OPINION

Donald Trump will inevitably flame out 


Donald Trump listens to a question at the first Republican presidential debate last week in Cleveland. photo: brian snyder/reuters

Here’s why
by michael gerson

(WASHINGTON POST) August 10, 2015 - In the first Republican debate, the klieg light that Donald Trump always carries around with him revealed four or five presidential candidates who, under the right circumstances, could beat Hillary Clinton. (Trump was not among them.)

But there was also a moment that could predict the defeat of the GOP in 2016. No, I’m not talking about Sen. Ted Cruz heaping praise on Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi — a military-backed ruler who jails journalists and has sentenced hundreds of opponents to death or life in prison — as a model in dealing with Islamism. And no, I am not talking about Sen. Rand Paul’s smirk when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie raised the memory of 9/11 victims and their families.

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Should Scotland secede from the United Kingdom?


Journalist alex jones. photo: abhi ahmadadeen/BMLTV©

(BMLTV) NORFOLK VA, September 26, 2014 - It's rare in our modern, western world that we are witness to the potential, likely peaceful succession of a state from a greater union. Tonight, while we are five hours, "behind," Scotland's events, we are subject to the potential break up of the United Kingdom.

The union between Scotland and Britain began in the year 1707. Should Scotland secede from the United Kingdom, much will have to change; and if the United Kingdom should remain intact, because of the Prime Minister's promises', much will still have to change. We have to hope that things will be as peacefull, in any event, as we are led to believe they will be.

Prime Minister David Cameron has made many promises he otherwise would not have made because he is the head of state of the United Kingdom, at a time where it may no longer be united, so of course he is desperate for the, "No," vote to win out in Scotland.

The vote is so close that we can't be sure which side will win - and it begs the question, will the promise to have an answer by, "breakfast," remain a promise kept? Scotland's voting population ranks at nearly 4.3 million people (nearly 97 percent of the eligable Scottish electorate) - where as the whole population of the United Kingdom (the overwhelming majority of which are English) is well over 60 million people.

At any rate, the showing of pure peace democracy when a few years ago Scotland didn't seem as if it would ever have this chance is certainly impressive. Of course, the east coast of the United States is five hours behind the, "United," Kingdom, so we will have to wait until we wake up to find out if there is any longer a Kingdom united.

by: alex jones
@alexjoneswbmltv 

Palestinian magical thinking 

(PJMedia) May 11, 2014 - So April 29th has arrived, and the nine month period allotted by the current US Administration for its effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has come and gone. Entirely predictably, it has failed, in its entirety.

What can be learned from the failure? And what may be expected to happen now?

The failure of the talks was predictable first and foremost because of the irreconcilable positions of the sides. This is not a matter of small details, as is sometimes maintained. It isn’t that the Palestinians want 99% of the West Bank while Israel will offer only 98%.

Palestinian nationalism in both its Fatah and Hamas variants rejects the possibility of accepting the permanence of Jewish statehood in any part of the area west of the Jordan River.

For the Palestinian Authority, the 9 month period of negotiations came as an unwelcome interruption to a very different strategy to which it will now return. This strategy consists of an attempt to place pressure on Israel through action in international forums to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state.  Presumably the intended result of this is to induce Israel eventually to make concessions in return for nothing. The struggle would then continue for further concessions.

This strategy is unlikely to bear fruit, but its adoption follows a notable pattern in Palestinian politics – namely, the constant attempt to find an alternative to a negotiated peace based on compromise.
At the root of Palestinian perceptions is a very notable strategic optimism.

The Palestinians see themselves as part of the local majority Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslim culture. From this point of view, the establishment of a non-Muslim sovereignty in Israel was not only an injustice, it was also an anomaly. Israel, being an anomaly, is therefore bound eventually to be defeated and disappear. So there is no need to reconcile to it, with all the humiliation therein.
 
This core perception leads to the momentary embrace of all kinds of unlikely strategies, which are invested with tremendous hopes. This pattern has been around for a while.

In the 1970s, in their first incarnation as an independent national movement, Palestinians believed that the long war strategy of the Palestinian terror organizations would serve to hollow out and destroy the hated Zionist entity, on the model of the FLN in Algeria. In 1990/91, almost forgotten now, Palestinians en masse embraced the empty promises of Saddam Hussein to ‘burn half of Israel.’ Arafat went to Baghdad to embrace the Iraqi dictator.

In 2000, after the short Oslo period, Palestinians looked to Hizballah and its ideology of resistance as the model for what they hoped would be a successful military and terror campaign against Israel.
All these strategies failed. All turned out to be based on illusion. In the meantime, the Jewish state went from strength to strength – absorbing millions of new immigrants, leaping ahead economically, diplomatically and militarily.

The campaign to place pressure on Israel through activism on the international stage is the latest example of this Palestinian magical thinking. It is likely to share the fate of its predecessors. The noisy BDS movement notwithstanding, Israel’s position on the global stage remains strong. Its alliance with the US, despite the utter lack of warmth from the current Administration, remains strong at its core, reflected in cooperation on myriad levels, both military and economic.

Israel is forging ahead in constructing positive relationships with the emergent powers of India and China. It maintains very close and warm relations with Canada, Australia, Germany and other important western players. None of this is under threat from the automatic majority the Palestinians enjoy at the UN because of the Arab and Muslim blocs of states.

So Palestinian optimism that at last the model for defeating Israel has been found is hard to understand. But then the faith placed in the previous approaches noted above also made little apparent sense.

What we are in for now is a period in which the current chimera will need to be played out. On the bright side, this means that a return to large-scale political violence is unlikely. The Palestinians were defeated heavily in the 2000-4 period, and there is little energy for a return to war.

 The Palestinian elite and their children live comfortable and privileged lives in Ramallah and elsewhere in the region and beyond it. Combining this with diplomatic and political activity can be pleasant and rewarding. Combining it with military activity, by contrast, could be harmful and has already been proven not to work.

So expect more furious and pathos-filled denunciations of Israeli crimes from various UN committees largely staffed by the representatives of sundry dictatorships.

Expect Saeb Erekat and the others to come up with yet more inventive reasons as to why Islam and Arabic are ‘indigenous’ to Jerusalem while Judaism and Hebrew represent foreign implants. And so on, and so forth.

And at the end of all this, expect more failure, more bewilderment and a pause until the next alternative to a negotiated peace is stumbled upon. This is the nature of the magical thinking that lies at the core of Palestinian Arab politics.

This politics, in its various manifestations, exists to reverse the verdict of the war of 1948. It has no other purpose.

Its credo was perfectly rendered in the words of the Moroccan scholar Abdallah Laroui, as quoted by Fouad Ajami: “On a certain day everything would be obliterated and instantaneously reconstructed and the new inhabitants would leave, as if by magic, the land they had despoiled; in this way will justice be dispensed to the victims, on that day when the presence of God shall again make itself felt.’

The language is elegant. The message is one of politicide and destruction. For as long as this credo remains at the root of Palestinian politics, peace between Israelis and Palestinians will remain unachievable. All else is mere detail.

by dr. jonathan spyer

Ron Paul details Federal Reserve's "unbelievable damage" on interest rates for gobankingrates.com

(PRN) LOS ANGELES, February 24, 2014 - Three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul shares his opinion on the outlook of consumer bank interest rates in 2014 on leading personal finance website GOBankingRates.com

Ron Paul's analysis did not shed a positive light on the Fed 

"Since becoming chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen has promised more of the same. This is not good news: more artificially low interest rates, more propping up of the stock market, more inflation of the money supply, more bailing out big banks, more propaganda for the central bank," wrote Ron Paul.

