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Washington Ignores Saudi “Involvement in Supporting Terrorism and Terrorist Groups” by A. Z. Mohamed

Saudi Arabia is the second largest source of ISIS fighters from Muslim-majority countries, with an estimated 2,500, according to a working paper produced by the National Bureau of Economic Research. According to a report by the Institute for Gulf Affairs, a whopping 16% of these fighters were in the U.S. when they joined ISIS.

An equally disturbing finding of the report is that the Saudi government, which has been monitoring its nationals in the U.S., is fully aware of the fact that many of them are joining ISIS and not only has done little to stop it, but has kept information about it from American authorities.

A new investigative report reveals that hundreds of Saudi and Kuwaiti nationals residing in the United States — many of them students with dual citizenship and receiving government scholarships — have joined ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq during the past three years.

Titled “From American Campuses to ISIS Camps: How Hundreds of Saudis Joined ISIS in the U.S.,” the report — released June 1 by the Washington-D.C.-based think tank the Institute for Gulf Affairs (IGA) — provides details of the flow of students leaving American institutions of higher learning to fight in the Middle East.

According to a 2016 working paper produced by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Saudi Arabia is the second largest source of ISIS fighters from Muslim-majority countries, with an estimated 2,500. If the IGA report is accurate, a whopping 16% of these fighters were in the U.S. when they joined ISIS.

An equally disturbing finding of the report is that the Saudi government, which has been monitoring its nationals in the U.S., is fully aware of the fact that many of them are joining ISIS and not only has done little to stop it, but has kept information about it from American authorities.

This completely contradicts the 2014 State Department assertion that “Saudi Arabia has continued to cooperate with the United States to prevent acts of terrorism … through information exchange agreements with the United States.”

Meanwhile, according to the report’s authors — IGA director Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi Shiite expatriate critical of the Sunni regime in Riyadh, and researcher Mohamed Dhamen — the FBI failed to notice the steady stream of would-be jihadis exiting the U.S. and heading for Iraq and Syria in the three years since then. This failure should not come as a surprise, given that one of the FBI’s own employees — Daniela Greene, a translator with top security clearance — absconded to Syria in June 2014 and married an ISIS recruiter she had been assigned to investigate. The rogue agent lied to the FBI about where she was going, alerted the terrorist that he was the subject of an FBI probe and shared classified information with him.

In a May 10 letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley requested additional information on how Greene, who eventually turned herself in and reached a lenient plea deal, was able to slip through the system undetected. Two days later, Grassley released a statement about it:

“I’m troubled that a relationship between an FBI employee and a prominent ISIS recruiter went unnoticed, and more troubled that there wasn’t a safeguard to successfully catch this incident… It’s important for the public to understand how this happened and how similar problems will be prevented in the future. We also need to know how prosecutors settled on the charges in this case. A sentence of two years seems unusually light for such a potential threat to national security.”

Israel Gives Secret Aid to Syrian Rebels Fighters near Golan Heights in Syria receive cash and humanitarian help By Rory Jones and Noam Raydan see note please

Huh? How is it a “secret” if the WSJ has a headline about it? rsk

Israel has been regularly supplying Syrian rebels near its border with cash as well as food, fuel and medical supplies for years, a secret engagement in the enemy country’s civil war aimed at carving out a buffer zone populated by friendly forces.

The Israeli army is in regular communication with rebel groups and its assistance includes undisclosed payments to commanders that help pay salaries of fighters and buy ammunition and weapons, according to interviews with about half a dozen Syrian fighters. Israel has established a military unit that oversees the support in Syria—a country that it has been in a state of war with for decades—and set aside a specific budget for the aid, said one person familiar with the Israeli operation.

Israel has in the past acknowledged treating some 3,000 wounded Syrians, many of them fighters, in its hospitals since 2013 as well as providing humanitarian aid such as food and clothing to civilians near the border during winter. But interviews with half a dozen rebels and three people familiar with Israel’s thinking reveal that the country’s involvement is much deeper and more coordinated than previously known and entails direct funding of opposition fighters near its border for years.

“Israel stood by our side in a heroic way,” said Moatasem al-Golani, spokesman for the rebel group Fursan al-Joulan, or Knights of the Golan. “We wouldn’t have survived without Israel’s assistance.”

Israel’s aim is to keep Iran-backed fighters allied to the Syrian regime, such as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, away from the 45-mile stretch of border on the divided Golan Heights, the three people said.

