RUTHFULLY YOURS

An Iranian cargo plane left Geneva with $400 million in cash after a flight with Americans aboard took off from Tehran in January

WASHINGTON — New details of the $400 million U.S. payment to Iran earlier this year depict a tightly scripted exchange specifically timed to the release of several American prisoners held in Iran, based on accounts from U.S. officials and others briefed on the operation.

U.S. officials wouldn’t let Iranians take control of the money until a Swiss Air Force plane carrying three freed Americans departed from Tehran on Jan. 17, the officials said. Once that happened, an Iranian cargo plane was allowed to bring the cash back from a Geneva airport that day, according to the accounts.

President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials have said the payment didn’t amount to ransom, because the money was owed by the U.S. to Iran as part of a longstanding dispute linked to a failed arms deal from the 1970s. U.S. officials have said that the prisoner release and cash transfer took place through two separate diplomatic channels.

But the handling of the payment and its connection to the release of the Americans have raised questions among lawmakers and administration critics.

The use of an Iranian cargo plane to move pallets filled with $400 million brings clarity to one of the mysteries surrounding the cash delivery to Iran first reported by The Wall Street Journal this month. Administration officials have refused to publicly disclose how and when the cash transfer authorized by Mr. Obama took place.

Executives from Iran’s flagship carrier, Iran Air, organized the round-trip flight from Tehran to Geneva where the cash—euros and Swiss francs and other currencies stacked on shipping pallets—was loaded onto the aircraft, these people said.

“Our top priority was getting the Americans home,” said a U.S. official.CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/ Figures released in July by Destatis, the government’s statistics agency, showed that more than 2.1 million people migrated to Germany in 2015. More than 33,000 migrants who are supposed to be deported are still in Germany and are being cared for by German taxpayers. Many of the migrants destroyed their passports and are believed […]

Reprinted from Hoover.org.

The bloody attack on gay night-club in Orlando by a Muslim, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, should be a wake-up call for progressives still unwilling to confront the illiberal core of radical Islam. The choice of target was not random, or just an expression of neurotic homophobia. Hatred of homosexuality is part of traditional Islamic sharia law, as is the punishment of death for transgressors. Today homosexuals are still being executed in Muslim majority nations like Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. But just as Islamic misogyny has been ignored or rationalized by the left, so too has this violent intolerance for diversity.

This romance of progressives with Islam reflects the fundamental incoherence of Marxist-inspired leftism. From the beginning, Marxism cast itself as a product of science and reason. By their laws of historical progress, tribalism and religion were backward superstitions doomed to obsolescence, and industrial capitalism a necessary stage in the relentless march to the communist utopia. Marx himself made clear his disdain for those cultures still clinging to the old ways and beliefs. Commenting on America’s 1846 war with Mexico, Marx said the U.S. had snatched California “from the lazy Mexicans, who did not know what to do with it.” Those backwards peoples who did not play their assigned role in the communist libretto were worthy only of scorn.

In the twentieth century, however, the Western proletariat ignored Marx’s laws of history and did not ignite the communist revolution. They preferred to take advantage of the expanding wealth created by free-market capitalism, and to join the hated bourgeoisie. Communists then looked to the Third World, where the postwar anticolonial movements promised the worldwide revolution the workers of the West had betrayed. “Natives of the underdeveloped countries unite!” cried Jean-Paul Sartre, replacing the old “workers of the world” with the oppressed victims of European colonization.

Thus was born Third Worldism, the modern reboot of the old noble savage myth. Once considered primitives that needed to be civilized, now non-Westerners were idealized. Their exotic customs and mores, and their simpler, more authentic lives, were held up as reproaches to the “air-conditioned nightmare” of the repressed bourgeois West and its soul-killing, mass-produced consumerism. The tyranny and cultural dysfunctions of these newly liberated peoples, and the persistence of their old tribal intolerance and violence, were ignored or rationalized as understandable reactions to continued Western oppression.