Ron Paul wanted to share his perspective on Janet Yellen's appointment to Federal Reserve chairwoman and what this decision means for interest rates in the United States on GOBankingRates as it specializes in providing personal finance and interest rate information to consumers.

"[The Fed] has wreaked unbelievable damage on our economy, blighted many millions of lives, and made possible such horrors as aggressive wars and the Orwellian state," Paul continued.

"It's important that our readers are exposed to a number of different voices and perspectives in the personal finance space," said Casey Bond, GOBankingRates' managing editor. "Ron Paul isn't afraid to share his opinions openly and frankly, which is exactly what I love to see from our guest experts."

You can read the full op-ed here: http://www.gobankingrates.com/banking/ron-paul-explains-federal-reserve-yellen/ 

Ron Paul is a former 12-term congressman from Texas, three-time presidential candidate and current host of www.ronpaulchannel.com.

First forced abortion documented in Texas


Pro-life activists rally in Texas for what they consider a forced abortion. photo: ap

OPINION by personhood usa

(PRN/USN) DENVER, January 27, 2014 - Thousands of babies are killed daily in the United States, but it is uncommon to have the eyes of the nation fixed on a particular baby. While abortion clinics pull in money hand over fist from willing clients,Marlise Munoz was not a client. Marlise Munoz did not consent to her child's death.

A terrible tragedy rendered Marlise incapable of defending herself from a hideous forced abortion, sought by the victim's family, sanctioned by the State of Texas, and carried out by JPS Hospital.

The consequences of the unrepentant killing of Baby Munoz are chilling: any woman could undergo a forced abortion if unable to voice an opposition. The court order for the execution of Baby Munoz appears to have violated Texas law, which states "A person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this subchapter from a pregnant patient."

District Judge R.H. Wallace noted that Marlise Munoz could have chosen to have an abortion at this stage of pregnancy, citing the arbitrary line of "viability." Aside from the fact that no mother should be able to legally kill her child, Marlise Munoz did not choose to have an abortion. When she was alive and in full possession of her faculties, she had chosen life for her child. Marlise's choice was disregarded after she was no longer able to defend herself or her daughter .

Judge Wallace also ignored the fact that babies have survived at the age that baby Munoz was yesterday. There are documented cases of 22-week-old babies, and even younger, surviving early delivery. Why was baby Munoz denied even the possibility of survival?

It appears that the baby girl's disabilities determined her value in this case, and sadly, it was wrongly decided that her life was not worth saving. According to ABC News , family attorneys may have blamed a lack of oxygen for the baby's apparent medical issues incorrectly, according to medical experts. Regardless, disabled children are created in God's Image, and still have a right to live.

Considering Marlise Munoz alone, it would not have been wrong to stop mechanical life support for a person who is dead. But it is murder to deprive an innocent living human being of oxygen and nutrients. Marlise's baby girl was alive. She could very well have survived a c-section before life support was pulled. If there were doubts as to her potential survival, Marlise could have been kept on life support for a meager two weeks longer to ensure a better outcome for the baby.

If Marlise must have been taken off of life support, what possible reason was there to intentionally kill the innocent child instead of performing a c-section to save the baby's life before they pulled the plug? The baby may or may not have survived a c-section, but if she didn't make it, her passing would have been a tragedy instead of a deliberate killing.

The premeditated killing of any child--whether it be in an abortion clinic or in a Texas hospital--is horrifying. It is absolutely wrong to kill an innocent person, no matter their age, location, size, sex, race, or ability. The murder of Marlise Munoz' baby was wrong, just as abortion is always wrong.

Marlise Munoz may have been considered dead in November, but her innocent baby was alive until yesterday. This was a premeditated execution weeks in the making. Personhood USA mourns the loss of Marlise Munoz and her daughter Nicole .

Immigrant detainee quota makes no sense

Latina detainees are searched by a housing officer before they go to the recreation yard in the North Georgia Detention Center in Gainesville, Georgia. jason getz/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/MCT

(LATINA TIMES) Here's something both political parties should agree on: how ridiculous it is to have a daily quota of immigration detainees-- 34,000 at this time.

This "bed mandate" came about in 2006 because conservative legislators thought U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn't deporting enough undocumented immigrants. The quota has risen since then -- at the same time illegal crossings from Mexico have fallen to nearly their lowest levels since the early 1970s.

With an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security says it's not a problem finding enough potential detainees. But critics of the quota say the majority of detainees are not violent offenders, and there are cheaper ways -- such as electronic monitoring -- to keep track of these people. Only 11 percent of the detainees have been convicted of violent crimes, according to a 2009 internal review.

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Debt Ceiling Deal: DC wins, Americans lose

(BMLTV) October 21, 2013 - Washington, DC, Wall Street, and central bankers around the world rejoiced this week as Congress came to an agreement to end the government shutdown and lift the debt ceiling. The latest spending-and-debt deal was negotiated by Congressional leaders behind closed doors, and was rushed through Congress before most members had time to read it. Now that the bill is passed, we can see that it is a victory for the political class and special interests, but a defeat for the American people.

The debt ceiling deal increases spending above the levels set by the “sequester.” The sequester cuts were minuscule, and in many cases used the old DC trick of calling reductions in planned spending increases a cut. But even minuscule and phony cuts are unacceptable to the bipartisan welfare-warfare spending collation. The bill also does nothing to protect the American people from the Obamacare disaster.

As is common in bills drafted in secret and rushed into law, this bill contains special deals for certain powerful politicians. The bill even has a provision authorizing continued military aid to opponents of the Ugandan “Lord’s Resistance Army,” which was the subject of the widely-viewed “Kony 2012” YouTube videos. Most of these unrelated provisions did not come to public attention until after the bill was passed and signed into law.

Members of Congress and the public were told the debt ceiling increase was necessary to prevent a government default and an economic crisis. This manufactured fear supposedly justified voting on legislation without allowing members time to even read it, much less to remove the special deals or even debate the wisdom of intervening in overseas military conflicts because of a YouTube video.

Congress should have ignored the hysterics. A failure to increase government’s borrowing authority would not lead to a default any more that an individual's failure to get a credit card limit increase in would mean they would have to declare bankruptcy. Instead, the failure of either an individual or a government to obtain new borrowing authority would force the individual or the government to live within their means, and may even force them to finally reduce their spending. Most people would say it is irresponsible to give a spendthrift, debit-ridden individual a credit increase. Why then is it responsible to give an irresponsible spendthrift government an increase in borrowing authority?

Congress surrendered more power to the president in this bill. Instead of setting a new debt ceiling, it simply “suspended” the debt ceiling until February. This gives the administration a blank check to run up as much debt as it pleases from now until February 7th. Congress can “disapprove” the debt ceiling suspension, but only if it passes a resolution of disapproval by a two-thirds majority. How long before Congress totally abdicates its constitutional authority over spending by allowing the Treasury permanent and unlimited authority to borrow money without seeking Congressional approval?

Instead of seriously addressing the spending crisis, most in Congress would rather engage in last-minute brinksmanship and backroom deals instead of taking the necessary action to reign in spending. Congress will only take serious steps to reduce spending when either a critical mass of Americans pressures it to cut spending, or when investors and foreign countries stop buying US government debt. Hopefully, those of us who understand sound economics can convince enough of our fellow citizens to pressure Congress to make serious spending cuts before Congress’s reckless actions cause a total economic collapse.

by Congressman ron paul

Brotherhood in retreat

Reports surfaced  suggesting that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal is seeking to relocate from his current base in the Qatari capital of Doha. Hamas has indignantly rejected these claims. This shouldn’t be taken as authoritative – the movement also dismissed evidence that it was leaving Damascus in 2012 until the move was complete and could no longer be denied.

