RUTHFULLY YOURS

During the past two decades, some of the Israeli Arab community’s elected representatives and leaders have worked harder for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip than for their own Israeli constituents.

These parliamentarians ran in elections on the promise of working to improve the living conditions of Israeli Arabs and achieving full equality in all fields. However, they devote precious time and energy on Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel. They vie for the distinction of being the most vitriolic provocateur against their country.

Such provocations make it more difficult for Arab university graduates to find jobs in both the Israeli private and public sectors.

The big losers are the Arab citizens of Israel, who have once again been reminded that their elected representatives care far more about non-Israeli Palestinians than they care about them.

The uproar surrounding a recent meeting held by three Israeli Arab Members of Knesset (parliament) with families of Palestinians who carried out attacks against Israelis is not only about the betrayal of their country, Israel. It is also about the betrayal of their own constituents: the 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel.

Knesset members Haneen Zoabi, Basel Ghattas and Jamal Zahalka managed to accomplish several things at once with this controversial meeting. They certainly seem to have provoked the ire of many Jewish Israelis. Perhaps they violated the oath they made when they were sworn into parliament: “I pledge to bear allegiance to the State of Israel and faithfully to discharge my mandate in the Knesset.”

There is a dangerous scam gaining traction at the United Nations, backstopped by the White House. It’s called “violent extremism.” Given the U.N.’s long and undistinguished history of being unable to define terrorism, and an American president who chokes on the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” pledges to combat “violent extremism” have become all the rage.

It turns out that the terminological fast one is a lethal diplomatic dance that needs to be deconstructed, and quickly.

In 1999, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) adopted an “anti-terrorism” treaty stating that “armed struggle against foreign occupation, aggression, colonialism and hegemony, aimed at liberation and self-determination…shall not be considered a terrorist crime.”

In practice, that means it is open season on all Israelis, as well as Americans and Europeans who get in the way. Each of the 56 Islamic states, and what the UN labels the “State of Palestine,” is a party to this treaty.

The September 11 terror attacks then launched a growth industry in U.N. counter-terrorism chit-chat and paraphernalia.

The first Islamic State since World War II celebrates its anniversary this week. And it isn’t the one you might think.

ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is the late-comer to the world of Islamic-inspired murder and mayhem. The regime that invented the genre will celebrate its 37th anniversary on Feb. 11. It’s official name: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

You can’t really call a regime a Republic when it has a Supreme Leader whose wishes trump every single elected official, institution, and law in the country.

So let’s call the Iranian regime by the title it has earned: the Islamic State of Iran.

Everything that you see ISIS doing in Iraq, Syria and now Libya, the Islamic State of Iran has been doing for 37 years to its own people.

Chopping off hands in application of the Sharia law punishment for thievery? The Islamic State of Iran began that practice at the outset of the Revolution in 1979. Same goes for gouging out eyes, ripping out tongues, and dismemberment using jeeps attached to the arms and legs of the condemned person.

Stoning women for allegations of adultery? Check. Just watch the Stoning of Soraya M if you would like to get a feel for the gristly details.

The Islamic State of Iran leaders and their apologists would have you believe that women in Iran are more “free” than in neighboring countries, such as Saudi Arabia. In Iran, after all, they go to co-ed universities, work, and drive cars.

All in a day’s work for Little Kim….Las April he ordered the execution of of 15 Officials and a defense minister….rsk
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has executed one of his top military chiefs for corruption and other charges, various South Korean officials said Wednesday.

“(Army General) Ri Yong-Gil stopped appearing at important functions and I am getting multiple confirmations from diversified North Korean sources that Ri has been executed,” a South Korean assemblyman told NBC News.

South Korean news agency Yonhap reported the killing citing a source “familiar with North Korean affairs.”

And The Associated Press quoted an unnamed South Korean official as saying that Ri’s execution was part of Kim’s effort to bolster his grip on power.

Other charges Ri faced before his execution were abusing his power and forming a clique, the official said.

Related: Senate Votes to Block North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions

The execution of Ri, chief of the North Korean military’s general staff, would be the latest in a series of killings, purges and dismissals since Kim took power in late 2011.

Details about North Korea’s opaque government are notoriously difficult for outsiders to get, even national governments, and South Korean officials have a spotty record of tracking developments in North Korea.

Erdogan and his prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, are now paying the price for their miscalculated Islamist aspirations to install a Muslim Brotherhood type of Sunni regime in Syria in place of the non-Sunni Assad regime. Assad, with Russia’s help, has become somewhat untouchable, and has never been so safe and secure since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. By contrast, the Turks now face a multitude of threats on both sides of an apocalyptic border.

“With the Middle East ravaged by religious radicalism and sectarianism, the European Union and the United States can’t afford the Turkish government’s brutal military efforts against the Kurds or its undemocratic war on academics and journalists. Only a secular, democratic Turkey that can provide a regional bulwark against radical groups will bring stability to both the Middle East and Europe. As Mr. Erdogan seeks to eliminate all opposition and create a single-party regime, the European Union and the United States must cease their policy of appeasement and ineffectual disapproval and frankly inform him that this is a dead end.” — Behlul Ozkan, assistant professor at Istanbul’s Marmara University, writing in the New York Times.

Six years ago, Turkey’s official narrative over its leaders’ Kodak-moment exchanges of pleasantries with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus promised the creation of a Muslim bloc resembling the European Union. Border controls would disappear, trade would flourish, armies would carry out joint exercises, and Turks and Syrians on both sides of the border would live happily ever after. Instead, six years later, blood is flowing on both sides of the 900 kilometer border.

The next Gaza war is fast approaching, with the terrorist group Hamas feverishly expanding its tunnel network to launch attacks inside Israel and Jerusalem now debating the shape and timing of its next move.

So get ready for the usual drama: Hamas will seize or kill Israelis by attacking through a tunnel; Israel will receive significant global support at first when it defends itself by counterattacking; Hamas will then ensure the deaths of Palestinian women and children by hiding its terrorists in homes and schools as Israel responds; the global media will promote images of Palestinian suffering while ignoring its cause; support for Israel will erode in Europe and then Washington; Israel will face war crime charges at the United Nations; and Jews around the world will come under attack.

Before long, Israel will succumb to mounting global pressure to halt its counterattack; Israel and Hamas will agree to a ceasefire; Hamas will portray the ceasefire as but a temporary respite before its next round of rocket fire and underground incursion; an increasingly isolated Israel will face a more energized global movement to isolate the Jewish state through sanctions and boycotts; and the Western intelligentsia will ignore Hamas’ genocidal motives, target Israeli settlements as the driving force behind the mayhem, and push mindlessly forward for the wholly unrealistic two-state solution.

Clearly, Israel didn’t deliver the deterring blow to Hamas during their seven-week war over the summer of 2014 that it had hoped because, just 18 months later, both sides are sliding toward the next round.

Today, along the border with Gaza, Israelis complain that they hear the digging of tunnels beneath their homes. “The fear among everyone here is constant,” one Israeli told Reuters. “I’ve heard the sound of a hammer and chisel and my neighbor says she can hear them digging under the cement. We’re stressed out.”

Last week marked the 17th anniversary of Jordan’s King Abdullah’s coronation after the death of his father, King Hussein.

Abdullah’s ascension to the monarchy was unanticipated. His uncle Hassan was his father’s long-serving crown prince and was expected to inherit the throne. Hussein made the change in succession from his deathbed.

Today it is hard to believe that Abdullah will have the power to decide who succeeds him.

For generations, the largest looming threat to Jordan was its Palestinian majority. Although estimates of the size of Jordan’s Palestinian population vary widely, some placing it at just over 50 percent, and other estimates claiming that Palestinians made up 70% of the overall population, all credible demographic studies have agreed that most Jordanians are Palestinians.

It was due to fear of his Palestinian citizenry that for the past decade or so, Abdullah has sought to disenfranchise them. Beginning around 2004, Abdullah began throwing Palestinians out of the Jordanian armed forces. He also began canceling their citizenship.

According to a 2010 report by Human Rights Watch, between 2004 and 2008, the kingdom revoked the citizenship of several thousand Palestinian Jordanians and hundreds of thousands were considered at risk of losing their citizenship in an arbitrary process.

