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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Joseph Puder</title>
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		<title>Mahmoud Abbas: Failing the Palestinians and Peace</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/mahmoud-abbas-failing-the-palestinians-and-peace/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mahmoud-abbas-failing-the-palestinians-and-peace</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Dec 2014 05:35:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[abbas]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=248290</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Palestinian president takes an even more drastic totalitarian turn. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Mahmoud-Abbas-AP.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-248291" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Mahmoud-Abbas-AP-450x324.jpg" alt="Mahmoud Abbas" width="296" height="213" /></a>Mahmoud Abbas, (aka Abu Mazen) has been a failure as the Palestinian “Rais.” He failed to lead the Palestinian Authority (PA) toward peace with Israel, and he mismanaged the alleged goal to achieve statehood for the Palestinians. Instead of facing the tough issues and making compromises required in negotiating peace and statehood with the Israelis, Abbas chose an alliance with the Gaza controlled terrorist group Hamas. Following Abbas’ pact with Hamas last April, Israel broke off peace negotiations with the Palestinians, just days before the talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry were scheduled to expire.</p>
<p>Abbas isn’t only confusing Israelis, Americans, and is his Europeans patrons, he is perplexing his own Palestinian consituents. Following last summer’s Gaza War between Hamas and Israel, Abbas threatened to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and saught to indict Israel on war crimes. PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki met with the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC last August to explore ways of joining the court by PA President Abbas signing the Rome Statute.  When, however, the U.S. Congress threatened to cut off all funding to Palestine if Abbas filed war crimes charges against Israel, Abbas backed off. At the same time though, Israel’s Prime Minister threatened to counter-sue, alleging that the rockets fired by Hamas terrorists into Israeli civilian areas constituted “<a href="http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/09/hamas-quietly-admits-it-fired-rockets-from-civilian-areas/380149/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">double war</span></a>” crimes.</p>
<p>The Israeli Law Center called Shurat-HaDin, led by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner submitted a complaint against Mahmoud Abbas in the ICC for “war crimes.” The complaint claims that Abbas may be tried for his responsibility in the missile attacks targeting Israeli cities, executed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which Abbas heads. It charges that Fatah, also led by Abbas, was responsible for several missile attacks on Israeli cities. Darshn-Leitner pointed out that Fatah leader Abbas may be tried by the ICC. Abbas is a citizen of Jordan and Jordan is a member-state of the ICC. The ICC has jurisdiction over crimes committed by a citizen of a member state. Darshan-Leitner added, the organization “will not allow Fatah to carry out rocket attacks on Israeli population centers, while <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Shurat-Hadin-files-war-crimes-complaint-against-Abbas-with-ICC-381312"><span style="color: #0433ff;">hypocritically</span></a> advocating Palestinian membership in the ICC. Abbas falsely believes that alleged crimes against Arabs are the only ones that should be prosecuted.”</p>
<p>A week ago, Abbas threatened again. This time he fingered the security co-ordination with Israel following the death of Ziad Abu Ein, 55, PA Minister without Portfolio. He promptly backtracked. On November 29, 2014, Abbas declared  that if the United Nations Security Council rejects the Palestinian statehood resolution, he will seek membership in the ICC. He said, “We will seek Palestinian membership in international organizations, including the International Criminal Court in the Hague. We will also <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.629102"><span style="color: #0433ff;">reassess</span></a> our ties with Israel, including ending the security cooperation between us.”</p>
<p>Abbas’ latest gambit is a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that would force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) within two-years. According to press reports, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry requested to postpone the Palestinian initiative at the UNSC until after the Israeli elections, (March 17, 2015) but the Palestinians refused. PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki intimated to reporters that there was disagreement between the Americans and Palestinians on how the elections in Israel would or wouldn’t advance the PA UNSC resolution. Kerry believed that a UNSC vote before the elections would impact adversely on the winners. In other words, a vote before the elections would strengthen Netanyahu and the Right in Israel. Maliki argued that a vote before January, 2015 would be rather positive.</p>
<p>At a closed meeting last week with 28 EU ambassadors, John Kerry revealed that he was asked by former Israeli president Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni to prevent the Palestinian initiative at the UNSC because it will help “<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.632816"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Netanyahu and Bennett</span></a> (Jewish Home Party chairman) in the upcoming elections.” Maliki posited that Kerry himself has not abided by his pledge not to intervene in the Israeli elections.</p>
<p>Also last week in London, Secretary of State Kerry met with Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, and according to a PA senior official, Kerry posed a number of U.S. principles that should be included in the Palestinian UNSC resolution. Kerry supposedly refused the two year time period demand by the PA for Israeli withdrawal. The resolution as Kerry suggested should include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as U.S. opposition to declare Jerusalem as a joint capital for Palestine and Israel. Erekat rejected the U.S. proposals. Kerry declared afterward that the U.S. does not accept the Jordanian (presenting the Palestinian resolution)  and French resolutions. He warned that if the Palestinians insist on presenting the resolutions, the U.S. would use its veto power. Erekat rejected Kerry’s ideas, and insisted that the resolutions would be submitted. As of December 25, 2014, Abbas rejected an Arab League request to delay the submission of the Palestinian statehood until January when five new members who support the Palestinian cause will join the Security Council.</p>
<p>Abbas’ gambits notwithstanding, the increased authoritarianism of Abu Mazen is reflected in a recent survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. It indicates that 66% of Palestinians are afraid to criticise Abu Mazen and the PA, and 80% consider the PA institutions to be corrupt and infected with nepotism. Last summer, according to the survey, support for Abbas (Abu Mazen) declined to 35% from 50%. “There is no doubt about the fact that <a href="http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/659/827.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">outlawing</span></a> freedoms and rights, especially of professional unions, is a factor in Abbas’ decline in popularity,” said Dr. Khalil Shikaki, one of the survey takers<span style="color: #323333;">. </span></p>
<p>PA security agents inspect what is written in the social media, and threaten those who criticize Abbas. Abu Mazen critics point out that after a decade in power he is controlling all systems of government to such an extent as to minimize all resistance. Perceived political rivals such as Mohammad Dahlan, who once served as Abu Mazen’s assistant, and Salam Fayyad, the former Prime Minister of the PA, are vilified by Abbas. Following the Palestinian Unity government formation, headed by Rami Hamdallah last May, elections were to follow. But, once again, internal squabbling prevented it, and added to it was Abbas’ fear of a Hamas victory.</p>
<p>Abu Mazen’s strategy for the establishment of a Palestinian state has reached a cul-de-sac.  None of his gambits proved successful. His rivalry with Hamas is bitter and ongoing, despite the alliance he forged at the expense of negotiations with Israel. And, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, he balks at the idea of ‘ending the conflict’ with Israel. He knows full well that this might be a death sentence for him, targeting him for assassination. It is for this reason that Abbas and the PA are unlikely to forgo the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Israel for its part, cannot accept such a demographic suicide. This is why Abbas would rather avoid negotiations with Israel and bypass it by going to the UNSC. It is also the ostensible reason why peace with Israel cannot be achieved, and as a result, the Palestinian people continue to suffer political and economic deprivation. Abbas has not been the solution to the Palestinian problems; rather, he has been responsible for failing them.</p>
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		<title>Turkey: Erdogan vs. Gulen</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/turkey-erdogan-vs-gulen/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=turkey-erdogan-vs-gulen</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2014 05:02:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A struggle between titans for the hearts and minds of the Turks.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/gulen-erdogan.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247918" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/gulen-erdogan-450x279.jpg" alt="gulen-erdogan" width="316" height="196" /></a>Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued his campaign to shut down all opposition to his authoritarian rule. The latest outrage occurred last weekend when Ekrem Dumanli, editor of one of Turkey’s largest newspapers, Istanbul’s <i>Zaman,</i> was detained on charges of plotting to overthrow Erdogan’s government. In addition to Dumanli, 27 other people were detained, charged with belonging to an illegal organization, and seeking to seize control of the state.</p>
<p>The European Union (EU) criticized the arrests of journalists, TV producers, police and TV drama scriptwriters linked to the Pennsylvania-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen. Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, condemned the arrests as “incompatible with the freedom of media.” U.S. State Department spokeswomen Jen Psaki opined that, “Media, freedom, due process, and judicial independence are key elements in every healthy democracy and are enshrined in the Turkish constitution. As Turkey’s friend and ally, we urge the Turkish authorities to ensure their actions do <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/12/turkey-criticised-detaining-journalists-20141215104333106372.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">not violate</span></a> these core values and Turkey’s own democratic foundations.” Erdogan responded by telling the EU “to <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/eus-mogherini-very-surprised-erdogan-comments-arrests-164812446.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">mind</span></a> their own business.” <i>Yahoo</i> reported that “The state Anatolia news agency said chief prosecutor Hadi Salihoglu ordered the arrests on charges of forgery, fabricating evidence and forming a crime syndicate to overtake the sovereignty of the state.” This episode marks the latest salvo in the feud between Erdogan and his former ally turned foe, Fethullah Gulen.</p>
<p>Gulen’s influence in Turkey is due to his enormous accumulation of assets. He controls a global network of religious Islamic schools that are far more moderate than the Saudi sponsored and funded (madrasas) schools. He is also in charge of large charities and media outlets. It is alleged that Gulen used his influence inside Turkey to start the investigation on charges of corruption among senior members of Erdogan’s AK Party (AKP). It led to a number of police commissioners being sacked, and to some of Erdogan’s allies being arrested. Erdogan accused Gulen’s allies of trying to “create a state within a state.”</p>
<p>After being charged with crimes against the (Turkish) state, Fethullah Gulen fled to the U.S. in 1999, and settled in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.  The charges against him were subsequently overturned and he was cleared.  For many years, the Gulenist movement worked closely with Erdogan’s alliance of the working class, and the religious and business communities.  The partnership with the Gulenist movement won Erdogan three elections (2003, 2007, and 2011).</p>
<p>The <i>Guardian</i> reported (February 15, 2013) that, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, chairman of the social democratic Republican People’s party (CHP), said Erdogan, Premier since 2003, was determined to change the constitution to create an executive presidency to which post he would switch to after elections in 2014. Kilicdaroglu added, “Turkey needs a new constitution to protect individual rights. The 1982 charter imposed after a military coup was out of date and at odds with Turkey&#8217;s EU ambitions, but Erdogan&#8217;s plans <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/turkish-opposition-leader-dictator-erdogan"><span style="color: #0433ff;">ignored</span></a> the need for a separation of powers, for instance by empowering the president to appoint judges.”</p>
<p>Calling Erdogan a dictator, Kilicdaroglu charged, “The prime minister (Erdogan) is more and more authoritarian.” He added, “Unfortunately, the sovereignty of fear is ubiquitous. No one can talk with ease on the telephone. Civil society is under pressure. The universities cannot express their view. The labour unions are completely silent. The media are fearful. There is not one single dissenting voice within his own party. The attempt to create an executive presidency is all about the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/turkish-opposition-leader-dictator-erdogan"><span style="color: #0433ff;">concentration of power</span></a> in a single hand. It will be a disaster for Turkey. It will cancel all the democratic gains <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/turkey"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Turkey</span></a> has made.”</p>
<p>Erdogan won the 2014 presidential elections but not without serious controversy. <i>Hurriyet Daily News</i> reported (October 27, 2014) “Some 1,863 journalists have been<a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/1863-turkish-journalists-fired-during-akp-rule-opposition-report-says.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=73547&amp;NewsCatID=339"><span style="color: #0433ff;"> fired</span></a> in the 12 years of Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule.” Opposition politicians have also alleged that intimidation of the media is due to the government&#8217;s attempt to restructure the ownership of private media corporations. Journalists from the Cihan News Agency and the Gülenist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaman_(newspaper)"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Zaman newspaper</span></a> were said to have been repeatedly barred from attending government press conferences or asking questions. In addition, Erdogan was accused of using public funds to support his election campaign.</p>
<p>An Islamist in his ideology, Erdogan has systematically undermined the Ataturk legacy of secularism in Turkey. He is now focused on changing the educational system, and seeks to bring back the Arabic script to replace the Latin script adopted by Ataturk. He is also eager to foster Ottoman-language classes in the school system. Now that he has re-made the military and the Judiciary from the secularist in the fabricated “sledgehammer” affair, also known as the “Ergenekon case,” Erdogan is intent on changing the educational system, and seeks to make it more Islamic, and pre-Kemalist. The <i>Gatestone Institute</i> intimated that, “In 2012, Turkey saw the outcome of a trial that foretold the Ergenekon verdicts: the so-called &#8220;Sledgehammer&#8221; case. In that, more than 300 officers were found guilty for an ostensible coup plan allegedly originating in 2003, the year after AKP first won a national election. In that trial, as in the <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3933/turkey-ergenekon"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Ergenekon ordeal</span></a>, evidence, the rights of defendants and prosecutorial conduct are said to have been monitored insufficiently.”</p>
<p>Although the Gülenists might have shared Erdogan’s quest to bring Turkey closer to Islam, they haven’t shared his authoritarian approach.  Erdogan and the AKP politicos have accused the Gülenists of being treasonous, by having alliances with Zionists and U.S. neocons and other forces who seek to weaken Turkey. The Gülenists, for their part, charge that the AKP has become corrupt and has plundered the state resources, while at the same time claiming to serve Islam. The <i>BBC</i> reported (November 14, 2014) that “a controversial 1000- room palace being built for Turkey’s president (Erdogan) will cost even more than the original $615 million price tag. Officials said the additional costs are due to a new 250-room <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30061107"><span style="color: #0433ff;">private residence</span></a> for President Tayyip Erdogan…”</p>
<p>Erdogan was a committed follower of the former (deposed) Islamist Prime Minister (1996-97) Necmettin Erbakan (Welfare Party) and has followed in his footsteps. Erbakan believed that Turkey should turn away from the West and forge a political, military, and economic union with Muslim countries. He also believed national strength required conflict with the West at the expense of building democratic institutions. The Gulenists, on the other hand, are strong proponents of closer ties with Europe. And while Erdogan expressed crude anti-Semitism towards Israel and Jews, the Gulenists clashed with Erdogan’s AKP over his bellicose foreign policy, and his belligerence towards the Jewish state. The Gulenists were also concerned with Erdogan’s strong support for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s pursuit of legislation to restrict internet access, curtailing the power of independent prosecutors, the detention of Ekrem Dumanli, editor of <i>Zaman</i>, and 27 others, mostly from the press, does not bode well for democracy in Turkey. Erdogan has purged the independent judiciary, eroded the Ataturk secular legacy, decimated the military high command, which was the guardian of Turkey’s Ataturk secular republic, and now seeks to censor and restrict free press in Turkey. He is about to subvert the role of the Turkish presidency and assume executive power. It has all the makings of an Erdogan dictatorship. Fethullah Gulen and his organization are the only force standing in his way, and last week’s Erdogan’s government “putsch” in clamping down on the free press is a case and point.</p>
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		<title>Israel Headed Toward Right or Left?</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2014 05:05:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Can Israeli alter the motives of the Jewish State's enemies?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/israeli-elections.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247414" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/israeli-elections-450x315.jpg" alt="israeli-elections" width="273" height="191" /></a>Last weekend the <em>New York Times</em> featured what it called “The Opinion Pages &#8211; Room for Debate.” The topic was “If Israel Turns Right, Where will it End Up?” The assumption (Israel Turns Right) was probably motivated by a recent (November 30, 2014) <em>Ha’aretz</em> poll that indicated that if elections were held now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party would gain seats, the Jewish Home party will gain even more, while Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party would diminish as previous centrist parties have done, including his father’s (Joseph or “Tommy”) Shinui party. In the same poll, Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah party would barely pass the threshold for securing seats. The new Governance Law would raise the threshold to 3.25% of the total vote from the previous 2%.</p>
<p>The poll conducted by the left-leaning <em>Ha’aretz</em> newspaper concluded that the Right–Religious parties together would master 65 seats in the 120 seat Knesset (Israeli parliament) with Likud receiving <a href="http://knessetjeremy.com/2014/11/30/dialoghaaretz-poll-likud-24-bayit-yehudi-16-labor-13-kachlon-12-yesh-atid-11-yisrael-beitenu-11/">24</a> seats, Naftali Bennett’s Beit Yehudi (Jewish Home) 16, Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beitenu (Israel Our Home) 11, Torah Judaism 8, and Shas, the Sephardic religious party 6.</p>
<p>The new centrist party being formed by Moshe Kahlon, the former Communications Minister in the Likud government is slated by the poll to receive 12 seats, while Lapid’s Yesh Atid would fall from 19 seats to 11. Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah will get 4 down from 6.</p>
<p>The left bloc will continue to shrink with Labor falling from 15 seats to 13, Meretz maintaining its 6 seats, and the Arab lists combined at 9 down from 11. The date for the next election has been set for March 17, 2015. Given the vicissitudes of the region, and the many points of crisis the Israeli government may have to face, the recent poll might undergo considerable changes.</p>
<p>One thing is clear however, an Israeli government turned Right or Left would face an existential threat from Iran. A left-of-center government would have to face the Iranian challenge, once in power, as much as any right-of-center is likely to. The Palestinians, whether as a unity government (Hamas and Fatah) or the Palestinian Authority (PA) under Mahmoud Abbas, are determined to get their way to statehood through the UN Security Council rather than negotiate with Israel. Abbas and the Palestinians are not so much interested in running a state as they are in isolating and delegitimizing Israel. A left-of-center Israeli government led by Labor’s Yitzhak Herzog will not fare better than Netanyahu with a Palestinian unity government or the PA. Mahmoud Abbas will not and cannot forgo the tactical use of the “Palestinian right of return.” For both, Herzog or Netanyahu, the “right of return” is a non-starter.</p>