But its support for rebels risks heightening tension with President Bashar al-Assad’s government, which has long accused Israel of helping rebel groups. Mr. Assad has said Israel supports rebel groups and launches airstrikes in Syrian territory to undermine his hold on power. Israel has said it doesn’t favor any one outcome in the civil war.

Israel captured part of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed it—a move the international community doesn’t recognize. CONTINUE AT SITE

Europe’s Elites Seem Determined to Commit Suicide by ‘Diversity’ Politicians say with fury that their migration policies ‘must’ work. What if they don’t? By Douglas Murray

Europe in 2017 is racked with uncertainty—the eurozone crises, the endless challenges of the European Union, national elections that resemble endless rounds of bullet-dodging. Yet even these events are insignificant compared with the deep tectonic shifts beneath the Continent’s politics, shifts that Europeans—and their allies—ignore at our peril.

Throughout the migration crisis of recent years I traveled across the Continent, from the reception islands into which migrants arrive to the suburbs in which they end up and the chancelleries which encouraged them to come. For decades Europe had encouraged guest workers, and then their families, to come. As Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel once admitted, nobody expected them to stay.

Yet stay they did, with their numbers swelling even when there were no jobs. Waking up to the results of their policy, European societies rebranded themselves “multicultural” societies, only to begin wondering what that meant. Could a multicultural society make any demands of its newcomers? Or would that be “racist”?

From the 2000s legal and illegal immigration picked up. Boats regularly set out from Turkey and North Africa to enter Europe illegally. Syrians fleeing civil war pushed into the Continent, soon joined by people from across sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, the Middle East and Far East.

Today the great migration is off the front pages. Yet it goes on. On an average weekend nearly 10,000 people arrive on Italian reception islands alone. Where do they go? What do they expect? And what do we expect of them?

To find the answer to these and other questions it is necessary to ask deeper questions. Why did Europe decide it could take in the poor and dispossessed of the world? Why did we decide that anybody in the world fleeing war, or just seeking a better life, could come to Europe and call it home?

The reasons lie partly in our history, not least in the overwhelming German guilt, which has spread across the Continent and affected even our cultural cousins in America and Australia. Egged on by those who wish us ill, we have fallen for the idea that we are uniquely guilty, uniquely to be punished, and uniquely in need of having our societies changed as a result.

There is also, for Europe, the sense of what I call tiredness—the feeling that the story might have run out: that we have tried religion, all imaginable forms of politics, and that each has, one after another, led us to disaster. When we taint every idea we touch, perhaps a change is as good as a rest.

London Attack: One Person Killed After Van Hits Pedestrians in Finsbury Park Police investigating incident as possible terror attack By Jenny Gross and Wiktor Szary

LONDON—A vehicle rammed into a crowd outside a mosque in north London early Monday, killing one person and injuring at least 10 others, in what British authorities said was a potential terror attack.

A 48-year-old man was detained by members of the public at the scene and arrested, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. He was transported to a hospital as a precaution and will be taken into custody once discharged, police said. There are no other suspects, police said, although the investigation is at an early stage.

Toufik Kacimi, chief executive of the Muslim Welfare House, told broadcaster Sky News that witnesses heard the alleged attacker say “I did my bit” before being detained. A local imam intervened to protect the man from the crowd, Mr. Kacimi said.

“What I can confirm: It is not a mental health issue, the guy did what he did deliberately,” he said.

One man was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Eight people were taken to three hospitals, while two people were treated at the scene for minor injuries, the police said.

“At this stage there are no reports of any person having suffered knife injuries,” the police said, following media reports that the van driver stabbed people.

Prime Minister Theresa May said the incident was being treated as a potential terrorist attack.

Mohamed Abdulle, a 20-year-old delivery truck driver, said he was two cars behind the van when it swerved into a crowd of people shortly after midnight. He saw two individuals run from the van and people at a nearby shop tackled and held a third person until the police arrived.

The attackers looked like they were in their mid-30s or mid-40s and were white, he said.

“He just swerved into the corner,” Mr. Abdulle said. “I’ve seen six people on the floor. All I could see was people scattered on the floor.”

The Counter Terrorism Command is investigating the incident. “Due to the nature of the incident, the police will deploy extra resources to reassure the public, especially those observing Ramadan,” police said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Germany: Police Powerless Against Middle Eastern Crime Gangs “The clans simply have no respect for the authorities.” by Soeren Kern

Observers have surmised that the real reason for the judge’s leniency was that he feared his family might be subjected to retribution from the clan.

