Displaying posts published in

2016

Palestinians Demand The Dead Sea Scrolls From Israel UN’s anti-Israel bias on full display. Joseph Klein

The United Nations continues to serve as the Palestinians’ battering ram to try and destroy the legitimacy of the Jewish state of Israel. Between the Organization of Islamic Cooperation-influenced UN Human Rights Council, the Division for Palestinian Rights, the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Human Rights Practices Affecting the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, more UN resources and time are devoted to the advocacy of the Palestinian cause than to virtually any other issue.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has also been used to advance the Islamists’ Palestinian agenda, which went into high gear after the admission of Palestine to UNESCO with full membership privileges in 2011. Not satisfied with UNESCO’s recent outrageous resolution using only Arabic names for the Temple Mount and Western Wall, and condemning Israel for conducting archeological excavations in and around Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority now wants UNESCO to demand that Israel “surrender” the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is yet another example of the Palestinians’ strategy to use UN bodies to help them rob the Jewish people of their historic association with the land of Israel.

As Israeli Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen was quoted in Israel Hayom as saying in criticizing the Palestinians’ latest gambit, “This is another provocative and audacious, attempt by the Palestinians to rewrite history. The Dead Sea Scrolls are factual and weighty archeological evidence of the presence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel.”

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee conducted the annual ritual of adopting a series of anti-Israel resolutions. The ten resolutions – more than three times the number of resolutions condemning the other 192 member states of the UN combined – are virtually certain to be formally adopted by the General Assembly in plenary session next month.

The hypocrisy of the UN in action is staggering. Israel is repeatedly condemned in resolutions spearheaded by Islamic countries with atrocious human rights records. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, which is responsible for a massive number of civilian deaths in Yemen as a result of the Saudi-led coalition’s indiscriminate aerial bombing, is rewarded with a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. Double standards may not be enough to describe what has become of the United Nations. In some ways it has no standards at all.

“The U.N.’s assault on Israel today with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, on November 8th. “Even as Syrian president Bashar Assad is preparing for the final massacre of his own people in Aleppo, the U.N. is about to adopt a resolution — drafted and co-sponsored by Syria — which falsely condemns Israel for ‘repressive measures’ against Syrian citizens on the Golan Heights. It’s obscene,” added Neuer.

The Assad regime’s brutal repression has led to the deaths of more than 3000 Palestinian refugees, including at least 200 children, in Syria since 2011. A thousand or so Palestinians are languishing in Syrian prisons. Yet the Palestinians lock arms with their Syrian regime oppressors to join in supporting resolutions condemning “Israel, the occupying Power.”

A number of the resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee appear to endorse the Palestinians’ demand for the right-of-return – or, as one such resolution puts it, the “protection of Arab property, assets and property rights in Israel.”

Beginning in 1977, the United Nations has sponsored the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29th, the date in 1947 when the UN General Assembly approved its partition resolution, which the Jewish residents had accepted but was rejected by many Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries. The event takes place every year at UN Headquarters in New York and at the UN Offices at Geneva and Vienna and elsewhere.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called November 29th a “day of mourning and a day of grief.” In other words, every November 29th, the United Nations publicly mourns the passage of its own peaceful solution to the Arab-Jewish dispute. The UN is effectively repudiating its own original two-state solution, spurned by all of the Arab countries back in 1947, which still lies at the heart of the solution that the UN claims to support as the basis for ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict today.

Geert Wilders, Or, A Daniel Come to Judgment ‘More In Sorrow’ The witch hunt against a freedom fighter continues. Hugh Fitzgerald

In March 2014, during a political rally at The Hague, Geert Wilders asked his audience whether they wanted “more or fewer Moroccans” in The Netherlands. “Fewer, fewer,” his supporters chanted. And then he promised them that “then, we will arrange that.” He meant, of course, that if his party were to do well in the next election, he would limit the number of “Moroccans” entering the country. He did not denounce all “Moroccans.” He did not say he would be forcibly removing “Moroccans” from the country. All he did was utter less than a dozen words, lasting less than 30 seconds. There was no ranting, no mocking of Moroccans. But out of that briefest of exchanges with his supporters a hysterical case has been concocted by the Dutch state against Wilders, who is now on trial, put there by those who think that his question-and-answer constituted “racism” and “discrimination” and “hate speech.”

