Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 06, 2016

Who’s afraid of the Minister of Sport and Culture? (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Who’s afraid of the Minister of Sport and Culture?

Recently, as seems to happen on a regular basis, rumors spread about the Yitzhak Herzog’s Zionist Union (Labor + Tzipi Livni) party joining Netanyahu’s government. Supposedly there were negotiations over the Rosh Hashana holiday, and the deal was said to include eight ministerial portfolios for the center-left ZU, including the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Sport and Culture post that is currently held by the Likud’s Miri Regev.

Both sides denied it, which only means that if there were discussions they did not come to a conclusion – yet. Herzog pointed out that he couldn’t have been negotiating since he had spent the last four hours in the synagogue. Given that there are 24 hours in a day and several days that can reasonably be called the “holiday weekend,” this is a remarkably weak argument.

Last week Netanyahu asked some members of his cabinet how they would feel about adding the ZU. The ones who were present didn’t voice any objections, although Naftali Bennett of the Beit Yehudi party and Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Beiteinu, who might be likely to object, weren’t there.

There were several different stories about how the portfolios would be distributed, but in all of them Regev gets a new job. One wonders why “Sport and Culture” is so important – one would think the Foreign Ministry is much more significant, and normally it would be. But there are two special circumstances: first, Netanyahu runs foreign policy himself no matter who the minister is (as Lieberman found out when he was FM in the previous government); and second, the ZU is really interested in putting an end to the culture war being waged against them by the tough-as-nails Regev. Moving her out is doubtless one of their conditions for a deal.

In Israel, most artistic and cultural activities – art, music, theater, film – get subsidies from the government. From before the founding of the state, these areas were dominated by the Left, specifically a narrow, politically extreme segment of the old Tel Aviv Ashkenazi elite. They get the grants, run the theater groups, make the films, write the reviews, teach the courses, and give each other the prizes. Although the Left’s Knesset representation has been on a steady decline since the historic victory of Menachem Begin in 1977, its control of the cultural establishment is still solid.

Current Israeli films tend to reflect the world-view of the artistic elite. Many are anti-war and even anti-Israeli; some are pro-Palestinian/anti-occupation, and those that are not explicitly political are often about deviance and dysfunctionality in Israeli society. Naturally, foreign audiences eat up anything negative about Israel, and they often win prizes at European film festivals; but they don’t do that well here outside of North Tel Aviv.

Regev is definitely not one of the elite, and doesn’t share their values. A former army spokesperson who achieved the rank of Brigadier General in the IDF and has a Master’s degree in business administration, she was born in “development town” Kiryat Gat to parents who immigrated from Morocco. The left-wing champions of tolerance who care so much for Arabs and illegal African migrants hate her passionately.

In several high-profile cases she used her position to withhold government funds – in one case to a theater that produced a play whose protagonist was a terrorist who committed a murder, in another to a group that would not perform in the territories. Recently, as the presenter of the Ophir Awards (Israel’s equivalent to the Oscars), she walked out of the auditorium after an Arab actor and rapper read a poem by Palestinian “national poet” Mahmoud Darwish that included the lines

But if I starve
I will eat my oppressor's flesh
Beware, beware of my starving
And my rage

Later, she returned and explained to the booing, rowdy audience that she intended to appoint a committee to “examine the management of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television as well as funding for films.”

Regev is pushing hard on the content of radio and television programs too. She feels that taxpayer money should not be used to support artistic endeavors that are anti-Israel. Her opponents insist that she is “anti-democratic” and “suppressing free speech,” to which she replies that they can speak all they want as long as the country isn’t paying for it. As you can probably guess, I’m on her side.

Although I have no inside knowledge of the discussions that may or may not be going on between Netanyahu and Herzog, I would guess that there are other ministers that the ZU would like to see sidelined. Both Naftali Bennett (Minister of Education) and Ayelet Shaked (Minister of Law), of the right-of-center Beit Hayehudi party, have consistently irked the establishments that have controlled their respective areas forever, just like the arts. In particular, Shaked wants to limit the power of the very activist, left-leaning Israeli Supreme Court.

