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America’s “Arab Spring” by Nonie Darwish

President Obama appears to have been told that if all these secular dictators could be brought down, a magnificent Arab Spring would blossom. This was, it seems, precisely the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood: to get America’s help to topple the dictatorships — then mostly military and secular — but then to replace them with themselves, Islamists.

After Egypt took down the Muslim Brotherhood, the goal of establishing the Islamic Caliphate in Egypt simply moved to Syria, the only Arab nation where a secular Muslim leader had survived the Arab Spring.

Promoting Islam also seems to have been a major factor in Obama’s equation for America. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed suit, hosting several closed-door conferences on “Defamation of Religion,” to suppress free speech and internationally criminalize any criticism of Islam with fines and prison. She would rather blame terrorism on free speech than on the violent tenets of Islam.

This escalating subversion should be reason enough for all Western democratic countries permanently to part company with the United Nations. Its history of corruption is neither new nor surprising, or that it is run anti-democratic “club of dictators” whose interests are opposite to ours.

The goals of U.S. President Barack Obama in the Middle East ended the rule of most of the “secular” Arab leaders in the area. His views may have come, partly at least, from propaganda on why Muslim people supposedly lacked freedom there. Obama appears to have been told that if all these secular dictators could be brought down, a magnificent Arab Spring would blossom.

This was, it seems, precisely the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood: to get America’s help to topple the dictatorships — then mostly military and secular — but then to replace them with themselves, Islamists.

The Myth of Jews and Slavery By Alex Grobman, PhD

One of the enduring myths against the Jews is that they played a key role in the slave trade. The British newspaper Independent recently reported that Jackie Walker, the vice-chair of the left-wing Labor Party–linked movement, wrote on her Facebook page: “I’m sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African Holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews…and many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean.”

Her attack now appears on the website of Jews For Justice For Palestinians whose demands include “ending Israel’s illegal occupation and settlement of Palestinian land, including its illegal blockade of Gaza; and [demanding Israel] acknowledge its responsibility in the creation of the Palestinian refugees, and its obligation to negotiate a just, fair and practical resolution of the issue.”

In addition to being accused of having been part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and of owning slaves, Jews are also charged with being involved in creating the Jim Crow laws that mandated racial segregation, sharecropping, the labor movement, unions and general mistreatment of black people in the U.S.

If we are to respond to this fabrication, we need to know the facts. This canard of Jewish involvement in the slave trade has been debunked by a number of historians as well as the Council of the American Historical Association (AHA). Historian Seymour Drescher, a noted expert on slavery and antislavery movements, found, “It is unlikely that more than a fraction of 1 percent of the twelve million enslaved and relayed Africans were purchased or sold by Jewish merchants even once… At no point along the continuum of the slave trade were Jews numerous enough, rich enough, and powerful enough to affect significantly the structure and flow of the slave trade or to diminish the suffering of its African victims.”

German Police Detain Migrant on Terror Suspicions Case underlines what authorities say is the uncertain terror threat posed by migrant wave By Ruth Bender

BERLIN—German police detained an asylum seeker suspected of plotting an attack for Islamic State, the federal prosecutor’s office said Thursday, the latest evidence of a mounting terror threat posed by the arrival last year of hundreds of thousands of migrants into the country.

The 27-year-old man, identified by federal prosecutors as Ashraf Al-T., allegedly received approval from an ISIS operative in Syria to carry out an attack on Germans in the near future, the prosecutor’s office said.

The man was taken into custody in Berlin late Wednesday, and his apartment in the city’s Schöneberg district was searched, according to the prosecutor. By the end of the day Thursday, the suspect will go before an investigating judge with the federal supreme court, who will decide if there is sufficient evidence to keep holding the man.

The nationality of the suspect who arrived in Germany in 2015 remained unclear. Police initially identified the man as Syrian but an official familiar with the case said he might in fact be a Tunisian who used Syrian identification.

The arrest adds to escalating tension in Germany over the security risks arising from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open the country’s doors to nearly 900,000 asylum seekers in 2015 alone.

As the wave of migrants entering the county peaked late last year, authorities brushed aside suggestions that the surge could include attackers linked with ISIS. A year later, a lengthening list of arrests and a series of attacks by refugees have led officials to reassess the threat and raise alarms about security.

“It is very good [that] this man was taken off the streets,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said. “Security services had been watching him for some time.”

Officials said it was still unclear how far along plans were for an attack but authorities still felt compelled to act, said Bernd Palenda, head of the state intelligence agency in Berlin.

“As we had no overview over the risks—what might be done and when it might start—we acted fast,” said Mr. Palenda, CONTINUE AT SITE

America’s Best Arab Ally Faces a Crumbling Region It is a paramount American interest for things in Jordan to remain as they are.By Sohrab Ahmari

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is losing his nerve. After a year of silence, the self-proclaimed caliph of Islamic State released an audio recording Wednesday in which he urged his fighters to stand firm in Mosul as the U.S.-backed coalition closed in. “The value of staying on your land with honor is a thousand times better than the price of retreating with shame,” he thundered.

Next door, Jordanians watch the Mosul operation with enthusiasm and unease. As Information Minister Mohammad al-Momani puts it in an interview in Amman this week, “To us the Mosul operation is a cornerstone in the whole fight against terrorism.” Mosul also raises discomfiting questions about what form jihadism will take after Islamic State is defeated, and how that might threaten Jordan, America’s most reliable Arab ally.

Roiling Amman now are reports that many Islamic State fighters are “shaving their beards” to blend in as coalition forces draw near. An estimated 2,500 Jordanians have joined Islamic State, and alarms rang last week after the jihadist army overran half of Rutba, a city about 70 miles from the Jordanian border in western Iraq. “These groups are rooted now in Syria and Iraq, and Jordan will be a target once the space in Syria and Iraq closes,” says counterterror analyst Amer al-Sabaileh.

This is why border security is foremost among Amman’s priorities. Some 1.5 million refugees from the wars in Syria and Iraq have already flooded Jordan, straining resources and patience in a small nation that unlike many of its neighbors isn’t blessed with oil wealth. Jordanians recognize the magnitude of the risk if even a minuscule fraction of the newcomers is linked to Islamic State. They aren’t keen to accept more.

The upside is that officials here have a good sense of what goes on beyond their frontiers. The Obama administration has been a relatively decent steward of the Amman-Washington alliance, and thanks in part to U.S. assistance, the Jordanian security apparatus is battle-ready for any territorial attempts. “We’ve been at war with Daesh in our northern and eastern borders for four years,” says Mr. Momani, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “So we are in a strong position to defend our borders.”

Jordan also faces an internal threat underscored by two Islamic State assaults in June against military and intelligence targets that killed 11 soldiers and officers in total. In coming years Jordan will likely face an uptick in such attacks, the product of the “collapse of ISIS and the rise of ISIS 2.0,” says Mr. Sabaileh, the terrorism analyst. Both the remnants of the old Islamic State and its successor group, he says, will have an incentive to stage brutal, sophisticated attacks—the former to demonstrate it is still in the game, the latter to prove its jihadist chops. CONTINUE AT SITE

David Singer: Obama’s Islamic State Policy Uncorks Shiite Genie in Iraq

Mosul has well and truly blown up in his face with the news that the Iran funded Shiite Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have now joined in the attack.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter certainly did not anticipate this development when announcing Obama’s decision:

“The United States and the rest of the international coalition stand ready to support Iraqi Security Forces, Peshmerga fighters and the people of Iraq in the difficult fight ahead.”

Neither did Operation Inherent Resolve Commander Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend who stated:

“But to be clear, the thousands of ground combat forces who will liberate Mosul are all Iraqis”

The involvement of 15000 Shiite PMU militiamen – designated by the Iraqi Government as “an independent military formation” – could aggravate already existing sectarian divisions in Iraq.

This could eventually lead to a Shiite land grab of territory liberated by the PMU.

The retention of land conquered by the Peshmerga forces is also a realistic possibility.

Iraq as a distinct and separate territorial unit could be in real danger of being carved up.

Obama must be reeling after further reading on that:

“Ahmed al-Assadi, a spokesman for the Iraq-sanctioned paramilitary known as Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), said on Saturday that they will fight alongside Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces in Syria after finishing their battle against ISIS in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Al Arabiya News Channel reported”

Obama’s inability to remove Assad from power in Syria during the last five years has been a spectacular presidential policy failure.

Documented: Obama’s “Traditional Muslim Bias” against Christians by Raymond Ibrahim

Those Arabs from nations with large Christian populations or with Christian names failed the Obama team’s “religious tests.”

The Obama government’s bias against Mideast Christians closely resembles the traditional bias Christian minorities experience at the hands of Muslim governments.

When inviting scores of Muslim representatives, the State Department has been called out at least twice for denying visas to solitary Christian representatives.

