Displaying posts published in

2016

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Trump Is Right to Point Out That Clinton Should Be Prosecuted His rhetoric is overblown, but he’s correct that Hillary should be held to account for criminal conduct. By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on October 15th, 2016

With due respect, the estimable Charles Krauthammer is way off base in his weekly column, addressing Donald Trump’s “threat, if elected, to put Hillary Clinton in jail.” (The headline refers to this threat as a “promise,” but I don’t take that to be quite what Charles — or, for that matter, Trump — is saying.) I wrote about this topic right after Trump raised it in the second presidential debate, in response to Trump detractors who posited the claim that Krauthammer now advances: viz., Trump is criminalizing politics with threats to persecute political opponents. I generally agree with these detractors regarding the GOP nominee’s flaws and antics; on this, however, their comparisons of Trump to brutal dictators are so beyond the pale they make Trump seem tame.

Krauthammer is right that Trump has gone too far in his rhetoric. Yet, he overstates the case in suggesting that Trump is breaching important political boundaries. While he describes these as boundaries of “discourse” and “democratic decency,” Dr. K implies that they involve something even more fundamental, and thus that the breach is more perilous.

Mrs. Clinton appears to have committed serious crimes that undermined both national security and recordkeeping rules designed to promote accountability in government. If you want to talk about a truly profound threat to democratic norms, that’s the place to start. Obviously, these offenses are not just relevant but essential to the political case that should be made against Clinton, and would be by any opponent, not just by the unconventional, undisciplined Trump. Also pertinent is the fact that government officials who engage in Clinton’s type of misconduct do go to jail — to refrain from stating this would be to diminish the gravity of the crimes.

Moreover, even Krauthammer concedes that Clinton deserved to be prosecuted: “FBI director James Comey’s recommendation not to pursue charges was both troubling and puzzling.” Consequently, I don’t see why anyone, including Trump, should be faulted for asserting that there appears to be strong evidence that Mrs. Clinton has committed egregious offenses, which warrant prosecution and would call for imprisonment if she were convicted after a fair trial. Unless I am reading him wrong, that is Charles’s position on the matter — otherwise, why the dig at Comey?

Where Trump has overstepped is in his articulation of these points, not the fact that he is making them.

Political rhetoric inevitably involves a degree of exaggeration, and we must distinguish it from the realm of law-enforcement, in which officials are obliged to be circumspect. At the Republican convention, the most effective speech was New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s scathing indictment (in the rhetorical sense) of Mrs. Clinton’s misdeeds. It prompted the “lock her up!” chants that have punctuated Trump campaign appearances ever since. Now, when Americans say that someone ought to be “locked up” over this or that — which we say quite a lot — we are not urging an end run around the due-process protections that apply from investigation and indictment through trial and sentencing.

That goes without saying. During Obama’s 2008 campaign, his surrogate (and later his attorney general) Eric Holder called for a “reckoning” against Bush officials he depicted as guilty of war crimes and all manner of Constitution-shredding. I don’t think Mr. Holder was saying “jail now, trial later” — even if many on the left would have been delighted by such an arrangement.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Christopher Dawson: Martin Luther, 500 Years on

By on October 15th, 2016

Tempers have cooled more than somewhat since the posting of his 97 Theses, which means the dissident cleric’s legacy can be comprehensively picked over without recourse to arms. Alas, his position on the place of interpretative dance in the liturgy can never be known
I once attended a Christmas eve service at a Roman Catholic church in North Sydney. It had many happy and boisterous worshippers. The holiest carol we sang — hardly a carol — was Little Donkey. This was followed by liturgical dancing round the altar. Finally I turned on my unfortunate mother-in-law and pompously said: “Thank God for Martin Luther. Thank God for the Reformation.”

Next year we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the nailing of Luther’s 95 Latin theses against Papal indulgences to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. This possibly apocryphal episode is often credited with precipitating a long lasting schism within Christendom. As I was taught in school, the Reformation was pivotal in the history of Europe, England and the world. The map of Europe is still shaped by it.

