Displaying posts categorized under

WORLD NEWS

A Look Back at the First Disastrous ‘Two-State Solution’ By Victor Sharpe

In the 11th hour and the 59th minute of his miserable term in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama struck his knife deep into the heart of the embattled Jewish state.

With the appalling anti-Israel passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, engineered by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry, the blame for the Israel-Palestinian conflict was falsely imparted upon the easy target: Israel and the so-called “settlements.”

There were no “settlements” before the 1967 Six-Day War, when the Jewish state survived yet another Arab war of genocide and freed the embattled nation from the existing 1947 nine- to 15-mile-wide armistice lines, which Israel’s then minister of foreign affairs, Abba Eban, called the Auschwitz lines.

It is not from 1967 that the conflict with the Arab and Muslim world or the so-called Palestinians began. To fully understand its origins, we must go back to the early years of the 20th century.

In 1920, Great Britain was given the responsibility by the League of Nations to oversee the Palestine Mandate with the express intention of reconstituting within its territory a Jewish national home.

The League of Nations created a number of articles in line with the original intent of the Balfour Declaration of November 29, 1917. At the last minute, however, a new article was introduced by the British Colonial Office: article 25.

It became apparent that its inclusion directly enabled Great Britain in 1921-22 to tear away all the vast territory east of the River Jordan and give it to the Arab Hashemites. The territory to become Trans-Jordan, led by the emir Abdullah.

British officials claimed that the gift of Mandatory Palestine east of the Jordan River was in gratitude to the Hashemites for their contribution in helping defeat the Turks. However, T.S. Lawrence described in derisory terms the Hashemite role as “a side show of a side show.”

Ironically, Britain was aided far more by the Jewish Nili underground movement in defeating the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which had ruled geographical Palestine for 400 years.

This was the first partition of Palestine, the first two-state solution, and created the new Arab entity nearly 97 years ago called Trans-Jordan, covering some 35,000 square miles, or nearly four fifths of the erstwhile Palestine Mandate. Immediately, Jewish residence in this new Arab territory was forbidden, and it is thus historically correct to state that Jordan is Palestine.

In 1923, the British and French colonial powers also divided up the northern part of the Palestine Mandate. Britain stripped away the Golan Heights (with its ancient biblical Jewish roots) and gave it to French-occupied Syria.

‘Leaderless Jihad’ — Hardening Targets to Thwart Lone Wolf Attacks By Stephen Bryen

After the January 8th truck attack by a terrorist in Jerusalem that killed four young soldiers (three of them women) and injured more than 15 others, the Israeli government has started putting in cement barriers to try and head off similar attacks in future.

Israel is trying to deal with a relatively new, harder to track kind of terrorism called “leaderless jihad.” In 2005 jihadist military theorist Abu Musab al-Suri (AKA Mustafa Setmariam Nasar) published an online book titled The Call to Global Islamic Resistance focusing on the importance of “solo jihadi terror work.” According to al-Suri, solo jihadi attacks will exhaust the enemy and cause him to collapse and retreat.

In the West, these are commonly called “lone wolf” attacks, but this is misleading and the terminology makes it sound as if the lone wolves are not part of a terror network. The truth is that such terrorism is organized and takes advantage of the Internet and social media as a key way to pass messages sending their adherents on terrorist missions. Many of the wannabe terrorists who take up these calls for action already have been proselytized, often in local mosques​ and schools​ or by terrorist operatives in their communities. Some of them even publish personal manifestos on social media though often under nom de plumes but with photos and other information giving important clues to near-term threats. The Ft. Lauderdale shooter, Esteban Santiago, used the​ pen​ name Aashik Hammad. The shooters in San Bernardino, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, almost certainly were trained in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Tashfeen Malik had a social media account under a pseudonym. The FBI insists these terrorists were “self-radicalized,”​ a claim that does not in any way align with the overwhelming evidence they were not only Jihadi but also Wahhabi trained.​

Leaderless jihad is a means to try and avoid tracking by intelligence agencies and law enforcement. It presents a particular problem in anticipating and thwarting attacks. Like “lone wolf” therefore, “leaderless” jihad is not really leaderless at all. Rather the leadership function is hidden​ to a degree​.

When faced with a threat that is hard to anticipate through intelligence and law enforcement tracking, it is important to try and make it as difficult as possible for terrorists to be successful. The most immediate steps that can be taken is to harden places that are vulnerable to attack.

