RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Just using that expression ‘illegal immigrants’ is a form of oppressing the stranger,” a “very painful…inappropriate language biblically,” stated Rabbi Gerald Serotta at a Fairfax, Virginia, February 25 panel before about 50 listeners. Like him, “Welcoming the Stranger: Refugees and Immigrants in Our Midst,” a presentation of the controversial Islamic Gülen movement’s Rumi Forum, was uniformly uncritical towards current Middle Eastern refugee issues.

Serotta, an advisory board member of the leftwing rabbinical organization Truah, began the panel’s presentation of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theological perspectives on immigrants and refugees. Love for the stranger “suffuses the Hebrew Bible” with 36 corresponding scriptural passages, he stated while repeating the talking point that “people are not illegal, they may be undocumented.” He noted Judaism’s forefathers like Abraham migrating in the Old Testament and concluded that the “reason why we are commanded to love the immigrant is because the immigrant is us. We have moved in history.”

Patricia S. Maloof, former United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Director of Refugee Programs, reinforced Serotta’s Old Testament teachings with references to the New Testament. Hebrews 13:2 admonition to welcome strangers recalled Abraham’smeeting with angels in Genesis while the Holy Family itself fled to Egypt when King Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents threatened infant Jesus. His discussion of any charity shown to the “least of these” being like loving Himself taught that “by helping the stranger we are seeing Christ in the stranger,” she said.

A former police advisor, who trained police officers in Middle Eastern countries including Iraq, reported to Conservative Base that Muslim children are being used in terrorist operations more and more in Iraq, Syria, Libya and other locations. According to Dennis Ronald Forrestal, a decorated law enforcement and intelligence veteran, one of the methods of hardening youngsters and making them feel guilt-free for killing is to force them to execute prisoners.

For example, in the war-torn Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, the leader of the dreaded Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also called “Daesh“ locally) used children as young as 10-years-old to execute at least 20 people.

“ISIS used Yazidi children who were kidnapped from their families to carry out terrorist and execution operations against the civilians, after the escape of the majority of its fighters. These children were kidnapped, brainwashed and forced to carry out criminal operations,” Forrestal reported.

“ISIS executed 20 people in Mosul for cooperating with the Iraqi security forces. ISIS forced 10-year-old children to [perform] the executions,” he added.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is attempting to create a whole new generation of children educated — or brainwashed — with religious extremism and filled with hatred for the non-believers, according to Britain’s counterterrorism think-tank, Quilliam Foundation.

The Quilliam think-tank reports that “The [Daesh] organization… focuses a large number of its efforts on indoctrinating children through an extremism-based education curriculum, and fostering them to become future terrorists. The current generation of fighters sees these children as better and more lethal fighters than themselves, because rather than being converted into radical ideologies they have been indoctrinated into these extreme values from birth, or a very young age.”

The Western media is shocked, shocked, by the findings of a six months’ study, documenting the jihadist indoctrination of “The Children of the Islamic State.” Released on March 7, the research by the London-based Quillian Foundation, which was supported and endorsed by the United Nations, “documented 254 instances where children have been used in Islamic State propaganda.”
It has also noted that “Schools and the education system…to shaping the hearts and minds of the next generation. The indoctrination that begins in schools intensifies in training camps, where children between the ages of 10 and 15 are instructed in shari’a, desensitised to violence, and are taught specific skills to best serve the state and take up the banner of jihad.”
That, however, should have come as no surprise for to the U.N., the media, or anyone following Palestinian indoctrination of children to jihad against Israel, especially after the Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994.

The Quillian report noted with worry that there are 31,000 pregnancies in the ISIS-controlled territories. But generations of Palestinians children have been fed a steady jihad, beginning in their mothers’ wombs.
According to the CIA Fact Book, the Gaza Strip, which it lists as a “country”, had 1,179,165 children and young adults in July 2015. There were 799,072 children (0-14 years; male 410,599/female 388,473);and 380,093 young adults (15-24 years; male 194,798/female 185,295)
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) runs 252 school in Gaza, serving more than 240,000 children. The majority of the teachers in these schools are members of Hamas, which the U.N. has failed to designate as a terrorist group.

