RUTHFULLY YOURS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Africa signaled Israel’s renewed emphasis on its relationship with the continent. Beyond the mutual economic benefits, this renaissance in Israel-Africa relations is an opportunity, among other things, to bolster support for Israel on the international stage, particularly at the United Nations.

In the early years after independence in 1948, Israel enjoyed a unique relationship with many African nations. Recently freed from British rule and newly independent after thousands of years of exile and occupation of our homeland, Israel served as a role model for many African states caught in their own struggles with colonialism.

A special bond soon formed between the Jewish state and the young African nations. Israeli experts shared their knowledge with their African counterparts on everything from modern banking to drip irrigation. For Israel, the possibility of breaking out of the diplomatic isolation imposed by our immediate neighbors in the Middle East served as an additional strategic advantage.

Whatever progress was made in cultivating these relationships was thwarted following the 1967 Six Day War, and then almost completely wiped out after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Fueled by Arab propaganda, many former African allies became convinced of the lie that Israel was now playing the role of colonizer by “occupying” Arab lands.

More than 40 years after its relationship with Africa soured, Israel is now turning back the tide. As Prime Minister Netanyahu recently stated, “Israel is coming back to Africa, and Africa is coming back to Israel.” The Israeli government has announced a multimillion-dollar plan to strengthen its economic ties with Africa. On his recent visit, the heads of 70 Israeli companies joined the prime minister to help strengthen African relationships.

In areas such as international development, investment and know-how, Israel is the perfect partner for Africa. Both have been forced to find creative solutions to the kinds of problems large, wealthy, powerful states have never encountered.

In water policy, for example, Israel is not only the world leader in recycling and reusing water for agriculture, we have now successfully mastered the desalination process so that all our water needs are fully met despite our arid climate. In energy innovation, our cutting-edge technologies in solar, wind and other clean- and renewable-energy sources is a major focus of many budding economic ties. CONTINUE AT SITE

The U.S. military has released photos of Iranian boats that approached two Navy warships Monday as they transited through the Strait of Hormuz with a special passenger aboard: Gen. Joe Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees all U.S. forces in the Middle East.

The images, which aren’t typically released by the military, were captured by U.S. Navy personnel aboard the amphibious ship USS New Orleans and the destroyer USS Stout on Monday during a series of “interactions” between those two ships and smaller patrol boats operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

The images show two small patrol boats akin to a civilian speed boat, and a larger boat known as a Houdong fast attack craft. Each are typical of the kind of craft the IRGC uses in the region, sometimes to harass American and other ships transiting through the strait.

Iranian officials in a report in state media confirmed that speedboats operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy “escorted” the U.S. warships through the strait, defending the incident as longstanding practice. The news account, on the website of the semiofficial FARS news agency, also warned that the small but heavily armed boats could destroy the American vessels.

“Monitoring foreign vessels in regions where the IRGC Navy conducts its missions is not a new thing and it is always done on a routine basis and round the clock,” Gen. Alireza Tangsiri, the lieutenant commander of the IRGC navy, said in the report. He emphasized that the IRGC Navy is assigned to monitor foreign vessels, especially those operated by “the enemies of the Islamic Revolution and the Great Satan, the U.S.”

Muslim perpetrators rationalize their violence by convincing themselves that they live in a racist society that rejects them and their religion. And the government legitimizes them when it asks the Parliament to vote for a law that favors diversity on public television channels.

Islamist terrorist Larossi Aballa, 26, stabbed to death police officer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his wife, police administrator Jessica Schneider, in front of their son, at their home in the Paris suburb of Magnanville. The murderer then live-streamed a video on Facebook, in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS).

After the Islamist, anti-gay attack in Orlando, left-wing politician Jean-Luc Melenchon wrote in his blog that he felt anxious about a possible “wave of hatred against Muslims”. For many Islamists in France, the Muslim is always the victim, even when he is the killer.