Today, concerns that Palestinians may assert their rights as the majority and so threaten the kingdom have given way to even greater fears. Demographic changes in Jordan in recent years have been so enormous that Palestinians may be the least of Abdullah’s worries. Indeed, it is far from clear that they are still the majority of the people in Jordan.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, between 750,000 and a million Iraqis entered Jordan. Current data are not clear regarding how many of those Iraqis remain in Jordan today.

But whatever their number, they have been eclipsed by the Syrians.

Because almost every religious and/or ethnic community in Syria is divided, some siding with Assad and others fighting against him, it is difficult to establish clear sectarian demarcation lines. Syria today is a patchwork of emirates.

The Islamic Republic of Iran needed Syria to complete the “Shiite Crescent” which it saw as its glacis and point of access to the Mediterranean. Iran is estimated to have spent something like $12 billion on its Syrian venture. By the time of this writing, Iran had also lost 143 ranking officers, captain and above, in combat in Syrian battlefields.

Turkey’s “soft” Islamic leadership, the main source of support for anti-Assad forces, has always had ties to the global movement of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is likely that Turkey’s leaders see the Syrian imbroglio as an opportunity for them to “solve” the problem of Kurdish-Turkish secessionists based in Syrian territory since the 1980s.

Turkey has become host to more than 2.5 million Syrian refugees, posing a long-term humanitarian and security challenge. Ankara’s decision to goad large numbers of refugees into the European Union was an attempt at forcing the richer nations of the continent to share some of Turkey’s burden.

The country most dramatically, and perhaps permanently, affected by the Syrian conflict is Lebanon. More than 1.8 million Syrian refugees have arrived, altering the country’s delicate demographic balance. If the new arrivals stay permanently, Lebanon would become another Arab Sunni majority state.

Next March will mark the fifth anniversary of what started as another chapter in the so-called “Arab Spring” morphed into a civil war, degenerated into a humanitarian catastrophe and, finally, led to the systemic collapse of Syria as a nation-state.

That sequence of events has had a profound impact on virtually the whole of the region known as the Greater Middle East, affecting many aspects of its component nations ranging from demography, ethno-sectarian composition and security. Since the purpose of this presentation is not to offer an historic account of the events, a brief reminder of some key aspects would suffice.

The winds of change in Europe have circled back to the 1930’s as public attitudes have grown dark and bitter. It was recently reported that more than forty percent of European Union citizens hold anti-Semitic views and agree with the oft repeated claim that Israel is committing genocidal acts against Palestinians. In fact, there is the common refrain that Israelis are the new Nazis.

Reasons for this remarkable condition – as the blood of the Holocaust still soaks the soil of Europe – abound. Obviously radical Islam promotes this calumny even as it engages in violence from Paris to Moscow. Refugees from Syria attribute their plight to Jews, a form of scapegoating that downplays the role of ISIS in population displacement. The BDS movement has a role in using boycott, divestment and sanctions as instruments to delegitimize the state of Israel. When Jewish organizations themselves climb on to BDS, e.g. J Street and the New Israel Fund, it is difficult to refute the claims, albeit claims that should be refuted. And last, is the rise of extremist parties on the right and the left that have often exhibited hostility to Israel. While Jean-Marie Le Pen of the French National Front, Jeremy Corbyn of the British Labor party have deep seated philosophical differences, they are united in their hostility to Israel.

When the leaders of ISIS declared the caliphate of the Islamic State in June 2014, the world already had a strong idea of who they were: a jihadist group so violent, so barbaric, so extreme, that even al-Qaida, with whom they had once been affiliated, wanted nothing more to do with them.

But as the world soon learned, it would get even worse.

The founding of the Islamic State brought some of the most inhumane violence of modern civilization: captives held in cages and burned alive; beheadings captured on video and broadcast on the Internet; mass enslavement and rape of non-Muslim women; and the genocide of Iraq’s Yazidi tribe.

Coupled with this has been a perverse propaganda campaign that makes the Caliphate look like a teenage summer camp, aimed at recruiting Westerners to join the jihad and enjoy life in their idyllic, Allah-blessed commune-on-the-sea. And for thousands of Western Muslims, it has worked, either by inducing them to make the journey, or hijrah, to Syria and Iraq, or by motivating them to carry out terrorist attacks on Western towns and cities.

This is what we know.

What we have not known has been the reality of life in the Islamic State, including the social order, the availability of housing and health care and other basic necessities and the treatment of women and children.