If it turns out that the Hamas leadership is indeed on its way out of Qatar, this is the latest indication of the astonishing change of fortunes that has hit the Muslim Brotherhood. History may remember 2013 as the year of the movement’s eclipse, after its very brief moment in the sun in 2011-12.

Observe: at the beginning of this year, the Muslim Brotherhood held power in Egypt and Tunisia. A Syrian insurgency dominated by militias with similar ideas to the Brotherhood and supported by the same patron (Qatar) looked to be heading for victory in Syria’s civil war.

A Brotherhood-related party was in power in Turkey, and the Emirate of Qatar had emerged as the energetic financier and enthusiastic cheerleader of the Brothers’ advance across the region.

Qatar, through its immensely popular al-Jazeera channel, had the ability to sculpt public opinion according to its will, across borders in the Arabic-speaking world.

The Brotherhood/Qatari alliance also seemed well on the way to claiming the commanding stake in Palestinian nationalism. Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the movement, had carved out the only genuinely independent Palestinian entity in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian cause and opposition to Israel remain key badges of legitimacy in the politics of the Arab world. Hamas, led by Mashaal, spent 2011 and 2012 relocating itself out of Damascus, and drawing ever closer to Doha. Emir Hamed Bin Khalifa al-Thani then visited Hamas-controlled Gaza in October, 2012, pledging $400 million to the Hamas enclave.

Everything seemed to be going in the right direction.

But the advance of the Muslim Brotherhood was alarming to the conservative Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Israel, too, was watching events with concern. Israel was far less vulnerable than the fragile Gulf states, but the rise of the Brotherhood in Egypt seemed to promise trouble somewhere down the road.

In the course of 2013, the advance was reversed.

Most importantly, the Brotherhood was forcibly removed from power in Egypt in a Saudi and UAE supported military coup in July. The new military regime is in the process of destroying Islamist military resistance. The Brotherhood has been declared illegal and will not be permitted to stand in future elections once the civilian political process has been reactivated.

In this age of asymmetric conflicts in which the very concepts of victory and defeat are said to be obsolete, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has suffered something that looks very much like an old fashioned, unambiguous and clear defeat.

In Qatar, meanwhile, Emir Hamed Bin-Khalifa was replaced in June by his son, Tamim. The precise circumstances and reasons for Emir Hamed’s sudden departure from power remain mysterious. Since then, Qatar has virtually disappeared from the regional stage. Its contributions to the Brotherhood in Egypt are drying up.

Hamas, alarmed by the turn of events in Egypt, is reactivating its contacts with Iran and the rival, Shia-dominated Islamist bloc led by Teheran..

In Syria, the Assad regime rallied in the first months of 2013 and its existence is no longer in imminent danger. On the Syrian rebel side, meanwhile, it is now the Saudis who are making the running – officially supporting the ‘moderate’ Supreme Military Council, and enabling the funding of Salafi organizations through private funds. The Qataris and the Muslim Brotherhood are no longer the main players.

And in the latest reversal of fortune, the Al-Nahda party in Tunisia has agreed to dissolve the government which it formed following its election victory in 2011. The government will be replaced by an administration of technocrats pending new elections. This move follows the unrest and political crisis that erupted after the assassination of opposition leader Mohammed Brahmi in July.

In Turkey, meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood related AKP is left to ponder the ruins of its plans and hopes for the region. It had expected the formation of an alliance of like-thinking MB-style Sunni Islamist regimes across the region, in North Africa, the Levant and the Gulf.

After the events of 2013, this is no longer on the cards. Instead, the AKP government must cope with angry protests by non-Islamist Turks, the loss of allies and regional isolation.

This appears to be taking its toll. A broadcast featuring Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayep Erdogan and discussing the crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt had to be stopped recently when the Turkish leader began weeping uncontrollably.

What all this means is that on literally every front on which it made significant advances, the Muslim Brotherhood has now stalled.