What would Netanyahu gain from doing this? After bringing in Lieberman’s party, he has a coalition of 67, much better than the one-seat majority of 61 that he started with. One theory is that he expects Barack Obama to support a coercive resolution in the UN Security Council, and he wants to head it off by establishing a “regional commission” with several Arab states in order to restart talks with the Palestinians. Bibi knows, says the theory, that some of the right-wing members of the government will quit if he talks about relinquishing territory, and so he wants to add a number of ZU people as a cushion for his majority.

This brings me to the main criticism that many people on the Right make against Netanyahu, that he is so focused on staying in power and so ideologically flexible as to lack any ideology – or any plan other than to improvise. There’s some truth in this, but on the other hand, his supporters may believe that the opposition is so dangerously naïve and incompetent that perhaps keeping him in power really is top priority.

Regev was one of the top vote-getters in the Likud primary, number 5 on their list, so whatever happens she will be a minister in the government if she wishes. But I admit that I will be very sorry if she doesn’t keep her position as the nemesis of the egotistical, narcissistic, decadent and not-as-talented-as-they-think cultural establishment.

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10/06 Links Pt1: Obama’s confusion about the ‘occupation’ of Palestinian land; Air Force pilot dies while ejecting from his fighter jet

From Ian:

Obama’s confusion about the ‘occupation’ of Palestinian land

The president would probably be aghast if he were told that ‘the United States cannot permanently occupy Mexican land.’ Can ‘occupation’ lead to peaceful accommodation?
“Israel cannot permanently occupy Palestinian land,” said Barack Obama in his speech at the United Nations last month. By Palestinian land he presumably meant Judea and Samaria, the territory between the Jordan River and the lines delineated by Israel and Jordan in April 1949, in an armistice that followed Jordan’s participation in the combined Arab attack on Israel in 1948. Maybe he was also referring to the Gaza Strip, although that region is now under the rule of Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, and there is no Israeli presence there.
Was it Palestinian land that Jordan annexed after the conclusion of the armistice with Israel? Nobody made that claim at the time, nor during the following 18 years when Jordan held that area.
Did it suddenly become Palestinian land only after Jordan joined Egypt and Syria in their war against Israel in 1967 and was forced to withdraw from the area? Or was it Palestinian land all along, while the Palestinian claim was left in abeyance as long as Jordan ruled the area and sprang to life only after the Jordanian army was defeated?
There is clearly some ambiguity about the Palestinian title to this area. Many Palestinians say Israeli “occupation” is not limited to Judea and Samaria, but also includes the State of Israel itself.
The Palestinian claim is obviously not consistent with the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922, which recognized the historical connection between the Jewish people and Palestine and called for close settlement of Jews on the land. So maybe the fact that the majority of the population living in the area east of the 1949 armistice lines is Palestinian is sufficient to claim title to the land, a claim that was not pressed during Jordan’s tenure?
Actually, this isn’t the only area on the globe whose ownership is in dispute. Obama would probably be aghast if he were told by someone that “the United States cannot permanently occupy Mexican land.” Yes, much of the United States – California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Texas – is territory captured during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, in a war of aggression. It was a war waged under the banner of “Manifest Destiny” – America’s destiny to extend its possessions to the Pacific Ocean.

Eugene Kontorovich: Palestine, Uti Possidetis Juris, and the Borders of Israel

Israel’s borders and territorial scope are a source of seemingly endless debate. Remarkably, despite the intensity of the debates, little attention has been paid to the relevance of the doctrine of uti possidetis juris to resolving legal aspects of the border dispute. Uti possidetis juris is widely acknowledged as the doctrine of customary international law that is central to determining territorial sovereignty in the era of decolonization. The doctrine provides that emerging states presumptively inherit their pre-independence administrative boundaries.
Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948. The doctrine would thus support Israeli claims to any or all of the currently hotly disputed areas of Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem), the West Bank, and even potentially the Gaza Strip (though not the Golan Heights).

Today's selichot disparaged Mohammed

In today's Selichot (Ashkenaz,) the special prayers said before and between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, there was this interesting section:

Artscroll translates it as "How the people of Araby have surrounded us and the Hamites cut us off! They call a man who never prophesied 'The Prophet'. And as for them, they build army, troop and legion. But as for me, where will I go?"

The commentary reproduced above also makes clear that we are talking about Arabs and Muslims.

This specific poem was written about a thousand years ago.