<p>Diana Buttu, former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, commented in the <em>NY Times</em> (updated December 7, 2014) on her debate page, charging, “But make no mistake: There are no ‘<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/12/07/if-israel-turns-right-where-will-it-end-up-12/there-are-no-centrists-in-israel">centrists</a>’ in Israel. All Zionist politicians support Israel’s continued military occupation, the construction and expansion of Israeli colonies, the attacks on and siege of the Gaza Strip and, most important, the denial of freedom and equality to Palestinians. For example, Tzipi Livni, the justice minister fired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly voted against Knesset bills seeking to enshrine equality in Israeli laws. In other countries, these politicians would be considered “right-wing extremists,” not centrists.”</p>
<p>Buttu clearly expressed the mindset of Mahmoud Abbas. Using such an expression as “military occupation” is a blatant exaggeration, typical of a Palestinian professional propagandist. She appears to be ignoring the facts, that in <a href="http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/books/maps.htm">Area A</a> (as designated under the Oslo Accords), the Palestinians hold both civilian and security/military control. This includes all the cities of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) with the exception of Jerusalem and the Jewish part of Hebron. In <a href="http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/books/maps.htm">Area B</a>, Palestinians have civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control. This area contains 440 Palestinian villages and their surrounding lands. Area C, which contains the Jewish settlement adjacent to the Green Line, but has a small number of Palestinians, is controlled by Israel. The vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank are under the PA control. Buttu has ignored the fact that in 2005, Israel relinquished the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians. Israel moreover, demolished all the Jewish settlements there. Gaza is totally controlled by the Palestinians, and specifically, by the Palestinian Islamist Hamas terrorist organization.</p>
<p>The bills that Buttu refers to are those which seek to undermine the Jewish character of Israel, and have nothing to do with the civil, religious, and human rights of Israeli Arab citizens. The vast majority of the Palestinians, as mentioned, are under the control of the PA, not Israel. The so called “attack and Gaza siege” is another perversion of reality. Hamas terrorists have lobbed over 10,000 rockets on Israeli civilians, and last July, the latest war was provoked by Hamas rocketing Israeli cities.</p>
<p>Buttu reveals her disinterest in Palestinians negotiating peace with Israel when she states that, “It is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/12/07/if-israel-turns-right-where-will-it-end-up-12/there-are-no-centrists-in-israel">nonsensical</a> that Palestinians, occupied and stateless, must negotiate their freedom with their occupier and oppressor.” She and her Palestinian terrorist leadership are playing the “victimhood card” to a western world that craves assuaging its own guilt for colonialism, capitalist success, and being supposedly privileged. The truth however is that Palestinians have had endless opportunities to assert their self-determination. In 1937, under the British Peel Commission recommendations, Palestine would have been divided into an Arab and Jewish state, with the Arabs receiving <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/partition_plan.html">26,700</a> square kilometers of a shrunk Palestinian Mandate (in 1922, Britain sliced off 2/3 of Palestine Mandate to create the Emirate of Trans Jordan), while the Jews would have received a ghettoized area of only 5,000 square kilometers. The Arabs rejected it, and continued their anti-Jewish terror well until the start of WWII in 1939.</p>
<p>Opportunity for an independent Palestinian state came again a decade later in the form of the 1947 UN Partition. It sought to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. Once again the Arabs rejected it because they would not tolerate a Jewish state of any size. The Oslo Process, negotiated by the Labor Party, not the Right, turned sour. Hamas unleashed a campaign of terror against Israeli civilians with a nod of approval from P.L.O. Chairman Yaser Arafat. When President Bill Clinton sought to settle things between the Palestinians and Israel in a July, 2000 Camp David Summit, Israel’s Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered far reaching concessions, including 95% of the West Bank and Gaza and land swaps for the remaining 5%. In addition, it was agreed to establish the Palestinian capital around Jerusalem. Arafat rejected this chance for statehood the same way his Palestinian-Arab predecessors did. He chose instead to launch the Intifada.</p>
<p>It is because the Palestinian leadership failed to educate its people to accept the idea of peace with the Jewish state as a legitimate neighbor, and instead incited its people to consider a Jewish state of any size as illegitimate, that Arafat rejected an opportunity in 2000 to inaugurate a Palestinian state. Had he signed a document that committed him to “end of conflict,” he would probably have been assassinated. That unfortunately is the price of decades of anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic incitement and intolerance. In the end, it does not matter whether Israel turns Right or Left, the same results will occur. A Palestinian rejection of genuine peace with Israel can be counted on.</p>
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		<title>The Argument for Israel’s Nationality Law</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/the-argument-for-israels-nationality-law-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-argument-for-israels-nationality-law-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:02:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246648</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the much-maligned bill will preserve both Israel's Jewish and democratic character.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/1202-israel-nationality-law_standard_600x400.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246649" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/1202-israel-nationality-law_standard_600x400-423x350.jpg" alt="1202-israel-nationality-law_standard_600x400" width="314" height="260" /></a>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired last week two key ministers, Yair Lapid, Minister of Finance and leader of the Yesh Atid Party, and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, chairwoman of the Tenuah Party.  He also called for new elections, most likely to be held in March 2015.  The Nationality Law Netanyahu is determined to pass was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Netanyahu at a press conference pointed out that the government could not function with opposition from within.  Still, a majority of 14 &#8211; 6 in the Netanyahu cabinet approved the proposed nationality bill. The law would simply provide legal fortification to the notion that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. The bill in the Knesset is intended to prevent any future attempt to erode the Jewish and democratic character of Israel. The new legislation seeks to enshrine these principles as a Basic Law, Israel’s de facto constitution.</p>
<p>The political left in Israel, as expected, is fiercely opposed to the bill. Lapid and Livni opposed the bill approved by the cabinet majority.  <span style="color: #323333;">MK </span>Zahava Gal-On, chairwomen of the leftist Meretz Party, accused Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners of committing a “<a href="http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/politics/52111-141124-netanyahu-may-fire-ministers-of-nationality-law"><span style="color: #0433ff;">crime against Israeli democracy</span></a>.” Gal-On charged that even a tamer version of the bill approved by the cabinet would undermine the principle of equality and turn Israel’s Arab population into second-class citizens. PM Netanyahu argued that “enshrining Israel’s Jewish character in the constitution was necessary because of continued efforts to delegitimize it.” Netanyahu added, “There are many who are <a href="http://www.dw.de/netanyahus-push-for-jewish-nationality-law-risks-israeli-coalition/a-18083772"><span style="color: #0433ff;">challenging</span></a> Israel’s character as the nation state of the Jewish people. Apart from the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize (Israel) as a Jewish state, there was also an opposition from within.”</p>
<p>The debate in Israel over the Nationality Law provided the Palestinian leadership with ammunition to reinforce their unwillingness to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. <i>Arab News</i> (November 25, 2014) reported that the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (P.L.O.) executive committee issued a statement that expressed “strong condemnation and rejection of this law.” The P.L.O., which dominates the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, stated that, “The law aims to <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/middle-east/news/665381"><span style="color: #0433ff;">kill the two-state solution</span></a> by imposing the project of ‘Greater Israel’ as well as the Jewishness of the state upon the historical land of Palestine.”</p>
<p>The P.L.O. and its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, must know better than to use such shaky arguments as accusing Israel’s Nationality Law of imposing “Greater Israel” and the “Jewishness of the State.” For one thing, the Muslim and Arab worlds are replete with states that identify themselves as Muslim states. Many Muslim states have Islamic law as part of their legal systems.  A number of Muslim states have declared Islam to be their state religion in their constitutions.  Countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, and Yemen are Islamic republics and the Arab Gulf states including Saudi Arabia are Islamic monarchies. In Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, and Somalia, to name a few, Islam is the official religion. Unlike Israel however, none of the above mentioned Muslim states can be considered democratic under any criteria.</p>
<p>While Christians and Jews are second-class citizens in the Arab and Muslim world, and unequal under Islamic law, Israeli Arabs enjoy equal rights under Israeli law. According to PM Netanyahu, the Nationality Law also “affirms Israel’s democratic nature, stipulating equality in civic and personal rights for all its citizens, including affirming a right to the<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/cabinet-okays-controversial-jewish-state-bill-sends-it-to-knesset/"><span style="color: #0433ff;"> preservation</span></a> of one’s culture, heritage and identity for every resident of Israel, irrespective of their religion, race or ethnicity.” Speaking at the onset of the cabinet meeting on Sunday (November 23, 2014), Netanyahu added that, “There are those who want the democratic element to take precedence over the Jewish, and there are those who want the Jewish element to take precedent over the democratic. And the principle of the law that we are proposing here today – both of these values <a href="https://docs.zoho.com/writer/ropen.do?rid=8uo038e888446ea5140108fac5872b66e22e0#bookmark=http://www.timesofisrael.com/cabinet-okays-controversial-jewish-state-bill-sends-it-to-knesset/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">equally</span></a>.”</p>
<p>Additionally, Israel’s founding document &#8211; the Declaration of Independence &#8211; has never been institutionalized as the law of the land. It has thus enabled the judicial authorities, including Israel’s High Court, to co-opt politically the founding document, and alter the essential Jewish character of the State. The High Court has attempted to circumvent the will of the people through its Knesset representatives, by voiding the “illegal refugee law,” which sought to prevent the infiltration into Israel of Sudanese job seekers, all in the name of judicial universalism and multiculturalism.</p>
<p>Other recent rulings of Israel’s High Court, based on the current formulation of the Basic Laws, which conform to “Post-Zionist” thinking, requires new legal framework that reasserts Israel’s national interest as a fundamental principle alongside that of universal rights. Furthermore, the lack of a stronger definition of Israel’s national identity strengthens the hands of those who seek to turn Israel into a “bi-national state.” And, external criticism of Israel’s Jewish character demands legislation that would prevent those who seek to cancel the right of the Jewish people to have a national home on its land.</p>
<p>Professor Ruth Gavison, recipient of Israel’s Prize for Law and Justice, wrote in <i>Azure </i>(2003) a piece titled “<i>The Jews’ Right to Statehood: A Defense</i>.” She pointed out the clear need for legislative compromise, which transforms the inherent tension between Jewish and democratic values and interests. “The more democracy represents values of equality and neutrality, the less compatible it will be with particularistic foundations on the State level. And the more Jewish frames the contours of policymaking, the less compatible resulting policy will be with neutral and democratic values.”</p>
<p>The Israeli debate on the merits and demerits of the Nationality Law notwithstanding, the political left in Israel has forgotten that the external enemy is also tuned in to the debate, and using the words of Knesset members Zahava Gal-On to demonize Israel. Utilizing such expressions as “racist” and “discriminatory” to describe the cabinet’s proposed legislation, Gal-On is aiding and abetting Israel’s enemies. Moreover, given that her accusations are unfounded, her charges are preposterous. David Ben Gurion himself, one of the founding Fathers of modern Israel, called for a Jewish state in the land of Israel. Reading the Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948, Ben Gurion stated, “This recognition by the UN of the right of the Jewish People to establish their own state is irrevocable…The right is a natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state…We hereby declare the establishment of a <b>Jewish state</b> in Eretz-Israel.”</p>
<p>In fact, while the Declaration of Independence is replete with references to a “Jewish State,” there is no mention of the words “democratic state.” Yet, the Declaration also states that “The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/declaration%20of%20establishment%20of%20state%20of%20israel.aspx"><span style="color: #0433ff;">all its inhabitants</span></a>; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all of its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race, or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the UN.”</p>
<p>Those European states who rushed to recognize a Palestinian state but oppose the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state know too well that Palestine will be another Islamist authoritarian state, governed by Islamic law. This hypocrisy alone merits Israel’s proposed Nationality Law.</p>
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		<title>Jewish Settlements and Palestinian Terror</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:00:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[europeans]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245891</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A story of European hypocrisy.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/iu.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245896" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/iu-450x336.jpg" alt="iu" width="281" height="210" /></a>The 28 States that make up the European Union (EU) would like to see the Israeli-Palestinian peace process resume. They seek an ultimate solution that will establish a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital alongside the Jewish state. Both the Swedish and British parliaments (also Spain) have already voted to recognize a Palestinian state and others are sure to follow.</p>
<p>The <em>Associated Press</em> (<em>AP</em>) reported on Tuesday, (November 18, 2014) that “An internal European Union document proposes unspecified “<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/eu-proposal-could-punish-israel-settlements-172954951.html">actions</a>” against Israel for its settlement activities in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, reflecting unhappiness with the lack of progress in Mideast peace efforts.”</p>
<p>According to the <em>AP </em>report, “The document calls for unspecified moves against European companies operating in Israeli settlements. It also proposes actions against settlers themselves, including a “<a href="http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/EU-proposal-could-punish-Israel-for-settlements-5898457.php">no contact</a>” policy toward settler organizations, and a refusal &#8220;to engage with settlers,&#8221; including public figures who oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>The Europeans, burdened by a radicalized Muslim constituency, which in some of the EU states account for 10% of the population (France, Belgium), are pandering to their Muslim constituents with domestic and foreign policy concessions. One such concession is to push for a Palestinian state and punish Israel. The Muslim minorities have been co-opted by the socialist and leftist parties as a permanent voting bloc.</p>
<p>European colonial powers, including Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and others are laden with colonial guilt in a time when alleged “victimhood” is celebrated and pandered to, and “Human Rights” has become the Continent’s new religion, replacing Christianity. In today’s EU world, “Better red than dead” has been replaced by “Better <em>green</em> than dead.”</p>
<p>In order to preserve their “Dolce vita” or good life, the Europeans were willing to submit to Communism if they could keep their month-long paid vacations and generous welfare perks. Today, they are willing to submit to Islam in order to preserve their lives and property. After two world wars, the Europeans are tired and unwilling to fight. They resent America even though the U.S. has protected them from the Soviet Union, and is continuing to protect them from Russian, Iranian, and Islamic jihadist threats. They also resent Israel for resisting the jihadists, and for its chosen particularism as a Jewish state. Anti-Semitism of the pre-war years is in decline on the Continent, but Israel has become the “collective Jew,” a subject of derision and hatred.</p>
<p>European life today has little consideration for the future. Birthrates are negative or below replacement. There aren’t enough young people to replace the retirees in most European states. Immigrants include Middle East and North African Muslims who believe that in time they will be able to impose Shariah law, and convert the Continent to Dar el-Islam, or the domain of Islam. The parties that resist Islamic takeover are labeled racist and are ostracized by the European political elites, media and academia.</p>
<p>A European state such as Sweden has conveniently ignored the fact that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas forged an unexpected unity pact with the rival Islamist group Hamas, which is considered by the EU a terrorist organization, and has vowed to destroy the Jewish state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended the talks on April 24, after Fatah-Hamas signed a unity government pact.</p>
<p>It is apparent that the issue of “Jewish settlements,” is a subterfuge for the Europeans, particularly when considering the areas bordering the Green Line, most of which is designated as Area C under the Oslo Accords, that will be annexed to Israel in any future peace settlement. Moreover, Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which subsequently became “judenrein,” didn’t bring peace; instead, it brought terror and death to Israelis. Hamas jihadists took over Gaza in 2007, and they have no intention of negotiating with Israel, much less recognizing the Jewish State or making peace with Israel.</p>
<p>The peace that the Europeans seek is unlikely to bring security to Israelis. The Europeans want to satisfy their Muslim constituents by supporting a Palestinian state. Many of the Europeans and especially Sweden ignored the basic tenet that a lasting peace settlement must be a result of a negotiated settlement and not unilateral action. Additionally, Palestine doesn’t meet the criteria for recognition as a state, by being unable to exercise effective government control over a defined territory and population.</p>
<p>The Palestinian Authority (PA) was supposed to curtail anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement under the provisions of the Oslo Accords. Instead of preparing its people for peace with Israel and the Jewish people, the PA increased its anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement. In fact, the PA has poisoned an entire generation of young Palestinians with anti-Semitic hate befitting the Nazi “<em>Der Sturmer</em>”. The PA media, school curriculum, and official mosque sermons have employed religious overtones similar to Hamas’ in describing the conflict with the Jews. Koranic and Hadith verses are used to portray Jews as “pigs and monkeys” rejected by Allah for their evil. Caricatures showing Jews as vermin that must be destroyed are being taught to five-year old children. They are instructed that Israel itself is “occupied Palestinian territory,” and the official PA maps erase Israel’s existence.</p>
<p>This is ultimately the most critical reason why peace between the Palestinians and Israelis remains elusive. Leaders might sign peace accords, but unless the PA teaches its people to accept their hitherto enemy, peace can never be real. The value of peace has never been advocated to the Palestinian people by their leaders. Even if Israel stopped all settlement activities, it won’t mitigate Palestinian violent hatred, or bring acceptance of Israel’s legitimacy by the Palestinian-Arab people</p>
<p>A few samples from the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) illustrate the point. The official Palestinian daily, <em>Al-Hayat Al-Jadida</em> (August 20, 2014) published an Op Ed piece by Izz Al-Din As’ad that read: “Establishing a Jewish state means the Jewish territory controlled by the Jewish State will be land for Jews only. In the Palestinian case, this is a complex issue, because the state is colonialist, settler and Orientalist state, which <a href="http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1031">fabricated a historical narrative</a> in order to colonize Palestine. It will act forcefully to destroy Arab society in Palestine, which was colonized in 1948. This may amount to the expulsion of the Palestinians living in Jerusalem, in order to cleanse the Jewish state of the ‘gentiles’…”</p>
<p>On October 22, 2014 <em>Al-Hayat Al-Jadida</em> by Dr. Mahmoud Al-Habbash, the Supreme Shariah Judge, and Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs stated, “Selling or handing over lands and real estate in Jerusalem and all of Palestine to the Israeli occupation or settlers constitutes treason and a violation of Islamic law…” Al-Habbash emphasized that “according to Islamic Shariah law, the <a href="http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=433">entire land</a> of Palestine is wakf (an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law) land, and that it is prohibited to sell, bestow ownership or facilitate the occupation of even a millimeter of it.”</p>
<p>Sheikh Taleb Al-Silwadi, in his weekly column/sermon in <em>Al-Hayat Al-Jadida</em> (December 21, 2012) wrote: “We have our Palestinian nation, engaged in Ribat, (religious war defending Islamic land) challenging the tyranny and oppression of the Zionists, those descendants of <a href="http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=786">monkeys and pigs</a>…”</p>
<p>It is high time for the Europeans to end their hypocrisy and address the real obstacles to peace negotiations and a peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians. Providing almost half of its budget, Brussels has a great deal of leverage over the PA. Instead of focusing on extra buildings erected in Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria (West Bank), the EU ought to address PA incitement that ends in terror against the innocents, and kills the prospects of peace.</p>
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		<title>Appeasement: Obama&#8217;s Secret Letter to Khamenei</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Nov 2014 05:40:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Secret]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245318</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The president feeds the crocodile. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MW-CY442_obama__20141105115645_ZH.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245319" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MW-CY442_obama__20141105115645_ZH-426x350.jpg" alt="MW-CY442_obama__20141105115645_ZH" width="284" height="233" /></a>The <i>Wall Street Journal</i> headline on November 6, 2014 stated that “Obama Wrote Letter to Iran’s (Ayatollah) Ali Khamenei (Supreme Leader of Iran) About Fighting Islamic State.” The article described the letter as “secret,” and goes on to say that the October, 2014 letter to Khamenei “[m]arked at least the fourth time Mr. Obama has written to Iran’s most powerful political and religious leader since taking office in 2009 and pledging to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-wrote-secret-letter-to-irans-khamenei-about-fighting-islamic-state-1415295291"><span style="color: #0433ff;">engage</span></a> with Tehran’s Islamist government.”</p>
<p>President Obama’s “secret” letter has raised deep concerns among U.S. Middle Eastern allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates, who have expressed their concern that America’s desperate efforts to reach an agreement on the nuclear issue with Tehran might appear as appeasement, and that the U.S. might soften its demands for Iran’s nuclear disarmament. They are worried that the Obama administration&#8217;s eagerness to get an agreement might leave the radical Iranian regime with the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.</p>
<p>Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to the revelation concerning the “secret” letter to Khamenei, saying, “I think the struggle with ISIS doesn’t need to come at the <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-reportedly-knew-of-obamas-secret-letter-to-khamenei/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">expense</span></a> of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear arms.”</p>
<p>Reacting to Obama’s “secret” letter, Linda Heard’s column in the Saudi based <i>Arab News </i>(November 11, 2014), stated that</p>
<blockquote><p>Iranian tanks rumbling over Iraqi soil is guaranteed to throw a match on the embers of sectarian conflict, would serve as a recruiting tool for Daesh [the Arabic term for ISIS], and inflame Sunni tribes. Furthermore, this does nothing to allay the concerns of Gulf States that the U.S. may be cooking up a Grand Bargain with Iran to act as its geopolitical proxy. Those fears are exacerbated by America’s pivot east, not to mention that the luster of Arab oil has diminished now that the U.S. is on its way to becoming the world biggest oil producer. The question uppermost is this; <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/658051"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Is Obama throwing Sunni States under an Iranian bus</span></a>?</p></blockquote>
<p>During his first six months in office, President Barack Obama wrote two letters to Khamenei calling for improvement in Iranian-U.S. relations. To many Iranian liberals who sought more freedom from the oppressive clerical regime, it amounted to appeasement of the Ayatollahs. Moreover, it only served to heighten Khamenei’s contempt for the U.S. and President Obama.</p>
<p>Ayatollah Khamenei rejected Obama’s overtures for improved relations, and in the words of Jeffrey Goldberg of <i>The Atlantic, </i>the latest letter smacks of “Obama chasing after Khamenei in the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/a-troubling-letter-to-an-unbending-ayatollah/382505/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">undignified</span></a> and counterproductive manner of a frustrated suitor.” Suzanne Maloney, writing for the  Brookings Institute (November 7, 2014) concludes:</p>
<blockquote><p>There is simply no plausible scenario in which a letter from the President of the United States to Ali Khamenei generates greater Iranian flexibility on the nuclear program, which the regime has paid an exorbitant price to preserve, or somehow pushes a final agreement across the finish line. Just the opposite – the letter undoubtedly intensified Khamenei’s contempt for Washington and reinforced his longstanding determination to extract maximalist concessions from the international community. It is <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/iran-at-saban/posts/2014/11/06-letter-khamenei-ayatollah-iran-obama-nuclear-isis">a blow</a></span> to the delicate end-game state of play in the nuclear talks at the precise moment when American resolve was needed most.</p></blockquote>
<p>The November 24, 2014 deadline for the final nuclear agreement between the five permanent representatives on the UN Security Council (U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France) and Germany with Iran is fast approaching. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met in Muscat, Oman last weekend with Javad Zarif, the Iranian Foreign Minister.</p>
<p>It is likely that the U.S. administration, through John Kerry, urged the Iranians to be more flexible and indicated its desire to reach an agreement, even if it leaves Iran with the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. The Iranians are bent on retaining their right to enrich uranium and keeping their existing nuclear infrastructure intact. Kerry, on the other hand, seeks to create the impression that the U.S. will adhere to President Obama’s pledge to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.</p>
<p>Former U.S. Representative Dan Burton wrote in the <i>Washington Times</i> (2/19/2014),</p>
<blockquote><p>Based on Iran’s history of lies, deception and hostility, why should we believe they are playing square now? Giving Iran $7 billion in cash while leaving in place one of the most sophisticated enrichment programs in the world is not an act of faith; it is an act of appeasement.  <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-wrote-secret-letter-to-irans-khamenei-about-fighting-islamic-state-1415295291"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Appeasement</span></a><span style="color: #365f91;"> </span>did not work in the 1930’s with Adolf Hitler. It did not work in the 1990’s with North Korea. It will not work in 2014 with Iran.</p></blockquote>
<p>Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), who co-authored a bill with Bob Menendez (D-NJ) that imposed tough sanctions on Iran, reacted to President Obama’s letter saying that “The best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is to quickly pass the bipartisan Menendez-Kirk legislation &#8212; not to give the Iranians more time to build a bomb.” John Boehner (R-OH), Speaker of the House, said, “<a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-wrote-secret-letter-to-irans-khamenei-about-fighting-islamic-state-1415295291"><span style="color: #0433ff;">I don’t trust</span></a> the Iranians &#8212; I don’t think we need to bring them into this.” Referring to the continuing nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, Speaker Boehner said he “would hope that the negotiations that are under way are serious negotiations, but I have my doubts.”</p>
<p>In an ironic twist, Khamenei actually blames the U.S. for creating ISIS and al-Qaeda as a way to weaken the Islamic world. It is perhaps a more honest response than the Taqiyya (a form of religious dissimulation or deception of one’s enemy) artists such as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who have appeared to have charmed the Obama administration and the British government that recently reopened its Tehran embassy.</p>
<p>The Obama administration appears to have concluded that the Islamic Republic of Iran would be the best American deputy to guard the region and insure the region’s stability. For the Ayatollahs, this couldn’t be a better prospect. For a long time, Iran has sought to become the hegemon of the region. With the U.S. destroying Iran’s rivals, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, it paved the way for Tehran to spread the Shiite arc. <span style="color: #232323;">Haider al-Abadi’s </span>Iraq, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, and Hezbollah controlled Lebanon are now tributaries of Iran. The Arab Gulf states can expect increased intimidation from Iran. Israel faces an existential threat from a nuclear armed and hegemonic Iran.</p>
<p>And yet, other than in the realm of terrorism, Iran has little ability on its own to project power. Its air force is antiquated, and its regular army is relatively weak. Khamenei’s threat that “if America makes the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/05/world/middleeast/05diplo.html?pagewanted=print&amp;_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;">wrong move</span></a> toward Iran, the shipment of energy will definitely face danger” is rather hollow given U.S. capabilities. In fact, the U.S. Navy has the capacity to eliminate the entire Iranian navy in an hour. It is America’s consistent appeasement of Iran despite its unpunished attacks on Americans in Lebanon, (241 U.S. Marines killed in 1983, U.S. embassy in Beirut bombed) Saudi Arabia, (Khobar towers bombing 19 American servicemen killed and hundreds wounded), and Iraq (Improvised Explosive Devises killing numerous American soldiers) that has emboldened the Ayatollahs of Iran. President Obama’s letter to Khamenei appears to smack of further appeasement.</p>
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		<title>Turkey&#8217;s Diminished Influence in the Middle East</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/turkeys-diminished-influence-in-the-middle-east/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=turkeys-diminished-influence-in-the-middle-east</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Nov 2014 05:05:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[influence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244797</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Erdogan’s authoritarianism has damaged Turkey’s appeal and influence. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/erdogan.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244914" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/erdogan.jpg" alt="erdogan" width="260" height="195" /></a>Not long ago, at the height of the Arab Spring, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (now President of Turkey) enjoyed the adulation of the masses throughout the Arab world, and a close friendship with U.S. President Barack Obama. A revival of a neo-Ottoman Empire was not far from the mind of Erdogan and his Foreign Minister (now Prime Minister) Ahmet Davutoglu. It was Davutoglu who proclaimed neo-Ottomanism as a policy, and a new order in the Middle East.</p>
<p>As the year 2014 comes to a close, Turkish influence in the Middle East has seen a sharp decline. It was outvoted in its quest for a seat at the United Nations Security Council despite its intensive lobbying of the UN’s 193 member nations. Turkey lost out to Spain. Counter lobbying by Egypt and Saudi Arabia helped defeat Turkey’s efforts. Turkey’s reluctance to take action against the Islamic State (IS) has put it under international pressure. Its refusal to help the besieged Syrian Kurds in the city of Kobani (on the Turkish border) resulted in violent Kurdish demonstrations in Turkey offsetting the gains made by the AKP party with the large Kurdish minority. In addition, Turkish passivity in the face of Kurdish suffering engendered contempt for Turkey.</p>
<p>In March, 2013, Davutoglu claimed that for the first time, Turkey has been back to the lost lands that once made the Ottoman Empire. He suggested that it’s time for Turkey to take the lead to set an order for these lands and re-connect them once again. He charged that “Last century was only a parenthesis for us. We will close the parenthesis. We will do so without going to war, or calling anyone an enemy, without being disrespectful to any border, we will again tie Sarajevo to Damascus, Benghazi to Erzurum, to Batumi. This is the core of our power, These may look like all different countries to you, but Yemen and Skopje were part of the <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/turkey-davutologu-ottoman-new-order-mideast.html">same country</a> 110 years ago, or Erzurum and Benghazi. When we say this, they call it ‘new Ottomanism.’ The ones who united the whole Europe don’t become new Romans, but the ones who unite the Middle East geography are called new Ottomanists. It’s an honor to be reminded with the names of ottoman, Seljuks, Artuklu or Eyyubi, but we have never or will ever have an eye on anyone’s land based on an historic background.”</p>
<p>Since Davutoglu’s bombastic words, the AKP leadership overestimated the potential of political Islam best exemplified by the surge of the Muslim Brotherhood parties during the Arab Spring in the region, and control of governments particularly in Egypt and Tunisia. The tens of millions of Egyptians who demonstrated against the Morsi (Muslim Brotherhood) government resulted in the military takeover, and the subsequent election of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as President of Egypt on June 8, 2014. The Turkish government’s unqualified support for Mohammad Morsi’s government has caused a deep breach in Turkish-Egyptian relations. Turkey’s relations with Egypt reached a breaking point and Ankara does not even have its ambassador in Cairo. A similar freeze in diplomatic relations exists between Turkey and Israel, where there is no Turkish ambassador in Israel.</p>
<p>On a visit to Antalya in Southern Turkey last July, Erdogan accused Israel of “dishonesty.” He went on to say “Israel apologized to Turkey for what it did to the Mavi Marmara ship four years ago, and we were close to restoring normal relations with it if our conditions were fulfilled. But it was not <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/12749-turkeys-erdogan-normal-relations-with-israel-unlikely-if-its-aggression-on-palestine-continues">honest</a>.” In fact, Erdogan initiated the Navi Marmara provocation that sought to break Israel’s Gaza blockade, using violence against Israeli naval commandos enforcing the blockade. It resulted in nine Turks getting killed. Israel did, nevertheless, agree to compensate the families.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s conditions for restoring normal relations with Israel included compensation to the families of the victims, an apology to Turkey, and lifting the Gaza blockade. Encouraged by U.S. President Obama, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized to Turkey. Erdogan, however, was not satisfied despite Obama’s urging to restore the relationship. Gaza remains a pretext for Erdogan to maintain his deep seated hostility towards the Jewish state. Turkish opposition presidential candidate Ekmelettin Ihsanoglu criticized the stance, claiming that Turkey should stay neutral vis-à-vis Palestine.</p>
<p>Umit Pamir, Turkey’s former ambassador to the UN, pondered Turkey’s deteriorating relations with its neighbors. He posited that “We came from a policy of having <a href="https://johnib.wordpress.com/tag/prime-minister-ahmet-davutoglu/">zero problems</a> with our neighbors (Davutoglu’s heralded policy), and now we’re having problems with almost everyone.”</p>
<p>In the years before the Arab Spring, Turkey, Syria, and Iran cooperated in suppressing the Kurds, and eliminating any Kurdish call for self-determination. In 1998, Hafez Assad, Syria’s dictator, cut off his relations with Abdullah Ocalan’s PKK, following Turkey’s threat to invade Syria. What followed was a warming of relations. Then, in March, 2011, the Syrian civil war began. Bashar Assad (Hafez’s son) wasted no time, and began butchering his mainly Sunni opposition. Erdogan became the loudest voice calling for regime change in Syria. Taking sides against the Alawite (Offshoot of Shiite Islam) Syrian dictator brought about a chilled relation with Assad’s protector, Shiite Iran.</p>
<p>Turkey’s relations with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad have become downright hostile. A strong economic relationship between Ankara and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has infuriated Baghdad, particularly Turkish investments in the KRG, and Turkey’s purchase of oil shipped from Kurdistan.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s support for the MB has brought Ankara to conflict not only with Egypt but with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. The MB vision of a Caliphate threatens the Saudis position as the guardians of the Islamic holy places.</p>
<p>Just before the Arab Spring arrived, Turkey appeared to be a model of Islamic democracy. However, Erdogan’s authoritarianism has dimmed Turkey’s image as an open and tolerant society. The crackdown on demonstrators in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in 2013, and Erdogan’s move to censor the Internet created a backlash, particularly among urban and educated youth. His open quarrel with Turkey’s most influential Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who helped him remove the army from politics, widened the opposition against him.</p>
<p>Erdogan decided to phase out schools run by Gulenists that prepare students for university exams. In response, Gulen called Erdogan a “pharaoh”. Erdogan retaliated by removing Gulen loyalists from the security services and the judiciary, accusing Gulen of creating a “parallel state.” The Gulenists, in turn, possess evidence of AKP linked corruption. Erdogan’s shielding of his AKP associates from investigation of corruption has soured Turkey’s image abroad and angered Turkish audiences.</p>
<p>Soner Cagaptay, (Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy) writing in <em>The Atlantic</em> (December 11, 2012) suggested that “Turkey’s two halves are like oil and water; though they may not blend, neither will disappear. Turkey’s Islamization is a fact, but so is secular and Westernized Turkey. The historical roots and current manifestation of this synthesis indicate it is a model that will be <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/12/why-turkey-cant-be-a-model-for-the-future-of-the-arab-spring/266116/">difficult to replicate</a> elsewhere in the region, as Islamist governments rise to power after the Arab Spring.”</p>
<p>Cagaptay was wrong about “Islamist governments rise to power after the “Arab Spring.” Egypt and Tunisia disprove his theory. What is rising in the Middle East is sub-governmental agents such as ISIS (or IS). Turkey however, is no longer a model for the region, and not just for the reasons given by Cagaptay. Erdogan’s authoritarianism and heavy hand in domestic and foreign relations has diminished Turkey’s appeal and influence.</p>
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		<title>Will the UN Security Council Impose a Palestinian State?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/will-the-un-security-council-impose-a-palestinian-state/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-the-un-security-council-impose-a-palestinian-state</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Nov 2014 05:25:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinian state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security council]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UN]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[veto]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244235</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Only a potential U.S. veto stands in the way.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Fnazis.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244238" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Fnazis.jpg" alt="Fnazis" width="297" height="198" /></a>January, 2015 does not bode well for Israel at the United Nations (UN). The UN Security Council (UNSC) will officially induct five newly elected non-permanent member-states replacing outgoing Rwanda, S. Korea, Australia, Argentina and Luxembourg, representing all the global regions. Unfortunately for Israel, the incoming states, particularly Venezuela and Malaysia, are hostile to the Jewish state. The other three, Angola, New Zealand, and Spain are pondering their position on recognizing Palestine as a full member-state of the UN.</p>
<p>It is apparent that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will seize the opportunity and try to win an almost guaranteed majority on the UNSC, to grant Palestine full UN membership. In Abbas’ calculations, receiving UNSC recognition will enable him to demand that the UNSC set a deadline for Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967 line. At the same time, he’ll avoid having to negotiate peace with Israel, or make any concessions to the Jewish state.</p>
<p>The Palestinians need nine votes at the UNSC to win acceptance. They previously received seven. This time it appears that they may achieve their goal. Among the five permanent members, China and Russia are likely to support recognition of a Palestinian State. Britain and France are yet undecided, and the U.S will likely object.</p>
<p>Among the ten non-permanent states on the UNSC, Chad will support a Palestinian state, Chile is leaning towards acceptance, Lithuania is likely to object, and Nigeria is still undecided. Malaysia and Venezuela will definitely support the Palestinian quest. If we are to anticipate the votes of the undecided members based on their November 29, 2012 <a href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2012/ga11317.doc.htm">votes</a> at the General Assembly, to accord Palestine “non-member Observer State status,” it is more than likely that Angola, Nigeria, and Spain will also vote for acceptance. This would give the Palestinians 10 votes and full membership in the UN.</p>
<p>The only thing that can prevent the acceptance of Palestine as a member-state of the UN is a U.S. veto. In lieu of the tense relationship between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government, Israel can no longer count on a US veto as a given. According to <em>YnetNews.com </em>(October 19, 2014) “Diplomatic officials said Israel is taking into bracing for a bad scenario in which the Democrats <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4581556,00.html">lose</a> their Senate majority in the midterm elections, and will then be free of obligations, which might lead them to get back at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for all the public clashes with the Democratic administration at the White House.”</p>