India’s Best Friend: Protector of the Free World by Jagdish N. Singh

Israel has always been appreciative of New Delhi’s security imperatives. New Delhi, however has yet to be fully appreciative of Israel’s security imperatives.

New Delhi has yet to be morally conscientious enough openly to back Israel in multilateral fora such as the United Nations. One hopes Prime Minister Modi would show the statesmanlike leadership at which he is so expert and which makes him so admired.

Israel stands and fights for openness, diversity, truth and its existence, just as India does. India must back Israel. New Delhi also needs Jerusalem in combating Islamist terrorism, one of the greatest threats to its unity and territorial integrity.

The operational code of anti-India Islamist forces’ behaviour is similar to that of Israel’s Palestinian counterparts: spread the culture of hatred and violence against the free world. Israel knows better than anyone it how best to protect it against such elements.

Ever since former Indian Prime Minister P. V. Narsimha Rao decided in January 1992 to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel, relations between the two democracies have flourished in all fields. Socially, there have been unprecedented people-to-people exchanges. Today over 40,000 Israelis travel to India annually. Since the Israeli poet Amir Or translated the famous Indian epic he Mahabharata into Hebrew in 1998, more books of Indian poetry have been translated into Hebrew.

Economically, technologically and militarily, relations between India and Israel also have moved from strength to strength. In 1992 trade between the two nations stood at a meagre $100 million. Today this stands at $5 billion with the possibility of its being tripled if a free trade agreement is concluded between the two nations.

Israel has always been appreciative of New Delhi’s security imperatives. Jerusalem stood by India in its wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999, and The was helpful to India in winning the Kargil war of 1999.

During India’s “Kargil War” of 1999 Israel came to India’s assistance. Since then, India has increasingly turned to Israel for advanced weapons systems.

India has emerged as Israel’s second largest Asian trading partner, after China. Today Israel is India’s second largest arms supplier, after Russia. The Indo-Israeli relationship in this sector has developed into the formation of joint military ventures for the development of specific weapons systems and technologies.

The UN Holocaust: More Lies and Treachery on the Way? by Yves Mamou

The launch of this diplomatic attempt to gut Israel will start on January 15, in Paris, at a “peace conference” — which should immediately be postponed a week.

“Led astray from their primary mission, these organizations [such as the United Nations] have become tools of corruption or terrorism, reinforcing global Islamic power… Their latest resolutions do not only confirm the victory of jihadism and illiteracy: they also express the success of the years of effort made by this post-war Europe that continues to destroy, defame and delegitimize the Jewish State in the name of Islamic justice.” — Bat Ye’or, prizewinning historian.

With a UN now run as if it is the universal caliphate, assisted mostly by dictators and despots, it is hard to see much good ever coming from it. No one has yet been made accountable for the $100 billion “oil for food” scandal, and peacekeepers still dole out food to children in exchange for sex.

“The beginning of this long journey dates back to 1967, in France… Europe rushed to adopt the French position in 1973 and, along with the OIC, planned political measures designed to destroy the Jewish State by denying its sovereign rights and its cantonment on an indefensible territory. Resolution 2334 is now the icing on the cake of this policy, which forms the basis for a Euro-Islamic policy…” — Bat Ye’or.

All freedom loving nations would be wise to abandon the UN, or, second-best, defund it. Sadly, that is the only language the UN seems to understand. Countries imagining that in Donald Trump they have another pushover, watch out. You will be in for quite a shock.

Israel, this tiny country in the heart of Middle East, has become the new target of diplomacy-abuse at the United Nations, headed by the Americans, the Europeans (mainly France) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — 57 Islamic states plus “Palestine”, which at the moment forms the largest bloc at the UN.

On December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334, which effectively sets the boundaries for the Palestinian state at the 1949 armistice lines. The Arabs had previously refused to accept the armistice line as a border, presumably because agreeing to it might preclude the Palestinians from trying to get the rest of “Palestine”, defined by them as “from the river [Jordan] to the sea [Mediterranean]” — meaning all of Israel. Just look at any Palestinian map — It is identical to the shape of the entirety of Israel.

According to Res. 2334, not only are Jewish settlements are illegal, overnight, effectively making their Jewish residents criminals, but the Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City — the heart of Judaism for nearly 4,000 years and the seat of Christianity for more than 2,000 years — are now grotesquely considered “occupied territory”.

As Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer noted:

“It’s as if the U.N. passed a resolution declaring Mecca and Medina to be sovereign Jewish or Christian territory. It’s absurd. It’s an insult to the intelligence of the world and is supremely damaging to the Israeli claim to its own holy places.”

Germany Sees Sharp Fall in Asylum Seekers While the number of asylum seekers declined in 2016, a slow pace for deporting rejected applicants may harm security By Andrea Thomas

BERLIN—The number of asylum seekers entering Germany fell by about two thirds last year but the proportion of rejected applicants who left remained low, the government said Wednesday, raising fears that criminals or extremists may remain in the country.

The influx of migrants from war-torn or poor economic regions has raised security concerns, particularly after last year’s terror attacks in Germany. In December, rejected asylum seeker Anis Amri killed 12 and left scores wounded.

Government data showed that roughly 280,000 people entered Germany last year in search of asylum, down from a record of about 890,000 in 2015. But only 80,000 left Germany either voluntarily or were deported.

“The development of the asylum figures show that the German government’s measures have an effect. We have succeeded in regulating, steering the number of people coming to us,” said Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière. However, the number who left was too low, given the number of rejected asylum claims, he said. “We are in talks with the states to further increase the number of these returnees.”

The number of filed asylum claims, which lags behind the number of newly arrived migrants, rose to 745,545 in 2016 from 476,649 in 2015. The biggest group of applicants came from Syria, followed by Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, and more than half received asylum or refugee status.

Mr. de Maizière called on European Union countries to continue with their efforts to establish a harmonized asylum policy as the rate of granting asylum or refugee status differs greatly among member states.

“It’s not too much to ask that countries should agree on how to assess the political situation in Somalia, Nigeria and Pakistan,” he said. “Entry criteria and the length of asylum procedures should be more streamlined in Europe. The level of welfare benefits should also be awarded within a certain range.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Peter O’Brien & Roger Franklin Capturing Carbon, Shackling Good Sense

CCS stands for ‘carbon capture and storage’ but it might just as easily, and more accurately, be taken as representing another aspect of the Climate Change Scam. The green-left detest it as means to keep the coal fires burning. Conservatives have much better reasons to scorn it.
The other day in The Australian an intriguing op-ed extolled the alleged virtues of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a means of reconciling the federal government’s pledge, courtesy of Resources Minister Matt Canavan, that coal will remain a core part of the energy-supply mix for the foreseeable future, despite the standing commitment under the Paris agreement to see Australia’s CO2 emissions reduced by a best-case 28% as of 2030. It must have been all very inspiring for those keeping up with the latest talking points in fashionable green mythology, but more acute readers will have noticed the paragraph below and observed a cat making its exit from a bag of enviro-nostrums and rather costly cliches:

Having thrown its support behind domestic coal to the reported tune of $100 billion over the next two decades with the Paris Agreement looming large in the background, the federal government has the opportunity to advance clean coal technologies just as the government’s $2bn Australian Renewable Energy Agency has done for renewable energy.

It is this unexplored middle ground that the Prime Minister must now seize if the political headaches of energy price, reliability and carbon emissions are to be resolved.

If that sounds like of another green snout urging its way into the trough of other people’s money — in this case, energy consumers and taxpayers — go to the top of the class. The absolute confirmation of that suspicion came further into the piece, where we are asked to accept the bland assertion that CCS is poised to become “commercially viable”. Strip away the article’s rent-seeking rhetoric and what remains is the stark fact that this vaunted and as-yet-problematic technology would never have seen the light of day were it not for the market distortions inspired by the UN-sponsored CAGW scam.

Consider the cognitive dissonance of the green-steeped mind: The Global CCS Institute insists on the one hand that “CCS is a proven, safe, reliable and cost-effective technology” yet on the other and on the very same page we see (emphasis added), “policy parity is integral to the widespread adoption of CCS.” As the Institute’s CEO Brad Page further explains, this is a technology that “deserves the same recognition and commercial incentivisation as all clean technologies, particularly renewables.” Put more simply, CCS is right up there with, say, wind power in South Australia. Just keep those subsidies flowing and everything will be fine and dandy.

As Page continues, “the pace of CCS deployment must be accelerated if we are to meet Paris climate targets (we are currently way off target).” Well, he would say that! Like wind-farm consortiums and promoters of other disappointing “renewable technologies” such as tidal power (which even Their ABC admits — surprise, surprise — “is really expensive“) and Tim Flannery’s grant-gobbling “hot rocks”, he knows perfectly well that fossil fuels will be the life’s blood of the world’s energy requirements for many years to come. Where there is blood, expect leeches which, in this case, are dead keen to keep both host and narrative alive.

