian issue completely, and my information is that Hamas has already signed with Israel on the approval of the project, and only a single obstacle stood in the way, namely, Egypt agreeing to this framework and granting alternative land.

President Mohamed Morsi had no objection to the achievement of this demand for Israel and Hamas, but said he was only waiting for the right time to implement it. what about President al-Sisi, Did you discuss this matter with him?

President Sisi has already informed me, during my discussion with him about it, and I told him that Hamas and Israel has already agreed, and he told me literally 'Not one Egyptian, as well as the President of the Republic, would grant a single centimeter to Hamas or Israel,' and I replied him that we in Palestine also would 'never establish a Palestinian state on one centimeter of the territory of another Arab country. '

- We have heard about Turkish mediation between Hamas and Israel, is to do with the 'Igor Island' project?

Yes, Hamas is still dreaming of an independent state, an Islamic Emirate in Gaza, and this is a risky path, and it tempts a lot of countries that do not want to do good, not to Palestine and the region as a whole.

Even though this entire thing is a figment of Abbas' imagination (at best, he is grossly mis-stating the Ben Arieh land swap plan between the Negev, Gaza and the West Bank) notice how vehemently he rejects the idea of having Palestine expand into Arab countries - even if the land is given to them for free.

There has been remarkable consistency of the Palestinian Arab position on its territorial objectives throughout the years: it only desires whatever Jews control. As soon as the British divided up the mandate between Palestine and Transjordan, and promised Palestine to the Jewish nation, Palestinian Arabs have considered the arbitrary British borders assigned to Jews to be sacrosanct as their land - even though no map of Palestine before 1917 includes the Negev, and every map included large parts of today's Jordan and Lebanon.

Except for the time period between 1948 and 1967. During that time, no Palestinian Arab leader said that they wanted an independent state to include Egyptian-held Gaza and the Jordanian-held West Bank. In fact, the PLO charter of 1964 specifically excluded those sections:

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

Since 1967, of course, that PLO exclusion went away, since Jordan lost the land it had seized illegally in 1948 and Egypt lost its Palestinian Arab concentration camp in Gaza, where they forced every Palestinian to live.

Remember, if Abbas considers the British Mandate boundaries to be the borders of "historic Palestine," it means that he is admitting that there is no Palestinian Arab history from before 1923.

But more importantly, this side statement of Abbas' proves that he is not interested in a viable state by any means, but only in finding more and more excuses to destroy Israel in phases - the 1974 plan that Abbas still subscribes to.

Abbas wants Gaza's population to explode. He wants things to get more and more crowded. And he wants to make sure that it never spills over into Egypt, but only adds more pressure to Israel.

It is a strategy to destroy a state, not to build one. Its remarkable consistency over the years proves not only that the goals have never changed, but also how much Western wishful thinking trumps clear and consistent counterproofs.

What would MLK think of a Muslim-only drinking fountain?

For Martin Luther King day, we should remember how bad discrimination used to be:

It is a good thing that no one today would be so crass as to try to stop people from drinking water out of a fountain because of their race or religion, right?

From the Temple Mount, yesterday:

Yes, the Muslim woman is so incensed at the thought of a Jew drinking water out of the same fountain where Muslims wash their feet that she physically pushes him.

If you view this video and feel sympathy for the woman, you just might be a racist yourself.

(h/t YMedad)

PalArabs thank France for recognizing them by burning French flags (poster)

A poster I tweeted on Sunday:

Here is the video of the flag burning at the Temple Mount on Friday:

It looks like the innovative Arabs have come up with a way to print flags on flash fabric like nitrocellulose.

Miss Israel shamelessly shaming her Arab competitors (UPDATE)

A scandal in the Miss Universe pageant!

Miss Lebanon Saly Greige defended herself against accusations that she posed for a selfie with Miss Israel during the Miss Universe contest currently being held in Miami, saying Miss Israel Doron Matalon photobombed the picture.