According to Alexandra Walsham, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, together with other competing impulses for ecclesiastical, doctrinal and moral reform it convulsed the continent, provoking conflict, violence, and war and leaving a lasting mark on the physical environment in which people lived, died, fought and prayed. “Within the British Isles, as elsewhere, this process was entangled with political and social development that determined its character and path and left an enduring and powerful, but also a highly divisive legacy,” Professor Walsham said.

Luther was born in November, 1483, in Eisleben. His father was a copper miner. Luther studied at the University of Erfurt and in 1503 decided to join a monastic order, becoming an Augustinian Friar. He was ordained in 1507, began teaching at the University of Wittenberg and in 1512 was made a doctor of theology. In 1510 Luther visited Rome on behalf of a number of Augustinian monasteries and was appalled by the corruption he found. He came increasingly angry about the clergy selling indulgences — promised remission of punishment for sin, either for someone still living or for those whose souls were believed to be residing in Purgatory. His 95 Theses of October 31, 1517, attacked all abuses and the sale of indulgences.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

DR. LAINA FARHAT-HOLZMAN : ISRAEL’S CHANGING NEIGHBORHOOD

By on October 15th, 2016

In the past 12 months alone, Israel faced 407 terror attacks, including 165 stabbings, 87 attempted stabbings, 107 shootings, 47 vehicular attacks, and one bus bombing. All this is in a country the size of New Jersey!

When Israel first became a nation, a unified Muslim world (in particular, Arab world) invaded, hoping to destroy the nascent state. The Arabs did not prevail, but that did not stop them for trying 13 other times since 1947.

In the past 12 months alone, Israel faced 407 terror attacks, including 165 stabbings, 87 attempted stabbings, 107 shootings, 47 vehicular attacks, and one bus bombing. All this is in a country the size of New Jersey!

Today, however, the Arab (and Muslim) worlds face increasing disarray. The two major sects of Islam, Sunni and Shiite, are in open conflict. Non-Arab Iran (formerly Persia), is home to the majority of Shiites in the world, but there are Shiite pockets living in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Iraq has been transformed from a Sunni-Arab majority country to a Shiite-majority country, with the inevitable conflict that results from this clash.

Both Sunnis and Shiites are under attack by two other murderous cults, ISIS and the older Al Qaeda, the brainchild of Osama bin Laden. These cults aspire to global reach and have little interest in existing Muslim nation states.

Within each of these nation states another conflict is going on: that of disaffected citizens against their oppressive governments. The great youth bulge (now beginning to crash) is split among those wanting to enter the modern Western-style world and those believing that their problems will be solved by more Islam. In addition, young women are increasingly educated and aware how badly their religion and culture has treated them. The birthrate is dropping like a stone.

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Judicial Watch Releases New Hillary Clinton Email Answers Given under Oath

By on October 15th, 2016

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released received responses under oath from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning her email practices. Judicial Watch submitted twenty-five questions on August 30 to Clinton as ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

The new Clinton responses in the Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit before Judge Sullivan was first filed in September 2013 seeking records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former deputy chief of staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about the clintonemail.com system (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)).

Judicial Watch has already taken the deposition testimony of seven Clinton aides and State Department officials.

Below is text from the document filed with the court today:

NON-PARTY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON’S RESPONSE

TO PLAINTIFF’S INTERROGATORIES

Pursuant to the Court’s August 19, 2016 order and Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Non-Party Hillary Rodham Clinton hereby responds to Plaintiff’s Interrogatories dated August 30, 2016. The General Objections and the Objections to the Definitions set forth below are incorporated into each of the specific responses that follow. Any specific objections are in addition to the General Objections and Objections to the Definitions, and failure to reiterate a General Objection or Objection to the Definitions does not constitute a waiver of that or any other objection.

GENERAL OBJECTIONS

Secretary Clinton objects to the Interrogatories on the ground that any discovery of Secretary Clinton is unwarranted in this case, for the reasons set forth in Secretary Clinton’s Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion to Depose Hillary Rodham Clinton, Clarence Finney, and John Bentel (Dkt. #102) and Surreply in Further Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion to Depose Hillary Rodham Clinton, Clarence Finney, and John Bentel (Dkt. #109), and as stated by Secretary Clinton’s counsel during the Court hearing on July 18, 2016. Secretary Clinton will answer the Interrogatories notwithstanding this objection, subject to the other objections stated herein.

Secretary Clinton objects to the Interrogatories insofar as they request information outside the scope of permitted discovery in this case. The Court permitted discovery of Secretary Clinton on the topics of “the purpose for the creation and operation of the clintonemail.com system for State Department business,” as well as “the State Department’s approach and practice for processing FOIA requests that potentially implicated former Secretary Clinton’s and Ms. Abedin’s e-mails and State’s processing of the FOIA request that is the subject of this action.” Dkt. #124, at 14, 19 (internal quotation marks omitted). Secretary Clinton will answer the Interrogatories insofar as they seek non-privileged information related to those topics.

Secretary Clinton objects to the Interrogatories insofar as they request information relating to events that occurred, or actions taken by Secretary Clinton, after her tenure as Secretary of State. Such post-tenure actions or events are not within the scope of the permitted topics of discovery set forth in General Objection No. 2.

Secretary Clinton objects to the Interrogatories insofar as they request information about Secretary Clinton’s use of her clintonemail.com account to send and receive e-mails that were personal in nature, as such use is not within the scope of the permitted topics set forth in General Objection No. 2. Secretary Clinton will construe the Interrogatories to ask only about her use of her clintonemail.com account to send and receive e-mails related to State Department business.

Secretary Clinton objects to the Interrogatories insofar as they request information about management, retention, and/or preservation of federal records. This action arises under FOIA, which does not govern management, retention, or preservation of federal records. See Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 152 (1980). Accordingly, management, retention, and/or preservation of federal records are not within the scope of the permitted topics of discovery set forth in General Objection No. 2.

Secretary Clinton objects to Instruction No. 1 insofar as it purports to require Secretary Clinton to provide information that is not within her personal knowledge. The purpose of the limited discovery permitted by the Court is to obtain Secretary Clinton’s “personal knowledge of her purpose in using the [clintonemail.com] system.” Dkt. #124, at 16; see also id. at (directing Plaintiff “to propound questions that are relevant to Secretary Clinton’s unique first-hand knowledge”). Secretary Clinton is answering these Interrogatories based on her direct personal knowledge. She is not undertaking to provide information known only to other persons, including but not limited to her attorneys, representatives, persons acting under, by, or through her, or subject to her control or supervision, or other persons acting on her behalf.

Secretary Clinton objects to these Interrogatories to the extent that they call for the production of information that is privileged or otherwise protected from discovery by the attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine, or any other applicable privilege, protection, or immunity. Secretary Clinton will respond only to the extent privileged or otherwise protected information is not required and to the extent that the Interrogatory is not otherwise objectionable.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Islamic State Militants Kill 12 Egyptian Soldiers in Sinai Latest in series of assaults claiming lives of hundreds of government forces and police in the area By Dahlia Kholaif

By on October 15th, 2016

CAIRO—Islamic State extremists attacked an army checkpoint in Egypt’s restive Sinai peninsula, killing 12 soldiers in the latest of a series of assaults that have claimed the lives of hundreds of government forces and police in the area.

Insurgents driving a sport-utility vehicle attacked the Hasana checkpoint in the northern Sinai, where the army has been engaged in a three-year war against militants, an army spokesperson said. Another six military personnel were wounded, while 15 insurgents were killed.

The Sinai is home to an entrenched insurgency led by Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate, which took responsibility for Friday’s violence in a statement distributed on social media.

Sinai Peninsula, Islamic State’s local branch and the deadliest Egyptian militant group, regularly strikes military and police targets in Sinai. It claimed responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger jet in October 2015, in which 224 people died following takeoff from the Red Sea resort city Sharm El Sheikh. Egypt’s once-lucrative tourism sector crashed following that downing.