The Global CCS Institute further tells us:

At the time of launch of this Global Status of CCS: 2016 report, there were 15 large-scale CCS projects in operation around the world, with a CO2 capture capacity of close to 30 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa).

Germany Sets Plan to Rein In Extremists Measures would make it easier to monitor, detain and deport suspects by Ruth Bender

BERLIN—Germany released a plan to rein in known extremists after authorities failed to prevent a terrorist attack last month by a Tunisian radical on a government watch list.

The proposed overhauls aim to make it easier for police to monitor, detain and deport asylum seekers believed to pose a terror threat, Germany’s interior and justice ministers said on Tuesday.

The plan—which the government plans to implement with legal changes in the weeks to come—reflects efforts to tighten enforcement within the guidelines of constitutional safeguards, informed by abuses committed under the Nazis, that strongly protect personal freedom.

Under current state police laws, for instance, preventive custody doesn’t exceed 14 days. Detentions of foreigners to be expelled also face stringent legal requirements, such as the necessity to obtain proof of identity of a suspect from his or her country of origin.

Under the ministers’ proposals, police would be allowed to detain rejected asylum seekers deemed dangerous for up to 18 months, by lowering some of the current requirements.

German authorities have been seeking ways to improve antiterror enforcement since Anis Amri rammed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market last month, killing 12 people and exposing holes in the country’s security architecture.

The planned overhaul “shows that in difficult times we are capable of finding reasonable solutions that will increase the safety of citizens in Germany without disproportionately constraining the public’s freedoms,” said Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière.

German authorities came under criticism for failing to expel Amri in the months before the attack even though he was on a watch list of extremists, had voiced plans to commit atrocities and was using fake identities.

The target of Tuesday’s proposals are people like Amri who are found to be radical Islamists capable of committing an attack. German authorities are tracking 550 such extremists—known in German as Gefährder—according to security officials. Half of them are believed to be in Germany. Amri was killed by police in Italy several days after the Berlin attack.

Most of these individuals haven’t been determined to have broken laws, leaving German authorities few legal tools to keep them in check. Around 80 are in detention. The others are being watched by police and intelligence services, some more closely than others, security officials said.

The German constitution makes it very hard to detain people who aren’t suspected of committing a crime. That contrasts with the U.S., which allows the detention of terrorism suspects for indefinite periods.

“It’s pretty much impossible to take a Gefährder into custody unless one has a very concrete indication that a person is planning an immediate attack,” said Nikolaos Gazeas, a Cologne-based lawyer and expert on counterterrorism law. “That would mean a complete inversion of our legal system.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Iran Steps Up Threats to Israel, U.S. by Majid Rafizadeh

“En Sha’a Allah [God willing], there will be no such thing as a Zionist regime in 25 years. Until then, struggling, heroic and jihadi morale will leave no moment of serenity for Zionists.” — Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, September, 2015.

“If the Supreme Leader’s orders [are] to be executed, with the abilities and the equipment at our disposal, we will raze the Zionist regime in less than eight minutes.” — Ahmad Karimpour, a senior adviser to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite unit, the Quds Force.

Iran is also attempting to intimidate Donald Trump from taking a tough stance against Iran. Trump ought to be wary of falling into Iran’s tactical game of fear-mongering. For Iran, US concessions and silence in the face of Iran’s threats mean weakness and fear. On the other hand, when Iran sees that the US is taking a robust stance and that the military option is always on the table, Tehran retreats.

As long as Iran’s Supreme Leader is alive and as long as the ruling clerics preserve the political establishment, Iran will maintain the core pillars of its foreign policies and revolutionary principles: these are anchored in anti-Israeli, anti-American and anti-Semitic politics. Iranian politicians across the political spectrum totally agree on these fundamentals.

Iran’s threats against Israel and the US are becoming bolder and louder. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is now repeatedly threatening Israel’s annihilation relatively soon.

According to Iran’s Press TV, Khamenei recently stated:

“The Zionist regime — as we have already said — will cease to exist in the next 25 years if there is a collective and united struggle by the Palestinians and the Muslims against the Zionists.”

In addition, Iranian officials are warning President-elect Donald Trump that if he makes any wrong move, it would lead to a World War, wiping Israel from the face of earth and destroying the smaller Gulf states.