Where should we begin with this? Wilders has never made a comment on a race, though he is forever being accused of “racism.” “Moroccans” are not a “race,” and it is not “racist” for a Dutch citizen to worry aloud about the observable effect of their increasing presence in the Netherlands. Nor do Moroccans constitute an ethnicity; there are both ethnic Arabs and ethnic Berbers who are “Moroccans.” “Moroccan” signifies a national identity, albeit one that is inextricably linked to Islam. Wilders said nothing to whip up “hate” against “Moroccans.” He merely asked his audience whether, given their own experience with Moroccan immigrants, they wanted more or fewer such migrants in the Netherlands. For experience had shown that those “Moroccans” continue to make heavy demands on the generous Dutch welfare state, soaking up funds (for housing, medical care, education, unemployment benefits, etc.) that are then no longer available for needy Dutch people, and that the rates of criminality, and expensive incarceration, among “Moroccans,” have been many times larger than the rates among the native Dutch. As of 2011, 65% of all Moroccan males between 12-23 years of age have been detained by the Dutch police at least once. One third of this group has been detained five or more times. Moroccan criminals are convicted at four times the rate of Dutch suspects. These numbers were steadily increasing when reported on in 2011, and it is reasonable to conclude they have continued to rise since then, though no more recent reckoning has been made public. It may be that the Dutch government doesn’t want figures to get out that would alarm the populace still further. And European officials, including the police, often discourage the reporting of crimes by Muslim migrants.

The UN’s 10 New Anti-Israel Resolutions While ignoring worldwide human rights abuses. Ari Lieberman

As Americans went to the polls today and voted for their respective candidates, the United Nations General Assembly did what it does best and voted on 10 anti-Israeli resolutions, condemning the Jewish State for various contrived transgressions. Only three resolutions dealt with the rest of the world giving some sense of the General Assembly’s obsession with Israel.

Two of today’s resolutions denied the incontrovertible Jewish nexus to Jerusalem, adopting verbatim anti-Semitic language employed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in resolutions passed that body earlier this year. The Temple Mount, site of the first and second Jewish temples, was referred to exclusively by its Arabic name – the Haram-al-Sharif.

Another resolution obscenely called for the immediate return of the Golan Heights, liberated by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, to Syria and referred to it as “occupied territory.” While Assad and his allies are busy dropping unguided barrel bombs, cluster munitions, white phosphorus and thermobaric bombs on Syrian civilians, the General Assembly saw fit to prioritize the return of the rocky plateau to Syria. That gives us a good sense of how irreversibly corrupted and dishonest the UN General Assembly truly is.

The remaining resolutions dealt with bogus Israeli transgressions against the “Palestinians” in one form or another. One of the resolutions dealt with extending the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to June 2020.

The UNRWA was established in 1949 specifically to deal with Arabs displaced as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israel war. But it is an anomaly of sorts. While other refugees the world over fall under the jurisdiction of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the “Palestinians” are accorded their own special UN body. Moreover, “Palestinian” refugees can retain their refugee status even in they acquire citizenship in another country and their refugee status can be passed down to successive generations.

Wilders’ Plan: Time for Liberation by Geert Wilders

Pim Fortuyn, the hero of Rotterdam, the man who shook the country awake, once said, “Do not aim for what is possible, but what is imaginable.” He wanted to make clear that for us, the Dutch, nothing is impossible.

Pim Fortuyn was right. Nothing is impossible for us. We are Dutch.

Look at our country. We have single-handedly created this unique and beautiful land. We are the only people in the world living in a country which for the largest part we created ourselves. A great achievement.

We not only created our own land, but we also explored the world. We have sailed all the seas. We founded New York and discovered Australia. Sometimes, it seems like we have forgotten it all. Forgotten what we are capable of. What we are capable of when we put our mind to it. And maybe that is our problem. We must dare to think big again. Because where there is a will, there is a way.

And yes, I know. Many things are bothering us. There is also much to be angry about, and rightfully so. This government has destroyed our country with its austerity policies and has allowed our country to be colonized by Islam. But let’s start aiming for the imaginable. Let us liberate our country.

Four years ago, Mark Rutte won the election with a campaign based on false promises. With lies and deceit. No more money to the Greeks, 1,000 euros for every Dutch citizen, a strict immigration policy. And the Labour Party was his enemy, as everyone remembers. He recently apologized, but he didn’t draw his conclusions. On the contrary, he apologized but continues destroying and giving away our country. Perhaps, he will even govern with Labour again for another four years. No one can still believe what he says. And my question to you is: do you want a prime minister like that for the next four years?

