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November 2015

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Travel Abroad Is Safe, Provided You Teleport Into Rural New Zealand By Claudia Rosett

By on November 24th, 2015

Over the years since President Obama first took office, he has lectured Americans about the receding tide of war, al Qaeda on the run, and, more recently, ISIS (or, as the administration has it, ISIL) being degraded, slated for ultimate destruction, and, even more recently, “contained.” Meanwhile, the world is getting ever more dangerous. Over the past six months alone, the State Department in its efforts to keep up with the turmoil and threats has issued more than three dozen travel warnings for Americans thinking of visiting places from Eritrea to Mali, Lebanon, Colombia, Sudan, El Salvador, Nigeria, Tanzania, Cameroon, Burma, Nepal, Mali, the Philippines, Kenya, Turkey… and of course Syria, Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Now, in the aftermath of the ISIS terrorist attacks on Paris, with ISIS threatening strikes on America, and Brussels heading into its fourth day on lockdown, the State Department is taking a more wholesale approach. Today, as PJ Media’s Bridget Johnson reports, the State Department issued a “Worldwide Travel Alert,” warning U.S. citizens of “possible risks of travel due to increased terrorist threats.”

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Mothers in Israel Decry Terror -Daily Sirens, Stabbings, Rammings South of JerusalemBy: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

By on November 24th, 2015

Sometimes a mother has to take control.

When your kids are coming home on the bus from school every day accompanied by the blaring of emergency vehicle sirens, when stabbings, rammings and shootings have become a regular occurrence in the one quarter mile stretch of highway directly outside your community, when a majority of the children are suffering from some version of post-traumatic stress syndrome, and your neighbors have become numb to the grotesque situation, a mother has to act.

And that is why a mild-mannered, piano lesson-giving mother of five from the suburb of Alon Shvut, in the Gush Etzion neighborhood of southern Jerusalem, acted.

Rivka Epstein Hattin decided it was time for the mothers to unite.

Hattin began calling, emailing and texting friends and neighbors, many of whom have been struggling to find an answer which will stop the terrorism making their children’s lives miserable.

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Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens Waffles on Terror…no Longer limited to Jews

By on November 24th, 2015

Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens remarked that terrorism in Europe
was no longer limited to Jews and law enforcement officials, but now
affects targets of a different profile, including the general public,
The Guardian reported on Sunday.

Geens, the justice minister, said that the Paris attacks had shown
that the profile of potential targets had changed. “It’s no longer
synagogues or the Jewish museums or police stations, it’s mass
gatherings and public places,” he said.

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Syrian Refugees Cannot Be Vetted: However, Neither Can Aliens Who Cross Our Borders: Michael Cutler

By on November 24th, 2015

It is entirely understandable that there is great consternation about the obvious national security issues created by admitting aliens who claim to be refugees from Syria into the United States. The vetting process of such aliens is fatally flawed because our officials do not have access to databases or other sources of reliable information to ascertain the true identities and backgrounds of these foreign nationals.

Consequently, a growing list of governors and other elected officials, from both parties, are calling for suspending the administration’s plans to re-settle Syrian refugees in the United States, until and unless the fatal flaws within the vetting process are remedied.

On November 19, 2015 the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, chaired by Congressman Trey Gowdy, conducted a hearing on the topic, “The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Its Impact on the Security of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.”

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America the Vulnerable Can it happen here? Yes. by Judith Miller

By on November 24th, 2015

The toll of Islamist carnage keeps growing: 130 killed and 352 injured in Paris; 229 mostly Russian airline passengers killed in the skies over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula; 19 dead in Bamako, Mali, at the Radisson Blu, a hotel favored by Westerners. Germany has confirmed that plots to kill hundreds more were disrupted in the nick of time. France has extended its state of emergency for three months. Over the weekend, Brussels was virtually locked down as police hunted for suspects linked to the Paris attacks, who may be preparing another operation in Belgium, home of the European Union. Such assaults throughout the Middle East, Africa, and now Europe prompt an all-too-familiar question: Can militant Islamist terrorists strike the United States again?

Before French president François Hollande had even addressed his traumatized nation, President Obama was downplaying the terror threat. At a conference in Asia, he characterized what he called the “sickening” assault in Paris as a “setback.” His strategy for containing ISIS was working, he insisted. Echoing the theme, FBI director James B. Comey said that he knew of no “credible threat of a Paris type attack here.” In New York, NYPD commissioner William Bratton stressed that there was no reason to be afraid, dismissing a new ISIS video warning that New York was its next target as old footage and, hence, old news. Still, Bratton urged New Yorkers to be “vigilant” and embrace his department’s counterterrorism credo, “If you see something, say something.”

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KAY WILSON: THE RAGE LESS TRAVELED

By on November 24th, 2015

Kay Wilson Kay Wilson is a British-born Israeli tour guide, jazz musician and cartoonist. She is the survivor of a brutal terror attack that occurred while she was guiding in December 2010. Since the attack, she is in a demand as a motivational speaker and also speaks to audiences on issues of human rights and justice for victims of terrorism. She is a lecturer for StandWithUs, OneFamily Together, MDA and is registered at the Israel Speakers’ Agency.

“While the blood of innocents was being mopped up off a theater floor in France, a video titled, “A father and son have the most precious conversation,” goes viral. In the clip the boy tells his father, “We should leave Paris because Les Mechants (the villains) have guns and they will come to shoot us.” The father reassures his son that although the villains have guns, they (the French) have flowers and candles. “Do the flowers and candles protect us?” asks the son. When the father answers in the affirmative, the boy protests, “but flowers don’t do anything!” He is given a reassuring hug by his father and the clip is concluded by the interviewer asking the child if he “feels better,” to which the boy nods and breaks into a smile.

This video was “shared” and “liked” millions of times. Indeed, who can fail to be moved by Western virtues of life over death, culture over barbarity and goodness over evil? In an act of defiance, civilized people who refuse to hate, expel the stench of murder and savagery with fragrant flowers and scented candles, because civilized people believe that hate “will give the terrorists what they want.”

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