RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Palestinian Authority (PA) sees no need for international intervention to halt its own crackdown on freedom of speech. Nor does it consider the closure of a newspaper office and the detention of journalists as a “war crime.”

The report reveals that Palestinian detainees have been undergoing severe torture while in PA detention. During the past few years, ten people have died in Palestinian prisons. As far as we can see, no one from the European community has taken the slightest notice.

The detention of Khalil is seen in the context of the PA’s continued effort to silence and intimidate Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize the Palestinian leadership and its institutions.

The PA clearly wants a media that reports only against Israel. The only incitement permitted is the one directed there.

Western human rights groups that regularly condemn Israel for its actions against Palestinians have, as usual, failed to respond to this latest assault by the PA on public freedoms. The PA’s crackdown on the media is not going to attract the attention of the mainstream media in the West: the story lacks an anti-Israel angle.

Did you wonder where the French learned to do the seven-hour commando raid on the Paris apartment where the Islamic terrorists holed up? Answer: Israel. The training was thanks to an American Jewish non-profit called JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, an actual conservative group of Jewish patriots.

JINSA has a Law Enforcement Exchange Program, LEEP, run by Steven Pomerantz, the Former Assistant Director of the FBI. They send high level American law enforcement people to Israel to learn how to fight Islamic terrorists – think the Chief of NYPD and the Head of the Counter Terrorism Department of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Police and sheriffs from around our country have changed their counter-terrorism strategy and tactics thanks to cutting edge lessons they learned in Israel. LEEP also brings Israeli counter-terror experts to America to train departments here.

This should be delivered to our president and to Hillary Clinton….rsk
ISIS says Islam is one thing and you insist it is nothing of the kind. Unless you are prepared to address, explain and specifically refute the Koran’s endorsements of murder, rape, intolerance and conquest, I’ll remain confused. Absent that, your latest sermon is an empty polemic, clarifying nothing.

Dear Waleed,
Anti-Muslim sentiment is growing in Australia, evidenced by the United Patriotic Front’s countrywide marches at the weekend. We learnt on this week’s Four Corners that de-radicalisation programs haven’t been very successful in Australia to date. Meanwhile, the other night, Waleed, you caused a sensation with your impassioned call for unity in the wake of the latest Paris terror attacks. But while I share your moral outrage I can’t help feeling that you’re not really helping the situation.

I’m sure you’d agree that truth is the aim of serious discussion, but on a sensitive topic like the role of Islam in terrorism it’s very hard to come by. I’m no expert on Islam; but that’s just the point. I’m typical of Australians who are confused by extremist positions on all sides and trying to make sense of where the truth lies. Extremists, by definition, don’t suffer those who disagree with them, they’re intolerant of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their narrow view. And on that definition, I think you, too, are an extremist Waleed.

There are three vocal and extreme positions in this debate: the Islamic State, with its literal reading of the Koran and Prophet’s life; anti-Muslim groups such as the United Patriotic Front; and non-violent Muslim apologists like yourself. Common to all three is a narrow interpretation of Islam and intolerance for those who question their views.

As if the head-loppers did not have enough to worry about, what with rumours of a virgin shortage in Paradise and financial anxieties arising from missed Centerlink appointments. Now our PM has blitzed the Beard Brigade with a Dispatch Box barrage of his best, mostly borrowed cliches.
Our freshly-minted prime minister, Mr Ozemail, has appointed General Waleed Aly of Monash University, Channel 10 and the ABC, as his national security adviser. The appointment was announced to the cheers of the House of Representatives today, as the politicians re-lived the spine-shivery thrills of excitement they experienced on the hundred millionth replay of Aly’s national security address to the nation last week.

Aly, it will be remembered, broke the news that Islamic State is weak. He described ISIL as “The mouse that roars.” Listen:

There is a reason ISIL still want to appear to powerful, why they don’t want to acknowledge that the land they control has been taken from weak enemies…ISIL don’t want you to know they would quickly be crushed if they ever face d a proper Army on a battlefield.

They want you to fear them. They want you to get angry. They want all of us to become hostile.

These powerful insights had not gone unnoticed by Mr Ozemail, although busy flitting from city to city with leadership peers on international business. So it may well be that he called for Waleed to churn out the script for his first national security statement to Parliament. And this is what he read out: