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Israeli rocket technology will help explorer ease onto Mars David Shamah

Posted By on March 16th, 2016

A braking system that will let the new European-Russian ExoMars craft touch down on Red Planet without exploding comes from the Rafael defense systems firm .

Man’s latest attempt to search for life on the Red Planet has a critical blue-and-white component – a propulsion system that will gently guide the newly-launched ExoMars spacecraft to the surface of Mars when it gets ready to touch down sometime in 2018.

The craft’s propulsion system was developed by Rafael, the same company that developed, among other things, the Iron Dome missile defense system.

While known for its defense systems, Rafael is also active in the space business, specifically as the manufacturer of controllable propulsion and reaction control systems (RCS), which help “brake” the landing of satellites and missiles. This ensures that their fuel tanks do not crash into the ground as they land and ignite an explosion.

When ExoMars, launched Monday, gets to its destination, it will release a descent module called Schiaparelli which will land on Mars. During the descent phase, a heat shield will protect the payload from the severe heat flux. Parachutes, thrusters, and damping systems will reduce the speed, allowing a controlled landing on the surface of Mars.

The module’s fuel tanks are equipped with Rafael-supplied mini-rockets that will spring into action when the craft gets ready to land on the surface of Mars, according to Zvi Zuckerman, a Rafael engineer who helped develop the system. In comments to Yedioth Ahronoth, Zuckerman said that the landing “will be a dramatic moment, because if anything goes wrong, the spacecraft could explode” due to the impact of landing.

According to Zuckerman, the European Space Agency, which is sponsoring the mission along with Russian space agency Roscosmos, chose Rafael’s propulsion system for the job “because our propulsion tanks are lighter, and use cleaner fuel,” which ensures a smoother landing.

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Can We Survive the Madness?Peter O’Brien

Posted By on March 16th, 2016

It sure seems crazy: a whole raft of candidates, a political party seemingly coming apart at the seams, vicious name-calling, violent demonstrations. One candidate, favored

by many in Washington – educated, understated, sophisticated; one of the others – old, an outsider, vilified by many in Washington, the subject of all sorts of accusations and

willing to threaten some people himself, or so it seems.

And the nation: at a turning point, ready to move into a much different future.

1824 – heck of year.

Others have already said it: there is much about what is going on this year that is reminiscent of 1824 and the election that saw John Quincy Adams become president –

with 30.9% of the popular vote and just 64% of the electoral votes needed to win the office. (Per the 12th Amendment, he was selected by Congress after no candidate achieveda majority).

So, what does that really have to do with the US today?

First, a word about getting too frustrated: participatory government is messy, because everyone gets to ‘play.’ And that’s a good thing. But it doesn’t yield clear

solutions, and it never yields candidates who are even remotely close to perfect. Ever.

George Washington was the closest we’ve had, and he was our first, and he would be the first person to tell you he wasn’t perfect. (He didn’t think himself ready for the position

and wanted to resign after two years as president…)

The only governments that yield clear answers are dictatorships. Their answers are often crystal clear. And are forced down the throats of most of the citizens.

Second, the nation has been through some serious problems and survived. This doesn’t mean we should go around seeking serious problems for no good reason. But it

does mean that the system (as defined within the Constitution) is remarkably resilient; dynamically stable as engineers say: you can put all sorts of stress on it and if you back

off, the system will self-correct. This also means that you mess with the Constitution at your peril; so, let’s not.

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President Obama Burnishes His Image On The Back of Israel By Herbert London

Posted By on March 16th, 2016

The stabbing spree in Israel by Palestinian terrorists continues unabated. Even when an American citizen visiting Israel is killed “What me worry? President Obama” is unfazed. At this point in his presidency Obama has only one goal: burnishing his legacy.

To augment the chapters of a future history I believe he intends to accomplish what none of his predecessors could – a Middle East settlement. And he intends to achieve this lofty goal through imposition. This president will not wander through the tall weeds of negotiation and give and take. Nor is he obliged to adhere to 242, the international law that requires an exchange between Israel and the Palestinian Authority before any settlement. He intends to propose a “two state solution” to the U.N. Security Council, a body already predisposed to accept the idea.