Whether or not it turns out that the reports regarding Khaled Mashal’s relocation are true, Hamas is being forced to reposition itself, and to go back to Iran cap in hand. The reason is because this movement too had placed its bets on a Qatar-financed alliance of Muslim Brotherhood oriented states which will now not come into being.

The Muslim Brothers are by no means finished. Their politics retain a natural purchase in the conservative, Sunni Arab Middle East. But the moment when everything seemed possible has decidedly passed. What looked like the potential beginning of a new age ended up as a brief moment in the sun.

The sun is now setting on the Muslim Brotherhood’s hopes of regional domination.

by jonathan spyer

The true perpetrators of the antisemitic attacks in Toulouse and throughout the world

Arial view from Downtown Toulouse France.
photo: F.M.G. Dörenberg


(BMLTV) April 2, 2012 - What a tragic, evil joke. A drive-by shooter in the beautiful, almost magical, city of Toulouse, France, murders three Jewish children and a teacher in front of their school. Various VIPs issue statements about how terrible is this deed, how unspeakable.

And yet at that very moment, the next round of murders, the next slanderous and inciting antisemitic lies are being perpetrated by respectable people and institutions. There is no real soul-searching, no true effort to do better, no serious examination about how the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hysteria is paving the way for murder and fueling dreams of genocide.

The street thugs, fanatics drunk on the interpretations of Islam they are being fed, and the mentally twisted may be pulling the trigger but the distinguished, the powerful, and the honored are providing the ammunition.

Here are three examples of such deeds in nominally democratic countries—not Iran, not Syria, not Pakistan, where such things are even more intense—but in supposedly rational places.

1.The Turkish editor
Meet Mahir Zeynalov, an editor at Today’s Zaman, a Turkish Islamic newspaper that is supposedly moderate. Meet the modern art of tweeting. Here is Zeynalov’s response to the murders:

“Mahir Zeynalov ‏ @MahirZeynalov: Gunmen attack Jewish school in France, vandals attack Jewish cemetery in Poland, Jews burn mosques and Quran in Tunisia. What’s wrong?”
There are two ways to read this tweet. The more outrageous is this: How can it be wrong for gunmen to murder Jewish children or vandals attack a Jewish cemetery in Poland if Jews are burning mosques and Qurans in Tunisia. One act balances the other.

The other interpretation is this: What a world in which there is so much hatred! Gunmen murder Jewish children, vandals attack a Jewish cemetery, and Jews desecrate mosques and Muslim holy books.

Yet the second interpretation is almost as inciting to violence as the first. We know from many experiences—including Afghanistan right now—that anyone who burns or does anything to a Koran would set off massive riots and bloody killings. And as for burning a mosque, such a deed might well result in the massacre of every Jew living in Tunisia.

Tunisian Jews today are a couple of thousand terrified people who would run in the other direction if they saw a Koran in front of them lest they be accused of looking at it funny. What Zeyanlov has done is called a “blood libel,” a lie that might lead to the murder of Jews.

Now if some Muslim were to take seriously Zeyanlov’s tweet he would feel justified in murdering Jews, say children standing in front of their school.

2. The Dutch cartoonist
De Volkskrant is one of Holland’s leading newspapers, favored by the intellectual elite. Here is a cartoon that has just run. It shows Geert Wilders, leader of the conservative party that is very critical of Islam, getting loads of cash from a hidden hand that is clearly referring to Jews or Israel. Yes, the cartoon was written with a Hebrew text balloon, helpfully translated into Dutch as Wilder saying, “Thank you very much.”

So we have here the stereotype of the Jewish money behind the scene conspiring, in this case against Islam and against Holland. And of course it is also designed to discredit Wilders. As with the Turkish editor’s tweet above this is based on a total falsehood. There is hardly any Jewish support for Wilders party, which is by the way a legitimate political force, and there has never been the slightest evidence—even rumor—of Jewish financing for him, or Israeli financing.