At the moment, you are living in the land of Mark Rutte. And for many, that is no longer a pleasant land. Just walk out your front door and look around. Chances are that thugs are hanging around at the entrance of your local convenience store. That you get spit on and robbed there. That your daughters, your wives, and your parents get harassed and no longer dare to go out at night. That you are becoming a stranger in your own country. That must change. Because this is our country. And it is being taken away from you. And I will take it back for you.

Turkey Converts Hagia Sophia to Mosque by Robert Jones

This is how the minds of Islamic supremacists seem to work: If you want churches to remain churches, it means you are “disturbed by the Koran or Islamic prayers,” and you disrespect or “insult” Islam. According to Islamic scriptures, those who “insult” Islam or its prophet Muhammad are to be executed.

So if one wants to survive under Islamic rule, one has to submit to Islam and accept one’s own inferior status. There is apparently no place for diversity or civilized, equal coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims in Islamic nations.

“I can only think of one reason [to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque]. As a shout of Islamic triumphalism. What a mistake that would be. Christians would rightly consider it an intentional insult. The international community would see it as an open rejection of its diversity agenda. Moreover, I think that a relatively secular Turkey acting so radically would demonstrate to the world that despite moderate Muslims’ many assurances to the contrary, contemporary Islam is intolerant in outlook, belligerent toward non-believers, and dangerously hegemonist in its intentions.” — Wesley J. Smith, author.

The West did not protect Anatolian Christians during the 1914-1923 genocide. It does not seem as if the West will protect Europe against what seems to be the current bloodless Muslim invasion, either.

The process of converting the historic Hagia Sophia church-then-museum in Istanbul into a mosque, in the works for the past three years, now seems to have been finalized.

In 2013, the deputy prime minister of Turkey Bulent Arinc at the time, while speaking to reporters, signaled that Hagia Sophia Museum would be used as a mosque.

“We currently stand next to the Hagia Sophia Mosque … we are looking at a sad Hagia Sophia, but hopefully we will see it smiling again soon,” Arinc said during the opening ceremony of a new Carpet Museum, located next to the ancient Hagia Sophia, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet had reported.

The pro-government Turkish newspaper Sabah ran a story on June 1, 2016 entitled, “Historic Moments at Hagia Sophia. The longing is about to be over!… The mosque of Hagia Sophia will witness historic moments in the month of Ramadan…”

The Greek Foreign Ministry reacted with a written statement: “Obsessions, verging on bigotry, with Muslim rituals in a monument of world cultural heritage are incomprehensible and reveal a lack of respect for and connection with reality.” The ministry added that the practice contradicted the values of modern, democratic and secular societies.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Tanju Bilgic, responded in a written statement on June 8:

“The Greek Foreign Ministry’s statement with regards to TRT Diyanet TV’s suhur program entitled ‘Hagia Sophia at the time of abundance,’ which will be broadcast throughout the month of Ramadan, is unacceptable”.

Hillary stiffs her supporters and doesn’t address crowd at NY party By Thomas Lifson

No thanking them for their efforts. No acknowledging their discomfort, and no call for national unity.

Hillary Clinton broke tradition and did not address the thousands of supporters gathered at New York’s Javits Center for a victory party. No thanking them for their efforts. No acknowledging their discomfort, and no call for national unity. Instead, campaign chairman and prolific emailer John Podesta was given the job of facing the disappointed throngs and telling them to go home because the race is — cough – “too close to call.”

This raises the obvious question: what was she doing?

Did she have a seizure and go stiff, the way she did at the 9/11 ceremony? Did she get drunk?

At least now she has time for her grandchildren, and plenty of leisure to take care of her health.

At least for now.

Media Disgraces Itself Once Again By Jay Michaels

I tuned in at 7 EST and flipped channels til 2 a.m.

The imbecilities flew thick and fast from the get-go. For the first hour and a half, the talking heads were all on the same page: Trump had awoken a “sleeping giant” in the Hispanic vote. Hispanics were more than compensating for African-American no-shows, and they would teach the Republicans a lesson they would not soon forget. Unless the party pandered to minorities, it was doomed. Where have I heard this before?