<p>PM Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament (Knesset) on Monday (October 27, 2014): “I don’t see pressure on the Palestinians. I see only pressure on Israel to make more and more concessions…The Palestinians are demanding of us to establish a Palestinian state – without peace and without security. They demand withdrawal to the 1967 lines, admitting refugees and dividing Jerusalem – and after all these exaggerated demands they are not prepared to agree to the <a href="http://www.israeltoday.co.il/Newsheadlineslist.aspx">basic condition</a> for peace between two peoples – mutual recognition!”</p>
<p>The U.S. has been reluctant to use its veto power at the UNSC, especially the Obama administration. Yet, the Obama administration in February, 2011 cast its first-ever veto at the UNSC, blocking a Palestinian-backed draft resolution that denounced <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/israel.html?nav=el">Israel&#8217;s</a> settlement policy as an illegal obstacle to peace efforts in the Middle East. In the case of a vote on Palestinian statehood, the U.S. is likely to pressure other UNSC member-states not to support the Palestinian move by offering alternatives such as the revival of peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel. But, the fact that President Obama this time is not seeking reelection, and is unlikely to be deterred by Republican criticism, America’s veto must be considered uncertain at best.</p>
<p>The Europeans are seeking to position themselves somewhere between the U.S. and the Palestinian position. While they may abstain in the vote on Palestinian statehood, they will demand a set of parameters for a permanent agreement that will eventually lead to a Palestinian state. These parameters might include Israel’s withdrawal to the June, 1967 line with land swaps and East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.</p>
<p>According to the <em>European Jewish Congress</em> press, “France will <a href="http://www.eurojewcong.org/News%20and%20Views/7091-france-to-abstain-at-un-security-council-vote-on-palestinian-un-bid-britain-will-have-the-same-position.html">abstain</a> at the UNSC vote on Palestinian UN bid, and Britain will do the same.” The French Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that “While the region is experiencing upheaval, the legitimacy of the Palestinian aspiration for statehood is indisputable. However, the Palestinian request has no chance of success in the UNSC due, in particular, to the opposition expressed by the U.S.” In other words, the Europeans wish to exculpate themselves in appeasing the Arab-Muslim world and their own Muslim constituents, while putting the onus on the U.S.</p>
<p>The Europeans, the State Department, and New York Times to name a few, are unwilling to fully consider the consequences of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, under unrelenting pressure from the above institutions, brought it numerous wars and unending terror. Israel removed 9,000 Jewish residents by force, destroyed their homes, but left their green-houses to the Palestinians. Hamas terrorists in Gaza have used the areas vacated by the Jewish residents as a base to lob over 10,000 rockets on communities throughout Israel.</p>
<p>A Palestinian state in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza is unlikely to be demilitarized, and Hamas can be counted on to take over within a short time. Iran would immediately rush in heavy arms, and as a sovereign state, these arms shipments would arrive unhindered by air or sea. This would mean that even short range rockets from east of Jerusalem will target and hit Israel’s main population centers, including its international Ben Gurion airport. Israel would be paralyzed, and its economy and security in shambles. Any Israeli government will be compelled to react with force, and that would bring about international condemnation by the UN, and possibly sanctions. In addition, one can anticipate a regional war that might involve Iran’s nuclear weapons, and tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets fired at Israel.</p>
<p>At a press conference on July 11, 2014, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “There cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/18/benjamin-netanyahu-palest_n_5598997.html">relinquish security</a> control of the territory west of the Jordan River.”</p>
<p>British PM David Cameron opined that, “We support Palestine having its own state next to a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8781566/David-Cameron-Britain-wants-to-see-a-Palestinian-state.html">secure Israel</a>…In the end we have to recognize we will get a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state by the Palestinians and the Israelis sitting down and talking to each other.”</p>
<p>US Department of State Spokeswoman Jen Psaki stated at a press briefing Friday (October 3, 2014), “We believe <a href="http://en.ria.ru/politics/20141004/193633372/Palestine-Not-Ready-for-Statehood-US-Department-of-State.html">international recognition</a> of a Palestinian state is premature. We certainly support Palestinian statehood but it can only come through a negotiated outcome, a resolution of final status issues and mutual recognition by both parties. I don’t think that we’ve seen evidence that they’re willing and able to either at this point in time.”</p>
<p>Mahmoud Abbas has been greatly encouraged by the Swedish and British parliaments votes to recognize a Palestinian state. Moreover, the new makeup of the UN Security Council as of January, 2015 will give him a tailwind to push for statehood. Only a U.S. veto at the UNSC can stop this madness, and compel Abbas to negotiate with Israel in earnest. Perhaps, in the interim, the Palestinians can evolve into a civil society with the rule of law, discard terror and incitement against Israel, and build a viable economy.</p>
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		<title>Kasim Hafeez &#8211; A Story of a Miraculous Transformation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/kasim-hafeez-a-story-of-a-miraculous-transformation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=kasim-hafeez-a-story-of-a-miraculous-transformation</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 28 Oct 2014 04:05:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kasim Hafeez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Case for Israel]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243734</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A former anti-Israel activist tells why he turned from hate. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Kaseem-Hafeez-2.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243826" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Kaseem-Hafeez-2.png" alt="Kaseem-Hafeez-2" width="320" height="194" /></a>Kasim Hafeez (32) could have easily turned into a jihadist terrorist. He was already on the right path. At home, in the United Kingdom (UK) Muslim community, and on campus, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel agitation was constant. Kasim’s own father harbored anti-Semitic sentiments. He considered Hitler a hero, and felt that his only failing was that he did not kill enough Jews. Growing up in the UK, to Pakistani-Muslim parents, Kasim was exposed to materials and opinions that were at best, condemning Israel for all the evils in the Middle East, and painting Jews as usurpers and murderers. More extreme elements in the Muslim community called for the wholesale destruction of the “Zionist Entity” and all Jews.</p>
<p>By the time he reached his 18<sup>th</sup> birthday, Kasim was completely indoctrinated into the fold of radical Islamism. His hate for Israel and for Jews was fueled by images of death and destruction set to the backdrop of Arabic melodies about Jihad and speeches by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Osama Bin Laden. Kasim’s jihadist views were reinforced when he attended Nakba Day rallies in the center of London, where Jihadi speakers predicted Israel’s demise while Hezbollah flags fluttered all around him.<strong><br />
</strong></p>
<p>Kasim Hafeez and I met while on his speaking tour in Philadelphia on behalf of StandWithUs, an Israel advocacy and educational organization based in Los Angeles, with offices throughout the U.S., Europe, and in Jerusalem. Kasim, a self-professed “Muslim-Zionist, and proud of it,” posited that he experienced high levels of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activity taking place on British University campuses, because in his own words, “I was the anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel activist.”</p>
<p><strong>Joseph Puder:</strong> Your personal story is fascinating, and your transformation astounding. To what do you attribute this change with regards to Judaism and Israel?</p>
<p><strong>Kasim Hafeez:</strong> The starting point for me was picking up the <em>Case for Israel,</em> a book by Professor Alan Dershowitz. The book challenged my fundamental and false beliefs that fueled my anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. This triggered my research which was an attempt to disprove what I had read in the <em>Case for Israel. </em>This eventually led me to visit Israel, and seeing the reality of Israel and the Jewish People. The visit changed not only my views but my life in a dramatic way. The truth set me free in ways I could not have imagined, and the more I learned, the more my strength of conviction about Israel and the Jewish people grew.</p>
<p><strong>JP:</strong> Europe, it appears, is gone in terms of support for Israel, particularly on campus. What are your ideas on how to reverse that situation?</p>
<p><strong>KH:</strong> We have a real mess in Europe, which is our own fault. In trying to be “liberal” and “tolerant” we have allowed the worst intolerance to infiltrate every facet of society. This is a truly difficult battle as we have willingly surrendered. The start point must be for Jews and supporters of Israel to show courage and assert their Zionism. We must halt our own retreat. Unfortunately, our universities are now infested with anti-Israel professors, and many of the academic departments are funded by rich Gulf States. We are fighting against all facets of the system to reverse a situation that the meekness and indifference of Jewish communal leadership caused.</p>
<p><strong>JP:</strong> The Middle East is in turmoil, with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Al Qaeda in Libya and Yemen, and Hamas and Hezbollah on Israel’s border. How do you see the outcome of this clash among Muslims, and between the West and Islamic salafists?</p>
<p><strong>KH:</strong> The Sunni-Shia schism is a 1,400 year old blood feud with no chance of reconciliation. There are so many factors to consider that make it impossible to predict. Saudi Arabia is fighting ISIS, whose state ideology created them. Iran’s regional aspirations are emboldening Shias everywhere. Sadly, there will be much more bloodshed before we are any clearer on the future of the Middle East. The spread of Islamism is a dangerous development, and it must be contained. Israel must be strong in neutralizing any threats on its borders. Any sign of weakness by Israel will only embolden the vultures that now circle it. As for the West, our only hope of containing the terror from the Middle East is a strong Israel, our furthest outpost of freedom, and the only real ally in the region.</p>
<p><strong>JP:</strong> Some Europeans are converting to Islam. What motivates Britons, French, Germans, and others to do so? Similarly, many Muslims are secretly converting to Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths. How do you explain each phenomenon?</p>
<p><strong>KH:</strong> Many Islamic organizations work hard to attract converts, tabling and providing free literature. They present the religion in a very relatable way, using such lines as “Jesus is a prophet of Islam.” It provides people with a support structure, a community, and a new start. When prospective converts are presented with selective excerpts, they do not have the full story. There are many videos on the internet of Europeans being converted at dawah tables with little knowledge of Islam, and it’s a sham. There is a real and aggressive Muslim campaign to convert. In terms of Muslims converting to other religions, I can only assume that when people have had to suffer under the tyranny of Muslims, they would want to be free of it. For a long time, Muslims were not exposed to other religions, and now that we are living in the internet age, information is readily accessible.</p>
<p><strong>JP:</strong> What can Israel and Jewish organizations in the U.S. do to win “the battle of the minds” on campus?</p>
<p><strong>KH:</strong> Show courage and pride. They have to be vocal and show they are on the side of truth. Just like in Europe, the meek retreat. Accommodating those who promote terror and anti-Semitism cannot go on. We must be active in promoting the truth. Those who spew hatred of Israel must be made accountable, and know there is a price to pay. It is time to set red lines, and make sure that those who specialize in hatred will no longer be tolerated. We will no longer be silent or intimidated. We must always make Americans realize why Israel is so important to them, and why their silence today will be to their detriment tomorrow.</p>
<p><strong>JP:</strong> What are your future plans, and would you consider living in Israel or the U.S. or return to the UK?</p>
<p><strong>KH:</strong> I don’t plan much for the future. I am going to be working with Christians United for Israel in the upcoming weeks, on a campus speaking tour. I will continue my work at B’nai B’rith Canada to help prepare students and anyone who wants to stand up for Israel with the skills they’ll require. I have no desire to return to Europe at all, but if I must, I will. As dear as Israel is to me, I believe my fight is outside of Israel. That’s where I can best make an impact. I would love to live in the USA. It is an incredible country, and for me the most vital battlefield in Israel’s PR war. For now, I am content being in Canada. I could never have predicted my life would have taken the direction it has. So, we shall see. I can guarantee one thing. The fight for the truth, for freedom, and for Israel will continue no matter where I am.</p>
<p>What made the difference in Kasim, and transformed him from a potential Islamist terrorist to an advocate for Israel is his intellectual honesty in his search for the truth. His convictions made him leave his family, friends, and country for what he believes is right and truthful. That demands true courage.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
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		<title>Islamist Turkey&#8217;s Betrayal</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/islamist-turkeys-betrayal/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islamist-turkeys-betrayal</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Oct 2014 04:05:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bomb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kobane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kurds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=243322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Helping ISIS by bombing kurds.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Kobane_3071699b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-243324" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Kobane_3071699b-423x350.jpg" alt="Kobane_3071699b" width="346" height="286" /></a>The struggle for Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish town on the border with Turkey where the Kurdish forces alone are battling the barbaric hordes of the Islamic State, aka ISIS, is reminiscent of the Polish uprising in Warsaw against the Nazis in August, 1944. While the Polish Home Army fought courageously against the might of the superior armed Nazis, the Soviet Union’s Red Army stood by across the River Vistula, which divides Warsaw, watching the merciless slaughter of Polish civilians and the destruction of the city.</p>
<p>The Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, like the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin before him, showed no consideration for the lives of innocent Kurdish civilians already butchered by the sadists of the Islamic State mercenaries. For those still alive in Kobani, unless rescued by outside intervention or supplied with heavy arms and ammunition, will also die a gruesome death. Turkish tanks, in the meantime, are ensconced on the crest overlooking Kobani. They can help save the remaining Kurds should Erdogan give them the order to fire on the ISIS fighters. But, just as Stalin wanted the Nazis to decimate the Polish nationalist Home Army, Erdogan is wishing for ISIS to destroy the Syrian Kurds.</p>
<p>What is puzzling in all this is the role the U.S. is playing. In his September 10, 2014 speech, President Obama said that, “military advisors are needed to support Iraqi and <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/10/statement-president-isil-1"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Kurdish forces</span></a> with training, intelligence, and equipment.” Hitherto, there has been no supply of equipment or training of the Kurds. In fact, the Obama administrations blind support for a unitary Iraqi state led by Shiite ruled Baghdad government is in contradiction with the realities on the ground. The Shiite-led Iraqi army folded in the face of the jihadi ISIS guerrilla offensive, and in the process, abandoning U.S. supplied heavy weapons including tanks, armored cars, Humvees, etc. The Kurdish Peshmergas alone hold the line against ISIS, and they are not getting the promised arms because the U.S. has long insisted that all sales of U.S. weapons must go through Iraq&#8217;s central government, despite Kurdish complaints that Baghdad had deprived them of promised military equipment and financial support.</p>
<p>Washington has not overruled Baghdad on issuing direct shipments of arms to the Kurds.  The Iraqi government has demanded that all shipments to the Kurds arrive first in Baghdad. Iraqi officials have regularly blocked or delayed these shipments to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil. Moreover, U.S. State Department regulations bar the KRG from purchasing U.S. made weapons without “<a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/resetting-the-u.s.-kurdish-baghdad-relationship"><span style="color: #0433ff;">end-user certificates</span></a>” issued by Baghdad. According to the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, “Baghdad is bent on wielding this authority to prevent the <a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/resetting-the-u.s.-kurdish-baghdad-relationship"><span style="color: #0433ff;">KRG</span></a> from developing antitank and antiaircraft arsenals.”</p>
<p>The Kurds in both Iraq and Syria are the only effective fighting force, boots on the ground, capable of stopping the ISIS hordes. In Iraq, the Peshmergas, the Kurdistan Regional Government defense forces are facing ISIS while armed with antiquated Russian Kalashnikovs (AK-47) and machine guns mounted on open Toyota pick-up trucks. Britain, France and Germany pledged to supply arms, but the KRG, while welcoming such support, has yet to receive them.</p>
<p>In Syria, the Kurdish defenders of Kobani are encircled on three sides with their backs pressed against the Turkish border, and the only supply line is through Turkey. Erdogan and his government however, have branded the defending Kurds as terrorists. Erdogan has argued that the Kurds of Kobani are no better than ISIS. The <i>New York Times</i> (October 12, 2014) quoted Erdogan as saying, “The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/world/middleeast/kurdish-rebels-assail-turkish-inaction-on-isis-as-peril-to-peace-talks.html?mabReward=RI%3A14&amp;module=WelcomeBackModal&amp;contentCollection=Middle%20East&amp;region=FixedCenter&amp;action=click&amp;src=recg&amp;pgtype=article"><span style="color: #0433ff;">P.K.K</span></a>. and ISIS are the same for Turkey…It is wrong to view them differently. We need to deal with them jointly.”</p>
<p>The P.K.K. is indeed considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, yet the P.K.K. has been in peace negotiations with Ankara, demanding not the destruction of Turkey (unlike Hamas’ aim of destroying Israel) but merely cultural rights. The P.K.K demands include use of the Kurdish language in educational institutions, reduction in the threshold for elections to parliament from 10% to 5%, greater decentralization, and the removal of all discriminatory provisions against Kurds from the constitution and other laws.</p>
<p>It is highly hypocritical for Erdogan to compare the P.K.K. to the fanatical Islamist group ISIS, when he has been one of the chief supporters of the Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas. And, if there is to be a fair comparison, it would be between ISIS and Hamas, both seeking to create an Islamic Caliphate, and the expulsion of non-Muslims from the region.</p>
<p>Kobani is being defended by the People’s Protection Units, or Y.P.G., an affiliate of the P.K.K. Erdogan’s concern is that the Syrian Kurds might try to establish an autonomous region on the border, which Turkey wants to prevent. Again, Erdogan’s transparent hypocrisy is clear to see. He actively supports Hamas and Palestinian independence but seeks to deny the same to the Kurds, the end result being that he will allow the Kurds of Kobani to perish while at the same time looking the other way while the ISIS jihadists use Turkey as a corridor for their recruited fighters to enter Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s Turkey is a member of NATO, yet in 2003 he refused Turkish airspace to U.S. and allied forces on the way to Iraq. <i>The New York Times</i> reported (October 7, 2014) Turkish President Erdogan said “Turkey would not get more deeply <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/world/middleeast/isis-syria-coalition-strikes.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">involved</span></a> in the conflict with the Islamic State.” Erdogan conditioned Turkey’s possible involvement in fighting ISIS on the U.S. giving greater support to the rebels trying to oust Bashar Assad, the Syrian President. Turkey has, moreover, denied that it has signed an agreement authorizing the U.S. and the coalition forces to use its airbases for operations against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic told <i>Reuters</i>: “<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/13/us-mideast-crisis-turkey-idUSKCN0I210L20141013"><span style="color: #0433ff;">There is not an agreement</span></a>; no decision has been taken with regard to using Incirlik air base.” He refuted U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice’s claim on <i>NBC News ‘Meet The Press’</i> show on October 12 (2014) that Turkey had agreed to allow the use of the Incirlik airbase against IS.</p>