While there is no comparison between how Muslims and Christians treated Jews, the Jews were persecuted enough by Islam to cry out to God to save them.

It would be interesting to find out if the selichot said in Muslim lands included this section.

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From the Sydney Morning Herald:

A Pakistani scholar visiting Australia for a speaking tour has been ordered home after a video sermon surfaced of him saying the world will be purified when every Jew is wiped out.

Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai, who has a Facebook fan base of almost a million people, spoke at the Ghausia Masjid in Blacktown and the Al-Madinah Masjid in Liverpool over the long weekend.

Ghausia Masjid's imam Hafiz Raza, who organised the tour, didn't respond to questions about the visit or the 2012 video titled "Jews are the enemies of Islam and the real peace".

However, after Fairfax Media alerted the Pakistan Association of Australia to the video on Wednesday, they called the Ghausia Masjid who decided to cancel Mr Mustafai's talks this week in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide and ask him to return home.

Association president Abbas Khan said Pakistani Australians are deeply committed to harmony in Australia and he was shocked by the video.

He said he met Mr Mustafai on Wednesday and the scholar said the video didn't reflect his opinions and was a quote from a book.

Here is what he said in 2012 (video here):

"And a time is about to come when Allah would bestow such a success on Islam that there would not be a single Jew left on the face of the earth. Hazrat Eisa [Jesus] would come; the warriors of Imam Mahdi [according to Islamic traditions he is the last Imam] would march into the battlefield; the pig would be killed and the symbol of cross would be broken.

"And it has been described in the books of Hadith [sayings of Prophet Muhammad] that Allah would provide such aid to the followers of Islam that if a Jew would be hiding behind a tree branch or a stone, then that stone would call out for the Muslim mujahid [to come] towards it and would tell him that a Jew is hiding behind me.

"And when the last Jew will be killed from this world, then peace would be established in the world – so much so that snakes would roam among people but would not bite. Wolves and goats would drink water from the same quayside and goats would not have any fear from wolves. It is the guarantee of world peace when the last Jew is slain. As long as there are Jews in this world, peace cannot be established in the whole world.

"Muslims are being called terrorists, as the cause of the destruction of world peace; but it is not the reality; Muslims are fighting the war of their survival. Muslims are not terrorists; they are the lovers of peace and preachers of peace. And all the troubles that exist around the world are because of the Jews. When the Jews are wiped out, then the world would be purified and the sun of peace would begin to rise on the entire world."

See, he does preach peace! It just all depends on murdering all Jews first!

His Facebook page indeed has nearly a million followers. He preaches all over the world.

Mustafai even visited the US earlier this year.

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Islamic Jihad terror rally features women, children; celebrates stabbing Jews

Last week Islamic Jihad held a rally to celebrate the 29th anniversary of its creation in 1987.

But it also celebrated the first anniversary of the murder spree that started last year, with members holding knives, stones and Molotov cocktails along with their normal guns:

And children were included in those celebrations of murdering Jews:

Female terrorists held a prominent place in the rally as well:

Here is a video that Islamic Jihad released at the same time that celebrates stabbing Jews (start at the 43 second mark):

It is a depraved culture that celebrates murders and incites children to become terrorists.

And it is perfectly normal for Palestinian Arabs. Because while the PA might not have rallies as explicit as this one in encouraging terror, it does the exact same thing in its media and online.

This is the story that the mainstream media simply doesn't want to touch.

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Arabs upset that Palestinian suicide bombings and airline hijackings are called "terrorism" in textbook

From Albawaba:

A private school in Doha has found itself in trouble after using textbooks that appear to feature Palestinians as their choice examples of “terrorism” - using the actions of Palestinian groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) PLO and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to discuss concepts like “hijacking” and “suicide vests”.

The debacle began when pictures of the textbook used at the International School of Choueifat in Doha were shared on social media websites, highlighting the controversial chapter in question

The Qatari Ministry of Education was quick to respond, with Doha News reporting that the textbook has been removed from the school.

Many saw the textbook as unfair propaganda against the Palestinian people, taking to Twitter to react to the news and ask their government to look for similar instances in other schools.

According to their website, the International School of Choueifat has schools in a number of Middle Eastern countries, but whether this scandal will cause the school to change its international policies is yet to be seen.