Iranian leaders are adopting their classic tactics and strategy of threatening in advance — and frequently — probably to obtain concessions, push the next US administration to pursue policies of appeasement, and, more importantly, to drive the US to abandon Israel.

In addition, through anti-Israeli and incendiary statements, Khamenei and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are inciting Palestinians and the Muslim world to use violence against the Israeli nation. As a result, Khamenei heightens even further his anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiments. Many who follow his beliefs consider it their Islamic duty to fulfill his policies, religious doctrines and prophesies.

Ahmad Karimpour, a senior adviser to the Revolutionary Guards’ elite unit, the Quds Force, previously said that Iran is ready to follow Khamenei’s orders once the leader gives the green light. According to the semi-official Fars News Agency, Karimpour said, “If the Supreme Leader’s orders [are] to be executed, with the abilities and the equipment at our disposal, we will raze the Zionist regime in less than eight minutes.”

Considering the Real Russia Under Putin’s Authority By Herbert London

In the last debate of the 2012 presidential race Governor Romney discussed the potential threat of Russia. He was widely criticized by President Obama who maintained the Cold War ended in the 1980’s. Since then, of course, we have had a national “reset.” Vladimir Putin’s aggressive action in eastern Ukraine, Syria and his openly provocative statements about the Baltic states and the use of nuclear weapons offer revealing insights into Russian aims. Still there are those who believe Russia can be an ally, at least in areas where U.S.-Russian interests converge, e.g. battling militant Islam.

However, if one considers the history of Russia since the presumptive end of the Cold War, a different conclusion is plausible. Since 1989, Russian policy has been designed to undo the crumbling of the Soviet Empire, what might be described as Global Revenge. Putin’s stance is to reclaim the Near Abroad – those nations once within the Soviet orbit. Using the appearance of “democracy,” religious observance and elections, Russia’s president has moved assiduously to destroy internal adversaries and external opponents. The velvet glove of concern for those lost in the 9/11 attack concealed the iron fist of invasion and intimidation.

Despite its newly adopted nomenclature, the KGB operatives dominate foreign policy. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov is expected to be a magician who has veils behind veils in his Orwellian rhetoric. On the one hand, he speaks with compassion about the victims of bombing in Aleppo and then signals Russian planes to engage in indiscriminate bombing in this Syrian city. What you see is only what you think you see. Having played Secretary of State John Kerry like a drum, Lavrov has converted Russia into the strong horse in the Middle East and reduced the United States to irrelevance.

With the crumbling of communism, Russia became distracted by privatization schemes in the 1990’s. What these schemes truly represented was the emergence of a new elite that distributed national wealth to the soon to be oligarchs and the former KGB leaders who slowly entered into “partnerships” with the corporate and banking sectors. Revelations of Putin’s wealth suggest he may be the richest man on the globe. In fact, his daughter, who hasn’t engaged in any legitimate business activity, has an estimated wealth of $16 billion.

Hungary Plans to Crackdown on All Soros-Funded NGOs by Zoltan Simon

Ruling Fidesz party vice president pledges to ‘sweep out’ NGOs
Premier Orban, Trump backer, vowed to build ‘illiberal state’

Hungary plans to crack down on non-governmental organizations linked to billionaire George Soros now that Donald Trump will occupy the White House, according to the deputy head of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party.

The European Union member will use “all the tools at its disposal” to “sweep out” NGOs funded by the Hungarian-born financier, which “serve global capitalists and back political correctness over national governments,” Szilard Nemeth, a vice president of the ruling Fidesz party, told reporters on Tuesday. No one answered the phone at the Open Society Institute in Budapest when Bloomberg News called outside business hours.

“I feel that there is an opportunity for this, internationally,” because of Trump’s election, state news service MTI reported Nemeth as saying. Lawmakers will start debating a bill to let authorities audit NGO executives, according to parliament’s legislative agenda.

Orban, the first European leader to publicly back Trump’s campaign, has ignored criticism from the European Commission and U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration for building a self-described “illiberal state” modeled on authoritarian regimes including Russia, China and Turkey. In 2014, Orban personally ordered the state audit agency to probe foundations financed by Norway and said that civil society groups financed from abroad were covers for “paid political activists.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Photographer: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Orban and his administration have frequently singled out NGOs supported by Soros, a U.S. Democratic Party supporter with a wide network of organizations that promote democracy in formerly communist eastern Europe.