President Obama is not likely to call on his Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate before he engages in this initiative. This is his call, yet another example of his imperial presidency. He is also likely to face almost no resistance in the United Nations where many Arab states have recognized the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a legitimate state. The irony, of course, is that the PA is to a state what a meal is to a morsel of food.

Were it not for Israeli largess, international aid and U.S. support the PA could not exist. The West Bank’s so called leader, Abu Abbas, has been serving as president for 12 years after a four year term. Corruption is rampant in every area controlled by Arab leadership. The police function – to maintain a semblance of order – is underwritten by the United States. Hamas and ISIS have penetrated underground cells in Ramallah and other areas. While a tenuous relationship exists between Jews and Arabs in the region, Israeli businesses provide many of the job opportunities for Arabs, even the most disenchanted.

Into this morass enters President Obama, or so I believe. Recognizing the futility of attempting to secure Congressional support, the president is a lone ranger using the agency of the United Nations for his agenda. Since the P5+1 deal over the Iranian nuclear program, it is clear the president has channeled foreign policy through the United Nations. It is also clear he assumes his status as commander and chief gives him, ipso facto, authority for unilateral foreign policy decisions.

Since he has already alienated Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and, considering his lame duck status, cannot experience any further political fall-out from his UN posturing, this action will be widely admired in the Arab world, perhaps even altering a widely shared negative opinion of the president. And who knows, maybe it results in deals and post-presidential speaking fees ala Bill Clinton.

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Russia Seeks to Reassure Israel After Sudden Announcement of Syria Troop Withdrawal

Posted By on March 16th, 2016

Russian diplomats are stressing that Israel’s national security interests will not be hurt by the country’s sudden announcement of its plans to withdraw troops from Syria, which Israel’s top general admitted took him by surprise, Ynet reported Tuesday.

“We will try to ensure that this (Syria) crisis is resolved, and we will also do everything so that Israel’s national security interests are not harmed in the process,” Alexey Drobinin, Russia’s deputy ambassador to Israel, told Ynet. Russian troops have been aiding the Iran-backed regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad since last fall.

Russia’s goal in withdrawing much of its forces from Syria is to send a “clear message” that “it’s time to give political dialogue a chance,” Drobinin said. He added that it was still necessary to fight terror organizations like ISIS and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, and that Russia would continue to do so alongside a international coalition.

Drobinin also told Israel’s Army Radio, that Russia is aware of Israel’s security concerns in the region, and that the Russians “have an ongoing dialogue with the Israeli side on all levels – the military level and diplomatic level.”

After Russia’s withdrawal was announced, IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Gadi Eisenkot told members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Russian intervention had strengthened Assad’s position, and it was unclear at this point what the ramifications of the withdrawal will be. “At this stage, humility and caution are required in trying to understand the vector in which the Syrian theatre will develop with the exit of Russian forces,” he said.

In How Israel Navigated through the Hurricane of the Syrian Civil War, which was published in the March 2016 of The Tower Magazine, Jonathan Spyer highlighted aspects of Israel’s coordination with Russia regarding Syria.

It is no less important that Israel has been careful to maintain communication with the Russians, and a “deconfliction” regime appears to be in effect between Russian and Israeli air power over Syria. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, and Military Intelligence chief Herzl Halevi travelled to Moscow immediately following the Russian intervention, presumably to lay the groundwork for a channel of communication. As of now, this appears to have permitted Israel to continue to operate in the skies over Syria. Thus, while the emergence of a fledgling Russian-Iranian strategic alliance in the Middle East is surely of concern to Israel, the evidence to date suggests that the alliance by no means implies carte blanche for the Iranians to pursue all their regional goals under the umbrella of Russian air cover. On the contrary, the Russians, as the senior partner in the relationship, dictate when and to what extent cooperation takes place.