As of now Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan have forced the international school to withdraw the textbook from their teaching curriculum.

Here are the parts of the book that caused such angst.

“Palestinian terrorists took over several airlines in 1970, including two American, one Swiss and one British. They targeted American planes because they felt the USA always helped out Israel, a country that occupies land that the Palestinians claim is their own. They wanted their own country – Palestine – and wanted land that Israel occupies. Terrorist acts continue to this day in the Middle East.”

“Explosives are attached to the bomber’s body. They approach their target and explode the bomb. Palestinian terrorists are well-known for this.”

The book itself is "Key Stage 3 History by Aaron Wilkes: Technology, War and Independence 1901-Present Day" by Oxford University Press.

As far as I can tell, there is no pushback from Arabs saying that, you know, suicide bombings really are acts of terror no matter who does them. Such thinking may exist but saying it out loud in the Arab world is not the smartest thing to do.

Because, as this incident shows, according to Arab countries, Palestinian suicide bombings that kill dozens of civilians are not considered terror acts.

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10/05 Links Pt2: Nazis, Jihadists, and Jew Hatred; World’s oldest man marks bar mitzvah, 100 years late

From Ian:

A Look Inside the Latest Gaza Women’s Flotilla The activists on board are no peaceful bunch

Who’s on board these love boats? As you can imagine, those whose moral compasses guide them straight into the arms of murderers who execute gays, oppress women, and spend every penny they get on planning and executing terrorist attacks. Like Ola Abed: she’s one of the people behind Gaza Man, a video game that encourages kids to shoot as many Israelis as they can, with extra points given for headshots. Too callous for your taste? Head over to Abed’s Facebook page and enjoy her frequent expressions of support for murderous attacks on Israeli civilians, or sample her Twitter feed for a taste of more uplifting calls for peace and love, like the hashtag #GiveUsWeapons.
The boats are sailing to Gaza from Barcelona, and these long nights at sea can get lonely, so Abed is lucky to have folks like Norsham Abu Bakr to keep her company. Abu Bakr, a Muslim Brotherhood supporter, has palled around with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and has waxed poetic on her Facebook page, sharing posts that accuse the Mossad of orchestrating the recent terrorist attacks in Munich and Nice. It’s a sentiment Wendy Goldsmith probably shares—the London, Ontario social worker, another of the boat’s passengers, was a chatty guest on Kevin Barrett’s Truth Jihad, a radio show dedicated in large part to promoting the idea that the Zionist entity is behind every major bloody attack in recent memory, starting with 9/11.
Don’t find any of this troubling? Unmoved by discrimination directed exclusively at Jews? No worries: the bigotry of the women on board contains multitudes. Just ask passenger Fauzia Hasan, a Malaysian doctor who has openly advocated banning Sisters in Islam, a Muslim women’s movement working for gender equality within the religion.
And so, if you seriously support a resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, pray that the Israeli navy swiftly takes over these boats before they reach Gaza’s terror-troubled shores, bringing this hateful journey to a peaceful end.

Prince Charles visits grandmother's grave while in Jerusalem

Charles, Prince of Wales, secretly visited his grandmother's grave while in Jerusalem for former president Shimon Peres' funeral.
Prince Charles' grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenburg, was buried at the Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem per her request.
Her remains were transferred to a crypt below the church in August of 1988.
The visit was made in secrecy and went unreported until a number of photos surfaced on social media accounts of people working with the church. The visit was reported first by Haaretz.
The Royal family has historically refrained from visiting the site due to its location in the eastern part of Jerusalem, to remain neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Do News Clarifications and Corrections Matter? Bah Humbug

Do corrections and clarifications to news stories matter when it comes to setting the record straight about Israel? How do we measure the impact of these corrections? Is it important to pressure news outlets to change stories when they fail to convey the truth, or worse yet, outright lie?

All respect to media watchdog organizations such as CAMERA, Honest Reporting, and BBC Watch. We know perfectly well these organizations are on Israel's side, on the side of the truth. They catch 'em red-handed, they do, and often manage to get the big guns, media outlets such as the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Washington Post, to retract or at least correct stories they run that make Israel out to be the bad guy, the facts be damned.

