RUTHFULLY YOURS

Oh Puleez! Abbas, like his predecessor vermin is a thug put in place and maintained by successive American administrations in their never ending quest to process peace by demanding impossible security risks from Israel….. The only thing that can stop a full blown crisis and protect Jordan is heightened Israeli control over Judea and Samaria….rsk
A Palestinian court on Thursday postponed municipal elections scheduled for Oct. 8 because Palestine’s two largest political factions, Fatah and Hamas, couldn’t agree on terms. The stalemate has been in place since 2006, the last time Palestinians voted, and even led to an internecine war the following year. The Palestinians, split between two separate governments ruling the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, have never recovered.

For Fatah, which rules the West Bank, things are going from bad to worse. The canceled elections come on the heels of a large protest held last weekend in Nablus. An estimated 12,000 Palestinians took to the streets after the West Bank government’s security forces reportedly beat to death Ahmad Halawa, a commander from the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, a splinter of Fatah. Halawa’s funeral quickly gave way to angry protests against the provisional government of President Mahmoud Abbas.

All of this should serve as a warning to the 81-year-old Mr. Abbas. The Nablus protest, in particular, conjures images of the First Intifada, which broke out after a funeral in 1987, gave way to massive protests against Israel, and in the end lasted for a half decade.

There was a time when Mr. Abbas would have tried to leverage public discontent. Today, a protest of nearly any size is too dangerous to harness for the aging Mr. Abbas, who has every reason to fear that any angry public gathering could quickly turn against him.

The Palestinian Authority, like any other autocratic Arab regime, has never welcomed spontaneous protests. But now Palestinian opinion polls show a majority of voters want Mr. Abbas to resign. What’s more, since 2006, the only forms of democratic expression under the Abbas government has been a local election or student-council vote; and in each of those, Mr. Abbas’s Fatah party has lost. As Mr. Abbas enters the 12th year of his four-year presidency, even minor elections are increasingly seen as referendums on his rule.

Exacerbating this instability is the uncertainty of who will succeed Mr. Abbas. The leader himself refuses to name a successor, which has inspired a heated debate among the Palestinian elite but also sporadic factional violence across the West Bank. Armed gangs regularly skirmish with Palestinian Authority forces, while Mr. Abbas’s rivals, such as the exiled Palestinian leader Mohammad Dahlan, continue to foment opposition. CONTINUE AT SITE

“I hate Christians and Jews. I don’t know why. I don’t have any apparent reason to hate them but I always hear my mom talking badly about them. She hates them too, and this is why I hate them, I guess. Mom has always told me that Muslims are Allah’s favorite people,” — F., a 15-year-old Tunisian girl.

“They said that non-Muslims deserve to die; we should have no pity for them. They will burn in hell, anyway.” — M., a 16-year-old Tunisian boy.

People who do not read tend to fear things they do not know, and this fear can turn into suspicion, aggression and hate. These people need to fill the void, to remove the discomfort, so they turn to terrorism to create a goal in their lives: defending Islam.

As most Tunisians do not read, they watch TV a lot. “After watching ‘The Sultan’s Harem,’ I wanted to be one of the Sultan’s concubines, to live in the Ottoman Empire era; I wanted to be like them,” said S., a 14-year-old Tunisian girl.

A Pew Research Center report, published in 2013, entitled, “The World’s Muslims, Religion, Politics and Society,” explored attitudes and opinions of Muslims around the world regarding religion and its impact on politics, ethics and science.

A sample of 1450 Tunisian Muslims from all the 24 governorates of Tunisia were interviewed between November and December 2011. According to the study, 50% of Tunisians consider themselves living a conflict between their religion and the modern world. According to the report, 32% of Tunisians consider divorce unethical — the highest rate in the Arab and Muslim world — compared to 8% in Egypt, 6% in Lebanon and 3% in Jordan. Although 46% respondents said that religion is compatible with the modern world, the study indicated that the Tunisian population is more prone to advocate individual choice — with 89% favoring — in wearing the niqab (face-veil).

Similarly, based on the United Nations report and research from the Quilliam Foundation in 2014, Tunisian terrorists represent the highest number (3,800) of foreign terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Syrian authorities also confirmed that the number of Tunisian terrorists is more than 10,000, out of a total of 48,000 terrorists in Syrian territory.

What are the main reasons for Tunisia’s high rate of terrorism?

Apparently what Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal understands of democracy is totally different than what the term means in more civilized parts of the world.

If Prince Al-Waleed so passionately defends democracy, he should spend less of his office time in showing solidarity with undemocratic leaders, and more in giving at least a bit of democratic breathing space to his own people.

In the Saudi Kingdom, the primary source of law is the Islamic sharia, based on the principles of a school of jurisprudence (Hanbali) found in pre-modern texts. Ultra-puritanical judges and lawyers form part of the country’s Islamic scholars.

But there is another main source of law: royal decrees. Simple death penalty along with beheading, stoning to death, amputation, crucifixion and lashing are common legal punishments. In the three years to 2010, there were 345 beheadings. But the legal system is usually too lenient for cases of rape and domestic violence.

The common punishment for offenses against religion and public morality such as drinking alcohol and neglect of prayer is usually lashings. Retaliatory punishments are also part of the legal system, such as, literally, an eye for an eye. Saudis can also grant clemency, in return for money, to someone who has unlawfully killed their relatives.

It is not surprising to anyone that Saudi Arabia is widely accused of having one of the worst human rights records in the world — the Kingdom is one of the few countries in the world not to accept the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is capital punishment for homosexuality. Women are not allowed in public places to be in the presence of someone outside the kinship. They are not allowed to drive.

North Korea reportedly conducted its fifth — and largest to date — nuclear test just hours after President Obama wrapped up a meeting with Asian allies in Laos.

Obama was due to arrive back at the White House from the ASEAN summit shortly after midnight Friday — which is North Korea’s National Day.

The U.S. Geological Survey detected a blast as powerful as a moderate earthquake at 9 a.m. Pyongyang time.

“Possible explosion, located near the location where North Korea has detonated nuclear explosions in the past,” the USGS said of the magnitude 5.3 event. “If this is indeed an explosion, the USGS National Earthquake Information Center cannot determine what type of explosion it may be, whether nuclear or any other possible type.”

North Korea said it conducted a “nuclear warhead explosion” in response to perceived U.S. hostility. “We sent out a message that if the enemies attack us, we can counterattack.”

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff called it “an artificial quake” that was detected near North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

Pyongyang previously held nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2011 and this past January, which was followed by a UN Security Council resolution in March. “We estimate the North has carried out the biggest-ever test,” the South Korea statement said.

“We are aware of seismic activity on the Korean Peninsula in the vicinity of a known North Korean nuclear test site,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said. “We are monitoring and continuing to assess the situation in close coordination with our regional partners.”

Yonhap news agency reported that South Korean lawmakers will convene for an emergency session today. “It would be a crucial violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution if it turns out to be an actual nuclear test,” Rep. Yeom Dong-yeol of South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party said.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye condemned the test and called for “much stronger sanctions” along with utilizing “all possible means” to stop Kim Jong-un’s nuclear program. Without elaborating, Park’s office said she spoke with Obama about the test.

Last month, Japan’s Kyodo News reported that North Korea has openly restarted plutonium production and is on pace to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons “as scheduled.”

“We have reprocessed spent nuclear fuel rods removed from a graphite-moderated reactor,” North Korea’s Atomic Energy Institute said, a move in response to what Kim views as threats from Washington. Pyongyang hinted at the time of an upcoming nuclear test.