“In their concept of masculinity, only power and force matter; if someone is humane and civil, this is considered a weakness. In clan structures, in tribal culture everywhere in the world, ethics are confined to the clan itself. Everything outside the clan is enemy territory.” — Ralph Ghadban, Lebanese-German political scientist and leading expert on Middle Eastern clans in Germany.

“The state promotes organized crime with taxpayer money.” — Tom Schreiber, a member of the Berlin House of Deputies.

A court in Hanover has handed suspended sentences to six members of a Kurdish clan who seriously wounded two dozen police officers during a violent rampage in Hameln. The court’s ruling was greeted with anger and derision by police who said it is yet another example of the laxity of Germany’s politically correct judicial system.

The case goes back to January 2014, when a 26-year-old clan member, arrested for robbery, tried to escape from the magistrate’s office by jumping out of a seventh-floor courtroom window. The suspect was taken to the hospital, where he died. Members of his clan subsequently ransacked the hospital, as well as the court, and attacked police with rocks and other projectiles; 24 police officers and six paramedics were injured.

The judge said he was lenient because the defendants witnessed the death of the 26-year-old and were traumatized. The judge also revealed that he had reached a deal with the clan, which among other effects prevented police from testifying in court.

Dietmar Schilff, chairman of the GdP police union in Lower Saxony, said that the ruling had left many police officers shaking their heads in disbelief: “All police forces expect protection and support from the state.” He added:

“If we want to protect those who ensure public security, it must be clear that anyone who attacks police officers attacks the state — and has to fear appropriate consequences. It does not matter from which milieu the perpetrators come.”

Observers have surmised that the real reason for the judge’s leniency was that he feared his family might be subjected to retribution from the clan.

Middle Eastern crime syndicates have established themselves across Germany, where they engage in racketeering, extortion, money laundering, pimping and trafficking in humans, weapons and drugs.

The syndicates, which are run by large clans with origins in Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, among other places, operate with virtual impunity because German judges and prosecutors are unable or unwilling to stop them.

The clans — some of which migrated to Germany during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war and have grown to thousands of members — now control large swathes of German cities and towns — areas that are effectively lawless and which German police increasingly fear to approach.

Ralph Ghadban, a Lebanese-German political scientist and a leading expert on Middle Eastern clans in Germany, said that the Hanover ruling was a massive failure of the German judicial system. He added that the only way for Germany to achieve control over the clans is to destroy them:

“In their concept of masculinity, only power and force matter; if someone is humane and civil, this is considered a weakness. In clan structures, in tribal culture everywhere in the world, ethics are confined to the clan itself. Everything outside the clan is enemy territory.”

Israel turned deserts green, there is no reason Kenyans should go hungry By Eliud Kibii

As Israeli Ambassador Yahel Vilan ends his two-year posting, Kenya is suffering from drought and food insecurity and has been forced to import food. Israel, a tiny country of 21,000 square kilometres and a population of 8.7 million, is famous for turning the desert green with agricultural innovation, such as drip irrigation.And it exports fresh produce.

Kenya with 48 million people covers more than 581,000 square kilometres, much of it arid and desert, some of it verdant, well-irrigated and perfect for agriculture. And yet it’s struggling.

In a wide-ranging interview, Vilan discussed Israel’s assistance to Kenya in agriculture, especially the Galana-Kulalu irrigation project in Tana River.

It is being developed with Israeli expertise and run by an Israeli company. It’s largely funded by Kenya.

Though the project has been criticised by some in Kenya for not producing enough, Vilan called the project — which is a pilot — a success that will help transform Kenyan agriculture.

According to chief engineer and project manager Thuita Mwangi, the third harvest from 2,500 acres delivered 93,860 bags. About 1,000 locals are employed.

Describing how Israel became so successful despite the geographic and climatic challenges, Vilan said, “We knew from the beginning that we didn’t have choices. We wanted to strive, first and foremost for our own consumption. We needed to base our agriculture on technology.

“We had scarcity of water and we had to find solutions, which we did through drip irrigation and use of treated water. Israel is currently number one in usage of treated water for agriculture.”

Vilan said bold and consistent decision–making at national and county levels is essential if if Kenya is to be food secure.

“There is no reason Kenya should have to import food,” the envoy said.

State and local governments should not sit and wait for the next drought, the ambassador said.