<p>The U.S. should react to the Turkish treachery by removing its airbase from Incirlik, Turkey to Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government. The U.S. should immediately provide the KRG with heavy weapons, including tanks, artillery, anti-armor rockets, and Humvees. The equipment should be sent directly to Erbil bypassing Baghdad. The State Department must change its regulations, and allow the KRG to become a certified “end-user,” instead of being at the mercy of Iranian controlled Baghdad.</p>
<p><i>The Wall Street Journal</i> headline on October 15, 2014 reading “Turks Bomb Kurds, Not Islamic State” is most telling. It is in essence siding with the enemies of the U.S. and its NATO allies. Considering Turkey’s behavior as a NATO member, it is time to consider its leader – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for what he really is – an anti-western pro-Jihadist dictator. If anything, in Kobani, Erdogan has shown the world his treacherous nature by betraying the Kurds with whom he has been negotiating peace.</p>
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		<title>Sweden&#8217;s Tilt Toward the Palestinians</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/swedens-tilt-toward-the-palestinians/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=swedens-tilt-toward-the-palestinians</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 04:30:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Prime Minister Stefan Lofven]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sweden]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242880</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pushing off peace. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/sw.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-242906" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/sw.jpg" alt="sw" width="275" height="183" /></a>The newly elected Swedish government of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven began its term with a clear pro-Palestinian tilt. In his inaugural speech on October 3, 2014, PM Lofven declared that his left-center Social-Democrat party led government would recognize the state of Palestine. “The conflict between Israel and Palestine can only be solved with a two-state solution, negotiated in accordance with international law. The two-state solution requires mutual recognition and a will to co-exist peacefully. Sweden will therefore <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/03/us-sweden-politics-palestinians-idUSKCN0HS0XN20141003">recognize</a> the state of Palestine.”</p>
<p>Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the Swedish government’s statement the following day saying that “<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/sweden-palestine-recognition-meant-to-jumpstart-talks/">Unilatera</a>l steps would not advance peace, but would, rather, push it off.”</p>
<p>The US was also unhappy with the unilateral Swedish move. US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called international recognition of a Palestinian state “premature,” and said, “We believe that the process is one that has to be worked out through the <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/sweden-palestine-recognition-meant-to-jumpstart-talks/">parties</a> to agree on the terms of how they will live in the future of two states living side-by-side.”</p>
<p>Responding to the Swedish Prime Minister’s announcement, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman wrote an exclusive Op Ed in the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. “This announcement” Lieberman wrote, “was not intended to serve as a <a href="http://www.dn.se/debatt/unilateral-swedish-moves-will-not-promote-a-solution/">genuine solution</a> to a foreign problem. It was intended, so it seems, to placate a certain sector in Swedish public opinion. It is to be regretted when internal considerations determine a counterproductive and irresponsible foreign policy.”</p>
<p>Lieberman added, “With the entire Middle East aflame, not to mention other regions in the world experiencing strife and instability, the undue focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict runs counter to all logic. Beyond reflecting internal matters, it seems that this focus serves to compensate for the many failings that the organized international community has encountered in attempting to resolve the many complex problems on the global agenda. For some reason, five words are spoken of time and again as both an imperative and as a magical solution to many other problems in the region: resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”</p>
<p>Lieberman went on to say, “In recent years the Middle East has been swept by an ocean of violence and bloodshed, <a href="http://www.dn.se/debatt/unilateral-swedish-moves-will-not-promote-a-solution/">none of which has anything to do with Israel</a> or the Palestinians. Three years of civil war in Syria have seen over 200,000 Syrians lose their lives. Iraq is on the verge of disintegration and since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, has witnessed over 130,000 Iraqi citizens killed. Libya has already broken apart, its revolution resulting in some 15,000 Libyan killed. In Darfur, some 400,000 people have been killed since 2003, and since the eruption of civil war in South Sudan in 2013, some 10,000 people have lost their lives.”</p>
<p>Clearly showing the hypocrisy of the Swedish government policy toward Israel, FM Lieberman continued, “Since (President) Hassan Rouhani’s assumption of office, over 800 Iranians have been executed by the Iranian regime, including journalists, poets, intellectuals and women accused of ‘immodesty.’ Where is Sweden’s outrage? Where is the call for an urgent solution to this burning matter? In addition, as the world has witnessed all too vividly in recent weeks, fanatic (Muslim) terrorist organizations such ISIS (now called Islamic State-IS), Al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Hamas have been committing countless atrocities, some of them even aspiring to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”</p>
<p>Lieberman questioned why the new Swedish Prime Minister chose to ignore these developments and chose instead to hone in on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. He called it not merely a matter of “imbalance,” but a matter of fundamental “unfairness.” Lieberman attacked the hypocrisy of the loud European (and Swedish) voices protesting “disproportionality” regarding Palestinian casualties in Gaza, when the Palestinians themselves initiated the violence against Israel and its civilians. Lieberman undoubtedly raged in his mind over the Swedish obsession with blaming Israel “when much of the world around us is blazing.”</p>
<p>In concluding his Op Ed piece in the Swedish Dagens Nyheter, Lieberman wrote: “Friendly governments do not act so as to undermine the national security of their friends, and do not presume to know better than their friends how they should contend with the many challenges they face. The Swedish government would do well to rethink its intention to act in this way towards its friend Israel. In doing so, it will not only correct an unfortunate error, it will contribute to the promotion of an agreed upon settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”</p>
<p>To understand why Sweden is tilting toward the Palestinians, it is important to note that the problem today is not with traditional anti-Semitism, but rather a new kind of hate, which is derived primarily from the failure to distinguish between Israel, Zionism, and the local Jewish communities, when it comes to political discourse. In fact, anti-Zionism has morphed into anti-Semitism. Moreover, the existence of a large Muslim immigrant community in Sweden, mostly from North Africa and the Middle East is certainly a major factor. Particularly, since the Social Democratic party in Sweden has co-opted the Muslim vote, and anti-Israel announcements resonate well with the Muslim constituency.</p>
<p>In Malmo, Sweden, a recent Israeli-Swedish Tennis match had to be played behind closed doors for fear of Arab and Muslim rioters engaging in violence. In Malmo, where Muslims account for more than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_European_Union_by_Muslim_population#tablemalmo">20%</a> of the population, Jews and Israelis are unwelcome, and are threatened with violence. The Swedish government is either intimidated or reluctant to implement the rule of law. The Mayor of Malmo stated recently that Malmo “does not accept Zionism,” and that Swedish Jews can avoid anti-Semitism by publicly opposing the occupation of the West Bank. The left-wing Swedish media, especially the printed press from mainstream Social-Democrat to the Marxist and Communist fringe, are rabidly anti-Israel.</p>
<p>On a recent trip to Stockholm, Sweden, this writer heard from local Jews, especially young people, about their intent to leave Sweden for either Israel or America. The reason given was anti-Semitism. They feel besieged by the increasingly violent and hateful Arab-Muslim community and the reluctance of the Swedish authorities to enforce the law. Sweden has become known as the <a href="http://shariaunveiled.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/muslims-earn-sweden-the-title-of-rape-capital-of-the-world/">rape</a> capital of the world, but you would not know that from the Swedish press. The rapes are committed almost exclusively by Muslims. Hosted by Kurdish Muslims in the city, this writer witnessed Swedish authorities’ fear of confronting Muslims, who live in segregated ghettos where no Swedish police can enter.</p>
<p>Former Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Zvi Mazal, pointed out that “as far as Swedes are concerned, Israel is always guilty. It does not matter to them that Israel is being attacked by Hezbollah and Hamas, or that the Palestinian Authority has failed to comply with the Oslo Agreement. Also, Swedes, like other Europeans, feel guilty towards the Third World because of the colonial past. The alliance between radical Islam and the Swedish Marxist left, figures in Sweden’s policy toward Israel. According to Mazal, the Swedish PM’s statement was prompted by an influx of a large <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/influx-of-refugees-blamed-for-sweden-recognizing-palestinian-state/">Arab minority</a> into Sweden this year.</p>
<p>According to the <em>Times of Israel</em>, the New Leftist Swedish government Housing Minister, Mehmet Kaplan, of Sweden’s Green Party, was arrested in 2010 by Israeli forces as a participant in the Mavi Marmara flotilla, which was headed to the Gaza Strip. The Turkish born Swedish MP was later deported from Israel. Sweden’s new Education Minister Gustav Fridolin, was detained by Israeli forces in 2004 for protesting Israel’s security barrier near Ramallah.</p>
<p>With such characters in the Swedish government, is there any wonder as to why Sweden is tilting toward the Palestinians?</p>
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		<title>Israel&#8217;s Bright Future</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/israels-bright-future/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israels-bright-future</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2014 04:03:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new year]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242400</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the Jewish State has matured into a resourceful developed nation. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/1931204827.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242402" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/1931204827-450x338.jpg" alt="1931204827" width="309" height="232" /></a>A new year is generally a time to assess the past and consider the future. The year 5775 (in the Jewish calendar) is no different. A look back at this past year, with the grim reality of the Islamic State&#8217;s (IS) cruel terror, the general instability in the Middle East, and the recent 50-day war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist terror group Hamas, could easily lead one to despair. This mayhem and bloodshed has also obscured the dynamism and progress the marks Israel’s society.</p>
<p>A comparison between Israel, circa 1984, with Israel of 2014 reveals the country’s incredible growth and its maturity as a developed nation &#8211; a nation now commonly referred to as the “Start-Up Nation.” A few statistical facts convey the nation’s dramatic growth. Israel’s population in 1984 stood at 4.1 million, doubling in 30 years to 8.2 million. This means more security for the nation by virtue of a larger standing army and reserves, and less impact on the economy during military mobilization.</p>
<p>While Israel is faced with an existential threat from a nuclear Iran, terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, IS and al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front in Syria, and Hamas in Gaza, the disintegration of Iraq and Syria with their substantial armies and armament, have lessened the overall strategic threat facing the Jewish state. Egypt, under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the largest and most powerful Arab state, and Saudi Arabia, the primary Sunni Arab state, have found common cause with Israel. They share a concern over Iran’s quest for regional hegemony, and its drive for nuclear arms, as well as Israel’s opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, and other radical Islamist movements.</p>
<p>A nation’s strength is not measured by the size of its military, and its ability to deter its enemies alone. National strength is also a function of its economic, social, and cultural achievements. Since 1984 Israel has experienced dramatic improvements in its economy. The inflation rate has declined from 447% to 1.5%, and the interest banks charge declined from 771% to 5%; national debt as a percentage of the GNP has declined from 17% to 2.5%. Likewise, the defense expenditures as a percentage of the GNP went down from 20% to <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS/countries"><span style="color: #0433ff;">5.6</span></a>% (2013), still a bit higher than the U.S. military expenditure of 3.8%.  Foreign exchange reserves in dollars grew from $3.3 billion to $90 billion. Exports in 1984 were $10 billion and by 2013 had reached <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/israel/gdp"><span style="color: #0433ff;">$291.36 billion</span></a>, while per capita income in 1984 was $7000, and in 2013 it was <a href="http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/1.1"><span style="color: #0433ff;">$34,120</span></a>. Women in Israel’s labor force amounted to 30% in 1984; it now stands at 53%. And while the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the U.S. (2013) grew by 1.9%, in the U.K. 1.7%, France’s 0.2%, Israel’s GDP growth was <a href="http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/1.1"><span style="color: #0433ff;">3.3%. </span></a></p>
<p>Naturally, Israel has economic and social problems. To reach its full potential Israel needs to increase the number of ultra-orthodox Jews and Arabs in the labor market. The high cost of apartments (due to shortage in supply) has been especially difficult for young couples seeking their first home and is a factor in the emigration of bright young people.  There are not enough rental apartments for the post-military young. Defense expenditures are still high, but unavoidable. However, when compared with the rest of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) states, Israel’s situation is improving yearly, which is not the case elsewhere in Western countries.</p>
<p>OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria had this to say about Israel (March 8, 2011) “In a very short period, Israel has become an important contributor to OECD’s work. It is now a full member of more than 100 Committees and bodies, and vice-chairs of 5 of them. Its <a href="http://www.oecd.org/israel/introduction-of-president-shimon-peres.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">knowledge</span></a> on key areas for the viability of our economies, like water management, ‘clean-techs’ and entrepreneurship, is becoming a source of best practices. Its contribution to our privacy protection standards and consumer protection policy has been outstanding.  Its support for our work with the MENA countries is also highly valuable.”</p>
<p>An overview of the Israeli economy by the OECD pointed out that “Israel’s output growth has been <a href="http://www.oecd.org/israel/economic-survey-israel.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">impressive</span></a>, considering global economic weakness, and the output gap is close to zero in contrast to much of the OECD area. The unemployment rate is at a 30-year low, and labor force participation has been rising steadily. Furthermore, new natural gas fields have provided an additional boost to GDP in recent quarters. Substantial public spending cuts and revenue-raising measures legislated in the latest government budget are set to bring fiscal balances back on target for this year and next.”</p>
<p>Billionaire investor Warren Buffett described (5/2/2013) Israel as the “<a href="http://www.thetower.org/buffett-buys-remaining-shares-of-israeli-toolmaker-im-a-big-believer-in-israels-economy/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">most promising investment hub</span></a> outside the U.S.” Buffett added that, “[w]e are the world’s fifth-biggest investment firm, but for me the number-one country is Israel, which is far ahead of larger and richer countries.”</p>
<p>The United Nation’s Human Development Index (UN-HDI) for 2014 ranked Israel <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries"><span style="color: #0433ff;">#19</span></a> among 194 member states, ahead of France (#20), Austria and Belgium (#21), Finland (#24), and Italy (#26). The HDI measures life expectancy, education, and income levels in various countries.</p>
<p>In the cultural sphere, Israel is #1 in the world in the number of museums per person. It has over 200 museums, and counting. Israel leads the world in the re-use of sewage water (about 80%) while in second place, Australia’s rate is only 22%. The Jewish state leads the world in the number of people employed in research and development. For every 10,000 workers, Israel has 140 employees, while second place U.S. has 85 (According to Dr. Adam Reuter, CEO of Financial Immunities Consulting, and the Chairman of Reuter-Maydan Investment House). A <i>Wall Street/ NBC-TV</i> survey has found Israel to be the <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/most-educated-countries-world-f1B6065913"><span style="color: #0433ff;">second most educated</span></a> nation in the world following Canada, above Japan.</p>
<p>The British <i>Economist</i> survey on the best places in the world to be born and live placed Israel as the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-born-2013-lottery-life"><span style="color: #0433ff;">20</span><span style="color: #0433ff;"><sup>th</sup></span></a>, ahead the U.K., France, Italy, and Japan. A 2012 <i>Bloomberg</i> poll ranked Israel’s health system as the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2t79olZ3lc"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sixth</span></a> best in the world, ahead of the U.S. and many European states. Life expectancy for men in Israel ranked second among 146 states polled, women’s life expectancy in Israel was ranked 13.</p>
<p>According to <i>Reuter-Maydan Investment House</i> in 2013, for every 10 Jewish children born, there were 2.4 Arab children born, a decline from the year 2000, when the ratio was 10/3 Jewish to Arab children. Since 2000, the Arab population growth in Israel stabilized at around 40,000 births a year. Jewish births at the same time increased from 95,000 to 125,000 a year. Significantly, the Jewish-Israeli growth has come mostly from secular Jews, especially among immigrants from the former Soviet Union. There has also been a significant decline of birthrates in the Arab sector as a result of better education among Arab women, and Westernization in the Arab sector. Also noted was a dramatic decline in birthrates among Bedouin women, due to the lowering of national insurance paid to families with children.</p>
<p>The Israeli economy is strong. The newly found gas and oil tracts offshore will make Israel a net exporter of energy within five years. A low rate of unemployment and a high rate of investments make Israel an attractive destination for West European Jews fleeing anti-Semitism. Israel’s excellent health system and vibrant cultural life keep Israelis happy and proud of their country. While the recent Gaza war entailed hardship for many Israelis, the Israel Defense Forces proved more than capable in dealing with the situation.  In summary, despite the grim reality in the region, Israel’s future appears to be bright.</p>
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		<title>Ted Cruz&#8217;s a Badge of Honor</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/ted-cruzs-a-badge-of-honor/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ted-cruzs-a-badge-of-honor</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 04:17:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[In Defense of Christians]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Ted Cruz]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240934</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The senator's courageous stand against virulent Jew hatred. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/tedcruz_02.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240936" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/tedcruz_02.jpg" alt="tedcruz_02" width="306" height="261" /></a>As one of the 800 attendees at the In Defense of Christians (IDC) Gala Solidarity Dinner Program at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC on Wednesday, September 10, 2014, I was among those welcoming US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) as the keynote speaker. The program brought together a wide range of ancient Eastern Christian denominations from throughout the Middle East. The ostensible reason for the IDC Conference was to give notice of concern over the persecution of Christian minorities in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, Syria, and to a lesser extent, Egypt. Among those in attendance were a few pro-Hezbollah Lebanese Christians affiliated with General Michel Aouns’ faction that is part of the March 8 coalition led by Hezbollah. Seated at a table across from us was a group of Syrian nationalists.</p>