Photos circulated on social media in Lebanon showing Greige surrounded by the beauty queens of Israel, Slovenia and Japan caused uproar in Lebanon. Lebanon and Israel are enemy states and any contact with the Jewish state is illegal in Lebanon.

According to El-Nashra fan entertainment website, Greige defended herself on social media saying Matalon photobombed a picture she was taking with Miss Slovenia and Miss Japan and later on posted it on social media.

“From the first day I arrived at the Miss Universe pageant I was very careful not to take any pictures with Miss Israel, who tried repeatedly to take pictures with me,” Greige wrote. “While I was preparing with Miss Slovania and Miss Japan to get our photograph taken, Miss Israel jumped in and took a selfie with her phone and posted it on social media.

“This is what happened,” she added. “I hope you continue supporting me.”

Greige, a brunette with green eyes, was crowned Miss Lebanon during a ceremony in October. After the selfie with Miss Israel was circulated some Lebanese asked that Greige be stripped from her title for mingling with the citizen of an enemy state.

Can you imagine! Miss Israel wanting to have her photo taken with he neighbor Miss Lebanon! Poor Saly, being forced to guard against that nasty Israeli contestant chasing her all around Miami! She really should have put out a restraining order. How low will these Israelis go, anyway?

(I admit to being a little confused, because if this image is a selfie, the only person who could have been holding the camera is Miss Israel. yet Miss Lebanon is smiling and looking at her camera. I also confess confusion as to how one can "photobomb" their own selfie. But I'm sure that somehow this is just more evidence of Miss Israel's evil plot, to fool Greige into smiling against her will into a camera she doesn't want to look at with this nefarious scheme.)

Oh, but the Israelis can go ever lower - by going higher!

The contestants were told to paint images about their countries on a wall outside artist Romero Britto's studio. Look at how Miss Israel, who is quite tall, insists on placing her painting higher than everyone else's - and deliberately higher and larger than Miss Egypt's pathetic attempt!

Jewish exceptionalism is on display as her Star of David towers over the competition.

No doubt, Miss Egypt only had time to scrawl "Egypt" on the wall before Miss Israel rudely barged in and forced her to flee for her life rather than risk having a photo taken of the two of them near each other. Which would naturally result in death threats from her countrymen. How inconsiderate of Miss Israel to put her Arab neighbors through such hell! She should accept the wonderful diversity of Arab culture where threats against people who photographed near Jews is a time honored tradition.

What chutzpah!

(h/t Norman. See also Israellycool.)

UPDATE: Bob Knot found another crazy photobombing, where Miss Israel rudely jumped in to a photo that Miss Egypt was posing for and aggressively forced Miss Egypt to put her arm around her and smile! The depths that these Israelis go to!

Matalon was also photographed with Miss Egypt, but it was apparently a one-time event. Egypt's representative, Lara Debanna, was reportedly instructed by "higher up" to keep her distance from Matalon, and to avoid being photographed with her under any circumstances.

"We took a group picture with Miss Slovenia, Miss Japan, and Miss Lebanon," said Matalon. "She must have received criticism from fans in Lebanon after I uploaded it, and now she will not stand next to me in any situation, and now Miss Egypt is behaving the same way."

"It's a shame that we can't set all the hostility aside just for the period of the competition," Matalon said, adding that she was not surprised by the development. "We really have a rare chance to meet girls from all over the world and hear about their different cultures."

Just one time? Bob found at least three more photos of Miss Israel and Miss Egypt together. :

2015 Hasby Award - Best Commentator Exclusive to Israel/Middle East

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Commentator (Exclusive to Israel/Middle East) are:

Once again, a very hard category.

And the 2015 Hasby Award for Best Pro-Israel Commentator (Exclusive to Israel/Middle East) goes to:

Last Thursday:

Hezbollah is prepared for military intervention in Israel's Galilee and beyond, deeper into Israeli territory, the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen TV to be aired Thursday evening.

