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“Muslim Jerusalem”: Turkey’s Message of “Peace” to Israel by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on March 18th, 2016

Turkey’s attempts at “normalizing relations with Israel” apparently do not actually aim to normalize the relations.

“We do not forget Gaza and Palestine even in our dreams, let alone in negotiations. … Whatever is wrong for Palestine is also wrong for us. We discussed these issues in detail during our meetings with my dear friend, Khaled Mashaal [leader of Hamas]. This is the main objective behind the talks of normalizing ties with Israel.” – Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey.

Do Turkish government representatives also tell their Israeli colleagues that Khaled Mashaal is their “dear friend”? Do they also divulge that the only aim of the negotiations is to get compensation for the Mavi Marmara incident and to remove the “blockade” on Gaza, possibly again so that weapons to be used against Israel can come in?

Turkey’s attempts at “normalizing relations with Israel” apparently do not actually aim to normalize the relations.

As often happens in the Middle East, there are two sound-tracks going on — one perhaps in English to Israel, and one in Turkish to Turkey’s citizens. Both sound-tracks cannot be right.

On July 1, 2010, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu addressed his parliament:

“Jerusalem is our issue. Contrary to what you assume, it is not a territory of Israel. According to the international law, East Jerusalem is a part of the state of Palestine and is one of the territories under occupation. Al-Aqsa Mosque is in East Jerusalem, too. Al-Aqsa Mosque is not Israeli territory and will not be. If peace happens one day, — and that is what I mean — East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine and a meeting of the Arab league will be held there, as well. We are giving a message of peace here. Yes, there will be peace and East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine.”

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YOUMERICA BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

Posted By on March 18th, 2016

The paradox of the individualistic society is that it can only exist if individuals embrace virtues that are greater than their own needs and whims. A society where each individual acts as a little tyrant, pursuing his desires with total selfishness at the expense of everyone else becomes collectivist as the little tyrants turn to a series of big tyrants to get what they want no matter who gets hurt by it.

Social compacts are the alternative to big government. Communities built around unwritten laws in which people do the right thing keep government at bay better than a million laws ever could. No Constitution can protect a people that does not know or care about what it says. Laws embody ideas about what a society can be. But only the people can actually live out those ideas in their lives.

As individual virtues and social compacts break down, selfish squabbles escalate. Tribalism turns into legal civil war. Laws become the means by which one group imposes its will on the other and by which one man seizes the property of another. The people come to view the system with contempt. All virtues and principles are abandoned as neighbor turns on neighbor in resentment and hatred.

Our society has cultivated narcissism as its highest virtue. Even liberalism has become condensed to an identity politics of narcissism in which each victim gets to talk about their feelings for fifteen minutes before crybullying for someone’s head. Political discourse has become an exchange of feelings. And unlike contradictory ideas, clashing feelings of entitlement cannot be resolved.

Ideas can exist objectively. Feelings only exist subjectively. Identity politics resolves this problem by treating the objective response to feelings as privilege. But even subjective empathy can never truly approach the subjective experience of the crybully. Even a member of that same identity group will differ in some way from the multiple intersectional identities of the crybully. And that difference is its own privilege. This isn’t really politics. It’s self-help narcissism crossbred with stale Marxism.

Marxism pretended to be a science. Its idiot inheritors use the same highly specialized vocabulary to describe their imaginary science of feelings to decide whose feelings get hurt microscopically worse.

But that’s the only kind of politics that narcissists can be expected to embrace. The left has personalized the political as much as it has politicized the personal. Its politics is purely personal. Its ideas can be condensed to “X upsets Y”. With the corollary that in the future X will not be allowed to upset Y because Y will be in charge of everything and stupid people like X will all die off so that history is on the side of Y and not X. This is a seven year old’s politics with better vocabulary.

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Trump’s Pro-Russian Policy Threatens Israel By Cliff Kincaid

Posted By on March 18th, 2016

Donald J. Trump has received the endorsements of conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Something doesn’t make sense here.