Netanyahu, according to the Times of Israel, told Russian President Vladimir Putin in “no uncertain terms” that Israel would not tolerate Tehran’s efforts to arm Israel’s enemies in the region, and that Jerusalem has taken and will continue to take action against any such attempts. The Times quoted the prime minister saying, “This is our right and also our duty.… There were no objections to our rights.… There was readiness to make sure that whatever Russia’s intentions for Syria, Russia will not be a partner in extreme actions by Iran against us.”

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MY SAY: FOX IN THE HOUSE OF ISLAM?

Posted By on March 15th, 2016

This past Sunday on the Fox News Channel, the host Chris Wallace challenged Il Donald on the his claim that “Islam hates us.”

I don’t have the exact transcript but Wallace displayed appalling ignorance when he claimed….more or less….” There are a billion Muslims in the world and only about 100,000 are radical….” Il Donald gamely answered but did not dispute the number.

Now, what is the population of Somalia one of the most hostile anti-American Muslim nations in Africa? 10.5 million. And Pakistan? 181.2 million. Yemen? 24.4 million. And let’s pretend that only 10% of that population- a deflated number- hates America….evidenced by their frequent flag burning tantrums and shrieks for jihad….that number from only three nations is quite a bit more than the 100,000 that Wallace mentioned.

Is Wallace that ignorant or does he just shy from appearing “Islamophobic?” rsk
p.s. Il Donald also promised to make trains run on time…..or else …..

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Divisive Rhetoric? Trump Didn’t Start This Fire By Heather Mac Donald

Posted By on March 15th, 2016

Commentators on MSNBC and CNN have been shedding crocodile tears over Donald Trump’s “divisive rhetoric” and lamenting his failure to unify the country. This sudden concern for national unity is rather hard to take from the same worthies who have incessantly glorified the Black Lives Matter movement over the last year and a half.

Let’s dip into the rhetoric of a garden-variety Black Lives Matter march that I observed last November on Fifth Avenue in New York City. It featured “F**k the Police,” “Murderer Cops,” and “Racism Is the Disease, Revolution Is the Cure” T-shirts, “Stop Police Terror” signs, and “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Racist Cops Have Got to Go” chants.

What about the rhetoric of Black Lives Matter leaders? Last October, DeRay Mckesson, one of the self-appointed spokesmen for Black Lives Matter, led a seminar at the Yale Divinity School, while his BLM ally, Johnetta Elzie (ShordeeDooWhop), tweeted about the proceedings. Mckesson (now running for mayor of Baltimore) had assigned an essay, “In Defense of Looting,” which justified the August 2014 Ferguson riots as “getting straight to the heart of the problem of the police, property, and white supremacy.” Elzie’s tweeted reporting on the class included “If you put me in a cage you’re damn right I’m going to break some glass” and “Looting for me isn’t violent, it’s an expression of anger.” (Let’s hope Baltimore residents do their homework before voting.)

How about presidential rhetoric? President Obama routinely claims that the police and the criminal-justice system treat blacks differently than whites — an allegation without any empirical support. Last October, he defended the Black Lives Matter movement on the ground that “there is a specific problem that is happening in the African-American community that is not happening in other communities.” And might that “specific problem” be drive-by shootings, which happen virtually exclusively in black communities, mowing down innocent children and drawing disproportionate police presence? Of course not. Obama was referring to the alleged problem of racist cops’ mowing down black men. In fact, a police officer is two and a half times more likely to be killed by a black man than a black man is to be killed by a police officer. Blacks make up a lower percentage of victims of police shootings — 26 percent — than their astronomical violent-crime rates would predict. And the percentage of white and Hispanic homicide deaths from police shootings (12 percent) is much higher than the percentage of black homicide deaths from cop gunfire (4 percent).

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Trump: A Bogeyman or Just a Man? Trump is crude and politically clueless, but no more so than the Clintons, Sanders — or Obama. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on March 15th, 2016

Donald J. Trump thus far has not shown that he has the level-headedness to be president. He has no political ideology and could just as well govern to the left of Hillary Clinton as to the right of her. Yet his sloppy way of speaking has earned him equally sloppy, over-the-top analogies — to Mussolini, Hitler, George Wallace, and a host of other populist and racist demagogues.