Friday’s attack “may indicate an escalation in tactics after a relatively long period of relying mainly on [improvised explosive devices] and sniper attacks,” said Mokhtar Awad, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

Egypt’s government has struggled to stem the growth in insurgency since President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi came to power in a 2013 coup, ousting Mohammed Morsi, the nation’s first democratically-elected president. Mr. Sisi has since staked much of his domestic power and international influence on positioning himself as a bulwark against terror.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Trump and the Emasculated Voter There’s only one way to protect the nation from Hillary Clinton, and that is to vote for Donald Trump. David Gelernter

By on October 15th, 2016

Some conservatives have watched their evaluations of Donald Trump’s character drop so low in recent days that on this vital question they no longer see a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Accordingly, they are forced back onto politics and policy; and naturally Mr. Trump wins in a walk. If conservatives who argue that Mr. Trump is worse than Mrs. Clinton had a case, it would be a relief to vote for Mrs. Clinton or for no one. But they don’t, and one is therefore forced for the good of the nation to vote for Mr. Trump.

In his Mr. Nauseating video of last weekend, Mr. Trump showed us that he had all the class and cool of a misbegotten 12-year-old boy. Yet the video taught us nothing; no one had ever mistaken him for anything but an infantile vulgarian. This week’s allegations of actual abuse are different. If these stories are true (and I don’t know why they shouldn’t be), there is nothing to be said for Mr. Trump. Unfortunately, there is nothing to be said for Mrs. Clinton either. If we don’t take both facts into account, we are not morally serious.

Mrs. Clinton has nothing on Mr. Trump when it comes to character. She lies (“Wipe? Like with a cloth?”—cute and charming Mrs. C.) the way basketball stars shoot baskets—constantly, nonstop, because it’s the one thing she is best at and (naturally) it gives her pleasure to hear herself lie—swish!—right onto the evening news. And her specialist talent of all is the verbal kick in the groin of a Secret Service man or state trooper who has the nerve to talk to her as if she were merely human. She is no mere rock star; she is Hillary the Queen. She is so big, and you are so small, she can barely even see you from up there. What are you? A macromolecule?

I’ll vote for Mr. Trump—grimly. But there is no alternative, no shadow of a responsible alternative.

Mr. Trump’s candidacy is a message from the voters. He is the empty gin bottle they have chosen to toss through the window. The message begins with the fact that voters hear what the leaders and pundits don’t: the profound contempt for America and Americans that Mrs. Clinton and President Obama share and their frightening lack of emotional connection to this nation and its people.

Mr. Obama is arch, patronizing, so magnificently weary of having to explain it all, again and again, to the dummies surrounding him. Mrs. Clinton has told us proudly how thoroughly she prepared for the first debate and has prepared to be president. For her, it is all a matter of learning your lines. Her whole life has been memorized in advance. Mr. Obama is at least sincere. Mrs. Clinton is as phony as a three-dollar bill, as a Clinton Global Initiative.

Mr. Obama has governed like a third-rate tyrant. He’s been a stern baby sitter to an American public that is increasingly getting on his nerves. ObamaCare and the Iran treaty are his big achievements. That the public has always disliked them, and hates them worse as it knows them better, strikes him as so unspeakably irrelevant; he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Do you ask 6-year-olds if they like going to school? Luckily, a few grown-ups have been set over the public to keep it in line. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Rolling Justice Roberts A Clinton ally reveals how the left played the Chief on ObamaCare. !!!!

By on October 15th, 2016

The WikiLeaks email disclosures make fascinating reading about the political calculations of leading progressives, and Chief Justice John Roberts may want to pay particular attention. This week’s leaks show Hillary Clinton ally Neera Tanden laying out a strategy to intimidate the Supreme Court to uphold ObamaCare.

Ms. Tanden runs the Center for American Progress, the think tank that is essentially an arm of the Clinton campaign. CAP’s former chief, John Podesta, is now the Clinton campaign chairman, and on June 2, 2015 Ms. Tanden sent an email to Jake Sullivan, a key Clinton aide, copying Mr. Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri, another campaign operative.

The subject line was “King v. Burwell,” the second big legal case contesting the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, three years after the first case in which the Chief sided with the four liberals to uphold the law.