When a few persecuted Iraqi Christians crossed the border into the U.S., they were thrown in prison for months and then sent back to the countries persecuting them, possibly to be enslaved, raped, or murdered.

When the Nigerian government waged an offensive against Boko Haram — another Islamic group that regularly slaughters and rapes Christians and burn their churches — and killed some of its terrorists, John Kerry fumed and called for the “human rights” of the jihadis.

It is against Islamic law to side with “infidels” against Muslims.

Almost a year ago, U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama called the suggestion that the U.S. give preference to Christian refugees over Muslim refugees “shameful.” “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion,” he added loftily.

Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman Plans by Burak Bekdil

“Let us see how your Islamist friend [Erdogan] behaves after crushing the secular establishment.” — The author to a friend, 2004.

To insist on the borders Turkey accepted in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne “is the greatest injustice to be done to the country and to the nation.” — Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, October 19, 2016.

Erdogan’s newfound claims seem to refer not only to wish to regain hegemony to the west (Greece) but also about the south (Syria) and the southeast (Iraq). Turkey evidently wishes to be part of an Iraqi- and Kurdish-led offensive against Mosul, controlled since 2014 by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Sipping his ouzo at a café in Athens on a warm afternoon in 2004, a Greek diplomat friend smiled and said:

“You are wrong about Erdogan. He will reform Turkey’s democratic culture, align it with the European Union, strengthen its ties with NATO and pursue a pro-peace policy in this part of the world. Meanwhile he will crush the secular army establishment and Turkey will no longer be a threat to any of its neighbors.”

I said: “Let us see how your Islamist friend [Erdogan] behaves after crushing the secular establishment.”

Twelve years later, I still enjoy our peaceful ouzo sessions with the same Greek friend. But things do not look equally peaceful between Turkey and its neighbors, including Greece.

Speaking at a public rally on October 22, President Erdogan said that “We did not accept our borders voluntarily.” He went on to say, “At the time [when the current borders were drawn] we may have agreed to it but the real mistake is to surrender to that sacrifice.” What does all that mean?

Israel Concerned over Rising Russian Military Role in the Region Asharq Al-Awsat see note by Janet Levy

From e-pal Janet Levy :”Russia’s growing military presence in the Middle East coupled with its long-standing support for the Arab-Palestinians at the U.N. has Israeli leaders deeply troubled. Recently, Russia added ground troops, aircraft, missiles and drones to its arsenal in the region and will soon deliver the S-300 and S-400 missile systems to Egypt, Syria and Iran. To make matters worse, they have threatened to target any entity that threatens Russian or Syrian forces. Also disturbing is the fact that Russian leadership had the temerity to characterize Israel’s response to the UNESCO resolution denying any Jewish and Christian ties to the Temple Mount as “emotional and unjustified.” (Christians take note: Your holy sites are in jeopardy. Not supporting Jews and Israel is suicidal).It appears that the Jewish State has jumped from the “frying pan to the fire.”

“Tel Aviv- Israeli-Russian relations have witnessed tension because of the

growing Russian military existence in Syria and the Mediterranean and the
continuous Russian support for the Palestinian cause at the United Nations.

Political sources in Tel Aviv said that PM Benjamin Netanyahu has conveyed
his concerns to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The subject was also
tackled during a meeting held between Russian and Israeli officials at the
Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Sources said that Netanyahu talked with Putin ten days ago, and requested
him to renew the conditions of the military coordination between them and to
refrain from supporting anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish resolutions at the U.N.

They said that Amir Eshel, the commander of the Israeli Air Force, also
visited Moscow to discuss military issues.

During their meetings, Israeli officials revealed their main political
concern, which is the possibility of voting on the Israeli-Palestinian issue
at the United Nations. According to a senior Israeli official, Tel Aviv has
declared that it opposes any intervention in the peace talks especially from
the Security Council.

Atlantic Council Blames the West’s “Islamophobia”: Andrew Harrod

The Atlantic Council, founded in 1961 to encourage civic engagement in transatlantic security, is now blaming the West for “Islamophobia,” along with notorious Islam apologists like Karen Armstrong.

“What we want to do today is debunk myths,” stated Atlantic Council President Frederick Kempeat the Washington, DC, organization’s October 20 event “Islamophobia: Overcoming Myths and Engaging in a Better Conversation.” Yet the panelists merely offered hackneyed arguments diverting attention from current Islamist threats, casting disrepute on an Atlantic Council once founded to stimulate civic engagement in transatlantic security.