But there is something unsatisfying about the process of running down the mistakes, and getting them corrected. It makes the watchdogs look fussy and over-particular, and really, what good do those corrections do, anyway? News cycles are short. A correction on yesterday's news?

You can wrap fish with it.

Let's take for instance, this Australian story with the headline, Palestinian 'executed' after Israeli checkpoint knife attack. Here's what happened: an Arab terrorist going through an Israeli security checkpoint (which is designed for the purpose of identifying and preventing terrorists from entering civilian areas), lunges at the IDF soldier manning the checkpoint and stabs him.

The terrorist is shot dead.

Honest Reporting complained about the story because of the title, which appears to refer to extra-judicial killing, and because the text refers to the terrorist as a "Palestinian fellow," a descriptor designed to rebrand the terrorist as someone harmless.

In response to Honest Reporting's report, 9 News changed the word "fellow" to the slightly less offensive "man."

But the original title was left unchanged.

Anyone reading the story with an uncritical eye (both before and after the correction) will be left with the impression that Israel is a country of bloodthirsty, repressive, and murderous outlaws. And since Israelis are Jews, well, the reader will believe he now has good reason to dislike the Jews as a people. He will point to this story in debates online, and in conversations with friends. He will say, "It's not just me that says Israelis are murdering Arabs in the streets, it's the media."

What is lost here is the truth: terrorists are the bad guys, Israeli soldiers the good guys, keeping the Israeli populace safe.

Terrorists kill Israelis because they are Jews. Terrorists want all of Israel and they want it all Judenrein. They will not hesitate to murder ballerinas in their sleep, or slit the throat of a three-month-old Jewish infant. They will not hesitate to firebomb a young girl riding in the passenger seat of her daddy's car on the way home from her advanced math classes at Bar Ilan. The terrorists know exactly when that car will reach that convenient bottleneck in the road so they can set that smart little beautiful girl on fire and ruin her pretty face, maybe even kill her.

But the reader will glean none of this from the Australian news story in our example. The reader comes away with this main idea: Arabs=Innocent/Jews=Evil.

Now what if Honest Reporting had been successful, and the Australian 9 News had completely changed the title of the story? What if 9 News had changed that headline to, for instance: Arab terrorist shot, killed after stabbing soldier at security checkpoint. That would have been a truthful headline in every respect.

And it wouldn't have mattered a bit. The news cycle is brief. You blink your eyes and it's not news anymore.

A story that goes viral does so in minutes. In a few short hours, another story has superseded it and risen to the top of the page. So if you have thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of viewers and they see an untruthful headline: Palestinian 'executed' after Israel checkpoint knife attack, they are going to see it within minutes or hours.

They will likely never see the correction. Because by the time the story is corrected, it's no longer news and no one cares. It is the impression left by that shocking original headline that remains.

And even if the reader happens to, for some odd reason, go back to the story and see that the title has been corrected, the impact of such a correction has to be weak indeed as compared to the shock of the original headline. The shock is what feeds into the public lust for ammunition against Israel and the Jews, from the alt right to the progressive left. No one cares about the accuracy of the corrected headline.

Because it can't be used against the Jews.

So it's just there, doing nothing, that correction. Except building resentment. Against the damned Jews who are so picayune and always demanding corrections. As if it matters. Everyone knows Jews=evil/Arabs=innocent. Right?

Or that headline wouldn't have been there in the first place. Where's there's smoke there's fire. Jimmy didn't hit you fer nothing. You must have done SOMETHING.

But let's look at this from a different angle: could it be that forcing the media to make these constant corrections keeps them in line? Forces them to uphold better journalistic standards? Keeps bias out of the media, makes for a free press, preserves democracy?

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe all we do is drive the hate underground where it festers.

Or maybe it really does teach people that it's unacceptable to hate out loud but that hating in quiet and silence or at least in the company of likeminded souls is maybe okay.

It's frustrating. I believe we must expose the lies, the evil, the false narratives, the scare quotes, the absence of important context, the spin. But I'm not sure demanding or even requesting such corrections politely is a worthwhile endeavor.

In fact, recently, I saw a correction as something resembling the opposite of worthwhile. I saw a correction that seemed actually nefarious by nature. I spotted a "spun" quote in a Times of Israel article regarding the questioning of a soldier in the case against Elor Azaria, who stands accused of shooting a neutralized terrorist.