Ms. Tanden wrote that, “As Jennifer will remember, it was pretty critical that the President threw the gauntlet down last time on the Court, warning them in the first case that it would politicize the role of the Court for them to rule against the ACA. As a close reader of the case, I honestly believe that was vital to scaring Roberts off.”

We wrote at the time about the campaign to mau-mau the Chief, and now we know it was orchestrated. The campaign included a Senate speech by Vermont’s Pat Leahy, a broadside from President Obama about “an unelected group of people” overturning “a duly constituted and passed law,” and articles by such media progressives as Jeffrey Rosen of the New Republic and Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker. Mr. Rosen hit the talking points out of the park when he wrote that, “If the Roberts court strikes down health care reform by a 5-4 vote, then the chief justice’s stated goal of presiding over a less divisive court will be viewed as an irredeemable failure.”

Continue reading →
IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

TUBERCULOSIS….THE REFUGEE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GROWING

By on October 15th, 2016

Wrapped in Xmas paper, tubercluosis Ed C….

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2016/10/14/guess-what-else-somali-muslim-freeloaders-are-bringing-with-them-to-minnesotastan/

The number of active TB cases reported among refugees arriving in Minnesota (296) is ten times higher than reported in any of the fourteen other states that have released refugee TB data to the public, or made it available to Breitbart News.
The other thirteen states, and the number of diagnosed cases of active TB among refugees are:

Nebraska (21), Louisiana (21), Michigan (19), Vermont (17), Colorado (16), Florida (11), Ohio (11 in one county), Idaho (7), Kentucky (9 in one county), North Dakota (4 in one county), Indiana (4), California (3), and Tennessee, where two refugees have been diagnosed with the very dangerous, multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB. 36 states have refused to report the number of cases they have.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

Full text of new UNESCO resolution on ‘Occupied Palestine’Official text of UN cultural agency’s resolution slamming Israel, referring to Jerusalem holy sites by Muslim names only

By on October 15th, 2016

http://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-new-unesco-resolution-on-occupied-palestine/Full text of UNESCO resolution on “Occupied Palestine” approved at committee stage by 24 votes to 6, with 26 abstentions, in Paris on October 13, 2016. The resolution is scheduled to be approved next week by UNESCO’s Executive Board.

Voting in favor were: Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chad, China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan and Vietnam.

Voting against were: Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States.

Abstaining were: Albania, Argentina, Cameroon, El Salvador, France, Ghana, Greece, Guinea, Haiti, India, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Kenya, Nepal, Paraguay, Saint Vincent and Nevis, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and Ukraine. Absent were: Serbia and Turkmenistan.

Executive Board

Two hundredth session

PROGRAMME AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS COMMISSION (PX)

Item 25: OCCUPIED PALESTINE

DRAFT DECISION

Submitted by: Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan

I.A Jerusalem

The Executive Board,
1. Having examined document 200 EX/25,

2. Recalling the provisions of the four Geneva Conventions (1949) and their additional Protocols (1977), the 1907 Hague Regulations on Land Warfare, the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) and its related Protocols, the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) and the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972), the inscription of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls at the request of Jordan on the World Heritage List (1981) and on the List of World Heritage in Danger (1982), and the recommendations, resolutions and decisions of UNESCO on the protection of cultural heritage, as well as resolutions and decisions of UNESCO relating to Jerusalem, also recalling previous UNESCO decisions relating to the reconstruction and development of Gaza as well as UNESCO decisions on the two Palestinian sites in Al-Khalil/Hebron and in Bethlehem,

3. Affirming the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions, also affirming that nothing in the current decision, which aims, inter alia, at the safeguarding of the cultural heritage of Palestine and the distinctive character of East Jerusalem, shall in any way affect the relevant Security Council and United Nations resolutions and decisions on the legal status of Palestine and Jerusalem,

4. Deeply regrets the Israeli refusal to implement UNESCO previous decisions concerning Jerusalem, particularly 185 EX/Decision 14, notes that its request to the Director-General to appoint, as soon as possible, a permanent representative to be stationed in East Jerusalem to report on a regular basis about all the aspects covering the fields of competence of UNESCO in East Jerusalem, has not been fulfilled, and reiterates its request to the DirectorGeneral to appoint the above-mentioned representative;