<p>The previous evening saw a great deal of solidarity and unity among the sometimes rival eastern Christian denominations. But on Tuesday night, September 9, 2014, the Ecumenical Christian Prayer Service, which included prelates and representatives of all churches and rites, was a moving experience. The religious leaders were united in prayer for the safety of their threatened Christian brethren in Northern Iraq and Syria. The prelates were dressed in colorful robes and headwear. They included His Eminence Leonardo Cardinal Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation of the Oriental Churches; His Most Eminent Beatitude, Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Cardinal Rai, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and all of the East; Gregorios III Laham, Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, Alexandria and Jerusalem, (the most vocal agitator against Senator Cruz); Ignatius Youssef III Younan, Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East; Aram I Keshishian, Catholicos of the Great House of Ceilicia of the Armenian Apostolic Church; Archbishop Cardinal Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, DC; Joseph Zahlawi, Archbishop of New York and All of North America for the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America; Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (most eloquent speaker); and Ibrahim Ibrahim, Bishop Emeritus of the Chaldean Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle. These religious leaders were most careful not to malign Islam or Muslims in their presentations. Their message was strictly religious. The keynote speaker, the Honorable John Ashcroft, former US Attorney General, was less discreet in naming the persecutors of Christians in the Middle East.</p>
<p>During the conference proceedings and in the literature produced by the IDC, there was no mention of Israel. Names used for Israel included Palestine and the Holy Land, but never explicitly Israel…until Senator Ted Cruz took to the podium. Almost from the get-go Cruz declared “Tonight we are united in defense of Jews.” There was wide applause for that. He then proceeded to say,</p>
<blockquote><p>Tonight we are united in defense of people of good faith who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare to disagree with their religious teachings (applause). Religious bigotry is a cancer with many manifestations. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and state sponsors like Syria and Iran (a few boos from the nearby table occupied by Hezbollah supporters and Syrian nationalists) are all engaged in a vicious genocidal campaign to destroy religious minorities in the Middle East.</p></blockquote>
<p>Cruz ignored those booing and continued, “Sometimes we are told not to lump these groups together, but we have to understand their so-called nuances and differences. But we shouldn’t try to parse different manifestations of evil that are on numerous rampages through the region. Hate is hate and murder is murder. Our purpose here tonight is to highlight a terrible injustice, a humanitarian crisis. Christians are being systematically exterminated.” Cruz then offered a comparison between the plight of Jews in the recent past and that of Christians today, “In 1948, Jews throughout the Middle East faced murder and extermination and fled to the nation of Israel. And today Christians have no better ally than the Jewish state.” Mayhem erupted in the room with the anti-Semites attempting to silence Cruz with boos, and stop him. Gregorios III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch urged people to walk out.</p>
<p>Undeterred, Cruz continued to respond with: “Let me say this: those who hate Israel hate America, and those who hate Jews, hate Christians.” Boos enveloped the room, although many applauded and stood up in ovation for Cruz, including Joseph Hakim, President of the International Christian Union (ICU).</p>
<p>Cruz responded to those booing:</p>
<blockquote><p>And if this room will not recognize that, then my heart weeps that the men and women here will not stand in solidarity with Jews and Christians alike who are persecuted by radicals who seek to murder them.” Many in the ballroom applauded Cruz’s defiance of his detractors. “If you hate the Jewish people you are not reflecting the teachings of Christ…And the very same people who persecute and murder Christians right now, who crucify Christians, who behead children, are the very same people who target and murder Jews for their faith[.]</p></blockquote>
<p>At this point the shouting from the floor drowned Cruz’s words, and the President of IDC Toufic Baaklini took the microphone and said to the audience, “Respect the speaker.”</p>
<p>Cruz, folding his papers, turned to the crowd and said, “I am saddened to see some here, not everyone, consumed with hate…,” and again responding to hecklers, he stated, “<b>If you will not stand with Israel and Jews, then I will not stand with you</b>.” Cruz then left the stage and walked out. As he made his way out, Ambassador Gilbert Chagouri, who organized and funded the IDC Inaugural Summit and the IDC president Toufic Baaklini, ran after Senator Cruz to offer their apologies.</p>
<p>Asked to respond to Senator Cruz’s speech, Joseph Hakim, ICU’s president had this to say:</p>
<blockquote><p>In order for us (Middle East Christians) to break the taboo with regards to Israel and Jews, which means essentially silence on this subject, we must go forward and recognize the fact that Israel is a reality, and certainly not our enemy.  Middle Eastern Christians who seek support from America must recognize the shared values between Israel and America, and between American Christians and Jews. Moreover, I am 100% in support of Senator Cruz’s remarks regarding ‘the enemies of Israel being the enemies of America.’ I believe that the enemies of Israel are also the enemies of Christians.</p></blockquote>
<p>Hakim added,</p>
<blockquote><p>The words uttered by Senator Cruz were never addressed to, nor heard by Middle Eastern Christian audiences before, and I was never prouder as an American and as a Christian to hear his statements at the IDC Conference. I appreciate Senator Cruz’s support for Middle Eastern Christians persecuted in their homelands, and I am hopeful that Senator Cruz will continue to harbor a soft spot in his heart for our persecuted brethren in the Middle East.</p></blockquote>
<p>Cruz, a devoted Christian, did not do what politicians do best &#8212; pander to the crowd they are addressing. Instead, he admirably and courageously stood by his convictions, admonishing those with anti-Semitic sentiments who cannot bring themselves to recognize that Israel is on the front line in the war against the Islamic jihadists terror, whether it is ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah or Hamas, who seek to exterminate those who will not submit to their fanatical ideology.</p>
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		<title>The UN&#8217;s Perversion of Human Rights</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/the-uns-perversion-of-human-rights/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-uns-perversion-of-human-rights</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2014 04:02:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UNHRC]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Investigating the IDF instead of Hamas for "war crimes."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/22nd-session-of-the-human-rights-council-at-the-united-nations-in-geneva.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240429" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/22nd-session-of-the-human-rights-council-at-the-united-nations-in-geneva-450x328.jpg" alt="Delegates talk before the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva" width="296" height="216" /></a>If one doubted that the world has gone topsy-turvy, where good is being persecuted and evil labeled as victim, all that is needed for proof is to consider the behavior and actions of the United Nations (UN), and especially the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), where non-democratic regimes hold sway, and Israel is the habitual scape-goat. What is over the top, however, is the UN decision to send an Inquiry Committee to investigate alleged “war crimes” committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the recent Protective Edge operation in Gaza.</p>
<p><i>Reuters</i> reported (Monday, August 11, 2014) that the UN named experts to an international commission of inquiry into possible human rights violations and war crimes committed by both sides during Israel&#8217;s military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The so-called “experts” include William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law who will head the panel, and Doudou Diene, a Senegalese veteran UN human rights expert.  Amal Alamuddin, a British-Lebanese lawyer engaged to be married to Hollywood actor George Clooney was also named, but Alamuddin has announced she will not be participating in the inquiry.</p>
<p>While the fighting in Gaza was ongoing and Hamas was firing rockets daily at civilians throughout Israel, the UNHRC had already condemned Israel. Its resolution was adopted by a vote of 29 states in favor, 1 against, and 17 abstentions. It stated that “The Council strongly condemns the failure of Israel, the occupying power, to end its prolonged occupation of occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem; and condemned in the strongest terms the widespread, systematic, and <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14897&amp;LangID=E"><span style="color: #0433ff;">gross violation</span></a> of international human rights and fundamental freedoms arising from the Israeli military operations carried out in the occupied Palestinian Territory since 13 June 2014 that may amount to international crimes, directly resulting in the killing of more than 650 Palestinians, most of them civilians…” Throughout the resolution Hamas’ name was not mentioned nor was it pointed out that Hamas provoked the conflict by deliberately firing rockets at Israel.</p>
<p>Even before the Israeli–Hamas ceasefire agreement went into effect, the UNHRC in Geneva rushed to set up a kangaroo court headed by the blatantly anti-Israel William Schabas. The same Schabas said last year that he “would like to see <a href="http://mida.org.il/2014/08/13/schabas-netanyahu-head/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Netanyahu</span></a> within the dock of the International Criminal Court.” Confronted by a reporter on his visceral hatred of Netanyahu, Schabas explained that he was echoing the Goldstone Report that related to Operation Cast Lead of 2008-2009, except that it was Ehud Olmert and not Netanyahu who served as Prime Minister then. When asked if he considered Hamas a terrorist organization and whether Hamas too, will be investigated, Schabas declined to respond.</p>
<p>Speaking before Israeli naval cadets on Tuesday (September 2, 2014), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the UN hypocrisy. He stated that “All of you IDF soldiers are part of the most moral army in the world, and we will stand against any attempts of hypocritical organizations to criticize you. If the <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/184691"><span style="color: #0433ff;">UN</span></a> wants to set up a commission of inquiry – let them investigate Hamas’ war crimes instead of the Israeli soldiers who behaved in an exemplary manner.”</p>
<p>In the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), both the coalition and the opposition criticized the UN for dispatching a commission of inquiry to Gaza to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. They were likewise critical of the appointed head of the commission William Schabas, whose biased statement against Israeli leaders made the commission nothing but a kangaroo court.</p>
<p>During the Protective Edge operation in Gaza last month, the IDF dropped leaflets in 14 areas in Gaza, urging residents to temporarily leave their homes. The IDF provided instructions as to which areas civilians may go to in order to seek safety. Juxtapose that with the Hamas’ behavior of deliberately risking the lives of its people by using them as human shields, which is in contravention of international law and constitutes a war crime.</p>
<p>British army Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan had this to say (July 27, 2014) about the IDF, “I believe that on the basis of everything that I&#8217;ve seen, that everything the IDF does to <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4548821,00.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">protect civilians</span></a> and to stop the death of innocent civilians is a great deal more than any other army, and it&#8217;s more than the British and the American armies.”</p>
<p>What is most disturbing about the UNHRC is the hypocrisy when it comes to Israel. The UNHRC Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented its findings on August 27, 2014. In it was a detailed human cost of the Syrian conflict. It charged that both the Assad regime and the opposition groups, and in particular the fanatical jihadist ISIS, were responsible for mass killings (170,000 at the minimum), civilian suffering and disregard for the safety of women and children. ISIS in particular committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture, murder, enslavement of women, public executions, amputations, lashing in public squares, and training children as young as ten in military camps.</p>
<p>While the truth about ISIS committing war crimes and crimes against humanity have been largely revealed, those committed by Hamas (publicly executing 20 Palestinians for alleged collaboration with Israel) in Gaza have not, at least not by UNHRC. Professor Michael Curtis pointed out that Hamas’ relentless aggression against Israeli civilians was publically exposed on July 9, 2014 by Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian representative to the UNHRC. Khraishi stated that “The rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel are each and every one a <a href="http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5197/comparing_crimes_against_humanity_hamas_and_isis"><span style="color: #0433ff;">crime against humanity</span></a> whether they hit or miss, because they are directed at civilian targets. That is why Israel resorted to an attack against Gaza.”</p>
<p>Hamas, with total disregard for its civilian population, stored rockets in hospitals, schools, and mosques, as well as in apartment buildings and private homes. It used the civilians at these locations as human shields, anticipating that an Israeli retaliation (following over 4000 rockets fired at Israel) would kill Palestinian civilians, particularly women and children. Hamas sacrificed its people in order to win the public relations war. Still, the international media by and large bought into Hamas’ charade. Hamas’ cynical exploitation of its civilian deaths, its use of human shields, and the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>To understand the perversion that is the UNHRC, let us look at the UN as a whole. Of the 193 member states, 120 belong to the Non-Allied Movement (NAM) and of the 120, 57 are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which in turn is dominated by the 22 Arab League states. Arab/Muslim leverage has turned the UN into a blunt instrument against Israel. The 29 states who voted in favor of the blatantly prejudiced resolution are non-free states according to the Freedom House. The U.S. was the only state to vote against the resolution. The European Union states of Britain, France, Germany and Italy, all with a colonial past, and beset by guilt, abstained. They were fearful to upset the NAM.</p>
<p>The UNHRC is probably the best example of a world gone topsy-turvy. The non-free nations run the show at the UN while the free democracies cower before them. In the process, Israel, a country with a just cause, a praise worthy democracy in a sea of oppression, is being scapegoated and condemned. It is time for nations seeking justice and fairness to end this bizarre show called UNHRC, and reestablish a UNHRC based on nations with bona fide human rights credentials.</p>
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		<title>Israel and the Obama-Qatari Axis</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Sep 2014 04:01:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Arab allies]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Obama spurns moderate Arab allies and Israel. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/US-Turkey.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-239970" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/US-Turkey.jpg" alt="US-Turkey" width="292" height="219" /></a>When considering the geo-political map of the current Middle East, not everything is negative or alarming, at least from an Israeli point of view. Although the Middle East is more splintered today than ever before, Israel’s political and diplomatic isolation in the region has faded. The Middle East is now composed of three main blocs and Israel is a partner with one major bloc, which also happens to be its immediate neighbors, or the inner circle of moderate-Sunni and hitherto pro-American Arab states: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates.  However, what is counter-intuitive is the Obama administration’s choice of partners in the region. It is not the moderate Sunni-Muslim states and Israel that Washington sought out as mediators for a Hamas-Israel cease-fire, but the Muslim Brotherhood bloc of Turkey and Qatar.</p>
<p>David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister and one of the founding fathers of the Jewish State recognized early on that the State of Israel had no chance to develop friendly relations with its neighboring Arab states. Pan-Arab leaders such as Egypt’s president Gamal Abdul Nasser fanned the flames of hatred and revenge against the Jewish state, as did fellow Arab dictators in Syria and elsewhere. As a result, Israel’s leadership sought to develop friendly relations with its outer-circle non-Arab states such as Iran, Ethiopia, and Turkey.</p>
<p>The rise of the Islamic Republic in Iran under Khomeini following the Iranian revolution in 1979, and the departure of the Israel-friendly Shah of Iran ended Israeli-Iranian relations. Iran became the arms supplier of Israel’s Palestinian enemies and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and with its nuclear ambition, it constitutes an existential threat to the Jewish State.</p>
<p>Turkey was the only Muslim state to have a steady and rather friendly relationship with the Jewish state. Until the electoral triumph of the AK Party (Justice and Development Party) in 2002, Israel’s trade and military cooperation with Turkey was significant to both countries. The AK Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan changed all of that. His hostility to Israel intensified with each successive electoral victory. Following his second parliamentary victory in 2007, he began tangling with Israel. In late May 2010, Erdogan gave the green light to a Gaza flotilla headed by the <i>Mavi Marmara.</i> It was a deliberate provocation by Erdogan to break through the Israeli blocade. The subsequent AK victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections increased Erdogan’s arrogance and simultaneously his anti-Israel and anti-Semitic outbursts. His latest 2014 presidential victory and his unmitigated support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood severed the special relations Israel has had with Turkey.</p>
<p>Turkey is, in fact, part of the radical Sunni, pro-Muslim Brotherhood bloc, that includes Qatar and Hamas.</p>
<p>The radical Shia bloc led by Iran, which includes Shiite Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, comprise the third bloc.</p>
<p>The puzzling question is why Washington chose to align itself with the Sunni radical Muslim Brotherhood bloc (Qatar and Turkey), and <b>not</b> with the more moderate bloc led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia? Both the Egyptian regime under President Abdel Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the Saudi royals are upset with the Obama administration. Cairo resents Washington’s support for the deposed Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammad Morsi. Washington withheld arms delivery to Egypt because it considered Morsi’s removal illegitimate, albeit, over 30 million Egyptians demanded Morsi’s removal because of his gross mismanagement of the economy, his authoritarian style, his promotion of sectorial Brotherhood ideals and the erosion of civil liberties.</p>
<p>The Saudis resent the Obama administration rapprochement with Iran, and its November 24, 2013 nuclear agreement with Iran signed in Geneva.  Israelis are also uncomfortable with the Geneva Agreement, albeit they are more skeptical than resentful. The U.S. “Red Line” against the Assad regimes use of chemical weapons that was never put into force has added to the Saudis sense of betrayal.  Riyadh blames the U.S. for turning Iraq into an</p>
<p>Iranian Shiite satellite, and abandoning the Sunnis. The Saudis are also upset with Obama’s treatment of el-Sisi’s Egypt, whom they support.</p>
<p>The U.S. administration’s reasoning is hard to understand but for the fact that in 2003 Combat Air Operations Center for the Middle East moved from Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia to Qatar’s Al Udeid airbase near its capital of Doha. Qatar currently serves as the host to major U.S. military facilities. The Al Udeid base and other facilities in Qatar serve as the logistics, command and control, and hub for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of operations.  <i>Al Jazeera</i> (the Qatari regime mouthpiece) reported on July 15, 2014 that “The United States has signed an agreement with Qatar to sell Apache attack helicopters and Patriot and Javelin air-defense systems valued at <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/us-strikes-11bn-arms-deal-with-qatar-2014714223825417442.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">$11bn</span></a>.” Qatar also has the third largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, and is the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, benefitting mainly the Europeans.</p>
<p>America stands for more than multi-billion-dollar defense contracts. Its core values include human rights, religious freedom and democracy for all. The 2012 U.S. State Department Country Report on Human Rights in Qatar has concluded that “Inability of citizens to change their government peacefully, restrictions on fundamental <a href="http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL31718.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">civil liberties</span></a>, and pervasive denial of expatriate workers rights” are just some of the human rights abuses by the Qatari regime. Political parties are not allowed to exist and forced labor is pervasive in Qatar, particularly in the construction and domestic labor sectors. Qatar serves as host to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the radical Muslim Brotherhood ideologue that the Anti-Defamation League has called “<a href="http://archive.adl.org/nr/exeres/788c5421-70e3-4e4d-bff4-9be14e4a2e58,db7611a2-02cd-43af-8147-649e26813571,frameless.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">theologian of terror</span></a>,” and has provided a home base to Khaled Mashal, the Hamas political chief.</p>
<p>Particularly worrisome are the Qatari elites, including the ruling family, who support Al Qaeda and other extremist and violent Islamist groups. Additionally, Qatar’s embrace of Iran as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, deemed by Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states as terrorist organizations, requires a great deal of scrutiny by the U.S.  <i>Reuters</i> reported (March 9, 2014) that “Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/us-iraq-saudi-qatar-idUSBREA2806S20140309"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Qatar</span></a> of openly funding the Sunni Muslim insurgents (ISIS) his troops are battling in western Anbar province.” Lebanon’s <i>Daily Star</i> (August 14, 2014) quoted Hezbollah’s Chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as saying “Turkey and Qatar are <a href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Aug-14/267252-nasrallah-turkey-and-qatar-supporting-isis.ashx"><span style="color: #0433ff;">supporting</span></a> ISIS (also known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and most recently as the Islamic State.), and I am convinced that Saudi Arabia fears it.”</p>