"We have made all necessary preparations for a future war with Israel," Nasrallah said.

He vowed that the group would not stay quiet in the face of attacks attributed to Israel in Syria. "We will provide an answer for every attack against Syria," he said.

"We have military abilities that will deliver us the victory against Israel," Nasrallah threatened. "The military capability of the resistance has not been damaged, and if Israel thinks differently, it is wrong."

In excerpts of the interview that were previously released on Wednesday, Nasrallah said that Hezbollah has more types of weapons than Israel can imagine.

Even though he heads an Iranian proxy militia and a master terrorist, Nasrallah usually doesn't lie.

Apparently, his people were caught doing something today, and it seems Israel didn't like what it saw:

Several Hizbullah fighters were killed Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on the Quneitra region in the Syrian sector of the Golan Heights.

“The Israeli enemy's helicopters fired missiles at a group of Hizbullah's fighters who were inspecting the town of Mazraat al-Amal in the Syrian Quneitra region,” Hizbullah's media department announced in a statement.

The strike “resulted in the martyrdom of a number of jihadist brothers, whose names will be announced later, after informing their honorable families,” the party added.

A source close to Hizbullah told Agence France-Presse that the strike killed a military commander of the Lebanese group and five fighters.

The dead included Mohammed Issa, a Hizbullah commander responsible for its Syrian and Iraqi operations, as well as Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hizbullah operative killed in a 2008 car bombing in Syria which was blamed on Israel, the source told AFP.

Lebanese and Arab media outlets identified the other four Hizbullah members killed in the raid as Mahdi al-Moussawi, Ali Fouad, Hussein Hassan and Abbas Hijazi.

Al-Arabiya TV meanwhile said that “a prominent Hizbullah leader and 6 Iranians were killed in the Israeli airstrike on Golan.”

Al-Jadeed television for its part said "Iranian commander Abu Ali al-Tabtabani was among the martyrs of the Israeli raid on Golan."

Earlier on Sunday, an Israeli security source said an Israeli helicopter carried out a strike against "terrorists" in the Syrian sector of the Golan Heights.

The source told AFP that the militants were preparing an attack on Israel and that the airstrike took place near Quneitra, close to the ceasefire line separating the Syrian part of the Golan Heights from the Israeli-occupied sector, confirming a report by Hizbullah's al-Manar television.

Quneitra is right on the border with the Israeli Golan Heights. The senior Hezbollah commanders were not there for sightseeing.

Hezbollah - or possibly Iran - seems to have been itching for an excuse to engage Israel militarily, based on Nasrallah's statements last week and the ones that he seems to be preparing for tonight.

Naharnet has a bulletin:

Information obtained by MTV: Nasrallah will tonight deliver a speech in which he will announce that Hizbullah will retaliate against Israel with a painful strike.

Hezbollah rockets are said to be able to reach all of Israel now.

Last week, former national security adviser Maj.- Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror said

Hezbollah most closely resembles an army, and its arsenal totals some 150,000 missiles and rockets, several thousand of which can target any area in Israel.

“This rare and substantial firepower apparently even exceeded the firepower possessed by most of the European states combined,” Amidror said in the report.

Additionally, Hezbollah is armed with surface-to-sea missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, drones and modern anti-tank missiles.

In what may or may not be a coincidence, Iran's Supreme Leader threatened the West today as well on Twitter - about low oil prices:

If Iran is worried about its economy, that means Hezbollah's budget has been hit hard as well. War can be a Shiite Hail Mary to try to gather Muslim sympathy and cash.

At this point, though, I think that most Arab countries quietly prefer Israel to Iran.