Schlafly has always been a realist on the matter of the aggressive foreign policy of the old Soviet Union and now Russia. On the other hand, as noted [1] by Josh Rogin at Bloomberg View, Trump has a “pro-Russian foreign policy” that could have something to do with the businessman’s history of trying to do business in Russia.

Trump is threatening riots if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination. But rank-and-file conservatives who make up the Republican Party could themselves protest if Trump walks out of the Cleveland convention with the nomination. Indeed, they could walk out on Trump and back a third party conservative candidate. It’s not just Trump’s pro-Russian views. It’s how his support for Russia and Putin threatens Israel.

The Forward has run an article [2] claiming that Trump has the strongest Jewish ties of all the GOP candidates. He has raised money for Jewish causes and members of his family are Jewish. But none of this can justify his support for Putin’s Russia. It is Russia that is backing Israel’s enemies in the region, most notably Iran.

Trump can’t have it both ways by supporting Russia while attacking Iran. The two regimes are engaged in a military alliance.

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Kerry Pirouettes Halfway Out on a Limb About ISIS and Genocide By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Posted By on March 18th, 2016

Kerry is willing to list the ways in which ISIS is horrific and to say HE THINKS it is committing genocide, but unwilling to definitively say it is.

In a statement on Wednesday, March 17, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry went halfway out on a limb and announced that ‘in his judgment,’ ISIS is committing genocide against Yezidis and Christians and Shia Muslims and other living things.

But –fair minded man that he is — Kerry refused to say definitively that ISIS actually is committing genocide. Such a definitive statement, Kerry insisted, could only be made by an international court.

Once upon a time, our world had people — they were called “leaders” — who were not afraid to name evil, and condemn evil when they saw it. Can you imagine Churchill or Roosevelt issuing a statement that, in their opinion, the Nazis were evil, but that any definitive conclusion on the subject would have to be issued by someone else?

So if you see other reports about Kerry’s statement today, you may find headlines saying the U.S. has announced that ISIS is committing genocide. Sadly, though, Kerry did not quite say that. He said ISIS (he now calls it Daesh, its Arabic acronym) is doing lots of terrible things that the U.S. and its coalition partners detest and want to stop.

Kerry mentioned, at the outset, the taking over of major cities and seizing of territory in Syria and Iraq, committed by ISIS over the past two years. He mentioned that ISIS has overrun major cities, seized territory in Syria and Iraq.

Those are not the first things most humanitarians would list, when listing the atrocities which ISIS has committed.

Kerry then boasted about the U.S. efforts, that it “responded quickly by denouncing these horrific acts and – more importantly – taking coordinated actions to counter them.” He mentioned the international coalition which is working “to halt and reverse Daesh’s momentum.” And ticks off the coalition’s successes and actions.

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Jamie Glazov Video: The Media’s Willful Blindness about Islam.

Posted By on March 18th, 2016

As the dire threat of Islamic Jihad continues to escalate on our own soil, we continue to witness mass denial within the West’s leadership, media and culture about the Islamic nature of Islamic terror. Just recently in Canada, for instance, a Muslim male, Ayanle Hassan Ali, walked into a Canadian Forces office in north Toronto and attacked several soldiers with a large knife, screaming “Allah told me to do this. Allah told me to come here and kill people!” while he was stabbing the soldiers.

Authorities are still searching for a motive of why Ayanle Hassan Ali engaged in this attack. Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders has made it clear, meanwhile, that the highest priority must be to avoid “Islamophobia” in reaction to Ali stabbing Canadian soldiers and screaming Allah’s name while doing so.

In response to this latest denial on the Islamic nature of Islamic Jihad, we are running Jamie Glazov’s speech at the Eagle Forum of California State Conference in 2015. He tackled The Media’s Willful Blindness about Islam, unveiling the hazardous danger of the West deceiving itself about Islamic Jihad.

