What is at stake here is whether the Jihadist Sunnis control Lebanon, Syria and Iraq or the Jihadist Shiites, under Iranian dominance, do. Obama opts for the latter. But what is ignored is that all Jihadists want to destroy the US or that Islam demands that the world submits to it. Ted Belman
Obama pledges additional support for Iranian puppet regimes
In a prime time address to the nation on the eve of 11 September 2014, President Obama pledged an expanded U.S. effort to destroy the Islamic State (IS), which he still calls “ISIL” (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). American air power, stepped-up training for anti-Assad Syrian jihadis (which he calls “moderate rebels”), an additional $25 million in financial aid to Baghdad, and partnership with “a broad coalition” (that currently consists of 9 countries) comprise the key elements of the new military campaign.
Given that the only territory IS currently threatens are the regimes of two Iranian puppets – one in Baghdad, one in Damascus – Obama’s announcement in effect amounts to a renewed U.S. commitment to support Tehran’s grip on regional hegemony. The nuclear talks about how quickly the U.S. will accede to the Iranian bomb resume in another week.
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It’s 9/11 the 13th, and these United States have never been closer to losing the last vestiges of their foundational identity.
Long ago, our first president, George Washington, prophetically warned against “attachments and entanglements in foreign affairs.” In the last century, such sentiments, tragically (as I increasingly believe), fell into disrepute. In our time, Washington’s 21st-century successors, George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama, have no such compunction. On the contrary, their response to the Islamic assault of 9/11 and the aftermath of continuing jihad have been to link the fortunes of this great nation with those of warring tribes and factions in the Islamic world. That’s about as attached and entangled in foreign affairs as it is possible to get.
For the past 13 years, it has been the flawed crux of U.S. foreign policy to micromanage “moderates” in the Islamic world by waging “counterinsurgencies” as a means of defusing the “extremism” of Islam. This failed effort has had the disastrous effect of calibrating America’s fate – as well as exhausting our military and emptying our treasury – according to the rise and fall of Islamic strongmen and blocs.
By Moshe Feiglin, Jewish Press
Israel’s security apparatus has requested an additional 11 billion shekels in wake of Operation Protective Edge. In my opinion, Protective Edge proved that the security budget actually undermines our security.
Let me explain.
What was the Hamas’s budget during this war? A fraction of Israel’s. Maybe one percent. So, if everything depended on money, how is it that such a huge monetary gap in our favor did not lead to a resounding Israeli victory – quick, simple, and without fatalities?
Israeli soldiers seen at a deployment area near the border with the Gaza Strip in August. Israel could not win a war like the one this past summer with Hamas, according to the author, because its policy makers are “captive to the concept of the two state solution.
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Unless we extricate our policy-making mechanisms from the destructive influence of these corrosive canards, our goose may be well and truly cooked.
Islamic Jihad digging new tunnels in Gaza. (photo credit:screenshot)
Senior diplomatic official says Israel has detected Hamas smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip just two weeks after the end of Operation Protective Edge
– Herb Keinon, The Jerusalem Post, September 7.
The Iranians are seeking to renew aid to Hamas because it has proven itself against the ‘Zionist enemy’
– Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Herzliya, September 8.
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[..] At the outset of his remarks, Obama insisted that Islamic State, or (ISIL has he calls it), “is not ‘Islamic.’” Obama may be right, and he may be wrong.
That’s for Muslims to determine. But whatever the truth is about Islam and jihad, the fact is that hundreds of millions of Muslims believe that Islamic State and other jihadist groups and regimes, of both the Shi’ite and Sunni variety, are accurate expressions of Islam. This is why thousands of Muslims from Europe and the US are flocking to Iraq and Syria to join Islamic State.
Obama’s policies for contending with Islamic jihadists are a natural extension of his refusal to speak hard truths to Muslims or speak truthfully about Islamic terrorism and jihadism. His whitewashing of jihadist Islam on Wednesday night similarly was reflected in the strategy he set out for fighting Islamic State.
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The futility of it all.
By Shoshana Bryen, AMERICAN THINKER
Secretary of State Kerry is in the Middle East, looking for regional allies for President Obama’s proposal to deal with the threat of the Islamic State (IS). That is entirely appropriate — IS poses a more immediate and dire threat to regional players than it does to the United States. Convincing Turkey and Qatar to stop funding and supporting jihadists, for example, would be an excellent start.
