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February 2017

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Ambassador Danon interrupted by protesters at Columbia University By Camie Davis

By on February 15th, 2017

Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, spoke to a crowd of 300 at Columbia University Monday night, hosted by the Columbia University chapter of Students Supporting Israel. A large anti-Israel crowd outside Lerner Hall protested the event.

The groups Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Barnard Columbia Socialists, and Columbia Against Trump coordinated the protest on the Facebook page “Racists Not Welcome: Protest the Israeli Ambassador at Columbia.” Reasons given to protest Danon included his desire to “annex the West Bank” and his “abandoning even the pretence [sic] of the ‘two-state solution.'” They also accused Danon of being “a cheerleader for Trump and the Republican fight” and alleged that “from racist walls to repressive border policing, Trump copies Israel.” And that “Danon is the official representative of a state born, like America, through savage ethnic cleansing” and that “his is a state that has besieged and bombed the Palestinian people since its inception.”

The protesters outside Lerner Hall shouted slogans such as:

“Stop your murder, stop your hate; Israel is an apartheid state!”

“No peace on stolen land! Justice is our demand!”

“Danny Danon, you can’t hide; we charge you with genocide.”

…proving that at least an education at Columbia University ensures the ability to chant protest slogans that rhyme.

And although security tried to keep the protesters outside, about 100 made their way into Lerner Hall and disrupted Danon’s speech, chanting:

“Palestine, we’ll be free, from the river to the sea!”

“Israel is a terrorist state!”

“Israel has no right to exist!”

Not deterred by the protesters, Danon succinctly stated, “The age of Jews sitting quietly is over.” He proved that to be true as he went on to say, “We will not be quiet in the face of the lies that you spread about Israel. We will continue to make our voice heard and will continue to insist on our righteous truth.”

Before the hall could be cleared of the protesters, Danon suggested to them, “Instead of inciting and lying, sit down in the seats – and maybe you will learn something.”

He continued: “This is precisely the problem of the Palestinians. They lie, incite, and don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist. But I have an announcement for those students. The people of Israel will never leave the land of Israel.”

In the past, Columbia University has been ranked at the top of the list as the university with the “worst antisemitic activity in the United States,” according to the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Other universities at the top include Cornell University, George Mason University, and San Diego State University. The planned protest at Columbia University is a preview of what we can expect to see across college campuses and across the world in a few weeks, when BDS activists will be in full stride, during Israel Apartheid week. It will be a time when anti-Israel, anti-Semitic activity gives new meaning to March madness.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Making Policy in the New Administration By Shoshana Bryen

By on February 15th, 2017

The Trump White House continues to receive advice – solicited and unsolicited, in letters to the editor, op-eds, essays, and policy papers – as to what its foreign policy priorities should be. It is tempting to presume that problems called “priorities” can be resolved with just a little more savvy or a little more will. But if they could have been, they would have been. Instead, the administration might consider priorities for American behavior – political, economic, and military.

First, there are three questions to be asked:

What should the United States do to ensure that allies feel secure and adversaries don’t?
How can America encourage countries that are neither allies nor adversaries to cooperate on issues of importance?
How can Washington encourage countries to want to be “more like us” (politically and economically free with more transparent government) and “less like them” (totalitarian, communist, jihadist, and less transparent)?
And if they choose to be “more like them,” what are the limits of American encouragement or coercive capabilities?

OK, that’s four questions, but when they are answered, the first priority that emerges is creation of a clear statement of American goals and desired outcomes. In the broader Middle East, the United States is engaged in lethal operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia while being at war with none of them, and in each, the outcome we seek is unstated.

As the military and diplomatic objectives are formulated, the second priority is “public diplomacy,” stressing what made/makes America what it has been and should be – a beacon of hope for people around the world. Individual freedoms including rights to property and to profit from one’s creativity and work; constraints on government enshrined in the Bill of Rights and the checks and balances of the system; free expression, including the right to criticize the government; and opportunity for all resulting in (at least relative) prosperity for most are what people admire.

This should not be confused with “democracy promotion” – a failed concept. The U.S. should promote and advance specific human rights and freedoms for citizens without trying to determine the nature of the political system of any country.