Don’t miss it!

The high cost of the lies we tell ourselves.

To watch the video, CLICK HERE.http://jamieglazov.com/2016/03/17/jamie-glazov-video-the-medias-willful-blindness-about-islam/

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Argentinian President Says of 1994 Jewish Center Bombing: ‘Everything That Happened Made Us Look Weak in the World’ by Ruthie Blum

Posted By on March 18th, 2016

“Everything that happened made us look weak in the world,” Argentinian President Mauricio Macri said in an interview with AP on Thursday, the 24th anniversary of the Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires, which came two years before the attack on the city’s Jewish center. “But now we are determined to bring what happened to light.”

Macri, who has reached the 100-day mark of his administration –characterized by its total about-face in relation to the policies of the previous government, led by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — was referring to an investigation surrounding a case that rocked Argentina and garnered international notoriety.

The case in question is the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found shot dead in his apartment last year. Though police surmised it was a suicide, it occurred mere hours before Nisman was to provide evidence to back up his accusation that Kirchner had been in cahoots with Tehran in its attempt to deny involvement in the 1994 car-bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish center, which left 85 people dead and hundreds more wounded.

Earlier this month, as The Algemeiner reported, Antonio Stiuso, former operations chief of Argentina’s spy agency, was questioned in a closed-door hearing about his relationship with Nisman and the days leading up to the latter’s January 18, 2015 death. Stiuso had been helping Nisman with the investigation into the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), believed to have been carried out by Hezbollah with Iran’s backing.

Stiuso’s arrival from abroad, where he fled in April 2014 amid claims he was receiving death threats, came on the heels of another development — the publicly stated belief of a top prosecutor that Nisman’s death was a homicide, the first such declaration on the part of a judicial official in Argentina.

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Latin American, Caribbean Lawmakers Sign Pro-Israel, Anti-BDS Resolution

Posted By on March 18th, 2016

JNS.org – Parliamentarians from 13 Latin American and Caribbean nations have signed a resolution in support of Israel and against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The lawmakers met last week in Miami for the the Israel Allies Foundation’s Second Annual Latin America Summit on Israel, according to a document obtained by the Jerusalem Post.

The resolution, written in Spanish, states that the signatories “unequivocally declare, personally, our support for the Jewish people to live in peace, safety and security in the Land of Israel” and that “strong relations between the Western Hemisphere and Israel are crucial to the spread of freedom, democracy and justice around the world.”

“Boycotts and sanctions against the State of Israel and its products contribute to an antisemitic attitude inspired by antisemitism and opposition to the Jewish State…[and] are detrimental to a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and must be rejected by all actors that seek peace,” it also states.

The resolution also affirms that “the eventual existence of countries with nuclear weapons in the Middle East poses and existential threat to Israel and for peace around the world.”

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Is Hollywood Preparing to Use Theodore Herzl Biopic to Denigrate Israel? Max Elstein Keisler

Posted By on March 18th, 2016

Many biopics tend to cast their subjects in a very positive light.

The Wind That Shakes The Barley, a 2006 film about the Irish War of Independence against the British, presents an unequivocally pro-IRA viewpoint. The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Spike Lee’s 1992 Malcolm X, a hagiography of the admittedly complicated but undoubtedly antisemitic figure, is in the United States National Film Registry as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant film.” That’s fair. Although the film glosses over Malcolm X’s antisemitism and conspiracy theories, that’s not its job. The Oscar-winning 1982 biopic of Mohandas Gandhi ignores many of the more unsavory aspects of Gandhi’s life. That’s how these kind of films are. They’re on the side of their protagonists.

So you can imagine my surprise when I read in Variety that H2O Motion Pictures is making a biopic of Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism.

That they would make a movie about Herzl is in itself nothing remarkable — Herzl certainly led an interesting life, from his years as a struggling playwright, to his manic travels across Europe to meet with whichever national leaders would see him, to his unusual and arguably tragic family life.