ISIS continues to threaten the homeland. “Paris isn’t far from you – we will by Allah’s permission do to your country what we did to Paris. We will kill, slaughter and burn your people. Inshallah, we will attack you very soon,” warned an ISIS narrator in a recent video.

ISIS is not limiting itself to the kind of mass shootings that Paris experienced last year. Indeed, ISIS has made it clear that it will stop at nothing to kill as many Americans as possible. Either we destroy ISIS wherever they operate or they will cause mass casualties here at home, possibly with the use of weapons of mass destruction, which they are beginning to get their hands on.

ISIS is putting its considerable resources into developing chemical weapons. And they are leveraging the expertise of former Saddam Hussein regime scientists who have joined the ISIS jihadists.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has reportedly confirmed that ISIS fighters have already used chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria, perhaps obtained from stockpiles they took control over in those countries. “It raises the major question of where the sulphur mustard came from,” an OPCW source was quoted by Reuters as saying. “Either they (IS) gained the ability to make it themselves, or it may have come from an undeclared stockpile overtaken by IS. Both are worrying options.”

In an important counter-strike to thwart ISIS’s ability to develop chemical weapons, U.S. Special Operation Forces have reportedly captured a top man in ISIS’s chemical weapons development program. The capture took place last month in northern Iraq, according to two senior Iraqi intelligence officials cited by the Associated Press. U.S. officials have refused to identify the ISIS leader, but the Iraqi officials claimed he was formerly involved in Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons program. Based on information learned from interrogation, unnamed U.S. officials told CNN, the U.S. was able to conduct strikes against ISIS chemical weapons facilities in Iraq.

Advocates of the nuclear deal with Iran were heartened last month by reports that moderates close to President Hasan Rouhani had done well in elections to the country’s Parliament and the more influential Assembly of Experts. It soon became clear that the moderates hadn’t done as well as advertised—and that moderation, Iranian-style, is relative.
That much was clear from the message printed this week along the length of an Iranian ballistic missile, which said—in Hebrew as well as Farsi, lest anything be lost in translation—that “Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth.” On Wednesday Iran test-fired two such missiles with a reported range of 1,250 miles from a mountain base, hitting targets 850 miles away in southwestern Iran. The Jewish state is about 600 miles from the Islamic Republic at the nearest point.

Tehran’s show of force—it also tested missiles on Tuesday—are not the work of the usual “hardline” suspects. Iran tested ballistic missiles last fall in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution, and in January Mr. Rouhani publicly ordered his defense minister to speed up missile testing and production. The Obama Administration later sanctioned a handful of Iranian individuals and companies for the violations, but to little effect. The tests appear to be timed to coincide with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel.

“Our main enemies, the Americans, who mutter about plans, have activated new missile sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran and are seeking to weaken the country’s missile capability,” said one Iranian general. “The Guards and other armed forces are defenders of the revolution and the country will not pay a toll to anyone.”
So much for the nuclear deal producing a new era of Iranian accommodation to the world. Part of the problem is that Secretary of State John Kerry bowed to Iranian demands during the nuclear negotiations not to include ballistic missiles as part of the final deal, though missiles are an essential component of any nuclear program. CONTINUE AT SITE

When it comes to diplomatic conflict between Turkey and Israel or Turkish anti-Semitism, there is always an unusual optimism in the official language chosen by Israeli officials or Jewish community leaders. Facts on the ground are a little bit different than the rosy picture.

If Turkish Jews are “safe and secure” in Turkey, why do they feel compelled to protect their schools and synagogues with heavy security? Why do most synagogues in Istanbul look almost like a U.S. embassy in Baghdad or Islamabad?

Anti-Semitism in Turkey reached such intensity that even anti-Semitic Islamists were not immune to anti-Semitic smear campaigns.