5. Deeply deplores the failure of Israel, the occupying Power, to cease the persistent excavations and works in East Jerusalem particularly in and around the Old City, and reiterates its request to Israel, the occupying Power, to prohibit all such works in conformity with its obligations under the provisions of the relevant UNESCO conventions, resolutions and decisions;

6. Thanks the Director-General for her efforts to implement previous UNESCO decisions on Jerusalem and requests her to maintain and reinvigorate such efforts;

I.B Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif and its surroundings

I.B.1 Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif

7. Calls on Israel, the occupying Power, to allow for the restoration of the historic status quo that prevailed until September 2000, under which the Jordanian Awqaf (Religious Foundation) Department exercised exclusive authority on Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram AlSharif, and its mandate extended to all affairs relating to the unimpeded administration of AlAqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif, including maintenance, restoration and regulating access;

8. Strongly condemns the escalating Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against the Awqaf Department and its personnel, and against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to their Holy Site Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif, and requests Israel, the occupying Power, to respect the historic status quo and to immediately stop these measures;

9. Firmly deplores the continuous storming of Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif by Israeli right-wing extremists and uniformed forces, and urges Israel, the occupying Power, to take necessary measures to prevent provocative abuses that violate the sanctity and integrity of Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif;

10. Deeply decries the continuous Israeli aggressions against civilians including Islamic religious figures and priests, decries the forceful entering into the different mosques and historic buildings inside Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharifby different Israeli employees including the so-called “Israeli Antiquities” officials, and arrests and injuries among Muslim worshippers and Jordanian Awqaf guards in Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif by the Israeli forces, and urges Israel, the occupying Power, to end these aggressions and abuses which inflame the tension on the ground and between faiths;

11. Disapproves of the Israeli restriction of access to Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif during the 2015 Eid Al-Adha and the subsequent violence, and calls on Israel, the occupying Power, to stop all violations against Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif;

12. Deeply regrets the refusal of Israel to grant visas to UNESCO experts in charge of the UNESCO project at the Centre of Islamic Manuscripts in Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram AlSharif, and requests Israel to grant visas to UNESCO experts without restrictions;

13. Regrets the damage caused by the Israeli Forces, especially since 23 August 2015, to the historic gates and windows of the al-Qibli Mosque inside Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram AlSharif, and reaffirms, in this regard, the obligation of Israel to respect the integrity, authenticity and cultural heritage of Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif, as reflected in the historic status quo, as a Muslim holy site of worship and as an integral part of a world cultural heritage site;

Continue reading →
ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Palestinians: “We Are Proud of You. You Killed Jews!” by Bassam Tawil

By on October 15th, 2016

Musbah Abu Sbeih is now the latest “hero” of many Palestinians and not only his family. He is being hailed as a “brave” man and a “hero” because he woke up in the morning, grabbed an M-16 assault rifle and set out on a mission to kill as many Jews as possible.

These calls have come not only from Hamas and Islamic Jihad extremists, but also from “moderate” leaders such as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction.

“We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr will reach Paradise and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.” – Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian leader.

As holders of Israeli ID cards, they were even entitled to drive cars with Israeli plates, which is what Abu Sbeih took advantage of to carry out his attack in Jerusalem. His family owns at least two homes in the city and are considered middle-class. Still, this did not stop Abu Sbeih from setting out on his deadly mission. And it did not stop his family members from celebrating the attack.

This is the inevitable result — as in the Spanish Inquisition, the French Revolution, the Turkish Genocide of the Armenians, Rwanda, Darfur, or Nazi Germany — of the poisoning of a people.

The family of Musbah Abu Sbeih say they are “very proud” of what their 40-year-old son did. So are many Palestinians representing all walks of life in Palestinian society. Members of his family, including his parents and daughter, have appeared on too may TV stations to keep track of to commend Abu Sbeih. They have even gone out onto the streets to hand out sweets in jubilation over the terror attack that he carried out in Jerusalem this week, which resulted in the death of a 60-year-old grandmother and a 29-year-old police officer.

Continue reading →