RUTHFULLY YOURS

A perilous success: Hamas’ score on Israel’s exits

Congrats, Hamas: You’ve finally done something comprehensible during this bizarre and goalless war you’ve started with Israel.

Tuesday’s rocket attack on an area near Israel’s only international airport — the success of which marks the first serious failure of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile shield — has thrown Israel off-kilter for the first time since the war began.

Carriers panicked by the shootdown of the Malaysia Airlines jet over Ukraine began canceling flights to Israel left and right even before the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all US-Israeli plane travel for 24 hours.

Any effort to restrict travel has an especially powerful resonance in Israel.

In the 15 years leading up to the nation’s founding, Britain sought to do exactly that to Jewish immigration and trade, and part of Israel’s creation story involves the bravery of blockade-running ships (like the fabled Exodus) bringing pre- and post-Holocaust refugees into what was then called Palestine.

Flash forward 20 years. The 1967 Six-Day War, which transformed the map of the region thanks to Israel’s surprising and overwhelming victory, came about because Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran — international waters over which Egypt had no authority — in an effort to choke Israel’s tiny economy and bring the country to its knees.

These historical facts are written into Israel’s DNA, and so the impact of the forced closure of Israel’s main point of entry and departure is outsized.

Remember that Israel, with hostile nations and terrorist groups to its south and north and northwest, has no friendly borders, save perhaps for three relatively placid crossings eastward into Jordan.

For all practical purposes, Israelis must get on a plane to get anywhere.

Human Rights Watch issued a report Monday claiming that “far from protecting Americans, including American Muslims, from the threat of terrorism…in some cases the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act.” This is blisteringly ridiculous, but is already getting (predictably enough) wide play in the mainstream media, as it appears to confirm Leftist fantasies of predatory, rapacious law enforcement officials preying upon innocent, law-abiding Muslims in accord with official but sub rosa policies of “Islamophobia.”

What would it take for you to commit an act of jihad mass murder? Could an FBI agent convince you by any combination of love or money to do such a thing? “In some cases the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act.” Ridiculous. A law-abiding individual cannot be coaxed to commit jihad mass murder. One would have to be already sympathetic to the cause, and at very least eager to act. These jihadis in every case were given numerous opportunities to say no and opt out of the jihad plot. They did not. Thus they, not the FBI, bear responsibility for their actions.

Consider this also: I myself oppose jihad terror and Islamic supremacism. Leftists and Islamic supremacists constantly propagate the lie that this means that I, and others like me, hate Muslims and want to see them harmed. Accordingly, every now and again I get an email from a Leftist or Islamic supremacist who thinks he is cleverer than he is, inviting me to applaud, support, or join him in doing harm to Muslims. I turn these messages over to the FBI and that is the end of the matter, because in reality I stand for the equality of rights of all people before the law, and do not support any vigilante action or harming of any innocent Muslim (or any innocent person). I am, in other words, not able to be entrapped. Why are so many Muslims, by contrast, susceptible to the blandishments of these FBI agents who are supposedly cajoling them to commit jihad violence?

Nonetheless, the general denial of the reality of Islamic jihad in the U.S. increasingly takes the form of a claim that jihad plotters were victims of FBI entrapment. Some Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. have for years before this new Human Rights Watch report claimed that there is no significant jihad against the U.S. at all – just the FBI fabricating plots and victimizing young Muslims. It’s all the fault, you see, of an “Islamophobic” political culture, and an intelligence agency bent on justifying its counterterror budget by finding some terrorists.

At least one FBI informant has contributed significantly to these impressions. Craig Monteilh, who spent a year as a convert to Islam named Farouk al-Aziz, infiltrating mosques in southern California for the FBI. Monteilh, who has now repudiated his earlier actions and brought suit against the FBI, asserts: “The way the FBI conducts their operations, it is all about entrapment … I know the game, I know the dynamics of it. It’s such a joke, a real joke. There is no real hunt. It’s fixed.” He thinks the FBI should apologize for operations like the ones in which he played a part, but, he says, “they don’t have the humility to admit a mistake.”