<p>Qatar, the hub of CENTCOM, and the recipient of top-notch U.S. weaponry, is the same state that enables Hamas’ terror against Israel by providing it with donations to buy its arms from Iran. Therefore, it was a surprise for the Israelis that Secretary of State John Kerry chose to adopt the pro-Hamas track offered by the foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar. He ignored both the interests of Israel and Egypt who border the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.</p>
<p><i>Al-Monitor</i> (July 29, 2014) summed up the divergence of interests between Israel, the U.S’s only democratic and most reliable ally in the region and the U.S.–Qatar axis. “The Israeli leadership estimates that the cease-fire initiative (regarding the Hamas-Israeli war in Gaza-JP) of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry responds well to the <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/netanyahu-abbas-kerry-protective-edge-gaza.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">interests of Qatar</span></a>, Turkey, Hamas, and its own interests with Qatar – but hardly addresses Israel’s security needs.”</p>
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		<title>The Mideast Through the Eyes of a Lebanese Expat</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/the-mideast-through-the-eyes-of-a-lebanese-expat/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-mideast-through-the-eyes-of-a-lebanese-expat</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 04:05:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joseph Hakim]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The only way to secure Christian survival in the Middle East.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/22003232.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-239425" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/22003232-447x350.jpg" alt="22003232" width="329" height="257" /></a>Lebanese born Joseph Hakim is a patriotic American who is deeply involved in community affairs. A successful businessman who came to America with less than $500 in his pocket, he has built a multi-million dollar business. It is not money however, that excites Hakim and gets him going. He is devoted to a single cause, which is saving the ancient Christian communities in the Middle East. Toward that end, he has assumed the presidency of the International Christian Union (ICU), an organization that seeks to secure the existence of Christian communities across the Middle East through advocacy in the U.S. Congress, as well as educational and informational campaigns, and speaking to diverse audiences.</p>
<p>Hakim has just returned from Lebanon and this reporter asked him how Lebanon has changed since his last visit three years ago. Hakim explained,</p>
<blockquote><p>I saw more congestion, and more visible poverty. Syrian refugees are all over the streets of Beirut. Child beggars as young as 5-years old roam the streets asking for money and sometimes food. Approximately <a href="http://www.ihh.org.tr/en/main/news/0/ihhs-oriental-sore-project-in-lebanon/2333"><span style="color: #0433ff;">2 million Syrian</span></a> refugees flooded Lebanon, and there are over 500,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanese camps, as well as Iraqi refugees, fleeing the mayhem there.</p>
<p>It has changed the demography of Lebanon, transforming it from a balanced multi-cultural society to a predominantly Islamic nation. The Christian community feels threatened. I met with Christian religious and political party leaders, and they all spoke about the urgent need to arm the Christian community. They expressed the need to foster a security system for the Christian communities in Lebanon.</p>
<p>Frankly, I was shocked to hear from my Lebanese friends that allegedly the US and the West have conspired with the Turks, Qataris, and Saudis to cleanse the Christian minorities in the Middle East. This is being promoted in the Hezbollah media, with the underlying message that neither the US nor the West is going to come to the aid of the Christian minorities in the Middle East or the Lebanese-Christians. Al-Manar-TV, Hezbollah’s mouthpiece, is seeking to impress the Lebanese-Christians that Hezbollah alone can save them.</p>
<p>There is a feeling that Lebanon is descending back into the 1975 civil war in which the Palestinians and Sunni-Muslims engaged the Christians. The Christian community today understands the Sunni-Shia threat to their existence in the region, as well as in Lebanon.</p></blockquote>
<p style="color: #444444;">We continued the interview as follows:</p>
<p style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #000000;">Joseph Puder: </span><i>As the President of the ICU how do you propose the US should help Christians in the Middle East, especially those in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories?</i></p>
<p style="color: #444444;">Joseph Hakim: ICU seeks US Congressional legislation that would provide ironclad protection for endangered Christian communities throughout the region, especially in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories. Violators of the bill or persecutors of Christians as well as denial of their religious freedom, would lead to criminal charges in the International Court of Justice. Governments of Muslim states that sanction terror against their Christian minorities should be dealt with as if they declared war against the US and its vital interests.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;">As the colonial boundaries drafted by Sykes-Picot are disintegrating in Iraq and Syria, ICU envisions an expanded Christian state in Lebanon that would incorporate areas of Syria with a predominant Christian population. The remaining Christian minorities in Iraq and Syria should be granted autonomous status in a federated Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;">The Palestinians for example, will always choose the radical Islamic leaders over moderate leaders, but the Christians living in their territories are voiceless with few choices but to flee.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;">The US and its European allies must decide whether they can protect their oil interests while ignoring the growing Islamist resurgence or perhaps they can also secure the lives of peace loving Christians in the region.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #000000;">JP: </span><i>ISIS or as it is now called IS (Islamic State) is threatening to overrun Lebanon. What would you propose the US administration should do? Should it provide additional weapons to the Lebanese Army, or send US troops to help the Lebanese Army?</i></p>
<p style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #000000;">JH</span>: About two weeks ago, ISIS attacked the Sunni village of Arsal in Lebanon. The Lebanese army Special Forces, the moujawkal (a counter-sabotage Regiment) and the Maghawir (Lebanese Commando Regiment) halted the ISIS advance, without which, the Bekaa Valley and Lebanon as a whole would have fallen into ISIS’ hands. As President of ICU, I strongly recommend that the US arm the Lebanese Army with advanced weapons, and secure them in safe military bases in the Maten or Keserwan areas. I also recommend joint US-Lebanese army military exercises and joint operations.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;">The radicalized predominantly Sunni-Muslim Palestinians in Lebanon pose a grave threat to Lebanon’s delicate demographic balance. Therefore, ICU recommends that the US and the UN devise a roadmap for the removal of the Palestinian camps from Lebanon and their relocation in any one of the vast oil-rich Arab states (Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, etc.). These Arab states should provide them with decent housing, health care, jobs, and educational opportunities.  Lebanon simply cannot afford it. Under present conditions, the Palestinians amount to a ticking time bomb for the Cedar state. In settling the Palestinians in Arab countries, it would eliminate the corruption surrounding the UNRWA administration of the camps that benefit Lebanese and Palestinian politicians to the detriment of the poor Palestinians.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;">Last but not least, along with the Palestinian relocation into the oil-rich Arab states, there must be the disarming of Hezbollah. These two elements along with IS are existential threats to the integrity of Lebanon. Conversely, if that cannot be done, a serious consideration must be given to the arming of Lebanese Christian militias, as well as of Christian communities in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #000000;">JP</span>: <i>What is your vision for ICU? Given the proper resources, how would you go about protecting Christians in the region?</i></p>
<p style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #000000;">JH</span>: ICU’s mission is to build solid bridges of understanding and brotherhood among Middle Eastern Christians throughout the world, especially in the US. We are a global organization that seeks to unify Christians everywhere, and serve to awaken the Christian conscience to the suffering of Christians throughout the Islamic dominated Middle East.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;">As we approach the 100-year anniversary of the Armenian-Christian genocide by the Ottoman Turks, we need to remember that over a million Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians perished. The looming threat of the IS is to the remaining Assyrian Christians as well as to Greek-Orthodox and Catholic-Maronite Christians in Syria and Lebanon. Hopefully, ICU is not a lonely cry in the desert. Ours is meant to be a warning call to western Christians to show solidarity with their persecuted brothers-in-faith.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;">ICU has dedicated its efforts towards empowering Christians to assert their unique way of life and values. This runs in conflict with the jihadist aims of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, and IS, whose violent agendas threaten the survival of Christians in the region.  This is the reason ICU is calling for an independent Christian state, as a haven for persecuted Christians, just as Israel served as a haven for the persecuted Jews.</p>
<p style="color: #444444;">Our vision of the future is one of building rather than destroying (the MO of radical Islam). We seek religious harmony instead of religious intolerance as practiced by the Islamists and jihadists. We want to build libraries and theatres while they want to burn them. We hope to contribute to humanity’s advancement, while they seek to roll us back to 7<sup>th</sup> Century barbarism and bloodshed. With the above in mind, our future rests with a secure and independent Christian state allied and protected by the US and the West.</p>
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		<title>Christians and Yazidis in Iraq – and a World&#8217;s Indifference</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Aug 2014 04:05:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=238726</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One standard for Palestinian people and refugees, and another for others.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/yazidis-3.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238740" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/yazidis-3-450x327.jpg" alt="yazidis-3" width="223" height="162" /></a>For the United Nation’s (UN) and the international media, there is one standard for Palestinian people and refugees, and another for others. This can be deduced from the reaction to the plight of the Iraqi Christians and the Yazidis (a Kurdish ethno-religious group of people, concentrated primarily in the Nineveh Province in Northern Iraq, now occupied by the fanatical jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL] now called the Islamic State – IS.)  The Yazidis practice a syncretic religion that fuses Shia and Sufi Islam along with indigenous regional folk traditions. They are considered infidels by the Sunni Muslim IS and the Gaza Palestinians.</p>
<p>There are no protest marches in European capitals or American cities on behalf of the Christians and Yazidis of Iraq like those recently held in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Nor has there been sustained media coverage of Christian and Yazidi suffering, as was seen during the Gaza war about the Palestinians.</p>
<p>At an August 12, 2014 press conference UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon bemoaned the situation of the Yazidis. “The plight of the Yazidis and others (meaning Christians) on Mount Sinjar is especially <a href="http://www.un.org/sg/spokesperson/highlights/index.asp?HighD=8/12/2014">harrowing</a>.” While devoting a few obligatory lines about the Yazidis in Iraq, Ban Ki-Moon failed to provide the “harrowing” dimensions of their tragedy, including the murder of 500 Yazidis by decapitation and live burials and the 300 Yazidi women who were kidnapped and forced into sex-slavery by the IS jihadists.</p>
<p>Ban Ki-Moon did, however, elaborate on the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. He said, “According to preliminary information, nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed –almost <a href="http://www.un.org/sg/spokesperson/highlights/index.asp?HighD=8/12/2014">75 percent</a> of them civilians, including 459 children…more than 300,000 people are still sheltering in UNRWA (United Nation Relief and Works Agency for Palestine) schools, government and private schools and other public facilities or with host families.  At least 100,000 people have had their homes destroyed or severely damaged. Most of Gaza’s households have little or no water supply. Hospitals meant to cope with disaster are themselves disaster zones. The new school year was scheduled to start in less than two weeks, but a great many of the buildings will not be ready or are totally unusable in their current state.”</p>
<p>The UN Secretary General failed to mention in his statement to the press that Hamas has fired its rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians from UNRWA schools, hospitals and private homes, as well as public facilities, including mosques and churches in contravention of international law. And, while it is regretful that Palestinian children might not be able to start school on time (courtesy of Hamas), Christian and Yazidi children in Iraq have no schools or hospitals to go to at all. At least 1 million Christians and 500,000 Yazidis had to abandon their homes and, with no shelter on the mountain, are completely exposed to the elements. The exact number of Christians and Yazidis killed by the Islamic State is hitherto unknown, albeit, a one day toll of murdered Christians stood at 1,700 in what amounts to a genocide. These numbers are likely to be far greater than the Palestinians killed in Gaza. Moreover, their deaths might bring to an end the existence of one of the oldest Christian (Assyrian) sects in the world.</p>
<p>The exact number of Iraqi Christians is hard to come by. The figure often mentioned is about 400,000 to 500,000 who live in the country, down from a total before the 2003 war of perhaps 1.5 million. Other observers think as few as 200,000 may be left. The majority of the remaining Christians live in the far north of the country. The IS capture of Iraq’s second largest city – Mosul, in northern Iraq, prompted thousands of Christians to flee, some to Erbil (capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government-KRG) and others to the Nineveh plains, a traditional stronghold of Christians and Yazidis. The Christians and Yazidis are safer in these areas because of the Kurdish Peshmerga protection &#8211; the only force in Iraq standing against the onslaught of the fanatical IS.</p>
<p>Unlike the Palestinians in Gaza, the Christians and Yazidis will not get the UNHRC (UN Human Rights Council) to investigate “war crimes” committed against them. Nor will they get a special refugee agency – UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine) with a budget of $1billion, to rebuild their lives. At best, the U.S. military, not the UN, will continue to deliver food and water for those stranded in the mountains.</p>
<p>The Palestinians, who enjoy a special status as “permanent refugees,” receive the highest per capita handouts from the international community and Western “Christian” states, especially the U.S. Both the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Hamas-led Gaza regime are sustained by welfare checks received from abroad. The Gatestone Institute quoted from a recent study by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice that “The Palestinian people have received per capita, adjusted for inflation, <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3979/unrwa-dilemma">25 times</a> more aid than did Europeans to rebuild war-torn Western Europe under the Marshall Plan after the Second World War.” It also qualified that “If the entire Palestinian Authority leadership lives off an international welfare check that arrives only because the conflict still exists, there isn&#8217;t much incentive for ending the conflict.”</p>
<p>Western governments including the U.S. are now clamoring to rebuild Gaza after the recent war called “Protective Edge” by Israel. Can the Christians of Iraq and Yazidis count on the same largesse from the international community or Western powers as has been showered on the Palestinians? It’s doubtful.</p>
<p>What is so tragic about the double-standard practiced by the international community is that right and wrong are no longer relevant. The Palestinians in Gaza elected the Hamas Islamic terrorist regime and most of its population supported the terror attacks against Israel, whether by suicide bombers during the Second Intifada (2000-2004) or the rockets fired at Israeli cities and its civilian population. Israel turned over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in August, 2005, along with ready-made hot-houses and orchards primed for exporting. Israel’s gesture of peace was met with the firing of more than 10,000 rockets.</p>
<p>Christians and Yazidis are true victims of Islamic intolerance, and the barbarism of the Islamic State. The Gaza Palestinians and their chosen Hamas regime cannot qualify as victims. They initiated hostilities with Israel, and now seek concessions from Israel and Egypt. In 1 <a href="http://biblehub.com/1_kings/21-19.htm">Kings 21:19</a> the question is asked: “Have you murdered and also taken possession?” The Palestinians attacked Israel, and are seen as victims. They are, instead, victims of their own hateful aggression. Conversely, neither the Christians nor the Yazidi Kurds attacked their neighbors with rockets or suicide bombers. They truly are defenseless victims.</p>
<p>In a letter written by Rebecca Simon, an American of Assyrian Christian descent, to Colonel Allen West, she asked: “No doubt the kidnapping of 200 kids by Boko Haram being forced to convert to Islam was a tragedy. But equally tragic, if not more so, is the forceful conversion to Islam of at least 200,000 Assyrian Christians in Iraq. And where is the <a href="http://allenbwest.com/2014/08/freedom-choice-islamic-way-womans-anguish-fate-assyrian-christians/">outrage</a> by the Spanish bleeding hearts: Mr. and Mrs. Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz? In their delicate artistic mind, does a Palestinian child have more rights to life than an Assyrian Christian child?”</p>
<p>The Christians and Yazidis of Iraq deserve the sympathy and support of the international community. The Palestinians in Gaza, on the other hand, require scrutiny and condemnation.</p>
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		<title>Gaza: Hypocrisy Exposed</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/gaza-hypocrisy-exposed/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=gaza-hypocrisy-exposed</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Aug 2014 04:25:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=238147</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What lurks behind the self-righteous condemnations of Israel.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ob62.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238319" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ob62-450x337.jpg" alt="ob6" width="236" height="177" /></a>Long before the recent Gaza War between the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and Israel, groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organized anti-Israel rallies and Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaigns against the Jewish State. These so called “justice seekers” have not seen fit to rally for the oppressed Tibetans, who have not resorted to terrorism in spite of the brutal Chinese occupation, nor have they demanded a state for the stateless Kurds. Why focus only on justice for Palestinians on one hand, and single out the Jews of Israel on the other? Answer &#8211; SJP is not only hypocritical, but anti-Semitic as well.</p>
<p>Similarly, recent violent demonstrations and rallies in support of Hamas in major European capitals reveal sheer hypocrisy. Again, only Palestinians are “victims” and only the “Jews” are the victimizers. No one cares in these mob gatherings that Hamas started this latest war (called by Israel Protective Edge Campaign), and that Hamas alone is using civilians as “human shields” with the clear intention to bring about maximum civilian casualties among Palestinians in order to elicit sympathy and win the public relations war.</p>
<p>Nor do these mobs care that thousands of Hamas rockets have been fired indiscriminately at Israeli civilian centers in order to deliberately kill women and children. By way of contrast, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) phoned Palestinian civilians and dropped leaflets warning them of impending shelling, and urged them to evacuate the area in order to prevent civilian casualties. The contrast between civility and barbarity is clear, but it does not matter to the Islamists and their European native allies tainted with the recessive anti-Semitic gene.</p>
<p>Rich Lowery of the <em>National Review </em>wrote on August 5, 2014, under the title Hitler Was Right: “Welcome to the New Europe, where the street thugs have learned a lot from the Old Europe. Their protests of the Gaza War during the past few weeks haven’t been anti-Israel so much as anti-Jew. Some of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world — Paris, Berlin, London — have witnessed demonstrations airing hatred associated with Europe’s <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/384581/hitler-was-right-rich-lowry">darkest crimes</a>.”</p>