What surprised me is that Sidney Blumenthal is attached to the project, both as an executive producer and as a member of an advisory board to “ensure [their] approach to the story [is] as well balanced as possible.” Frankly, this is appalling.

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Antisemitic anti-Zionism and the scandal of Oxford University Labour Club Alex Chalmers

Posted By on March 17th, 2016

Alex Chalmers was co-Chair of Oxford University Labour Club until he resigned in February, alleging that a ‘large proportion’ of club members had ‘some kind of problem with Jews’, while many used the slur ‘Zio’ and voiced support for Hamas. A controversy erupted and the Labour Party is now conducting an enquiry into antisemitism at the club. Chalmers argues here that the root problem is the poisonous ideology of antisemitic anti-Zionism which is bad for Diaspora Jews, bad for the Left, bad for Israelis and bad for Palestinians.

At the Labour Party Conference back in September 2015, the Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn addressed receptions held by Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East (LFPME) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). At both events he delivered relatively similar speeches in which he talked about the psychological toll that the conflict takes on both Israeli and Palestinian children and the need for both sides to compromise and negotiate. LFI received the speech enthusiastically, but at the LFPME event there was outrage. One attendee shouted ‘this isn’t about peace; this is about justice’, to enthusiastic applause from a large proportion of the room. When Benn tried to respond, he was heckled by people calling him a ‘disgrace’ and saying that he should not be Shadow Foreign Secretary.

This attitude of ‘justice’ over ‘peace’ is a damaging trend that has come to characterise much pro-Palestinian activism. That is to say, the demands of Western activists living in relative comfort have become progressively more detached from the aspirations of the actual people whom they claim to be defending. Whilst support for a two-state solution amongst Palestinians is lower than it has been historically, in the last 12 months, polling conducted by the Palestine Survey and Research Group has found that it is still the preferred outcome of between 45 and 51 per cent of Palestinians. Contrast this with the logo of the UK’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign which features the entirety of ‘historic’ Palestine with no mention of Israel.

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LELA GILBERT: THE HIDDEN COST OF TERROR IN JERUSALEM

Posted By on March 17th, 2016

A few days ago, a visiting friend and I walked through Jerusalem’s Mamilla Mall, up some steep stairs and through the Old City’s Jaffa Gate. We both had some gift shopping to do, and we had decided to pick up some pottery and other items in the Christian Quarter’s shops.

Of course, thanks to the present wave of stabbings, we thought twice about our destination. But we went anyway.

One of the first things we noticed was the rather thin array of tourists and the unusually quiet walk along the usually bustling David Street. There were few hucksters, and several shops were shuttered.

We turned left on Christian Quarter Road and went into a couple of shops that we’d been to before; both of the shopkeepers are longtime friends of the woman who was shopping with me. And their stories were rather heartbreaking.

Although neither of them had faced a terrorist’s knife directly, the ripple effect of the stabbings – and particularly those in and around the Old City – had deeply wounded each of them.

Israel’s Ministry of Tourism continues to report only a slightly decreased number of tourists in the country, but that wasn’t what we heard from these two men. And their lack of customers underscored their plight.

“I’ve been using the free time to do some remodeling of my shop,” an elderly Arab Christian merchant told us.

Granted, with so few people around, it was easier for him to tear out shelves and make some long-delayed repairs. “But it’s so expensive and there’s no income to offset the costs,” he lamented.

This man was born and raised in the Jerusalem’s Old City Christian community. He has seen his share of wars and terrorism. And he is infuriated by the present attacks.

His voice rose as he described an incident. “A 50-year-old woman tried to stab a policeman this morning. Fifty years old! How ridiculous is that?”

By then, he was almost shouting, and he furtively glanced out the door of his shop to see if anyone was listening.

“The police shot her dead,” he concluded more quietly. “What else could they do?”