“It pains me to have to admit this but anti-Semitism is not just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it is routine and commonplace. Any Muslims reading this article – if they are honest with themselves – will know instantly what I am referring to. It is our dirty little secret. You could call it the banality of Muslim anti-Semitism.” — Mehdi Hasan, The New Statesman.

“There isn’t much of a desire to do anything about it [the problem of antisemitism]. It should also be said that the so-called interfaith outreach work… achieves almost nothing. A couple of old bearded men get together and agree on some dietary thing they’ve got in common, but it doesn’t solve the fact that anti-Semitism mainly comes from Muslim communities these days. … that that’s taught in many mosques and many Muslim schools…” — Douglas Murray, British commentator.

The question that arises is, are the elites of Sweden in general suffering from a case of Stockholm syndrome? Are we encouraging our adversaries to Islamize Sweden, which in the long run, might result in the abolition of freedom of religion, forcing Jews and Christians to live as dhimmis [subjugated citizens] in humiliation?

If by allowing hundreds of thousands of Muslims to settle here — people much more hateful of Jews than the average German during the Nazi era — are we not in fact paving the way for another Holocaust?

One of the most visible effects of Muslim mass immigration into Sweden is that anti-Semitism is very much on the rise in the country. Swedish Jews are being harassed and threatened, mainly in the Muslim-dense city of Malmö, where in January 2009, the friction deepened during a peaceful pro-Israel demonstration. Demonstrators were attacked by pro-Palestinian counter demonstrators, who threw eggs and bottles at the supporters of Israel. The mayor of Malmö at the time, Ilmar Reepalu, failed to take a clear stance against the violence, and was accused of preferring the approval of the city’s large Muslim population to protecting Jews. He remarked, among other things, that “of course the conflict in Gaza has spilled over into Malmö.”

A segment of Christians is actually trying to delude the world into thinking the absurd: that the ancient Jews of Canaan and Judea are “colonialists” who are “illegally occupying” their own native land.

Seemingly undeterred by their 2016 defeats, the Christian anti-Israel coalitions are regrouping for their next attacks, while pro-Israel Christian Zionist organizations — including Christians United for Israel (CUFI), Friends of Israel (FOI), International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem (ICEJ) and Bridges for Peace, among others, continue to speak out and teach the facts and the truth about Israel to Christians throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Still, the Bible gives us hope and assurance that there is a future day when Israel will be able to bask in the elusive peace it demonstrably continues to offer those who are trying to destroy it.

In breaking news yesterday, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approved a resolution calling on the U.S. government to end all aid to Israel if Israel does not stop building settlements and “enable an independent Palestinian state.”

Several international Christian policy conferences this summer have produced a mixed bag of both blessings and curses — all aimed at Israel. The United Methodists, The Southern Baptists, The Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Unitarian Universalists are worth noting here.
United Methodists

From the quadrennial United Methodist General Conference (UMGC), the good news is that the four major divestment and boycott proposals were defeated in committee before ever reaching a floor vote. The primary targets of the defeated boycott campaign were Caterpillar and Motorola, the corporate giants alleged — in a totally fictitious plot — to be co-conspirators with Israel supposedly to disable and destroy the Palestinian people.

The General Conference, not surprisingly, also voted to reaffirm (759-24) the United Methodist resolution #60229 — Guiding Principles for Christian-Jewish Relations. This is a resolution that has been reinforced and amended for many years. It reflects the UMC’s interest in establishing and maintaining relationships with the Jewish community.

However, mention of Israel in the UMC resolution is a trailing number nine out of nine points with a hesitant tone that reveals a distinct lack of understanding of the critical role of Israel in worldwide Jewish affairs.

Because of their apparent lack of factual information on the topic of Israel, the resolution appears to have caused some confusion. According to their document, they are “searching, wrestling, and struggling with complexities and painfulness of the controversies surrounding these Middle East issues.” (extrapolated from petition #60229)

The UMC story however, does not end there. There are two nagging unresolved elements: first is the United Methodist Kairos Response Committee, which some people say is openly anti-Semitic, and second is the misguided United Methodist membership in the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

RIO DE JANEIRO—The Egyptian Olympic Committee has sent judoka Islam El Shehaby home after his refusal to shake an Israeli opponent’s hand following a bout last week, the International Olympic Committee said.