Islamization is gaining ground in the Muslim community of France. For a long time, this trend remained restricted to the cultural sphere and created strong controversies between Islamists and secular intellectuals (such as the ban on face-covering veils in schools and public places). But the debate stopped being a debate. Sometimes Islamic intolerance takes on the appearance of a civil war. The violence, which was mostly concentrated in the suburbs prior to the January 2015 terrorist attack on the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, is spreading now to the heart of French cities. Murders, assaults, death threats and “slut-shaming” happens almost every day here and there.

Muslim perpetrators rationalize their violence by convincing themselves that they live in a racist society that rejects them and their religion. And the government legitimizes them when it asks the Parliament to vote for a law that favors diversity on public television channels. What is interesting is that judiciary system seems in disarray and does not know how to treat these types of conflicts: two jihadists back from Syria are condemned to a suspended sentence of six months in prison and a Muslim who slapped a female waiter because she served alcohol during the Ramadan was sentenced to eight months in prison.

The absence of political guidelines spreads fear and aids the rise of the right-wing political party, the Front National.

June 1. Karim Benzema, a French soccer star of Algerian descent, declared, in the Spanish sports newspaper Marca, that French national team’s coach, Didier Deschamps “bowed to the pressure of a racist part of France” by not including him in the team. Benzema was not included in the national soccer team for the UEFA Euro 2016 championship because he is apparently involved in a sex-tape extortion scandal targeting his colleague, Mathieu Valbuena.

June 2. Patrick Kanner, Minister of Urban Affairs, Youth and Sport, said in Le Parisien that Karim Benzema plays an “unfair and dangerous” game when he implies that “ethnic reasons” might have played a role in the decision not to include him in the French soccer team.

June 2. It was reported that the Saudi preacher, Mohammed Ramzan Al-Hajiri, was banned from entering France until 2050. The daily, La Voix du Nord, reported that on May 15, the salafist Abou Bakr Essedik mosque of Roubaix had arranged for him to preach by phone. In April 2014, the same Saudi preacher had declared in public: “Losing your faith makes you no better than an animal” and “to kill a Muslim is a less serious crime than to make him an infidel.”

Iran’s anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism have reached unprecedented levels. The deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) recently pointed out that the Islamic Republic has tens of thousands of missiles prepared outside of Iran to strike Israel.

Iran’s state-owned news agency, Tasnim, quoted General Hossein Salami as saying that “Hezbollah has 100,000 missiles that are ready to hit Israel to liberate the occupied Palestinian territories if the Zionist regime repeats its past mistakes.” He added that “today, the grounds for the annihilation and collapse of the Zionist regime are (present) more than ever.” In addition, Gen. Salami warned Israeli leaders that if they make the “wrong move,” Israel would come under attack.

A senior adviser to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite unit Quds Force, Ahmad Karimpour, stated a few weeks ago that Iran could destroy Israel in eight minutes if the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the order. According to the semi-official Fars News Agency, he said that “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.”

In addition, Iran’s final decision-maker and autocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published a plan after the nuclear agreement, explaining how to destroy Israel. Furthermore, he blatantly predicted that Israel would not be around in 25 years. He stated, “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.”

Khamenei relies heavily on Hezbollah and IRGC to pursue his government’s anti-Israel and anti-US policies. Thanks to sanctions relief and billions of dollars the Obama administration is sending to Iran’s Central Bank from the American taxpayers, Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC are amply funded. Iranian leaders are increasingly relying on and boasting about utilizing Hezbollah to wipe out Israel.

Friend she may be, however, she parrots the international support for the “two sate (did)solution of Israel, which will not stop until it is categorically derided and trashed as a policy relic by the state of Israel. rsk
The parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel issued a statement saying that “Israel can rest assured that a UK led by Theresa May will be there in its moments of need.”

Jerusalem is confident that the strong relationship with Britain it enjoyed under Prime Minister David Cameron will continue when Home Secretary Theresa May takes over the job by Wednesday.

May, according to former ambassador to London Daniel Taub, “has been a long-standing friend of Israel and the Jewish community.”

He said that as home secretary, May was very supportive of “our efforts to deepen British- Israel ties in the area of homeland security, and also very receptive to the concerns of the Jewish community regarding anti-Semitism and violent extremism.” Her ministry was responsible for Britain’s MI5 intelligence service, and as such was both aware and appreciative of the close intelligence and security cooperation between the two countries.