Rainwater must be harvested and better managed, instead of going to waste. This, he says, is a matter of policy-making and leadership.

Vilan called critism of the Galana-Kulalu project premature.

“The Kenyan people one day had nothing. We go for this ambitious project and almost immediately, there is criticism. If people expected miracles and immediate yields, that is not possible. It is okay to criticise but I invite everyone to go there and see with their own eyes.”

The first maize crop was harvested when Vilan arrived in the country in September 2015.

In less than two years, he says, 30-40 bags of maize are being harvested per acre, as promised.

“We also should remember, the goal of Galana, as of now in this pilot project, is not to solve Kenya’s food shortage but to introduce technologies and methods for farmers for the future. This is an experiment testing different varieties of maize and other crops. The plan is not just to produce maize and other food products but also to ensure every farmer in Kenya sees how these technologies can work here. We have seen governors and ministers going to Israel and saying it is working there and they want to see it working in Kenya. Agriculture is not cut-and-paste. But, in the end, this [Galana-type agriculture]is the solution to Kenya’s food security.” the ambassador said.

To avoid a repeat of the collapse of the Kibwezi irrigation project — into which Israel pumped Sh300 million into 14 years ago — the envoy says they have introduced the training aspect in Galana, so Kenyans can learn to run it by themselves.

Canada criminalizes non-progressive thought By Daren Jonescu

Do you think imposing so-called transgenderism on children as a sexual norm might be harmful to their moral development? Do you question the legitimacy of using made up so-called gender-neutral pronouns as replacements for the standard English words “he” and “she”?

If you answered yes, or even maybe, to either of those questions, then, as of today, you are in violation of Canada’s Human Rights Code, and subject to fines, re-education, or – should you refuse comply and repent – prison time.

Canada’s Senate has passed a “controversial” (read: fascistic) new law, Bill C-16, which adds “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the nation’s hate crime laws – Canada being a world leader in legislating who should be hated and who shouldn’t – thus effectively making it a crime for a business owner to “discriminate” on the basis of not wanting his male employee to wear a dress, or for a teacher not to use a nonexistent, politically correct pronoun whenever a student tells her to. More generally, it makes a hate criminal of anyone who openly expresses a view not perfectly compliant with the zeitgeist on gender identity, transgenderism, or what have you. The debate is now, officially and legally, over.

Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of Canada’s pro-life movement, condemned the passage of Bill C-16.

“This tyrannical bill is nothing but social engineering to the nth degree, all in the name of political correctness,” Campaign Life’s Toronto vice president Jeff Gunnarson told LifeSiteNews.

Jack Fonseca, Campaign Life’s senior political strategist, said the bill will be used to attack Christian belief.

“Mark my words, this law will not be used as some sort of ‘shield’ to defend vulnerable transsexuals, but rather as a weapon with which to bludgeon people of faith and free-thinking Canadians who refuse to deny truth,” he told LifeSiteNews.

In other words, a postmodern, nihilistic, neo-Marxist pseudo-theory of sexual identity and systemic oppression, dreamt up by some pretentious careerist professor of “queer studies” climbing out of the academic slime somewhere five years ago, has officially been declared the unassailable Absolute Truth by Justin Trudeau’s government. Unassailable as in “alternative views will not be given a hearing.” Unassailable as in “heretics will be burned.”

One of those heretics, a sort of hero of the martyrs brigade, is University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson, who has stood up publicly, including in front of the Senate committee debating C-16, against the imposition of what he correctly calls “compelled speech” and specifically speech that implies acceptance of a particular, specious (to put it politely) theory of human nature.

Switzerland’s Carbon Capture Plant Is a Giant Waste of Money By Spencer P. Morrison

On May 31, 2017 the world’s first commercial atmospheric carbon-capture plant opened for business in Hinwil, Switzerland.

The plant, designed and operated by a Swiss company called Climeworks, is different from existing carbon-capture facilities because it filters carbon dioxide out of the ambient atmosphere using proprietary technology, rather than from industrial exhaust, which is quite common.

Climeworks claims their facility will be able to remove 900 tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year. Furthermore, its modular design will allow it to be scaled up as the demand for carbon dioxide increases.

What do they plan to do with said carbon? Some of it will be pumped into nearby greenhouses to help the plants grow better, some will be used in carbonated beverages, and the rest will be sequestered deep underground in Swiss mines. The point? To stop climate change. Whether or not this is a worthy goal is beyond the scope of this article, but for the sake of argument, assume that climate change is a clear and present danger–even an existential threat. Does this project make sense?