The 74th anniversary of an embarrassing tragedy took place in Turkey on February 24, 2016.

The MV Struma was a small iron-hulled ship built in 1867 as a steam-powered schooner, but was later re-engined with an unreliable second-hand diesel engine. In 1941, it was tasked with safely transporting an estimated 781 Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to Britain’s Mandatory Palestine. Between its departure from Constanta on the Black Sea on Dec. 12, 1941 and arrival in Istanbul on Dec. 15, the vessel’s engine failed several times. On Feb. 23, 1942 with her engine still not running but the refugees aboard, Turkish authorities towed the Struma from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea. On the morning of Feb. 24, the Soviet submarine Shch-213 torpedoed the Struma, killing all but one of the refugees and 10 crew aboard.

The Iranian distribution of cash to families of terrorists is an open incitement to an ongoing campaign of murder. It should by now have not only been condemned by the whole world, but have caused a colossal rethink among the P5+1 nations that signed the ill-judged accord with Iran.

It is worth considering another recent Iranian development: the decision — allegedly by a conglomeration of media outlets, but hardly able to be separated from the government in a country whose press is more “government” than “free” — to increase the cash-bounty on the head of the British novelist Salman Rushdie.

The British government has been strangely mute on the matter. The “normalised” relations with Iran were meant to lead to business opportunities for Britain and an increase in decent behavior from Tehran. Instead, the first major test of Iranian-British relations in several decades turns out to be precisely the same test that the late Ayatollah Khomeini drew up in 1989.

Last year, when America, Britain and four other countries (the P5+1) signed their joint plan of action with Iran there was no shortage of people who warned of the consequences. They warned that the deal would merely delay rather than prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed power. They warned of the increased grip the mullahs would have on the country they purport to govern. And in particular, those not caught up in the P5+1 jubilation warned of what Iran would do with the tens of billions of dollars’ cash bonanza it would receive once the deal was done. Would Iran use this windfall solely to improve the lives of its people? Or might it spend at least a portion of this cash doing what it has been doing for nearly four decades: that is, spreading terror?

There have already been some signs that the ill-judged deal is embedding Iran’s worst behaviour rather than elevating the regime to any higher behavioral level.

In recent days we have learned that Iran is already planning to use its windfall to encourage Palestinian terror against the State of Israel. Speaking at the end of last month, the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon used a press conference with a number of Palestinian factions to announce a new bounty-scheme to be sponsored by Iran. This scheme promises to reward financially those who carry out terror against Israel. The reward includes — according to the Iranian ambassador — a payment of $7,000 to the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists who die in the process of attacking any Israeli. And it also includes a promised payment of $30,000 to any terrorists’ families whose homes are destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces. The demolition of the home of a terrorist’s family house is one of the only disincentives that Israel or any other country could think of to dissuade people intent on suicide attacks. Now the Iranian government is trying to re-incentivise anyone who might wish to commit such an attack.

The West’s feather-footed leaders tread softly when extolling “moderate” Muslims as the purported antidote to the creed’s literalist firebrands and militant extremists. What they lack the courage to acknowledge is that the Qur’an is itself the fountainhead of radicalism.
One would need to be the infamous Blind Freddy not to recognise that the West is on a hiding to nothing as it struggles to contend with its Islamic imbroglio. There are many reasons for this but I suggest the most dangerous are found in the many common and comforting consensuses that have arisen over the Religion of Peace, as some would have it. These are no more than convenient delusions.

Perhaps the most dangerous consensus is the misconception that Islamic State (ISIS), the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist variants are the problem to be addressed and that, with sufficient firepower, the obvious manifestations of these elements can be contained or eliminated. In fact these groups are simply elements of a much larger issue: the re-emergence of a militant and resurgent Islam.