Vuslat Doðan Sabancý, publisher of the leading Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, dismissed any legitimate concerns about Islamic doctrine by stating that “Islamophobia…stems from phobia, which is a fear of the unknown.” British religion writer and notorious Islam apologist Karen Armstrong similarly spoke of a “phobia, an irrational fear, it is not based on reason, it is based on a gut feeling.” Blurring distinctions between critiquing a belief system like Islam and ethnic prejudice, Kempe discussed the “line between security concerns and racism.”

For Sabancý, the “answer is very simple. Let’s get rid of the phobia…let’s get to know each other,” yet her appeal for intercultural dialogue contained limits evoking “Islamophobia’s” totalitarian nature. “Freedom of speech is the backbone of democracy, but it should not be exercised at the cost of attacking one’s dignity, it should not be exercised at the cost of attacking one’s faith either, because dignity is also a human right,” she stated. This rather unusual position for a publisher paralleled Dr. Mehmet Aydin, former head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). He warned that when “saying nasty things about the prophet” Muhammad of Islam, “you have to be very careful…we have to respect the values of other cultures.”

The panelists exhibited no such concern for European security measures amidst millions of Muslim refugees overwhelming Europe with various economic and terrorism worries. “This is going to take its place in history as the most disgraceful human act,” Sabancý stated with reference to Europe’s new zeal for border barriers. “It doesn’t seem long ago, does it, when we were cheering because the Berlin wall was being torn down,” Armstrong contrasted.

Armstrong evoked ominous historical analogies of epochs in which “there have been these explosions of hatred of certain groups, just think of the Crusades,” where Crusaders “slaughtered Muslims with great joy.” This common slander (see President Barack Obama) of Crusaders as mere bloodthirsty aggressors preceded her trite Nazism invocation while discussing the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa calling for British writer Salman Rushdie’s death. At the time, she was “appalled by the way British intellectuals, the great and the good, segued away from a denunciation of the fatwa to an out and out denunciation of Islam itself. I said to myself we have learned nothing in Europe since the 1930s.”

Armstrong’s imagination somehow juxtaposed justifiable outrage in the United Kingdom and elsewhere at lethal Islamic blasphemy doctrine with the subsequent 1990s eruption of the Balkans bloodbath. “There were concentration camps again on the outskirts of Europe, this time with Muslims in them,” she stated. Apparently unaware of any Balkan wars, including the Ottoman Empire’s jihad conquests, she superficially described the prior history of a region “where Muslims, Jews, and Christians had coexisted amicably for centuries.”

Netanyahu’s Critical Foreign Tour Israel’s strategic repositioning. Caroline Glick

The unraveling of the US electorate comes against the backdrop of the diminution of US military power.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming trips to Australia, Singapore, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan might be the most significant diplomatic visits he makes in his tenure in office. The trips will take place against the backdrop of two major international shifts that cast Israel into uncharted waters as a small state with a dizzying array of strategic threats arrayed against it. The states that he will visit are all well-positioned to help Israel navigate its next moves.

The first shift is the US’s political crackup.

Next week American voters will choose their next president. The major candidates, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, are the weakest candidates to have ever stood for the highest office in the land. Their rise is a testament to the weakening, if not the unraveling of the glue that has held America together since the Civil War.

The unraveling of the US electorate comes against the backdrop of the diminution of US military power. The US’s multi-trillion dollar investment in inconclusive if not failed wars in the Middle East over the past 15 years has come at the expense of military modernization. The F-35 program has sucked up the majority of the remaining research and development funds.

And it has yet to produce a reliable airplane.

Worse, the F-35’s long and problematic gestation period has given Russia and China the time and opportunity to develop air defense systems capable of neutralizing the F-35’s stealth systems.

Those systems were supposed to be its chief advantage as the next generation fighter for the US and its allies.

The deterioration of the US’s military capabilities has gone hand in hand with the US’s apparent loss of strategic rationality.

This is apparent worldwide, but is nowhere more obvious than in the Middle East.

President Barack Obama’s decision to effectively abandon the US’s major allies in the Middle East in favor of cultivating ties with Iran has made the region far more dangerous to the US and its spurned allies than it was eight years ago.

True, in theory, Obama’s decision to prefer the Shi’ites to the Sunnis makes sense given the totalitarian and imperial nature of Sunni jihadism. But in light of the genocidal, totalitarian and imperial nature of the current Iranian regime, his move made no sense and its impact has been massively destructive.