Holland is a country where two political leaders have been assassinated and Wilders needs round-the-clock protection against potential assassin.
What is the message here? That Jews and Israel are trying to destroy Islam—as in the Turkish tweet—and are nefarious plotters attacking innocent people. Isn’t it just, therefore, to murder Jews and Israelis in self-defense?

3. Europe’s Foreign Minister
Exhibit three is Catherine Ashton, whose career was originally built on running the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament which favored unilateral Western disarmament in the face off Soviet tyranny. She is now the EU’s foreign minister. In response to the Toulouse shooting she has issued a statement here that spends more time reciting the sufferings of children in the Gaza Strip than about antisemitism and the demonization of Jews and Israel.

Left out is the fact that Gaza is ruled by an organization Hamas that is openly antisemitic, openly preaches genocide, frequently has carried out terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews, and then glorifies those who did the murders. Remember that the only reason Hamas can rule Gaza is that Israel voluntarily withdrew from the territory in a gesture intended to promote peace, something Ashton and much of the Western media and governmental elites usually don’t mention.

When Hamas maintains a war with Israel, firing rockets, missiles, and mortars, Israel defends itself. Hamas also deliberately sites military arsenals and weapons in residential areas. Thus, civilians and even children are accidentally killed by Israel in the fighting. This is precisely what happens in other wars, including those being waged now by EU countries.

Yet Ashton does not defend Israel or its right to defend itself. She does not take sides against the terrorists. At best we get spurious neutrality that is actually anti-Israel propaganda. Note that she even refers to Palestine as a currently existing country even though the EU recognizes no such country. So much for diplomatic responsibility. Her “apology” and “clarification” came after criticism but she meant exactly what she said and will do the same thing next time as she and other EU officials have done on previous occasions.

Indeed, while Palestinian children are killed during the fighting in Gaza let’s note the two most notoriously publicized examples of the last week:
–A photo sent around, in one case by a UN official, showing a little girl as being injured this week was in fact of a girl injured in an auto accident several years ago.
–The claim that Adham Abu Selmiya was killed by Israelis has now been shown to be false. He was killed by a bullet fired into the air by Palestinians during a funeral.
–And what of the recent photo widely published purporting to show an Israeli soldier menacing a child despite the fact that the man was not wearing a real Israeli army uniform and carrying an AK-47, showing that the photo was a phony.
–The downplaying or omission of the fact that Israel was defending itself from a barrage of missiles. In one case, a prominent Dutch newspaper published a photograph with the caption that showed a rocket being fired by Israel into Gaza, instead of the exact opposite.

In short, Ashton and many others are contributing to the demonization of Jews and Israel. If Israel is so horrible that it makes little children in Gaza suffer for no reason shouldn’t Israelis and the Jews who support them, be shunned, harassed, attacked, and murdered?

These three examples are only a small sample of what is pouring out in the Middle East and elsewhere. I could go on with dozens more and so, perhaps, could you. From Sweden’s largest newspaper claiming Israel murdered Palestinians to harvest their organs to a Harvard professor’s tales of Jewish-Zionist conspiracies to control U.S. foreign policy to the dozens of “academic” conferences on Western campuses that demonize Israel at the expense of the students’ tuition payments.

What is needed is not more hypocrisy or professions of innocence–or expensive conferences where long speeches are made about the evils of antisemitism by those who do nothing but get free plane tickets and nice hotel rooms– but a real change in the behavior of the mass media that pours out lies, the academics who slander and distort, and the governments that cannot even stand with a country and people beset by terrorism and once again by the world’s oldest hatred.

Oh, and one more thing is needed: the admission that the greatest threat of hatred, “racism,” dehumanization of the “other,” and threat of persecution today–as the statistics for Europe and North America show–is not “Islamophobia” but antisemitism.