However in Iraq, Kerry was seeking the “boots” President Obama insists will not be ours in the war to come. It was a sharp reminder of what we’ve already sunk into building the post-invasion Iraqi military that was supposed to secure the borders of their own country — and failed ignominiously. And it is a warning about the President’s plans to arm and train Syrian rebels.
529 anti-Semitic violent incidents in France in first seven months; 302 in UK in July alone.
Anti-Semitic attacks nearly doubled in France in the first seven months of 2014, the country’s main Jewish group said Thursday.
A total of 529 anti-Semitic actions or threats were registered up to the end of July, against 276 for the same period last year, the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) said, citing figures gleaned from the French Interior Ministry.
The acts included violence against individuals, arson and vandalism, and “exacerbate the growing unease that oppresses Jews in France each day and overshadows their future”, CRIF said in a statement.
Yet more worrying, the group added, is the appearance of new forms of violence against Jews – including attacks by organized gangs and the targeting of synagogues, as well as acts of vandalism against Jewish businesses and planned terrorist attacks.
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The embattled Syrian regime and its closest allies, Russia and Iran, will oppose American military action in its territory against Islamic State, the axis said on Thursday.
The embattled Syrian regime and its closest allies, Russia and Iran, will oppose American military action in its territory against Islamic State, unless the White House coordinates US actions with President Bashar Assad, the axis said on Thursday.
The group expressed its opposition to American force, which it called an “aggressive” and “illegal” intervention in a sovereign state, hours after President Barack Obama announced his intent to target Islamic State terrorists “wherever they exist.”
But the White House made clear that the president’s decision had already been made. Strikes will begin against targets in Syria “at a time and place” of his choosing, senior aides said.
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An increasing number of Europeans, who are realizing the dangers posed by radical Islam, hold the key to improved relations with Israel.
The past few years have seen many tensions arise between Israel and Europe over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For that reason, and because of the growing presence of Muslims in Europe (20% of Europe’s population is expected to be Muslim by 2050), quite a few Israelis and Jews are pessimistic over the future of the relations with Europe.
This fear has also been expressed in recent articles which claimed that Israel was losing European support, such as Europe living in denial by Shaul Rosenfeld
Turkey backs out of US-led war on IS. Germany, UK say no to air campaign
DEBKA September 11, 2014, 5:26 PM (IDT)
The Turkish government inflicted a stunning blow to President Barack Obama’s strategy for a broad US-led coalition for tackling and defeating the Islamic State, Thursday, Sept. 11 – just hours after the plan was unveiled in Washington. One of the 11 Sunni Muslim nations invited to Jeddah by US Secretary John Kerry Thursday to join the coalition’s establishment, Turkey announced instead that it wants no part in the US strategy for destroying IS.
In his speech Wednesday night, President Obama specifically named Turkey as one of the “friends and allies” who would contribute troops to the mission.
However, an official in Ankara, who chose to remain anonymous, stated later: “Turkey will refuse to allow a US-led coalition to attack jhadists in neighboring Iraq and Syria from its air bases, nor will it take part in combat operations against militants.” The statement continued: “Turkey will not be involved in any armed operation but will concentrate entirely on humanitarian operations.”
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“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” Samuel Johnson said. A few centuries later his fellow Englishman, Winston Churchill, quipped, “The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.”
It’s not true of the United States, but it is true of Barack Obama who, having exhausted every alternative that involved appeasement or pretending that ISIS wasn’t a threat, has decided to do the right thing.
As long as he gets enough applause for doing it.
With his approval ratings, particularly on American leadership and national security, lower than Assad’s, he decided to exploit September 11 to butch up his foreign policy image.
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Reports surfaced Wednesday night that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was “booed off the stage” at an event hosted by a purportedly Christian organization.
By Matthew Boyle, BREITBART NEWS
Cruz, the keynote speaker at the new “In Defense Of Christians” organization’s dinner in Washington DC, had offered the crowd–a number of whom were Christians from the Middle East, including Palestinian Christians–public support for Israel. After doing so, some members of the crowd booed at Cruz, and they persisted until he left the stage, noting their hatred and saying he can’t stand with them if they don’t stand with Israel.
“Tonight, in Washington, should have been a night of unity as we came together for the inaugural event for a group that calls itself ‘In Defense of Christians.’ Instead, it unfortunately deteriorated into a shameful display of bigotry and hatred,” Cruz said in a statement provided to Breitbart News. “When I spoke in strong support of Israel and the Jewish people, who are being persecuted and murdered by the same vicious terrorists who are also slaughtering Christians, many Christians in the audience applauded. But, sadly, a vocal and angry minority of attendees at the conference tried to shout down my expression of solidarity with Israel.”