When it became clear what was happening, we were instructed ad nauseum about “uneducated white males,” “white men without a college education,” and “angry white men.” (It had never been “angry Hispanics” earlier.) Then, for a while, we were lectured about the betrayal of the “suburban women” who had apparently voted en masse for Trump, inexplicably. The men lived in mill towns and on farms, but their wives lived in the suburbs.

Then came a slew of dark references to Putin.

The mea culpas were exclusively about the polls underestimating the angry whites. But they had been less than candid with interviewers.

I was switching between the 4 MSM sleeping giants (skipping the Clinton News Network and MSNBC), so it’s possible I missed something, but I heard literally no references to the following:

A corrupt and dishonest media

The Clinton Foundation

Hillary’s deleted emails and her successive lies about the private server

Benghazi

The long trail of Clinton scandals, from Cattlegate and Whitewater in the Disco Age, through Bimbogate, Travelgate, and Pardongate, and on to the glory years of pay for play after 2000. Apparently none of the heads watched or read—even in the comic book version (which is quite good)—Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash.

What Donald Trump’s Victory Means for the Mainstream Media By Tiberiu Dianu

After a long night that ended up with a clear Trump victory, I think it’s safe enough to say that, from now on, there are going to be some radical changes in the relationship between the American people and Mainstream Media (MSM).

Here there are the following 15 talking points that should be considered (in a random order):

(1) The MSM has always presented itself as the holder of Truth. Reality has shown that MSM has been engaged for way too long in a war with Truth, and MSM has lost this war.

(2) The MSM has portrayed Hillary Clinton as a person exonerated from criminal responsibility for her numerous acts of corruption and illegal activities over time. Reality has indicated that she has jeopardized national security, and has threatened certain individuals, perceived as dangerous or compromising for her own political convenience.

(3) The MSM has presented Donald Trump as an isolated, exotic character, unrelated to the world’s current major concerns (particularly in Europe, but also in Asia and Africa), such as: Islamic terrorism, massive immigration (particularly from Muslim countries), and the assault against Christianity. Reality has shown that Trump is, indeed, a true American Mr. Brexit.

(4) The MSM has presented populism as a marginal trend in the American society. Reality has proven that the majorities of the electorates of both parties, Republican and Democratic, consist in populist voters, who support anti-Establishment candidates (Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders).

(5) The MSM has followed Hillary Clinton and portrayed – narratively and statistically – more than half of the country’s population as a “basket of deplorables,” in sharp contrast with “the majority of the American people.” Reality has shown that the so-called majority – ideologically and racially – consists in an accumulation of several minority groups.

(6) The MSM has threatened the “deplorables” with many Hollywood darlings moving out the country if the candidate of the “deplorables” were to win. Post-election reality will force those darlings of the Dream Factory City to fulfill their vocal promises (otherwise, they should shut the hell up and just sing or act!).

(7) The MSM has presented as a fait accompli the idea that winning televised presidential debates organized by MSM is a solid predictor of winning the presidency. Reality has illustrated that this has become a myth (especially after episodes of Donna Brazile-type, where party operatives, in cahoots with the same MSM, leak information about people’s debate questions to certain preferred candidate).

(8) The MSM has instilled the idea that political household names – like Kennedy, Clinton or Bush – are invincible per se. Reality has shown that non-politicians, like Trump, can take down in just one electoral race two powerful political-dynastic names (Bush and Clinton), which had ruled the country for 16 years in a row.

Green Elites Face Trump Threat A chance to clean up rampant cronyism in the energy sector won’t soon return. By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

Whatever you think of Donald Trump, his candidacy represents an important opportunity. It’s a chance to dismiss a very particular elite about whom it could be said, borrowing from Cromwell, “For any good you have been doing . . . in the name of God, go!”

We are referring, of course, to America’s green-energy elite.

With a Hillary Clinton victory on Tuesday, America’s ludicrous Tesla subsidies would be certain to continue—because so many Democratic politicians aligned with the company, especially in California, are themselves too big to fail.

Washington’s Kafkaesque fuel mileage rules would only become more Kafkaesque. By forcing car makers and their customers to invest in economically unjustified fuel-saving technology, they’ve already perversely contributed to last summer’s breaking of a decade-old record for miles traveled and fuel burned.