<p>Pro-Palestinian protesters in Berlin shouted just a few weeks ago in the old capital of Nazi Germany, “Jew, Jew, cowardly swine, come out and fight on your own!” The <em>New York Times</em> reported on July 21, 2014, “several hundred protesters sought to storm two synagogues in the French capital during an anti-Israel demonstration in which protesters chanted, “Death to Jews!” and “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/world/europe/israels-gaza-incursion-sets-off-protests-in-europe.html?_r=0">Hitler was right</a>.” Deidre Berger, the American Jewish Committee Berlin office director declared: “We are concerned that there are no more <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/item/anti_semitic_pro_palestinian_rally_in_berlin_spurs_charges">taboos</a> against open expressions of anti-Semitism at anti-Israel protests.”</p>
<p>Britain’s <em>Sunday Times</em> quoted Jewish Agency chairman Nathan Sharansky as saying “We are seeing the beginning of the <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=19085">end</a> of Jewish history in Europe.” The European media reported that 45,000 people joined anti-Israel protests in Europe over the weekend of July 25, 2014. According to the same report in the <em>Sunday Times</em> over 100 hate crimes were committed in Britain in July, 2014.</p>
<p>The European media, although not a monolith, helped fuel the growing anti-Semitism in Europe under the guise of condemning Israeli actions. Commentators on the <em>BBC</em> and <em>France 24</em> repeated accusations of “excessive force” used by Israel, and the deliberate showing of human cost among Palestinians in Gaza, without pointing out the antecedence of the conflict, and simultaneously failing to present the human cost Israel is enduring. European Muslims and their allies do not need the media as an excuse to spout their blind Jew hatred.</p>
<p>The U.N., U.S., and EU governments apply standards of behavior to Israel that are rarely applied to other nations or their own. Bret Stephens opined (Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2014) that “The world is outraged by Israeli self-defense but only ‘concerned’ when Muslims kill Muslims.” In Syria, over 200,000 were killed by the Assad Regime, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda affiliates, mostly civilians, and many of them women and children. In addition, millions have been forced to flee their homes. There was no expression of outrage by the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. The same Ban Ki-Moon called the accidentally hit UNRWA-run school that killed 10 people, three of them terrorists from the Islamic Jihad, “a moral outrage and a criminal act” that had to be “swiftly investigated.” The U.S. State Department announced that it is “appalled” by the Israeli action.</p>
<p>Interestingly, a short time before Israel launched operation “Protective Edge,” the Pakistani army launched an offensive in North Waziristan against jihadist terrorists. It resulted in 500,000 out of 600,000 civilians fleeing their homes, and 376 terrorists dead. No one knows exactly how many civilians were killed. The July estimate stands at <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/bret-stephens-palestine-and-double-standards-1407194971">1,500</a>.</p>
<p>In the midst of the saturation coverage of the Gaza War (because it involved Jews) few paid attention to the fact that in Iraq, 1,600 people were killed in July, 2014. U.N. envoy Nickolay Mladenov reacted to the Iraqi casualties by saying “I am <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/bret-stephens-palestine-and-double-standards-1407194971">concerned </a>about the rising numbers of casualties in Iraq, particularly among the civilian population.” There wasn’t, however, any expression of “outrage.”</p>
<p>Another form of hypocrisy has been the Obama administrations mantra about Israel “exercising restraint” and avoiding civilian casualties. Although it can hardly be compared to the European hypocrisy, which is tainted with anti-Semitism, the Obama administration is preaching to Israel what it does not practice in Pakistan and Yemen, where U.S. drones have killed many civilians.</p>
<p>The most outrageous form of hypocrisy however, is reserved for the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The majority of the UNHRC member-states do not represent democracies, yet they habitually condemn Israel almost 50% of the time. As of 2014, Israel had been condemned in 50 resolutions by the Council since its creation in 2006. The Council had adopted almost more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined. The 50 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions passed by the Council.</p>
<p>On July 23, 2014, UNHRC voted to open an international inquiry into Israeli violations that may have been committed during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. In an emergency session in Geneva, the 47-member UNHRC adopted the resolution presented by the Palestinians with 29 states voting in favor, 17 abstentions, including “so called” friends of Israel: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, and the UK. The U.S. alone voted against this outrage.</p>
<p>Astoundingly, the same ambassadors to Israel of the European countries that abstained, previously joined the international outcry against Hamas’ indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel, and supported Israel’s right of self-defense. Yet, instead of investigating the Hamas terrorists, the UNHRC turned logic upside down. Hamas has committed double war crimes: 1) firing deadly rockets at innocent Israeli civilians, and 2) carrying out attacks on Israel behind innocent Palestinian civilians who formed a “Human Shield.”</p>
<p>UNHRC Chief Navi Pillay cited cases of Israeli air strikes and shells hitting homes and hospitals in Gaza, declaring that “These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that would amount to <a href="http://www.dw.de/uns-pillay-strong-possibility-of-israeli-war-crimes/a-17801640">war crimes</a>.” Pillay chose to ignore the fact that Hamas has stored rockets in homes, hospitals, and even UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) schools, the very same schools funded by the U.S. and EU, that teach hatred of Israel and Jews.</p>
<p>The latest war in Gaza has exposed the hypocrisy and double standard when it comes to Israel. One can only conclude that behind the self-righteous condemnations of Israel lurks the old virus of anti-Semitism.</p>
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		<title>Only Hamas’ Defeat Will Bring Peace</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2014 04:00:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=237950</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And why Iran, Qatar and Turkey are part of the problem. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/hamas.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237988" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/hamas.jpg" alt="hamas" width="282" height="184" /></a>As the 72-hour cease-fire began on Tuesday, August 5, 2014, Israel began its withdrawal from Gaza, but Israel Defense Forces (IDF) remained on alert, ready to re-launch its attack if Hamas’ rocket fire continued. While a clear majority of the Israeli public backed Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government military campaign to dismantle Hamas’ ability to operate against Israel, growing pressure from the U.S. administration to scale back the IDF operations prompted Netanyahu to go ahead with another cease-fire.</p>
<p>The previously drafted cease-fire plan Secretary of State John Kerry submitted to Jerusalem ignored the interests of moderate Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and of course Israel. It placed Israel, the most reliable U.S. ally in the Middle East, on the same level as Hamas, a terrorist group designated as such by the U.S. State Department.</p>
<p>Qatar is Hamas’ chief financial donor, whose donations enable it to purchase Iranian missiles, build tunnels, and other weapons of terror. Qatar, along with Turkey, whose Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called Zionism (the Jewish national liberation movement) “a crime against humanity,” seems to have been the Obama administration’s chosen interlocutors.</p>
<p>Israeli Knesset (Parliament) members both on the left and right of the political spectrum found themselves with a conundrum. While seeking to grant the wishes of Israel’s closest and most important ally &#8211; the U.S. &#8211; to end the military operations in Gaza, they were stunned by the Obama Administrations pro-Hamas tilt, and its Muslim Brotherhood allies &#8211; Qatar and Turkey. Labor party MK Nachman Shai joined right-wing MK’s in opposition to the U.S. cease-fire initiative. Shai stated that President Obama’s insistence on stopping the fighting now will prevent Israel from achieving the military objectives of this campaign. If Israel can’t destroy the tunnels and the war-making infrastructure of Hamas, Israel will rightfully end the campaign with a sense of loss.</p>
<p>Deputy Minister of Transportation and Road Safety, Tzipi Hotovely declared on Monday (7/28/2014) “The U.S. proposal for a cease-fire serves only the interests of Hamas.” She added, “For the first time in years, the Israeli public is decisively behind the government in supporting the <a href="http://www.nrg.co.il/Scripts">continuation</a> of the IDF operation (Protective Edge) in Gaza. The Israeli government must bring about a change in the rules of the game, and bring about the defeat of Hamas.”</p>
<p>Among President Barack Obama’s advisors on the national security team are some who firmly believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate Muslim movement that should be used as a counterweight to Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. It is for this reason that the Obama administration has turned to the Muslim Brotherhood-led regimes of Qatar and Turkey, to negotiate a cease-fire in Gaza between Israel and the Muslim Brotherhood Hamas terrorist group.</p>
<p>ABC-TV’s Jonathan Karl reported on 2/10/2011 that “Director of National Intelligence James Clapper raised some eyebrows today at a House Intelligence Committee hearing when he described the Muslim Brotherhood as a “largely secular” organization. The term ‘Muslim Brotherhood,’ is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam…” Gaza based Hamas is an affiliate of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>According to U.S. retired Admiral James Lyons (Washington Times 2/13/2013), John O. Brennan, appointed by President Obama to head the CIA, and formerly key counterterrorism advisor to President Obama, is of concern.</p>
<p>Admiral Lyons pointed out that “<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/john-o-brennan/">Brennan</a>’s track record of empowering the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/muslim-brotherhood/">Muslim Brotherhood</a> both domestically and abroad allowed the jihadist enemy access to the highest level of government under the stealth guise of ‘nonviolent outreach partners.’ For example, terrorists like Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations who has been linked to Hamas and leaders from the Islamic Society of North America, unindicted co-conspirators from the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2008, and work with national security staff providing input to U.S. counterterrorism strategies. That is hardly comforting. It cannot be denied that U.S. policy on Islam, Shariah law and the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/muslim-brotherhood/">Muslim Brotherhood</a> in particular has undergone a sea change during the time <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/john-o-brennan/">Mr. Brennan</a> has had influence on our national security.”</p>
<p>Admiral Lyons contends that Obama’s appointee as Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel, has a lot to answer for. “His position on our defense budget and his appearance on Al-Jazeera where he characterized the United States as a bully in world affairs are more than troubling. As an aside, Al-Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar, which has now been revealed as a major contributor to the Atlantic Council when <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/chuck-hagel/">Hagel</a> was the chairman, according to Cliff Kincaid, the director of the Center for Investigative Journalism.” In addition, “<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/chuck-hagel/">Hagel</a>’s stated position on direct negotiations with Iran with no preconditions is also of concern, as is his position on our only true ally in the Middle East &#8211; Israel.”</p>
<p>While John Kerry may be on a genuine quest for a cease-fire and a diplomatic settlement in Gaza, the Turkish government of Tayyip Erdogan has approved a new provocative measure against Israel. A new flotilla called “Freedom Flotilla II” will sail to Gaza to provide “humanitarian assistance” with the support of the Turkish navy. The organizers of the Flotilla are the same Islamist organization IHH, ideologically close to Erdogan’s Islamist AK party. Apparently, Erdogan seeks a military confrontation with Israel, since the IHH flotilla would have to be inspected by Israeli naval vessels. Erdogan, the very person President Obama considers a “peacemaker,” charged Israel last week of committing “<a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9341">barbarism worse than Hitler</a>.” He added, “Since Israel’s creation in 1948, we have been witnessing this attempt at systematic genocide every day and every month. But above all, we are witnessing this attempt at systematic genocide every Ramadan.” This is clear and unmistakable anti-Semitic incitement that should draw wide condemnation starting with President Obama.</p>
<p>Qatar in the meantime, signed a deal with the U.S. to buy Patriot missiles and Apache attack helicopters. The deal is estimated to be worth $11 billion. Defense secretary Chuck Hagel signed the weapons agreement with Qatar Minister of State for Defense Hamad bin Ali al-Atiyah on July 14, 2014. Now the question is will some of the weapons purchased find their way to Gaza?</p>
<p>The Obama administration, by its actions hitherto appeared to be unable to distinguish between the ‘good guys and the bad guys’ in the Middle East. With all his good intentions Kerry’s push for the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and the impending Cairo talks may be for naught. Iran, Qatar and Turkey are preparing Hamas for the next round with Israel. In the final analysis, only a Hamas that is militarily defeated and politically neutered can provide a chance peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.</p>
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		<title>Vision of an Independent Kurdistan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/vision-of-an-independent-kurdistan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=vision-of-an-independent-kurdistan</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jul 2014 04:10:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Independent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kurdish state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=237210</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The crucial significance of Netanyahu’s call for an independent Kurdish state.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/kurd.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237243" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/kurd.jpg" alt="kurd" width="293" height="223" /></a>In an address delivered at Tel Aviv University on Sunday, June 29, 2014, Israel’s Prime Minister called for an “Independent Kurdish State” in northern Iraq. Citing the collapse of Iraq amid the ISIS insurgency and sectarian violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed the de-facto independence of Iraqi Kurds. Netanyahu has also called for support of the “<a href="http://rt.com/news/169252-netanyahu-kurds-independence-iraq/">Kurdish aspiration for independence</a>.” Netanyahu’s support for Kurdish independence is not only strategic, it is emotional as well. Jews and Zionists identify with the Kurdish quest for self-determination of a scattered people that have been discriminated against and abandoned by the international community.</p>
<p>The open recognition of Kurdish rights to self-determination by a major international figure such as PM Netanyahu has finally shone a light on the 40 million Kurdish people without a state of their own. The Arabs have 22 states already, and the international community including the Obama administration, are clamoring for a Palestinian State. This would add another rather unstable state to the existing Arab states. It is therefore a moral imperative to recognize the right of the Kurdish people to an independent state of their own.</p>
<p>Kurds have unsuccessfully sought freedom and self-determination since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The legal basis of their modern-day independence efforts was the Treaty of Sèvres signed on August 10, 1920. It was annulled in the course of the “Turkish War of Independence” and the parties signed and ratified the superseding Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which was silent regarding Kurdish rights due to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s tactics (founder of Turkey), where he presented himself as the representative of Kurdish-Turkish brotherhood of the newly created republic, and removed all reference to the Kurds.</p>
<p>Turkey has been the major obstacle to Kurdish independence. In recent years however, as the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara found itself more isolated in the region, the vision of a friendly and perhaps independent Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil (Northern Iraq) has been seen more positively in Ankara and Istanbul. A July 14, 2014 visit to Ankara by KRG President Massoud Barzani was widely speculated to be Barzani’s search for Turkish endorsement for an independent Kurdish state.</p>
<p>Turkey is in no rush to endorse an independent Kurdish state. The upcoming presidential elections in Turkey make it necessary for Erdogan to show friendliness toward the Kurds. Yet, as a foreign policy issue, Turkey is in line with President Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who oppose an independent Kurdish state. Not long ago, Turkey, Iran and Syria were in an alliance to forestall any manifestation of Kurdish self-determination.</p>
<p>Sherkoh Abbas is President of Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KURDNAS) and the organizer of an all-Kurdish conference in Germany in late August, 2014. He shared his vision of a future Kurdish independent state with this reporter.</p>
<p>“The Kurds merit an independent Kurdistan based on the treaty of Sèvres. Kurds arrived in the region now inhabited by Arabs, Persians and Turks (Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey) more than 4,000 years ago, and have continuously lived in these areas. The Kurds have been moderate, tolerant, pro-western, democratic, and protective of minorities. In fact, the Kurdish controlled areas in Iraq and Syria have recently become a haven for Christians and other minorities seeking refuge from Sunni Islamist radical groups such as the Islamic State (SI). Why then can there be 22 Arab states, one Turkish state, one Persian state, one Jewish state, but no Kurdish state? Why is it that 40 million Kurds do not enjoy the same rights of self-determination as the Arabs, Persians and Turks under the UN Charter that provides for ‘universal recognition of the inalienable right of self-determination?’</p>
<p>U.S. and Western nations support for an independent Kurdistan comprised of northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan) and northern Syria (Syrian Kurdistan) would accomplish the following: It would expand the area currently under control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) where political and social stability exists, economic development is in full swing, and where security and peace provide a refuge for minorities. It would also serve as a beacon of democracy for the region and prevent radical Islamist groups such ISIS /Al-Qaeda from controlling the resource rich (oil included) Kurdish region of Syria and Iraq. Moreover, it will deny them a base to spread terror in the region and worldwide. The independent Kurdish state would become an economic oasis, and simultaneously serve as a barrier against the threat of Sunni (Islamic State)/Shiite (Iran) radicals threatening U.S. interests and its allies.</p>
<p>We, at the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KURDNAS) and our allies, including the Kurdish National Council (KNC) have a considerable influence among the Kurds of Syria. Our people in Syria prefer an independent Kurdistan comprised of Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan. At a minimum, our people seek the Kurdistan region of Syria to be free and confederated with Iraqi Kurdistan.</p>
<p>The current opposition groups in Syria, including the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian National Coalition do not serve the interests of Syrian people and are instrumental in creating divisions and conflicts, which are aiding radicals groups such as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham changed to Islamic State or (IS) recently) and al-Nusra. Kurds reject an alliance with the opposition groups for just such reasons, and because they are no different than the Assad regime with regards to Kurdish rights. Following decades of Arabization by the Assad regime, which spawned a culture of hate and violence, that denied human and national rights to Kurds and other minorities, it would be farfetched to expect reform from the embattled Assad regime. Hence, the Kurdish need for independence. The KRG in Iraq is a success story unlike the 22 Arab states which are mostly failed states that have achieved little in terms of human and religious rights, women and minority rights and democracy.</p>
<p>While KURDNAS and KNC accept all Kurdish representation, they will not accept the affiliation of PKK and associated groups such as YPG and PYD that can’t be considered Kurdish because they are working for the interests of neighboring regimes and against the interests of Kurdish leaders and organizations.</p>
<p>We recognize that in our region, military power alone can guarantee a nation’s survival. The Syrian Kurdistan region has the capacity to establish a force of 35,000-40,000 Kurdish National Guard or “Peshmerga,”which would providesecurity from external forces and would be under the command of the civilian Kurdish authorities.</p>
<p>As a final comment, I would like to stress the importance of a combined polity of Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan that could serve as a free and democratic Pro-western barrier to the hegemonic ambitions of the Iranian regime and its allies, and similarly prevent the spread of the Caliphate-seekers of the Islamic State.”</p>
<p>The international community and certainly the U.S. should echo Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for an independent Kurdish state. If we believe in what we preach about democracy, human rights, religious freedom, tolerance and shared values, then an independent Kurdish state fulfills our vision. Conversely, the failed unitary states of Syria and Iraq lack all of them. An independent Kurdish state is in the interest of the U.S. and the West. It is also a moral imperative that an historic wrong has been righted.</p>
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