By Prof. Hillel Frisch on May 9, 2016
Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 118
ISIS captured the world’s attention when it routed the Iraqi army in Mosul and took control over the city in early June 2014. At one point, its advance southward reached to within 75 km of Israel’s border on the Golan Heights.
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Eight months ago, in September 2015, when every pundit opined that Donald Trump was a laughable candidate, I wrote that:
“In short, get ready for a President Trump. But, more importantly, Trump, and only Trump, has the guts to erase Obama, and the vestiges of Obama’s traitorous Iran-First policies, like Obama never existed. Just call Trump the Eraser-Man. America will elect Trump because they want to erase Obama, and all of his domestic and national security policies.
After one year of President Trump, Obama and his policies will be just a bad dream.”
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By Andrew C. McCarthy, NATIONAL REVIEW — April 16, 2016
For many years, I was reluctant to write a memoir of my experience leading the investigation and prosecution of the jihadists against whom we are still at war over 20 years later. For one thing, while an exhilarating experience for a trial lawyer, it was also a very hard time for my family, for obvious reasons. Also, with all the tough judgment calls we had to make, we inevitably made some mistakes — “we” very much including me. A triumphant outcome has a pleasant way of bleaching away any memory of errors; to write honestly about the case would mean revisiting them. Who needed that?
And about that triumph: I had, and have, a gnawing sense that we failed. Yes, the conviction of the Blind Sheikh and his henchmen was a great law-enforcement success. Throughout the long trial and in the years that followed, though, I came to appreciate that national security is principally about keeping Americans safe, not winning court cases. Sure, winning in this instance meant justice was done and some terrorists were incarcerated. How safe, though, had we really kept Americans?
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The last 48 hours (May 7-8) have seen a major escalation of the ISIS threats against Israel, DEBKAfile’s intelligence and counterterrorism sources report. In a coordinated maneuver by all of the ISIS commands in the Middle East, the terrorist organization simultaneously released at least 10 videos that it said showed ISIS forces on their way to attack targets in Israel.
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An energy deal between the two countries is close says Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz and reports in the Turkish media.
“We have a strong connection with Israel, and importing Israeli gas to Turkey is a big deal for us,” Zorlu Holdings CEO Omer Yungul said last week, adding that his company wanted to import 8 BCM of gas in the near future.
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Indictment read in open court as trial begins for Elor Azaria, who shot a wounded Palestinian assailant in Hebron on March 24
The Jaffa Military Court on Monday urged both sides in the trial of IDF Sgt. Elor Azaria, who faces manslaughter charges for shooting dead an incapacitated Palestinian attacker in Hebron on March 24, to seek a plea bargain in the case.
Azaria was accused Monday of unjustified killing and violating the army’s rules of engagement when he shot and killed Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, who a few minutes earlier had stabbed Israeli troops. Al-Sharif and another assailant stabbed and wounded one soldier before troops opened fire on them, wounding al-Sharif and killing the second attacker.
Azaria’s indictment was read in open court for the first time on Monday. It argues that Azaria did not believe al-Sharif posed an imminent threat when he shot him.
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Revolutionary Guard’s deputy commander, General Hossein Salami, threatened on May 4th: “If the Americans and their regional allies want to pass through the Strait of Hormuz and threaten us, we will not allow any entry.”
Closing off the Strait of Hormuz which connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea could stop the flow of 20% of the world’s oil.
The U.S. response? According to the San Francisco Bay Area based pro-Iran news website, Payvand: “Defense Department spokesman Colonel Steven Warren says U.S. warships have stopped accompanying U.S. and British-flagged commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. The move came after Iran threatened to close the waterway to U.S. and allied vessels.” One day later, Voice of America, which is cited by Payvand, wrote it was referring to a statement made by Col. Warren in 2015.
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By Amb Yoram Ettinger, ISRAEL HAYOM
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other Western policymakers, joined by much of the “elite” Western media, have repeatedly argued that 68-year-old Israel is becoming increasingly isolated due to its defiance of global pressure to evacuate the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which tower over Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion International Airport and 80% of Israel’s population, transportation, technological and business infrastructure.
Since 1948, global pressure on Israel to commit itself to dramatic concessions has been a fixture of Israel’s foreign policy and public diplomacy, accompanied by warnings that Israel was dooming itself to painful isolation. An examination of Israel’s global position — economically, militarily and diplomatically — reveals that irrespective of Israel’s uphill diplomatic challenges, reality routinely disproved these warnings as Israel demonstrated unprecedented integration into the global street.
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Shurat HaDin Legal Organization demand government to stop PA frequency allocation due to incitement to murder Israelis.
The Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center, on Sunday addressed Prime Minister and Minister of Communications Binyamin Netanyahu, demanding an immediate stop to the allocation of radio and television frequencies for Palestinians, due to incitement to murder Israelis and Jews.
According to a letter sent by Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin, the Israeli government distributes said frequencies under the Oslo Accords; however, radio and television broadcasts are used by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to encourage the current wave of terrorism and incitement to murder.