By Rabbi Prof Dov Fischer, INN
[..] We need to initiate the discussion, not to react. We need to be creative in our presentation, not predictably defensive. We need to capture the imagination by shifting dynamically, as Sid Luckman did on the field, into a T-formation with men in motion.
1. BDS Right Back at Them. It is time for Israel’s supporters to start a nationwide campus and union movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Arab racist regimes like Qatar — the bankers of Islamist terror throughout the world — and Saudi Arabia, the country that gave America 15 of the 19 destroyers on September 11, 2001. It is true that they manufacture virtually nothing useful to boycott, so we have to find that something besides oil — and also oil — and start a BDS campaign on campuses throughout America. Demand, for example, that the next World Cup be moved from its planned venue in Qatar. We need to be the ones circulating our petitions on campuses, calling attention to racism — particularly against Black people who are enslaved and gay people who are tortured and murdered — in the Arab world.
As polls show strong support for Jewish Home among the electorate, Tzippy Livni and Yair Lapid are concerned for their political futures
As polls show strong support for Jewish Home among the electorate – and rapidly slipping support among voters for her Hatnua party – Justice Minister Tzippy Livni said Thursday that as far as she was concerned, the party headed by Nafatali Bennett had no place in the coalition.
“Jewish Home is a party based on deep ideological and religious ideas which will never allow Israel to sign a peace treaty with the Palestinians,” Livni said. “They have no place in the government.”
Speaking to Channel Ten, Livni said that she had been opposed all along to the political alliance between Bennett and Yesh Atid’s Yaif Lapid, and now her suspicions had been borne out. It was only because of that alliance that Bennett was able to slip Jewish Home into the government, she claimed.
Cabinet to decide that municipal rabbis can oversee the process – but one of Israel’s two chief rabbis must grant the final approval
Four and a half years after work began on reforming the process of converting to Judaism in Israel, a compromise Wednesday finally paved the way for its approval. At a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hatnuah chairwoman Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, it was decided that the reform, which would allow municipal rabbis to establish rabbinic conversion tribunals, would not be established by means of legislation, but by a cabinet decision to be approved at Sunday’s meeting. The compromise will transform a bill proposed by MK Elazar Stern (Hatnuah) into a cabinet decision to be implemented immediately.
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JTA — A bipartisan Senate letter backing U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority toward returning it to power in the Gaza Strip has the backing of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Sens. Robert Casey (D-PA) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), both considered close to AIPAC, initiated the letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry now circulating among senators for signatories and an official of the lobby on Wednesday confirmed to JTA that AIPAC supports the letter.
The letter and AIPAC’s backing for it signal a sharp change from before the latest Israel-Hamas war in Gaza over the summer, when AIPAC backed congressional measures that would have penalized the Palestinian Authority in the wake of its agreement to work with Hamas toward elections.
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‘No religion condones the killing of innocents’
In his prime-time speech to the nation on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, President Obama vowed to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq and Syria with airstrikes and 475 U.S. boots on the ground – but he also made a particular point of declaring that the Islamic State terrorists “are not Islamic.”
“Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic,” Obama said, speaking from the state floor of the White House residence. “No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.”
He added, “And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.”
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[Obama said ISIS is not Islamic. Huh?]
In a speech to the American people, Wednesday, Sept. 10, President Barack Obama unveiled a four-point strategy “to roll back, degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS, at the head of “a broad coalition of friends and allies.” The US would lead off with systematic air strikes against IS targets, while local forces would perform the fighting on the ground. “No US combat troops would be involved,” he pledged.
He described the effort as a “comprehensive and sustained counter-terror mission,” to hunt terrorists down wherever they are. “We will not hesitate to take action against IS in Syria as well as Iraq,” said Obama. “There will be no safe haven for anyone threatening America.” He therefore called on Congress to approve additional resources for training and equipping Syrian opposition forces to take part in the war on IS.
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Bayefsky says UN is ‘inciting murderous intolerance towards’ Jews
A leading human rights advocate accused the United Nations and its member nations of being “the leading global purveyor of anti-Semitism” and “inciting murderous intolerance towards” Jewish people during an unprecedented speech Monday at the international body’s headquarters in New York City.
Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust (IHRH), stood before the U.N. and lambasted it for fanning the flames of global anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel, according to a copy of her remarks.
Bayefsky delivered her rebuke during an informal briefing on the threat anti-Semitism poses to international peace and security that was organized on the sidelines of the U.N. by the permanent mission of Palau.
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