No.

First of all, given the quantity of carbon Climework’s plant is able to filter from the atmosphere, it would take some 250,000 such facilities to meet even the relatively modest carbon sequestration goals recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–that is 1% of total emissions by 2025. Presumably building these would cost a lot of money (although in fairness, Climeworks had not disclosed the cost of its project).

Also, in order for the company to be profitable, the carbon must be sold to greenhouses and pop manufacturers. Has it occurred to any of these “environmentalists” that the moment the lettuce is shipped out of the greenhouse, or the can of Sprite is opened that the carbon dioxide simply returns to the atmosphere. This plant will mostly just move carbon around, and is therefore useless.

The only way this facility actually removes carbon from the atmosphere is via sequestration, which is clearly not profitable. This means taxpayers will inevitably be on the hook for this “business” venture. Of course, carbon is used in oil wells, but more than enough of that is harvested locally from exhaust–no one needs Swiss atmospheric carbon.

Finally, Climeworks, and the entire green technology industry for that matter, appears to have forgotten that trees exist. Yes, trees. Trees naturally remove carbon from the atmosphere, and give us beautiful breathable oxygen. They basically do exactly what Climeworks does, except they are free–or dirt-cheap at the very least.

The best part is that trees are also very good at what they do. Depending on the climate and the type of tree, they can remove enormous amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, and lock it away for centuries. In numerical terms, it only takes 98 “mature” trees (trees that can grow at least 20lb per year) to remove one ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and this number is for Canadian trees, which are not particularly verdant.

Palestinians Kill Israeli Police Officer; ISIS Claim Is Rebutted Hamas, PFLP also claim responsibility for Jerusalem attacks By Rory Jones see note please

Again, these terrorists are referred to as “militants”….rsk

TEL AVIV—Stabbing attacks by Palestinian militants in Jerusalem left an Israeli police officer dead, Israeli officials said Saturday, but authorities cast doubt on a claim by Islamic State that its fighters were responsible for the assaults.

The three attackers also lightly injured several other officers and civilians before security forces shot them dead in locations outside Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday evening, Israeli police said. One of the assailants had a gun that jammed, avoiding more serious casualties, the police added.

Sergeant Major Hadas Malka, 23 years old, was stabbed while engaging the attackers and later died of her wounds, Israeli officials said.

The bloodshed on Friday ended a lull in Palestinian violence against Israelis after a wave of attacks that began in September 2015 had largely abated in recent months in part due to greater security coordination between Israeli and Palestinian security forces.

Islamic State quickly took responsibility for the attacks, but Israeli authorities said they had no evidence to support the extremist group’s claims, which were also dismissed by other Palestinian militant groups.

Islamic State made the claim in a statement on its official channel, its first about an attack in Israel.

In response, Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and regularly claims responsibility for Palestinian violence against Israelis, said one of its members and two operatives from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine conducted the attacks.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Islamic State’s claim aimed to “muddy the waters.”

The PFLP, a secular nationalist group that has only a small level of support among Palestinians, said in a statement it also was responsible for the attacks. CONTINUE AT SITE

London Police Say 58 People Are Presumed Dead From Tower Fire Fire ripped through west London tower block early Wednesday By Wiktor Szary

LONDON—At least 58 people are presumed dead from the huge blaze that ripped through a west London residential tower earlier in the week, police said Saturday, warning that the number might change as the search operation continues.

The number included the previously confirmed death toll of 30, London police commander Stuart Cundy said.

After facing mounting criticism for being slow to meet survivors and the families of victims, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said the government’s immediate response had been inadequate.

“The support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough,” she said in a statement.

Police said they resumed the search operation in the tower on Saturday after it was suspended Friday over safety concerns, and formally identified the first victim of the fire as Mohammad Alhajali, 23 years old. Some victims of the fire have been identified publicly by family members.

The developments come amid heightened tensions over Wednesday’s fire at Grenfell Tower—a low-income high-rise in North Kensington, near Notting Hill and a few miles from the center of the U.K. capital, that was home to hundreds of people.

Critics have questioned whether officials were too slow to address concerns about fire-safety measures in low-income, public housing. One area of focus has been whether the aluminum cladding on the 24-floor building’s exterior contributed to the fire’s quick spread. The cladding wouldn’t have met widely adopted U.S. standards, according to building groups. CONTINUE AT SITE