El Shehaby broke with judo and Olympic tradition when he snubbed Israeli opponent Or Sasson’s offer of a handshake after being defeated in a men’s heavyweight bout on Friday. Sasson went on to win a bronze medal.

The IOC’s disciplinary commission investigated the incident and issued a “severe reprimand” to the athlete, as well as warning the Egyptian Olympic Committee to make sure its athletes receive “proper education on the Olympic values.”

El Shehaby also initially refused to bow to Sasson after the bout, but was called back onto the mat to do so. Some Egyptian commentators had suggested he should have refused to compete against an Israeli opponent in the first place.

Donald Trump, expanding on the provocative immigration ideas that have propelled his presidential candidacy, proposed on Monday a new ideological test that would limit immigrants seeking admission to the U.S. to “those who share our values and respect our people.”

He argued in a speech fleshing out his plans to combat terrorism that tighter immigration standards were needed to fight Islamic State with the same vigor with which the U.S. fought the Cold War. “We will be tough, and we will be even extreme,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what the test—he called it “extreme vetting,” a phrase that didn’t appear in his prepared remarks—would include, but Mr. Trump suggested he would ban not only terrorist sympathizers but those who believe in Shariah law, don’t believe in the U.S. Constitution or “support bigotry and hatred.” Shariah law is the legal system of Islam that governs public and private behavior.

The speech represented a response to Mr. Trump’s critics, including many Republicans, who have expressed doubts that he has the experience and temperament to lead the U.S. in a dangerous world. Last week, 50 Republican foreign policy experts signed a statement saying they wouldn’t vote for Mr. Trump because they question his capacity to serve as commander in chief.

Democrats on Monday sought to rebut Mr. Trump even before he spoke. Appearing with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton at a rally in Scranton, Pa., Vice President Joe Biden said Mr. Trump’s comments had been quoted approvingly by the leader of Hezbollah and posed a threat to U.S. troops in the region. “Trump is already making our country less safe,” Mr. Biden said.

“This man is totally, thoroughly unqualified to be president of the United States of America,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Trump. “On every issue that matters most to our security, Donald Trump has no clue what it takes to lead this great country.”

In his speech at Youngstown State University in Ohio, Mr. Trump unfurled a broad-gauge critique of the antiterrorism policies of President Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton, his former secretary of state.

“The rise of ISIS is the direct result of policy decisions made by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton,” he said. “Our current strategy of nation building and regime change is a proven absolute failure.” CONTINUE AT SITE

An Israeli heavyweight judoka named Or Sasson defeated an Egyptian opponent named Islam El Shehaby Friday in a first-round match at the Rio Olympics. The Egyptian refused to shake his opponent’s extended hand, earning boos from the crowd. Mr. Sasson went on to win a bronze medal.

If you want the short answer for why the Arab world is sliding into the abyss, look no further than this little incident. It did itself in chiefly through its long-abiding and all-consuming hatred of Israel, and of Jews.

That’s not a point you will find in a long article about the Arab crackup by Scott Anderson in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine, where hatred of Israel is treated like sand in Arabia—a given of the landscape. Nor is it much mentioned in the wide literature about the legacy of colonialism in the Middle East, or the oil curse, governance gap, democracy deficit, youth bulge, sectarian divide, legitimacy crisis and every other explanation for Arab decline.

Yet the fact remains that over the past 70 years the Arab world got rid of its Jews, some 900,000 people, while holding on to its hatred of them. Over time the result proved fatal: a combination of lost human capital, ruinously expensive wars, misdirected ideological obsessions, and an intellectual life perverted by conspiracy theory and the perpetual search for scapegoats. The Arab world’s problems are a problem of the Arab mind, and the name for that problem is anti-Semitism.

As a historical phenomenon, this is not unique. In a 2005 essay in Commentary, historian Paul Johnson noted that wherever anti-Semitism took hold, social and political decline almost inevitably followed.