"Though he has not been formally charged, the as-yet unnamed Netzah Yehuda soldier has been questioned by Military Police 'in connection with the killing,' an army official told The Times of Israel on Monday."

About this I wrote:

"Killing??" Seriously?

It did not pass the smell test that an army official would refer to what happened outside of Ofra as a "killing." As if the motives of the soldier (again without due process) were in question, as if this soldier shot a man simply because he was lusting for Arab blood, and not because this presumed Arab terrorist had rushed a guard post in a place where rushing a guard post usually spells t-e-r-r-o-r a-t-t-a-c-k.

But the text was linked, so I went to the original article quoting the unnamed army official. And low and behold, the word "killing" was not used there. Instead, the linked piece said, “'He was investigated in connection with the death on Friday,' an official said." (emphasis mine)

"The death" as distinct from "the killing."

That's a whole different can of worms.

I was quite disturbed when reader AreaMan tried to find a way to see the writer as having made an innocent translation error and subsequently contacted the author to give him the benefit of the doubt. The author, Judah Ari Gross agreed it had been an "translation error" and changed the text so that instead of the libelous word "killing" in the second piece, it now uses the blameless word "death."

I was furious. Gross got that word "killing" out there and smeared a young soldier standing trial. That is truly an evil thing. How many people saw the original article with that slander in it?? The word "killing" is meant to ascribe an evil intention. It's a characterization, pure bias. People saw it and concluded: Elor Azaria=evil Jew=wanton murderer of Arabs.

In going back to Gross, AreaMan gives him a chance to both get that slander out there, and then retract it with a meaningless oops. It was a MISTAKE.

But who will see the correction?? Who cares?

It's the word "killing" they saw when the story was fresh that stays in their minds. They won't ever see that the word was changed to "death" and if they do, it won't register. The impression has been made. The story is not news. Not anymore

All AreaMan did was give Gross a way to spin the news while looking good, too.

He, Gross, hurt Elor Azaria with that word "killing." I take that personally. And you should, too.

Corrections? They allow the media to be bad. Really bad. And then to dot their i's and cross their t's while no one is watching.

Because the show was already over one or more news cycles ago.

And who really cares, anyway?

Corrections.

Bah humbug.

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If You Don't Stop Bombing Aleppo, I'll Threaten To Make Threats! - John Kerry (Preoccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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If You Don't Stop Bombing Aleppo, I'll Threaten To Make Threats!

By John Kerry, US Secretary of State

President Putin, the time has come for a fateful decision. Either you want to pursue a resolution of the Syrian conflict by diplomatic means, or you do not. But whichever choice you make, know that if you choose war, I will see no choice but to threaten to issue threats against you. You have been forewarned.

Everyone knows Russia has always seen a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean as a strategic asset that must be maintained. But bombing entire neighborhoods into rubble, including the last remaining hospitals in Aleppo, is no way to achieve long-term stability. Even if Assad survives, his hold on what remains of Syria will never be what it once was. You must see that. And you must also see that the US has never failed to defend its own strategic interests. Cross us once more and you will face the full wrath of my ability to make threats that threaten drastic threats I may yet regret making.

You are a reasonable man, Mr. Putin. Reasonable men do not engage in unwise brinkmanship. I have been restrained in my rhetoric until now, but until now the carnage in Syria has been limited to that inflicted primarily by Assad, not your forces. Now that the situation has changed for the worse, and the civilians of Aleppo are being bled to no one's benefit, you leave me no choice but to consider implying that I might warn you against further such violence by saying such violence would incur a further warning.

To make matters worse, you have stationed batteries of advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles in Syria, in anticipation of US action to thwart further carnage. I must warn you, Mr. Putin, such measures will only result in my issuing further remonstrations to the effect that if this mayhem continues, I will do it again. And again, if necessary, Mr. Putin. I will not waver from this path. You will find me a determined adversary. When I threaten to make threats, I follow through. Make no mistake.

This is the last time I warn you, Mr. Putin, before I warn you again. I have never been as serious and determined about any course of action as I am about this one. The bloody games stop here and now, Mr. Putin, or else I will take the unprecedented step of following through on a threat to issue a serious threat.

You have been warned.

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