Jerusalem had no formal comment Monday on the political developments in Britain, waiting until she formally takes over as prime minister before issuing a congratulatory statement.

One official said that when it comes to Israel, May “comes with her heart in the right place.”

If, indeed, that is the case, then she will follow a long line of British prime ministers, going back to Margaret Thatcher and including John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Cameron, who were considered good friends in Jerusalem.

German citizens have been shielded from the awful truth about the way life in Germany has been altered by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of young Muslim “refugees.” It is no longer safe for German women and girls to go about the streets dressed and behaving as they have in the past. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the shocking news that the mass sexual attack in Koln that received publicity a few days after it occurred was far from an isolated event.

Standard.net reports:

LONDON – At first, there was complete silence from officials. As rumors spread on social media, police had nothing to say about allegations of mass sexual assaults and other crimes carried out on New Year’s Eve in the German city of Cologne.

It was only days later that officials reported that hundreds of women were victims of assault in Cologne, Hamburg and other German cities.

But numbers that are now emerging are likely to shock a country still coming to terms with what happened in Cologne more than half a year ago. According to a leaked police document, published by Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and broadcasters NDR and WDR, the previous estimates have to be dramatically revised – upward.

Authorities now think that on New Year’s Eve, more than 1,200 women were sexually assaulted in various German cities, including more than 600 in Cologne and about 400 in Hamburg.

More than 2,000 men were allegedly involved, and 120 suspects – about half of them foreign nationals who had only recently arrived in Germany – have been identified.

“The most important task of leaders is to keep their populations safe from harm. This should not only be in respect of physical harm or subjugation but also from moral and spiritual harm. I challenge any politician or would-be leader to outline their plans for eliminating the behaviors itemized earlier in this piece and for ensuring that their children’s grandchildren will not have to contend with an Islamic caliphate and Sharia law. Islamic leaders are also welcome to chime in.”

The revelations Muslims are obliged to believe Muhammad received from his heavenly envoy lay out how the faithful must regulate their lives and relations with non-believers. Prominent among them, the obligation to do “good deeds” — and that is the problem.
In the wake of the recent and horrific Orlando massacre, political leaders, experts, commentators, and letter writers have trotted out just about every rationale they could think of to explain this dreadful incident: gay hate, ISIS, mental instability, terrorism, radical Islam, US gun culture, and loan wolves.

While some or all of the above may have played a part, they are all delusions when it comes to the real issue of resurgent Islam (see Kidding Ourselves About Islam). There was, however, one factor that is common to this and similar terrorist events: the perpetrator is reported to have shouted “Allahu Akbar”.

Yes, we need to talk about Allah.

Who is Allah? Allah is regarded as the spiritual monotheistic god who revealed himself to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over about a 30-year period around AD 630. These revelations form the Koran, which contains the precepts that direct Muslims in their daily life. It is possible that the following precepts of the Koran may have had a bearing on Omar Mateen’s actions.

You who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as allies: they are allies only to each other. Anyone who takes them as an ally becomes one of them—Allah does not guide such wrongdoers. (The Feast 5:51)

The believers should not make the disbelievers their allies rather than other believers— anyone who does such a thing will isolate himself completely from Allah—except when you need to protect yourself from them. Allah warns you to beware of Him: the Final Return is to Allah. (The Family of Imran 3:28)

With these thoughts in mind, Mateen may have been encouraged in his actions by the following or like directives.

By 2061, the future EU may well be majority Muslim, which appears not to have concerned younger voters steeped since infancy in the official doctrine of relativism and multicultural ‘tolerance’. Older voters recalled that the Channel has been a useful obstacle to invasion and subjugation.
The UN High Commission for Refugees estimates over one million people made their way to Europe last year by boat. Sadly, we are not talking the Queen Mary, nor P&O. In the cold first six months of this year, a quarter of a million more arrived on small boats with unreliable engines. Who knows what numbers — along with tragic losses in the crossing — the current summer will bring.