Messaging is a two-way street. On the one hand, the United States should be clear and vocal about what it does support, and on the other hand, it must be clear about threats to the American body politic contained in the messages of radical Islamist-jihadist ideology. The U.S. must develop strategy to discredit and defeat Islamic triumphalism that includes clarifying the expansionist-totalitarian nature of jihadism.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Muslim Face of the New Democratic Party By Karin McQuillan

By on February 15th, 2017

Blacks, women, Millennials – liberals in each sub-group are now led by an uncompromising cadre of the hard left, who through their “mass actions” are attempting to turn the country against Donald Trump and brand him an illegitimate president.

Most Americans are concerned about unvetted refugees from jihadi countries. Those who are Democrats have no say in their party anymore. Obama yanked the party hard left. He personally championed the jihadi movement, be it by trying to install the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or giving the pariah state Iran billions of dollars and the obsequious Iran deal.

Obama’s legacy: Hard-left Muslim-Americans are rising to positions of prominence in the Democrats’ grassroots organizations. This alliance between Western socialists and Islamists dates back to the Cold War, but it has gained traction in America since 9/11.

One case, among countless others: The anti-Trump women’s march was co-led by an Islamist in a hijab. It is well worth reading the front-page exposé on Linda Sarsour, because she is a leader of so many of the causes that Obama promoted as president: Occupy Wall St., BDS, Black Lives Matter, the Muslim Brotherhood.

After 9/11, Sarsour rose in power by promoting the jihadi fiction of “Islamophobia.” The Democratic Party uses this accusation to fight Republican national security measures and accord itself unmerited moral superiority.

Sarsour’s Islamic group was a big success. It prevented the New York Police Department from conducting surveillance of Muslim groups and mosques the police suspected of promoting terrorism.

For her work, Ms. Sarsour was honored by President Obama as a “White House Champion of Change” and was invited to the White House seven times. She was a delegate to the Democrat National Convention.

Sarsour is a radical Palestinian who supports international terrorism and the destruction of Israel. There are photos of her on the web flashing the ISIS sign.

Sarsour is, as the New York Times puts it, “deeply involved in the Black Lives Matter movement,” a movement founded by three self-identified Marxist revolutionaries who revere the convicted cop-killer and longtime Marxist fugitive Assata Shakur.

Sarsour supports sharia law in America.

You’ll know when you’re living under Sharia Law if suddenly all your loans & credit cards become interest free. Sound [sic] nice, doesn’t it?

There are outstanding Arab-American women fighting the jihadi threat here at home, having suffered firsthand from Muslim barbarism in their native countries. Most prominent are Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Brigitte Gabriel. President Obama and the Democrats consider them enemies.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

San Bernardino Shooter’s Friend Enters Plea Agreement Enrique Marquez Jr. was not involved in the terror attack itself By Dan Frosch

By on February 15th, 2017

A friend of one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, Calif., terror attack agreed to plead guilty to a terrorism conspiracy charge and to lying about his purchase of the weapons used in the mass shooting, federal officials said Tuesday.Prosecutors said Enrique Marquez Jr., 25, bought the assault rifles used by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, in the Dec. 2, 2015, attack on an office holiday party. The couple killed 14 people and wounded more than 20.

On Tuesday, Mr. Marquez admitted to making false statements in connection with his purchase of those weapons. Prosecutors have said Mr. Marquez served as a “straw buyer” of the guns.Mr. Farook and Ms. Malik died later that day in a shootout with police.

Authorities have said the married couple were Islamic extremists, and that Mr. Farook introduced radical Islamic teachings to Mr. Marquez, his friend and former neighbor.

Mr. Marquez also admitted to conspiring with Mr. Farook in 2011 and 2012 to attack Riverside City College, in Southern California, and target commuters on a Los Angeles-area freeway. Those plots were never carried out. Mr. Marquez’s federal public defenders didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Marquez was arrested following the San Bernardino shooting and has been in federal custody ever since. Mr. Marquez wasn’t involved in the shooting itself. He told authorities that he didn’t know about the San Bernardino attack and had distanced himself from Mr. Farook several years earlier.

“This defendant collaborated with and purchased weapons for a man who carried out the devastating December 2, 2015 terrorist attack that took the lives of 14 innocent people, wounded nearly two dozen, and impacted our entire nation,” said the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Eileen M. Decker.

Ms. Decker added, “While his earlier plans to attack a school and a freeway were not executed, the planning clearly laid the foundation for the 2015 attack on the Inland Regional Center.”CONTINUE AT SITE

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

U.S. Drops Insistence on Two-State Solution to Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Trump administration’s policy shift comes on the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House By Felicia Schwartz*****

By on February 15th, 2017

WASHINGTON—The White House said Tuesday that finding a solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians doesn’t have to include an agreement to establish two separate states, marking a dramatic break from decades of U.S. policy.