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/american-patriots-confront-an-invasion-on-the-glazov-gang-1/

This Week’s Glazov Gang was joined by Civil Rights Activist Ernie White who is one of the organizers of the pro-American demonstrations in Murrieta. He came on the show to discuss American Patriots Confront an Invasion, shedding light on the courageous grassroots activism of U.S. citizens in Murrieta, Obama’s role in the catastrophe on our southern border, and much, much more:

Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, Professor of Practice at Simmons College, is the author of “Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews” and President of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Seeming to give credence to Orwell’s observation that “Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence,” the world’s attention has turned once again to the clash between Hamas and Israel, as the Jewish state launches its ground incursion into Gaza in what is being called Operation Protective Edge. And predictably, as the body count rises on the Palestinian side, the moral arbiters of acceptable political behavior have begun condemning the Jewish state for its perceived abuses in executing its national self-defense.

Forgetting that Israel’s current campaign was necessitated by ceaseless rocket and mortar assaults on its southern towns from Hamas-controlled Gaza, international leaders and diplomats have initiated their moral hectoring of Israel as it attempts to shield its citizens from harm. Britain’s deputy Prime Minister, Nicolas Clegg, was adamant that Israel cease its self-defense. “I really would now call on the Israeli government to stop,” he said. “They have proved their point,” and had done so, in his opinion, through a deliberately “disproportionate form of collective punishment.”

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, who presides over a morally bankrupt group comprised largely of despotic, authoritarian regimes, was quick to decide that “Too many” Palestinian civilians have been killed, and that he “feels a sense of responsibility for the Palestinians who, especially in the Gaza Strip, have long been denied the sense of freedom and dignity that they deserve,” presumably overlooking those same human rights being denied to Israelis who have lived under a rain of rockets since 2005.

But the most insidious refrain, one uttered only when Israel’s enemies are killed (certainly not when Jews are murdered), is that Israel’s military response is too aggressive, that the force and effect of the excursion into Gaza are beyond what is permitted under human rights law and the rules of war. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, for instance, brushed aside any talk of justifiable self-defense, asserting that “. . . Israel is not defending itself, it is defending settlements, its main project.” Moreover, the deaths so far of some 200 Palestinians in the latest incursion is, according to Mr. Abbas, tantamount to “. . . genocide—the killing of entire families is genocide by Israel against our Palestinian people,” indicating both an ignorance of what that term actually signifies and a blindness to actual genocides occurring presently at the hand of his co-religionists elsewhere in the world.

The UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, James Rawley, had thoughts only for the Palestinian victims of the conflict, sanctimoniously announcing that the Israeli response must be “proportionate” to the threats posed by Hamas attacks, and that “Our thoughts must first be with those many [Palestinian] civilians who have already lost their lives, and the even greater number of who have suffered physical or psychological injuries.”

House Republicans offered a dozen recommendations Wednesday to address the illegal immigration crisis. “Our focus has been to ensure the safety of the children and it has remained a top priority throughout this process,” said task force leader Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX). “In our personal meetings with the Presidents of Honduras and Guatemala they both stated that they wanted their children back, and we believe that is in the best interest of all the countries involved in this crisis. We look forward to working with these countries as they prepare to receive their children back.”

The recommendations offer a mixture of strategies that include more forceful border control and the elimination of intra-governmental turf fights interfering with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operations on federal land. Border enforcement in Mexico and Central America, along with repatriation centers for minors set up in those countries are also part of the mix, as is an aggressive messaging campaign clarifying the downside of illegal immigration. Other recommendations include an acceleration of immigration hearings by adding additional judges to hear asylum requests, including a mandate to process “family units” within 5-7 days, tougher penalties on human traffickers, aka coyotes, and initiating law enforcement operations in both Mexico and Central America to stop the tide of illegals before they reach the U.S. border.

The primary recommendation for altering the current equation is a revision of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 that would allow children from Central America to be processed and deported as quickly as those from Canada and Mexico. A revision of the anti-trafficking law is a critical necessity. Despite admirable intentions when it was enacted six years ago, the latest onslaught of 57,000 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) over the last nine months—more than seven times average number that came across the border each year prior to the law’s enactment—has rendered it obsolete.

