RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hamas announced the creation of a “popular army” in Gaza on Friday, AFP reports, saying it was ready for any future conflict with Israel, particularly over the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

At a ceremony at the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza, a spokesman for Hamas’s “military wing”, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said 2,500 recruits would form “the first section of the popular army for the liberation of Al-Aqsa and of Palestine”.

Mohammed Abu Askar, a Hamas official, said those older than 20 could sign up “to be prepared for any confrontation” with Israel.

Abu Askar said the new force had been established “at a moment when the Al-Aqsa mosque is subject to serious Israeli violations”.

Another Al-Qassam spokesman said “the people, arms and the tunnels are going well”, in reference to Hamas’s network of underground passages, hundreds of which have been destroyed by Israel and Egypt to prevent arms smuggling.

The new “popular army” and the Hamas threats come amid continuing tensions in Jerusalem in general and particularly on the Temple Mount, fueled by Arab riots in the capital.

Violent Arab rioting on the Temple Mount on Wednesday forced police to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque as rioters barricaded themselves inside.

Nevertheless, it is Israel that has been blamed for the violence, with Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas warning Jews against ascending the Temple Mount and claiming that the “break-ins by the settlers and Jewish extremists” to the Al-Aqsa ,osque are a violation of Muslim feelings.

More than 1,000 young people from France have joined extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, more than from any other European country. The recruits are no longer just coming from the margins of society.

Sometimes Séverine Mehault climbs the stairs to the second floor for no reason at all. She walks along the hallway, past her son’s room and into her daughter’s bedroom. Then the 40-year-old lies down on the bed, next to a white stuffed bunny, and closes her eyes for a moment, trying to understand why only one of her two daughters, 15-year-old Kenza, is still there — and why Sahra has abandoned her.

Not much of Sahra is left in the room: her stuffed rabbit, a Koran in translation, a prayer book and a guide to the correct methods of bathing for Islamic women. The guide is a worn, pink brochure with small illustrations. Chapter 3 is titled: Instructions for Cleaning Your Ears.

There’s a dish containing red nail polish, mascara and lip gloss, but Sahra hasn’t worn makeup in almost two years. After turning 15 at the time, she converted to Islam.

She left France on March 11, 2014 to joint the jihadists in Syria. The family doesn’t know where she is exactly, or which terrorist group she has joined.

Her father drove her to the train station in Narbonne on that March day, as he did every day, when she would take the train to school in the nearby city of Carcassonne in southwestern France. A surveillance camera image shows Sahra, 17, standing on the platform in Narbonne, at 7:44 a.m. She is wearing white jeans, white sneakers and a black headscarf, and she is carrying two shoulder bags. The last image of Sahra on French soil, also taken with a surveillance camera, shows her at the airport in Marseille. She took an afternoon flight to Istanbul, and the next day she continued to Antakya on the Turkish-Syrian border.

Leftist Hollywood blows hot and cold when depicting a post-apocalyptic world.

Hollywood: Snowshoes vs. Hockey Sticks

My last few columns about Hollywood, such as, “The Death of Adult Movies” and “Hollywood: Sharia-Compliant,” tackled the politically correct mindset that has produced movies not targeted to adults but to undeveloped and/or brainwashed minds (many of them adult), or are bloviating leftist propaganda vehicles in the “entertainment” media. This is particularly true when it comes to the subjects of Islam (never deprecate Islam, or show a Muslim in a bad light), capitalism (capitalists are snarky bad guys who smoke and leer at photogenic women), and environmentalist propaganda and how to dramatize the effects of “global warming” or nuclear war or man as an unnatural and destructive occupant of earth.

What are reviewed this turn around the block are some post-apocalyptic stories.

There is only one non-apocalyptic movie discussed here, Radio Free Albemuth, and I include it because it is too bizarre to pass up. The others are very post-apocalyptic, with a vengeance. Oddly, only one conforms to the “man-caused global warming” party line, Terra Nova. The others beat their CGI-mesmerized audiences over the head, not with hockey sticks, but with snowshoes.

Someone might object: But we already know that Hollywood is in the Left’s pocket, and has been for decades. Why beat a dead horse?

Well, the horse isn’t quite dead; it can still bite if you look too closely in its mouth. You have no idea of the sheer volume of rubbish that’s produced by the Left and finds its way to Netflix or Amazon Video from mainstream television and the theater chains without a peep of publicity, or any ballyhoo or promotional push in the New York Times or Washington Post, Variety, or Hollywood Reporter.

“Death is in the nature of mining.” — Turkey’s then-Prime Minister, now President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Why is death not in the nature of French, British or Spanish mining but only in Turkish mining?” — Kemal Kilicdaroglu, opposition leader, Social Democrat Party.

“Whenever we attempt to close a mine the employer brings 50 well-connected people to lobby against the closure.” — Faruk Celik, Labor Minister.

“And they die an equal death — the idler and the man of mighty deeds,” wrote the ancient Greek epic poet Homer in “Iliad.” Nearly three millennia later, in Turkey “they do not quite die an equal death.”

After 30 coal miners died in a May 2010 accident in Karadon, northern Turkey, then Prime Minister (now president) Recep Tayyip Erdogan resorted to Islamist fatalism to wave off criticism of what was an obvious administrative negligence: “Death is in the nature of mining.”

Earlier this week, the main opposition party leader, Social Democrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu asked Erdogan a legitimate question: “Why is death not in the nature of French, British and Spanish mining but only in Turkish mining?” — a question not likely to be answered by any government politician.