This level of mass movement of humanity is unprecedented. Even the surging population movements after the Second World War are being surpassed. And Europe, or the EU as the body in charge of migration, has no answer to the problem, only Angela Merkel’s initial, naive response to let them come.

By 2061 (when I hope to be 100) the future EU (including Turkey) may well be majority Muslim. If that sounds far-fetched, consider that half of current EU citizens will be dead by then, and record low birth rates mean next generations will be small, while family reunions of current and future migrants, plus two generations of their own vast progeny, will tip the scales the Muslim way.

The unprecedent immigration to Europe by people largely of Arab background was no doubt a major factor in ordinary Britons recently voting for Brexit. Many average Englanders, interviewed the week after the vote, shyly but firmly implied this to be so. Their second cousins in Scotland and Northern Ireland voted otherwise, but are also unlikely to be home to as many refugees.

Modern Britons — despite their occasional worst examples on TV — tend to be a tolerant people. Alf Garnett was only funny because, already in the 1960s, his views were no longer mainstream. In the lifetime of most British adults, there have seen successive waves of immigration from the Caribbean, from the Subcontinent, and in the past two decades from continental Europe. These waves, with all the cultural changes accompanying them, have transformed urban Britain. London, Leicester, Luton and Slough already have non-white majorities. Birmingham will shortly. All these places are now irretrievably different from fifty years ago.

Did the existing British complain? Yes. That’s a national British pastime, especially if the weather turns unusually mild for a day or two. But, did they turn the waves back? No. Did they integrate all these diverse migrants into the wider British society, bit by bit? Yes, of course they did. To do otherwise would have been unfathomable.

ABOARD THE USS NEW ORLEANS—Boats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps maneuvered dangerously close to a U.S. military vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, part of a pattern that the top American general in the region—who was on the ship at the time—said risked grave miscalculation.

“What concerns me is our people don’t always have a lot of time to deal with those interactions,” said Gen. Joe Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, as he stood on the bridge of the amphibious ship later in the day. “It’s measured in minutes to really have the opportunity to make the right decision.”

The five Iranian boats included four small patrol craft and a larger boat called a Houdong fast-attack craft. At least one of the patrol boats was equipped with a .50 caliber machine gun and what is known as a multiple rail rocket launcher. They came within several hundred yards of the American ship.

The series of encounters on Monday took place as the New Orleans sailed in international waters through the strait. Gen. Votel, on a swing through the Middle East this week, voiced concern about how quickly such an encounter could turn lethal for the ship, which was carrying about 700 Marines.

In the case of Monday’s incident, U.S. officials didn’t consider the Iranian ships to be technically harassing the American warship, but said they came unacceptably close to doing so. Iran officials couldn’t immediately be reached to comment.

The encounters might have been considered more dramatic if they weren’t so common. American Navy ships reported about 300 incidents with Iranian vessels during 2015, according to data provided by the Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Most of those “interactions,” as the Navy calls them, are considered safe or don’t rise to the level of harassment, according to Navy officials.

Navy officials essentially grade Iranian naval behavior on a curve. They said that the way the Iranians behave typically, even when they don’t actually harass American warships, is still not the way most professional navies behave at sea.

About 10% of all incidents are of greater concern, Navy officials said. These may entail Iranian craft crossing the bow of an American warship, approaching at a high rate of speed, or training weaponry on a U.S. vessel.

The IRGC’s routine actions in the region force American warships to have to determine just what their intent is, said one officer here.

“It’s very common for them to come up to within 300, 500 yards of us, and then they’ll turn, or parallel us and stop,” said Lt. Forrest Griggs, the New Orleans’s operations officer. “We try not to become accustomed to that because we don’t want to become complacent.”

Navy officials maintain they always navigate through the international waters of the strait—through which a third of all seaborne oil and other energy products are shipped—and Gen. Votel said the U.S. isn’t trying to provoke Iran with such operations.

Tensions at sea have been high since an incident in January in which two U.S. Navy riverine boats slipped mistakenly into Iranian territorial waters and became stranded before IRGC forces surrounded and boarded them and detained 10 American sailors at gunpoint.CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THWPJE4xaJM