The numbers tell the story: of those 57,000 UACs only 2,000 have been repatriated and immigration courts are overwhelmed with a backlog of more than 350,000 cases. As a result it will be years before many of these children will be called to show up for their day in court.

If they show up at all. Juan Osuna, who heads the Justice Department’s immigration courts, revealed the predictable truth at a recent congressional hearing, telling lawmakers that 46 percent of UACs failed to appear at their hearings between the start of the FY2014 last Oct. 1 and the end of June. And even when they do appear and get a deportation order or are allowed to return home voluntarily, there is no guarantee that they will abide by the law. In FY 2013 two-thirds of the 6,437 cases adjudicated reached that outcome, but data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shows that only 1,600 children actually returned home.

A rapid appeal from the Fourth Circuit would be a legal and public service.

Liberals are telling themselves that the latest ObamaCare legal challenge won’t amount to much, although more nervously after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the White House is defying the law’s plain text by allotting insurance subsidies through the federal exchanges. Allow us to increase their anxiety by speeding things along to the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department hopes to deep-six Halbig v. Burwell by asking the D.C. Circuit for en banc review. The Administration hopes the full 11-active-member court will overturn Judge Thomas Griffith’s decision and thus avoid a conflict among the appellate circuits so the Supreme Court wouldn’t take the case.
As it happens, however, on Tuesday the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of the government in King v. Burwell. Liberals are touting the Fourth Circuit’s logic as one reason Halbig is frivolous, even if that panel did recognize the gravity of the plain-text-of-the-law questions. But the decision may really be a stroke of luck. The losing lead litigator in the Fourth Circuit, Michael Carvin of Jones Day, can now petition the High Court to hear his expedited appeal, and we hope he pursues that option as quickly as possible.

There doesn’t have to be an appellate conflict for four Justices to agree to hear a case, and in King v. Burwell Mr. Carvin can point to the policy benefits of a quick resolution. The subsidies will continue to flow as long as the litigation is ongoing, which means that tens of billions of dollars are being distributed illegally. Two other cases are also challenging this law-breaking, one in Oklahoma (the Tenth Circuit) and another in Indiana (the Seventh).

The Supreme Court could wait for another appellate conflict to emerge. Yet the delay could last two years or more and compound the policy harm if the Administration’s ObamaCare rewrite is ultimately vacated. The sooner the Administration has to ask Congress to fix its mistake, the better for the country.

The most provincial U.S. president in at least a century

Asked on “Meet the Press” Sunday whether this was the lowest moment in U.S.-Russia relations since the Cold War, America’s robo-Secretary of State John Kerry replied: “We live in an extremely complicated world right now, where everybody is working on 10 different things simultaneously.” Well, not everyone.

As the world burns, the president spent this week fiddling at fundraisers in the living rooms of five Democratic Party fat cats in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. As White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri famously explained, changing the president’s fundraising schedule “can have the unintended consequence of unduly alarming the American people or creating a false sense of crisis.”
Alarmed? Who’s alarmed? What false sense of crisis? Vladimir Putin’s masked men in eastern Ukraine shot Malaysia Airlines Flight 17’s 298 people out of the air just about the time Israel and Hamas commenced their death struggle, not long after the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham occupied a third of Iraq within seven days. Now ISIS is cleansing Mosul of its Christians.

If news coverage defined reality, you’d think the civil war in Syria was over. There just isn’t space to fit it all in. The homicidal Islamic fanatics of Boko Haram may soon establish statelike control of northern Nigeria, as ISIS has in Iraq. Last week the April kidnappers of the world’s now-forgotten “our girls” gunned down another 44 Nigerians, then days later killed 100 more in villages abandoned by the Nigerian army. After Boko Haram grabbed a German citizen in Gombi, Germany’s foreign ministry said it was “aware of the case.”

On Monday, Barack Obama showed up on the White House lawn to make clear that he, too, is aware of what’s going on. Addressing the war in Gaza for about three minutes, Mr. Obama urged “the international community to bring about a cease-fire that ends the fighting.” He said, “I have asked John,”—that would be our squirrel-on-a-wheel secretary of state—to “help facilitate” that. That is a foreign policy whose arc begins and ends with the phrase, “stop the killing.”