But is he uniquely dangerous, ignorant, or cruel in terms of either distant or recent American presidential history?

I don’t think so.

There are many ways to assess Trump. The debates and rallies give us glimpses of his ill-preparedness (at least in comparison to his rivals). So far his vision has not transcended banalities and generalities. He seems to have no team of respected advisers, at least not yet. Indeed, at this point, advising Trump apparently would be a career-killer in the Boston–New York–Washington corridor. No one quite knows who talks to him on foreign policy. He is an empty slate onto which millions write their hopes and dreams, as “Make America great again” channels the empty “Hope and Change.”

Those are grounds enough for rejecting him. But what we don’t need is high talk about Trump as something uniquely sinister, a villain without precedent in American electoral history or indeed public life. That is simply demonstrably false. Trump thrives despite, not because of, his crudity, and largely because of anger at Barack Obama’s divisive and polarizing governance and sermonizing — and the Republican party’s habitual consideration of trade issues, debt, immigration, and education largely from the vantage point of either abstraction or privilege.

Take Trump’s worst, most repugnant rhetoric, and there will always pop up a parallel worse — and often from the lips of the heroes of those who are blasting Trump as singularly foul. He crudely brags of his past infidelities and sexual conquests — reminding us that he has an affinity with JFK and Bill Clinton (is it worse to boast or to lie about such sins?). Whether he would attempt to match either man’s sexual gymnastics while in the Oval Office is, I think, doubtful. I don’t believe the Trump jet so far has followed Bill Clinton south to Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual fantasy island. Is Clinton ostracized by the liberal media or pundit class because of his fawning over and cavorting with a convicted sex offender? Should Harvard have rejected Epstein’s cash?

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Obama’s Path to War The Mullahs’ missile message to Israel and its ominous implications. Ari Lieberman

Posted By on March 15th, 2016

Last week, the deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Hossein Salami boasted that Iran has ten times as many missiles as its Hezbollah proxy and threatened that those missiles “are ready to hit enemies and targets from different parts of the country.” By conservative estimates, Hezbollah has accumulated a stockpile of roughly 100,000 missiles. If Salami’s boasts are to be believed, that means that the Iranians have accumulated a staggering missile arsenal of 1,000,000 or roughly one missile for every 8.5 Israelis.

The antagonistic comments followed two Iranian missile launches fired from Iran’s eastern Alborz mountain range. The missiles are said to have a range of 2,000 kilometers and are believed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Written in both Hebrew and Farsi and emblazoned on the missiles was the phrase, “Israel must be wiped out from the face of the earth.”

If the threats written on the missiles were not clear enough, the head of the IRGC’s aerospace division, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, emphasized that the missile tests were designed to demonstrate that Israel was well within range of Iran’s missiles. He noted that the missiles were intended to “confront the Zionist regime” and that “Israel is surrounded by Islamic countries and it will not last long in a war. It will collapse even before being hit by these missiles.” Not to be outdone, other Iranian political and military officials weighed in with similar threats and bombast.

It appears that the launches were timed to coincide with Vice President Joe Biden’s recent trip to Israel. In response to the launches, Biden stated that “A nuclear-armed Iran is an absolutely unacceptable threat to Israel, to the region and the United States. And I want to reiterate which I know people still doubt here: If in fact they break the deal, we will act.” Biden however, qualified his remarks by stating, “And all their conventional activity outside of the deal is still beyond the deal, and we will and are attempting to act wherever we can find it.” The latter comment was deliberately designed to provide the administration with some wiggle room to argue that the Iranian missile launches constitute conventional weapons tests and therefore fall beyond the scope of the provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

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Islam and Iran’s Aishas: Girl Marriages Under 10 The legalized rape of children — and how it’s justified. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on March 15th, 2016

It was not solely 1400 years ago that a little girl named Aisha married a 55-year-old man, although Muslims, their scholars, Sheiks and Imams argue to the contrary. Tens of thousands of “Aishas” are being forced to marry elder man on a daily basis under the name of Islam in Muslim nations in the 21st century. No one is even raising an eyebrow. For example, according to the latest reports from Persian news outlets, the number of the child marriages has been dramatically increasing in the Islamic Republic. According to the Students’ News Agency and Radio Farda, these marriages include girls under 10 years old.