History shows that the drive for a worldwide Islamic caliphate is as old as the Qur’an itself, and in the 1,400 years since the Muslims’ sacred text appeared, the religion’s fortunes in achieving that goal have waxed and waned. Today we see a revitalization of this dream, but this time there are significant, profound differences. First, younger Islamic leaders are practicing Islam as explicitly prescribed in the Qur’an, and it is important to note that a high proportion of Muslims in Western nations are under 25 years of age. Second, over the past century Islam has moved from being Middle Eastern-centric, with but a meager demographic representation in traditional secular democracies, to having sizeable Muslim populations in those countries. Third, events in the Middle East, together with Islamist-sanctioned terrorist events across the globe, have given encouragement to those who share the hope of a worldwide caliphate. Fourth, modern technology and better management among Islamic leaders is being used to orchestrate a more coherent Islamic narrative, one that is backed by contemporary firepower.

Last week, the State Department coordinator on Iran, Stephen Mull, acknowledged that the Obama Administration has failed to monitor the transfer of Iranian uranium shipments to Russia. Mr. Mull was unable to tell the House Foreign Affairs Committee just exactly where 25,000 pounds of Iranian enriched uranium had gone.

This is only the latest development facilitating Iran’s march to nuclear weapons since the announcement of the Vienna nuclear deal between America, the West, and Iran last June. Such developments were predictable because the Vienna agreement was so comprehensively defective.

Why? Because President Obama discarded one requirement after another in order to obtain a deal.

Thus, the agreement permits Iran to retain all the components of its nuclear weapons program — uranium enrichment, thousands of centrifuges, its Arakplutonium facility, its Fordow underground nuclear facility — while shredding the international sanctions regime on Tehran, and infusing its economy with hundreds of billions of dollars in unfrozen assets and sanctions relief.

Unsurprisingly, since the agreement’s conclusion, Iran has announced a 32% increase in military spending. And that’s not all. With the deal’s massive financial windfall in the offing, Iran has significantly increased its financial support for the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Previously, support for both had dropped due to pressure on the Iranian economy. Now, cash in suitcases are coming to Hamas’ military leadership in Gaza, fueling prospects of a renewed outbreak of war with Israel.

Iranian money has also enabled Hezbollah to obtain highly developed armaments previously beyond its means, and to dispatch thousands of its fighters to Syria to bolster the Assad regime in its battle with Sunni jihadists. As Syria analyst Avi Isacharoff notes, “Today, Iran is the main, and likely only, power attempting to build terror cells to fight Israel on the Syrian Golan Heights, in areas under Assad’s control.”

Western governments need to accept the harsh reality that the Islamic Republic of Iran remains a revolutionary regime. The IRGC has responsibility over all ballistic missile programs and research and development. The West also needs to internalize that all decisions over ballistic missiles and associated delivery systems, the pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, export of the revolution, aggressive support of the Shi’a ascendency in the Gulf and militant acts of inhumanity towards their own people are made by the deep state.

In short, the Iranian regime is much more Islamic than a Republic. The regime’s most reviled and inveterate enemies remain Israel and the United States.

Those Iranians opposed to the existing order have been broken physically and psychologically by a combination of regime cruelty and lack of support from the world’s democracies.

Despite the voluminous and biased reporting about the conclusions that should be drawn from Iran’s recent Majles (Consultative Assembly) elections, the results signify next to nothing.[1] Hundreds of candidates are disqualified from running by the Council of Guardians (COG) if they are judged to be opposed to the current Islamic regime, or on grounds of “moral turpitude” and other reasons that would be irrelevant in a true democracy. When given the limited choice from a thoroughly vetted set of pro-regime candidates, all of whom favor Islamic rule, the people will always vote for the more “liberal” of the alternatives. This is hardly surprising in a country where the existing martial, theocratic order remains highly unpopular.

Whatever the balance in the Majles between hardliners and those members who may be a bit more flexible on some economic and social issues, it matters little. There will always be a significant number of deputies who are former IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) men, and who will hector a President’s cabinet members and political allies about decisions which run afoul of “deep state” institutions.[2]