On the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House to meet President Donald Trump, a senior administration official said the Israelis and Palestinians have to agree on what form peace between their countries will take—and that didn’t necessarily include two states.

“A two-state solution that doesn’t bring peace is not a goal that anybody wants to achieve,” the official said. “Peace is the goal, whether it comes in the form of a two-state solution if that’s what the parties want or something else, if that’s what the parties want, we’re going to help them.”
Two states for two peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, has been the official U.S. policy of Democratic and Republican administrations for decades, and was the tenet guiding historic talks at Oslo and Camp David. Most governments and world bodies back that principle as well and it had been embraced by the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started meetings with U.S. officials in Washington, ahead of a critical summit with President Donald Trump on Wednesday. Mr. Netanyahu said he expected the pair would “see eye-to-eye on the dangers emanating from the region.” Photo: AP

The U.S. historically has said it supports direct negotiations between the two sides that would end in a two-state solution. Toward that end, Washington has opposed Israeli construction of settlements in the Palestinian territories.

A spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the White House message, noting that Israel would wait for the meeting between Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu later Wednesday for more clarity on the U.S.’s approach to the conflict.

A spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The comments from the White House create a dilemma for the Israeli prime minister. Mr. Netanyahu has officially advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since a landmark speech in 2009, but in practice he has continued to approve settlements that the international community believes undermine that goal.CONTINUE AT SITE

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MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Washington Post Whitewashes Hater Of Women, Gays, And Jews Because He’s A Muslim Convert By Ilya Feoktistov

By on February 15th, 2017

The Washington Post’s ‘hip, tolerant imam’ turns out to be a raving hater—and it’s all on tape.

What did it take for the Washington Post to accuse a Jewish man of racism for exposing a white man as an anti-Semite? That white man’s conversion to Islam.

That’s how reporter Bill Donahue treated Charles Jacobs, the president of my organization, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, in a January 17 puff piece on the influential Muslim convert and cleric, Imam Suhaib Webb: “An unlikely messenger becomes a guiding spirit to young Muslims.”

Jacobs marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and received the “Boston Freedom Award” from MLK’s widow, Coretta Scott King, for his work freeing black slaves in Sudan. But he is now apparently a racist because our organization’s research into the radical Islamic ideology of an Oklahoma-born white male conflicts with the Post’s portrayal of Webb as a cool former hip-hop DJ who knows how to hang with the kids while sharing his religious wisdom and liberal politics in rap lyrics.

I don’t quite get the hipness angle. Webb’s awkward affectations bring to mind Sacha Baron Cohen’s parodic character “Ali G,” a cringe-worthy mix of cultural appropriation, poseurism, and banality that would make Rachel Dolezal blush through her spray tan. But Donahue is a reporter on a mission.
Who’s Slandering Whom Here?

That said, his cool pose isn’t what makes the imam so objectionable, it just distracts from the underlying reality: Webb’s hateful rhetoric towards gays, women, Jews, and American society, and his connections to terrorism. So Donahue had to resort to outright falsehoods in ad hominem attack, claiming that Jacobs “alleged that Webb was anti-Semitic, homophobic and in cahoots with the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, even as Boston’s leading rabbis disagreed and one U.S. attorney, Carmen Ortiz, told the New York Times that Jacobs’s claims were ‘incredibly racist and unfair.’”

Some of these claims are demonstrably false. (Where is the Post’s editor?) Jacobs never accused Webb of being in cahoots with the World Trade Center bombers. In fact, in 1993, when the bombing happened, Webb was just beginning to explore Islam after a youth spent smoking weed and getting involved in drive-by shootings as a member of the Bloods gang.

Worse, perhaps: Ortiz said no such thing regarding Jacobs’ claims about Webb. She did pull that race card when Jacobs embarrassed her by pointing out that Webb’s former mosque, a partner in the Justice Department’s “Countering Violent Extremism” program that she led in Boston, is itself a major source of violent extremism.

It turns out Ortiz is not a credible source on matters of character, and this is not the first time she has slandered people. She resigned in disgrace after bipartisan outrage over her penchant for making baseless claims and “indicting the good guys” soon after Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz committed suicide after Ortiz indicted him on trumped-up charges.

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