Last March, Kilicdaroglu’s party submitted a parliamentary motion to investigate alleged failings of safety standards at a coal mine in Soma in western Turkey. Erdogan’s men voted to reject it. In May, the same coal mine exploded, killing more than 300 miners — and putting the death toll from mining accidents in Turkey at around 3,000 since the Republic was established in 1923. By then Turkish mines were six times more dangerous than even the Chinese.

Smaller accidents after Soma at mines and construction sites have killed dozens more workers. In one particular case, revealing governmental protection for the potentially guilty, twelve Labor Ministry inspectors, who had given a “perfect score” to the Soma mine shortly before the accident, were preliminarily indicted, but the ministry refused to give permission for legal proceedings. (In Turkey, a government official cannot be prosecuted for negligence of duty without ministerial approval.)

In my piece I noted that the day after Election Day President Obama conducted a news conference during which he barely acknowledged that the Democratic Party got trounced in both houses of the United States Congress and even in many gubernatorial elections around the United Staes.

Prior to Election Day he said that although he was not on the ballot his policies would be. After Election Day when asked at that news conference about what the implications of the elections were he said that he did not read the political tea leaves but would leave that up to the pundits.

What was extremely disturbing is that he said that he would take executive action to address immigration and that Congress could get him to cancel his executive actions by passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform. He is clearly seeking to “strong-arm” Congress into submission. This is hardly consistent with what is required by the Constitution of the United States. As I have noted repeatedly, Comprehensive Immigration Reform would undermine national security, public safety and public health and have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy and unemployment.

Failures to secure our borders to prevent the entry of terrorists flies in the face of the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Furthermore, it must be understood that our nation has 50 “border states”- any state that has an international airport or access to the tens of thousands of miles of meandering coastline or lies along the northern as well as the southern borders of the United States are all “border states.”

Failures to combat fraud in the visa process and in adjudication of applications for immigration benefits also violate the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

What is incomprehensible is that not one politician who expresses concerns about the threat of terrorism will even make a passing reference to the 9/11 Commission Report or to the companion document, the The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel.

Once more, Gaza is under attack.Now the World Fiddles as Gaza Cries By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn

Gazans are being evicted from their homes, a curfew has been imposed, and a crossing that enables Gazans to leave has been closed. Yet the world is silent. Strange, is it not?

Hundreds of residents along one of Gaza’s borders have suddenly been ordered to evacuate, on just two days’ notice. Their homes are to be demolished. There is no talk of compensation. Why isn’t the United Nations Security Council denouncing this outrage?

Because it is the Egyptian government, and not Israel’s, that is doing the evicting. See The New York Times, Oct. 28 edition.

The Egyptians have decided they need a buffer zone along their border with Gaza. They don’t trust the Hamas regime, which they say has been assisting terrorists who have been attacking Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai. Apparently Cairo does not accept the Obama Administration scripted fiction that the new Hamas-PA government is run by “technocrats.” Egypt understands that a Hamas-appointed “technocrat” is, first and foremost, a functionary of Hamas.

Of course, the Egyptians could establish their buffer zone along their own side of the border, without evicting anyone. But why should they yield their own territory when it is Hamas creating the menace? So they are kicking out Gazans who reside along the border, and setting up a buffer zone that will be nine miles long, and with water-filled trenches that will be more than 500 yards wide — that’s half a kilometer, or five football fields.

Yet nary a word of protest from the White House, nor any suggestion of delaying any U.S. arms deliveries to Egypt.

That’s not all. In response to the recent attacks in Sinai, the Egyptians have imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew all along the Egypt-Gaza border. In other words, no resident of that part of Gaza can leave his or her home after dark, for any reason.

1. According to Defense News, “Touted by US and Israeli officials as a new milestone in decades-long defense-industrial cooperation, state-owned Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI) inaugurated a production line on Tuesday to provide wings for Lockheed Martin-produced F-35 joint strike fighters. Under an estimated $2.5bn industrial cooperation deal, the new facility at IAI’s Lahav Division will produce up to 811 wing sets through 2030 at a rate of four per month. Current plans are earmarking Israeli-built wings for fighters on order for the US and Israeli Air Forces and future export customers…. The decision to entrust IAI with critical wing builds follows three decades of successful cooperation on the F-16 and T-38 programs…. It takes [bilateral] cooperation to a new level and launches a new era in shared commitment…. Israel-built wings for the F-35 along with the selection of [Israel’s] Elbit Systems for helmet-mounted displays are a show of strength and growing strategic ties…. The new facility [said IAI’s Chairman] will establish IAI as a global center of excellence for wing companies.”

2. 2014 has been a record year (and it’s not over yet): $3.6bn have been raised by 26 Israeli companies on the New York Stock Exchange in initial, and secondary, public offerings, compared with $335mn in 1994 (Globes, October 31, 2014).

3. 2014 has been a record year (and it’s not over yet): $3.5bn invested by global companies (such as Pratt and Whitney, Qualcomm, 3D Systems, Erickson, Google and Yahoo) in the acquisition of Israeli companies (Globes, October 31). In addition, Israel’s DiWip was acquired by Canada’s Imperus Technologies for $100mn (Globes, October 20). France’s Publicis acquired a 25% controlling interest in Israel’s Matomy for $82mn (Globes, Oct. 14).

4. Jordan concluded a $15bn, 15 year contract with Houston’s Noble Energy for the supply of natural gas from the offshore Leviathan field in Israel (Globes, September 4). Turkey and Israel explore the possibility of constructing a natural gas pipeline from Israel’s offshore fields to Turkey.