Ethanol’s alleged greenhouse benefits have long since been scientifically debunked. Its putative contribution to America’s “energy security” has been rendered a joke by the fracking revolution. Never mind. Corn farmers like a handout, and corn-state senators like being re-elected. The cost to American motorists: $10 billion a year.

And making sure it remains so—we hardly needed the latest WikiLeaks dump to tell us—have been a handful of activist hedge-fund billionaires like Tom Steyer and Nat Simons. In the recent dump of emails stolen from Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, we see these men, in return for being willing to write four-figure checks to Democratic candidates, fishing for reassurance that policies that cost the American people billions, with no benefits, will be embraced by the next Democratic administration.

We see climate saints like Bill McKibben and Joe Romm conspiring at their behest to silence a scientist for saying perfectly accurate things about the lack of evidence for a worsening of extreme weather events. We see Mr. Podesta himself trying to orchestrate a media mugging of liberal Harvard Law Prof. Larry Tribe for representing the coal industry.

And to what end, exactly?

Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, is hardly a green-energy naysayer. Yet last week he estimated that even if electric vehicles accounted for half of global auto sales (currently EVs account for less than 1%), oil consumption would nevertheless continue to rise because the “demand growth is not coming from cars, it’s from trucks, aviation and the petrochemical industry and we don’t have major alternatives to oil products there.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Israel’s Lawmakers Hope Donald Trump Will Reject Two-State Solution The U.S. president elect had encouraged Israeli settlers to continue building in the West Bank By Rory Jones

TEL AVIV—Israel’s conservative lawmakers and Jewish settlers on Wednesday welcomed Donald Trump’s victory, in the hope that the president-elect will break from decadeslong U.S. policy and shelve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In his public statements, Mr. Trump had encouraged Israeli settlers to continue building in the West Bank on land Palestinians claim for a future state. He had promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, effectively recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital. And he had questioned U.S. financial support to the Palestinian Authority, the body that governs the Palestinian territories.

“Trump’s victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the center of the country, which would hurt our security and just cause,” said Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party that sits in Israel’s governing coalition and advocates for annexation of the West Bank.

Yehuda Glick, another member of parliament for the ruling Likud Party, invited the president-elect to visit Israel to “see with his own eyes that settlements are the way to peace,” referring to Jewish enclaves currently located alongside Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

The U.S. has repeatedly condemned Israeli construction in the West Bank and refused to accede to Israeli claim over Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians also want to establish the holy city as capital of their own future state.

Since the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s, the U.S. has consistently advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on borders captured by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

President Barack Obama’s policies on these issues haven’t differed significantly to previous White House administrations. But the U.S. leader has been increasingly at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over construction of settlements.

Israel this year has accelerated settlement building and many members of the government live in the West Bank and advocate a full annexation of the land.

Commenting on Mr. Trump’s victory, Mr. Netanyahu said the “President-elect is a true friend of the State of Israel, and I look forward to working with him to advance security, stability and peace in our region. The ironclad bond between the United States and Israel is rooted in shared values, buttressed by shared interests and driven by a shared destiny.”

In a statement, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents Palestinian political factions in peace negotiations, said a two-state solution had been in the national interest of the U.S. for decades.

“Security, peace and stability in this region will come only after defeating the Israeli occupation that started in 1967,” he said in a statement on state news agency Wafa. “And the establishment of the independent state of Palestine on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital to live in peace and security alongside the state of Israel.”

While Mr. Trump has received strong support from settlers and more conservative Israelis, the majority of Israelis preferred Mrs. Clinton in polls in the run up to the election. Mr. Trump’s campaign was criticized for being anti-Semitic in the U.S. But an exit poll of Israeli-American voting put Mr. Trump with 49% of the vote to 44% for Ms Clinton, according the organization iVoteIsrael and Keevoon Global Research.

“I’m in another universe,” said Marc Zell, co-chair of lobby group Republican Overseas Israel who lives in an Israeli settlement inside the West Bank. “It’s beyond my wildest expectations.”

Former foreign minister and member of Israel’s opposition, Tzipi Livni congratulated Mr. Trump on Twitter but also said she hopes he delivers the promises of his conciliatory acceptance speech, “not the campaign.”

At the start of his run, Mr. Trump suggested that the burden of making peace between Israelis and Palestinians rested largely on Israel, but reversed the position during a speech in Washington to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S. CONTINUE AT SITE