Incidentally, in the BBC report on the airstrike, they put in a short backgrounder on Hezbollah:

Who are Hezbollah?
• Name means "Party of God"

• Political and military organisation made up mainly of Shia Muslims

• One of the biggest blocs in Lebanon's governing coalition

• Strongly backed by Iran, a close ally of Syrian President Assad

• Mr Assad's minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam

Nothing about its raison d'etre of destroying Israel, nothing about its history of attacks against not only Israel but also US troops, nothing about it being considered a terror group. It's just a political group that happens to exist, somehow, in a country that doesn't want it.

(h/t Noam)

01/18 Links: Murray: 'Religion of peace' is not a harmless platitude; Fatah praises killers of 8

From Ian:

Meet the honor brigade, an organized campaign to silence debate on Islam

In 2007, as part of this playbook, the OIC launched the Islamophobia Observatory, a watchdog group based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, with the goal of documenting slights against the faith. Its first report, released the following year, complained that the artists and publishers of controversial Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad were defiling “sacred symbols of Islam . . . in an insulting, offensive and contemptuous manner.” The honor brigade began calling out academics, writers and others, including former New York police commissioner Ray Kelly and administrators at a Catholic school in Britain that turned away a mother who wouldn’t remove her face veil.
“The OIC invented the anti-‘Islamophobia’ movement,” says Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a frequent target of the honor brigade. “These countries . . . think they own the Muslim community and all interpretations of Islam.”
Alongside the honor brigade’s official channel, a community of self-styled blasphemy police — from anonymous blogs such as LoonWatch.com and Ikhras.com to a large and disparate cast of social-media activists — arose and began trying to control the debate on Islam. This wider corps throws the label of “Islamophobe” on pundits, journalists and others who dare to talk about extremist ideology in the religion. Their targets are as large as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and as small as me.
The official and unofficial channels work in tandem, harassing, threatening and battling introspective Muslims and non-Muslims everywhere. They bank on an important truth: Islam, as practiced from Malaysia to Morocco, is a shame-based, patriarchal culture that values honor and face-saving from the family to the public square. Which is why the bullying often works to silence critics of Islamic extremism.
“Honor brigades are wound collectors. They are couch jihadis,” Joe Navarro, a former supervisory special agent in the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit, tells me. “They sit around and collect the wounds and injustices inflicted against them to justify what they are doing. Tragedy unites for the moment, but hatred unites for longer.”

Douglas Murray: 'Religion of peace' is not a harmless platitude

This is a problem with Islam — one that Muslims are going to have to work through. They could do so by a process which forces them to take their foundational texts less literally, or by an intellectually acceptable process of cherry-picking verses. Or prominent clerics could unite to declare the extremists non-Muslim. But there isn’t much hope of this happening. Last month, al-Azhar University in Cairo declared that although Isis members are terrorists they cannot be described as heretics.
We have spent 15 years pretending things about Islam, a complex religion with competing interpretations. It is true that most Muslims live their lives peacefully. But a sizeable portion (around 15 per cent and more in most surveys) follow a far more radical version. The remainder are sitting on a religion which is, in many of its current forms, a deeply unstable component. That has always been a problem for reformist Muslims. But the results of ongoing mass immigration to the West at the same time as a worldwide return to Islamic literalism means that this is now a problem for all of us. To stand even a chance of dealing with it, we are going to have to wake up to it and acknowledge it for what it is.

Abbas’ terror-hypocrisy continues - Fatah praises killers of 8

Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas’ Fatah movement continues to glorify killers of Israelis as “heroes” and “Martyrs.”
On Jan. 17, 2002, terrorist Abd Al-Salam Hassouna shot and killed 6 and wounded dozens at a bat-mitzvah celebration in Hadera. Anticipating the anniversary of this “heroic operation” and the killer’s “Martyrdom-death,” Fatah posted a photo of the murderer holding a rifle and praised him and other “Martyrs” as “torches on the path to victory and freedom”:
“With an M16 he opened fire on many Zionists, killed 9 and injured dozens, until his rifle jammed. Our Martyrs are torches on the path to victory and freedom.”
[Facebook, “Fatah - the Main Page,” Jan. 15, 2015]