More revealing, though, was what Mr. Obama said on the airliner shoot-down and Russia’s role. “If Russia continues to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty,” he said, and if it still backs the separatists who are becoming “more and more dangerous” not just to Ukrainians “but the broader international community,” then “the costs for Russia” will increase.

By Jay Solomon in Cairo, Nicholas Casey in Gaza City and Tamer El-Ghobashy in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip

The Obama administration, Israel and other Middle East allies are refashioning an Egyptian cease-fire proposal to assure Hamas that Gaza’s economic interests would be addressed if the Islamist group stops rocket attacks, senior U.S. and Arab officials said.

These diplomats outlined a two-stage plan as the 16th day of Israel’s military offensive brought intense fighting to southern Gaza, raising the Palestinian death toll to nearly 700 and the Israeli toll to 35 in a conflict in which Hamas’s military wing has shown surprising strength.

Under the plan, Israel and Hamas would agree to stop military operations in the coming days. And the U.S. and the international community would then move quickly to begin talks on a longer-term recovery program for the impoverished coastal enclave.

Secretary of State John Kerry outlined the emerging proposal during more than two hours of discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and a separate hourlong meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. U.S. officials said they expect Mr. Kerry to remain in the region until the weekend.

Hamas, which rules Gaza, rejected a cease-fire proposal put forward by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi last week, saying it wasn’t consulted and that the offer didn’t go far enough to lift Egypt’s and Israel’s economic siege of Gaza or free Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The media has obsessively counted every dead body in the conflict between Hamas and Israel. They rarely explain why so many more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed: Hamas does not allow Palestinian civilians into their shelters, while using civilian areas from which to fire their rockets; Israel, on the other hand, devotes its resources to building shelters and Iron Dome protection. Put another way, while Israel uses shelters and Iron Dome to protect its civilians, Hamas uses its civilians to protect its rockets and its terrorists. A widely circulated cartoon makes this point effectively:

Recently, supporters of Hamas have argued that to say that Hamas uses civilians as human shields is a manifestation of racism and an attempt to dehumanize Palestinians. But it is Hamas’ own leaders who have long boasted of this tragic reality. Listen to Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council:

Jeff Nyquist has posted a new entry to add to his ruminations about ex-Communist conservative critics of American Betrayal and related topics. His latest is a brief but pointed discussion of an anything-but-brief series on American Betrayal and the “controversy” around it which appeared at the American Thinker website on July 4, July 5, and July 6 — 12,000 words in all by Jeff Lipkes that someone chose to title “Diana and Ron.”

You can find the Nyquist discussion and relevant links here.

Nyquist makes note of two “interjections” awkwardly tacked onto the end of Lipkes’ final installment. These little poison pen letters were drafted by none other than Ronald “McCarthy on Steroids” Radosh and David “She should not have written this book” Horowitz, American Betrayal’s leading detractors. By my count, this makes the sixth or even seventh eruption over the book by Radosh and the fifth one by Horowitz. It really does seem to be the case, as in the old nursery tune, that everywhere that American Betrayal went, Radosh/Horo were sure to go.

Interestingly enough — at least to me, the author of the book that so fascinates and terrifies my detractors — American Thinker did not extend to me this same “courtesy,” if that’s what it was. (This seems to be a pattern.)

After crafting a defense against just a few points of attack extracted from the massive Lipkes critique, I sent it in as my response. American Thinker rejected it unless — get this — I agreed to accept the editorial guidance of American Thinker in rewriting my own defense of my own book. This becomes extra-jaw-dropping since the editor presuming to direct my own defense of my own book had also declared himself hostile to it.

So extraordinary is the whole exchange on this subject that I am publishing it in full so that interested readers can evaluate for themselves American Thinker’s committment to fair play and open debate.

It will also explain why no author’s response has appeared at the American Thinker following the publication of a three-part, 12,000-word series by Jeff Lipkes about American Betrayal.

My response, by the way, will be appearing soon — just not at American Thinker.

But first, the email exchange with American Thinker editor JR Dunn, which I copied to editor in chief Thomas Lifson. Emphasis occasionally added for darkly comic relief.