Spain expelled its Jews with the Alhambra Decree of 1492. The effect, Mr. Johnson noted, “was to deprive Spain (and its colonies) of a class already notable for the astute handling of finance.” In czarist Russia, anti-Semitic laws led to mass Jewish emigration as well as an “immense increase in administrative corruption produced by the system of restrictions.” Germany might well have won the race for an atomic bomb if Hitler hadn’t sent Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller into exile in the U.S.

The news that the Israeli government charged Mohammed el-Halabi, the Gaza director of World Vision, a major international evangelical Christian aid organization, with funneling millions to fortify Hamas government’s terrorist capabilities has reportedly “shocked” the organization.

The reason for this “shock” is not the evidence of his diverting 60% of the charity’s Gaza budget to further Hamas terrorism. The organization was “shocked” because the Israelis, after years of complaining and warning, are bringing him to justice.

World Vision did not even pretend to be embarrassed by el-Halabi’s use of $50 million not to help the needy in Gaza, but to pay Hamas members, buy weapons and transfer “building supplies intended to support farming projects… to Hamas for constructing tunnels and military installations.” Instead, World Vision’s German spokesperson protested the “huge gap” between “what we know” and the Israeli charges, while the Australian CEO declared he was “profoundly perplexed and mystified.”

Claims like this and outright denials of international aid diversion for Palestinian terrorist activities are nothing new.

Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Gaza, was established in December 1987, days into the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) first Intifada against Israel. And as soon as the Internet was made available for public use in the early 1990s, the Palestinians began using it to portray the people they use as human shields throughout the territories and Gaza not as the casualties of its own murderous agenda, but as victims of Israeli retaliations. Like the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas realized that posting photos of wounded children and crying mothers has a considerable effect in the ‘hearts’ and ‘minds’ battle for gaining support from the international community. Indeed, the strategy of extracting maximum civilian casualties from among their constituents has always yielded larger funding.

In December 2003, for example, as Yasser Arafat’s second Intifada (28 September 2000 – 8 February 2005) against Israel was raging, an international donors’ conference in Rome awarded the Palestinian Authority with $1 billion, ignoring the PA’s funding of terrorist activities.

Evidence that Hamas suicide bombers were paid with EU aid money did not move an Austrian member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, Hannes Swoboda. He insisted in writing and while arguing against my testimony before the European Parliament on this issue that “No wrongdoing or misuse of funds by the Palestinian Authority, no instances of funds being used for terrorist activities instead of infrastructure development, have been proved. Only if the DNA of the suicide bombers will match the DNA of those who received euros will we accept it as evidence.”

Egyptian judoka, Islam El Shahaby, disgraced himself and his country at the Rio games this past Friday. The disgrace was not the result of his failure to medal nor was it the result of his loss to Israeli judoka, Or Sasson. The disgrace was the result of extreme unsportsmanlike conduct exhibited by the Egyptian. Following his loss, El Shahaby walked away without bowing to his opponent – an act unheard of in the sport – and then refused to shake the Israeli’s outstretched hand.

The disgraceful conduct drew jeers from the crowd and the referee ordered El Shahaby to return to the mat area and bow. The Egyptian complied but rather than bowing, gave a pathetic nod with his head prompting additional booing from the audience. Or Sasson brushed off the insult and went on to claim the bronze for his nation.

Sasson said that he expected that the Egyptian would snub him but decided to extend his hand nonetheless to show his opponent “respect.” He added that bowing and showing respect for an opponent is something that he “was educated to do.”

El Shahaby’s ignominious conduct is not an anomaly but rather reflects the norm among athletes from Muslim nations. They routinely engage in conduct that brings disrepute to themselves and the nations they represent.

At the start of the Rio games, the Lebanese delegation refused to allow members of the Israeli team to board the same bus. The Israelis were then forced to find alternate transportation. Following that incident, a Saudi judoka faked an injury in a deliberate effort to avoid a match against her Israeli counterpart. In June 2016, a Syrian boxer forfeited a match against an Israeli during the world boxing championship in Azerbaijan thus forfeiting any chance of qualifying for the Rio games.