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by RACHELLE PETERSON, NATIONAL REVIEW
Last year Sony Pictures Classics released Merchants of Doubt, a documentary alleging that paid hucksters peddle climate denialism. Marc Morano, who founded and runs the website Climate Depot, was featured prominently as huckster-in-chief. This week Morano struck back with Climate Hustle, a 90-minute film released by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and CDR Communications. Climate Hustle exposes the industry of climate alarmism through an impressive sequence of interviews and news clips revealing the politicized narrative pushed onto the public. It’s a film with an important message. Unfortunately, its reach will be limited by its low budget and a few missteps in narrative development.
But anyone interested in the politicization of contemporary science must see it. It showed in theaters only on May 2 but is set for release on DVD later this spring.
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By Clarice Feldman, AMERICAN THINKER
The internet was abuzz following a story by David Samuels on the jerk who admitted he manipulated the truth to get the president’s absurd deal with Iran accepted (accepted, that is, by the Democrats in Congress who blocked a Republican resolution to reject it). In case you missed it I’ll provide a quick summary of the salient parts, but that shouldn’t be the end of the story: the press having allowed itself to be flimflammed into being mere White House megaphones needs to redeem itself, should it care to win back even the tiniest shred of credibility. It probably won’t, but I have a suggestion where to begin untangling the web of those in the media and foundation world who were played and, in turn, played their fellow citizens.
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Samaria town slated for demolition rejects deal to evacuate in exchange for new community.
Representatives of the Samarian community of Amona responded on Saturday night to a report in the Haaretz newspaper of a deal to evacuate their homes in exchange for the green-lighting of a new town.
According to the Haaretz report, the Defense Ministry and Amana organization – which promotes Jewish settlement of Judea and Samaria – had agreed to evacuate Amona and in exchange construct a new town more than three times its size, with 139 housing units compared to 40 in Amona.
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She courageously battles the Left’s comfortable narrative of the Muslim world
Ayaan Hirsi Ali can recount in virtual slow motion the events of November 2, 2004—the day Theo Van Gogh, her collaborator on a film about abuse of women in certain Muslim societies, was assassinated. The Somali-born women’s rights advocate and writer, then a member of the Dutch Parliament, had herself received innumerable death threats for writing the film, entitled Submission. The Dutch Minister of Interior informed her of what had occurred: Mr. Van Gogh was shot eight times and left on an Amsterdam street with his throat slit and a large knife stuck in his chest. The killer used a second knife to attach a note to Mr. Van Gogh’s chest, warning of violence to Western nations and to Jews, and pronouncing a death sentence against Ms. Hirsi Ali.
The death sentence began this way: “In the name of Allah most gracious, most merciful,” and went on to proclaim that “all enemies of Islam will be destroyed.”
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The United States is now moving in high gear into the most interesting election campaign it has had since 1968, and without the constant riots that occurred throughout that election year and surely, the assassinations (of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy) that shocked the world.
As Canada has had a unique ringside seat on American people and events since before the American Revolution, we might dare to hope that the Canadian press would have a more insightful view of the presidential selection process than the usual Americophobic condescensions and alarmist shrieks of the international left group-think that afflicts most of the media on other continents.
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Pew study finds threefold rise in past decade of millennials who say they’re more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israel
NEW YORK (JTA) – Democrats are more than four times as likely as Republicans to say they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel, according to a survey published Thursday, and sympathy for the Palestinians among Americans overall is growing.
Sympathy for the Palestinians is up most sharply among the youngest American adults, growing threefold over the last decade, the new survey by the Pew Research Center shows. Some 27 percent of millennials say they are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than Israel; in 2006 the figure was 9 percent. The share of those favoring Israel has held steady at about 43 percent.
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T. Belman. Last week it was an x-general. This week an X-Shin Bet Director. Like I said last week, put the screws to the Gazans till they realize what’s good for them
Ex-Shin Bet chief: Israel must ease Gaza’s financial plight
Yaakov Peri says while Hamas does not currently want confrontation, the Jewish state would benefit from giving Gazans hope for future
Former director of the Shin Bet security service urged Israel on Saturday to take steps to alleviate the economic problems in the Gaza Strip, alongside military measures to counter efforts by the Hamas terror group that rules the coastal enclave to build attack tunnels into Israel.
“Israel would do well if, in addition to the operational activities against the tunnels, it worked to alleviate the economic situation and show the residents of Gaza the prospect of an easier and more comfortable future,” said Yaakov Peri, an MK for Yesh Atid and member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the Walla news website reported.
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This is a growing trend — a response to the increasing islamization of Europe and its attendant supremacism, misogyny, Jew-hatred and bigotry.
Yesterday, Breitbart published an article I wrote on the same poll results in France: Poll Shows ‘Total Rejection’ of Islam in France Across the Political Spectrum. And still the European elites run roughshod over the will of the people. So prepare yourself for admonishments, Obama dawah speeches, wails of islamofauxbia and backlashophobia that we must always suffer for opposing jihad-terror and the most brutal, extreme ideology on the face of the earth — the sharia.
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Donald Trump faces an unforgiving electoral map as he seeks to win the White House.
Yet there is a plausible path to victory for the businessman over likely Democratic nomineeHillary Clinton, if he is able to repair his image among key voting blocs such as Hispanics.
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