On the other hand, the hypocritical politicians in the Islamist regime of Iran point out that there is gender equality in Iran and that Islam respects both women and men. For example, recently, Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Islamic Republic’s vice president for women and family affairs who led a delegation to the United Nations in New York, lied to the international community in stating that “the Islamic Republic of Iran has always had the empowerment of women and improving their status…on its agenda.”

What is also hidden by the ruling clerics, and from most of the reports, is the fact that the notion of forcing a child girls into marriage is encouraged in Iran. In addition, the groom is normally a much older man. These children are forced to sleep with their older male husbands on the first night of the marriage so that the family of the groom can be certain that the child is a virgin.

Many of these girls are forced into marriage due to the fact that their parents want to get rid of their daughters since a girl is considered much more inferior to a man. There exists a plenitude of verses from the Quran and hadiths from Muhammad declaring that women are legally, physically, socially and intellectually inferior to men.

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The Marriage of Black Lives Matter & Jew Hatred How BLM and anti-Israel activists found common cause. John Perazzo

Posted By on March 15th, 2016

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement’s welcoming embrace of the slogan “From Palestine To Ferguson” makes it abundantly clear that left-wing racists in America have found their ideological soul mates in the Palestinian anti-Semites of the Middle East.

BLM, you may recall, was born in response to the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, the “white Hispanic” who had infamously shot and killed Trayvon Martin the previous year. The phrase quickly became a rallying cry for radicals and rioters demanding an end to what BLM termed the “virulent anti-Black racism” that “permeates our society.” Then, when a white policeman in Ferguson, Missouri shot and killed the young black criminal Michael Brown in August 2014, BLM ramped up its allegations of police brutality against “people of color” in America’s “white supremacist system.” The fact that police are significantly more likely to shoot white criminal suspects rather than black suspects has never meant anything to BLM. The movement’s purpose is to promote racial hatred and street riots, not to uncover any truths.

Just a few days after Brown’s death, a worldwide alliance of Palestinian activists—who detested Israel and its Jewish citizens every bit as fiercely as BLM loathed America and white people—decided to draw public attention to their own particular grievances by piggybacking on the turmoil in Ferguson. The timing was favorable for these anti-Semites, given that the Israeli military was then engaged in an effort to dismantle Hamas’s massive terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. The activists adopted the meme “From Palestine To Ferguson” (FPTF)—a pithy catchphrase that, like “Black Lives Matter,” quickly evolved into shorthand for trumped-up charges of victimization, calls to revolution in the name of “social justice,” and vindictive hatred disguised as a plea for respect.

Voicing empathy for the sense of “hurt,” “anger,” and “moral outrage” which BLM feels as a result of “the oppression that continues to target our Black brothers and sisters in nearly every aspect of their lives,” FPTF mouthpieces proudly affirm their own “solidarity with the family of Michael Brown, a young unarmed Black man gunned down by police”; their support for the “struggle” of black Ferguson residents against “a militarized police occupation”; and their contempt for the “racist capitalist system” that “systematically pushes” American blacks “to the margins of humanity.”

In a like manner, adherents of the FPTF mindset routinely portray Israel as a “capitalist settler-state” that pursues “economic expansion” by subjecting the Palestinians to “collective punishment,” “subjugation,” and “war crimes.” In short, says one FPTF spokesman, “the rejection of peace” is structurally “built into [Israel’s] current existence”—a remarkable allegation, in light of the fact that Arab states have flatly rejected favorable opportunities for peace with Israel more than 30 times since 1937.