And none of those things are going to happen because the liars, haters, apologists, and enablers will not acknowledge their own behavior while those who are supposed to supervise them will not act. Hating and lying about Israel and the Jewish people is too useful politically and too entwined with the version of left-wing ideology, not to mention Islamism and the dominant interpretation of Islam, currently so powerful in the world.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Europe is no longer a safe place for Jews to live. Yet it is accurate to say that it is becoming an unsafe place for Jews to live, and certainly for those who wish to express mainstream Jewish views and to practice their religion openly. Meanwhile, the EU and various governments dare not admit that the principal cause of antisemitic activity is radical Islam, and the principal inspiration for popular antisemitism is trendy leftist ideas that now dominate much of that continent and are spreading in North America.

Thus, Jewish children are deliberately murdered by a terrorist in the midst of France. In response come get the formal statements and the crocodile tears. Yet at the exact same time as the bullets are entering the children’s bodies, as the victims fall to the ground, as the ambulance sirens sound, the incitement and the lies and the slanders continue, laying the groundwork for more hatred and more murder.

by barry rubin





Who Killed Khaled Sultan al-Abed?

Once viewed as perhaps the most locked-down and policed city in the Middle East, the Syrian capital of Damascus has been the scene of a number of bombings and assassinations in the last few years. Most famously, of course, Hizbullah master-operative Imad Mughniyeh was killed by a car bomb in February 2008.

Last year, in a much messier affair, a number of Iranian pilgrims were killed in a bus bombing which the Syrian authorities did their clumsy best to conceal.

In the last month, an additional item must be added to the list of curious and unexplained acts of lethal violence to have taken place in the Syrian capital.

On May 16, Khaled Sultan al-Abed, a businessman and a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, was shot dead outside his home in the same smart Damascus neighborhood in which Mughniyeh met his end. Mezzeh, which is also home to a number of foreign embassies, is one of the most closely watched as well as one of the most fashionable districts of Damascus.

Abed was the official head in Syria of Iran Khodro, a car franchise established by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. He had been resident in Damascus for 10 years, owned a 25 percent stake in the company, and had reportedly succeeded in forging close ties with prominent figures in the Syrian business community.

However, according to a report by veteran journalist Georges Malbrunot in Le Figaro this week, this position and Abed's additional extensive business activities in Syria were intended to serve as a cover for his other duties - those of a liaison officer between the Iranian regime and Hizbullah.

The Syrian authorities are clearly deeply embarrassed at this latest breach of the daily tranquility of their capital. The murder was not reported by official news sources, and Syrian officials have made no comment upon it. An investigation into the killing of Abed has reportedly been launched.

WHO MIGHT have carried it out? A number of competing theories have emerged. One of these appeared on a Syrian opposition Web site and was picked up in Haaretz last week. According to this theory, Abed's murder was carried out by a Sunni organization and is related to growing fear among Sunnis in Syria and beyond at the growth of Iranian influence in Syria.

This view would gibe with a larger perspective, accepted by many in Israel's defense establishment, which identifies widespread dissatisfaction and fear at many levels in the Syrian establishment and society with the growing link with Iran. According to this explanation, certain elements are trying to sow discord between Iranians and Syrians, and are serving notice that Damascus should not be considered uncontested ground for the free activities of the Shi'ite Islamist Iranian regime.

Some versions of this theory suggest that even senior figures in the Syrian regime are deeply concerned at the growing link with Iran, and may be involved - explaining how the killing was able to take place in one of the most densely policed areas of the Syrian capital, with no one being apprehended.

However, proponents of this view need to ask themselves whether elements close to the regime would wish to suggest its vulnerability in quite so blatant a way. Police states such as Syria, after all, derive what legitimacy they possess from their ability to police effectively.

This ability is surely starkly called into question by the recent murder of Abed and the other incidents to have taken place in Damascus recently.

An alternative explanation, given greater credence by both Malbrunot and other sources, sees the killing of Abed as the latest act in Israel's "shadow war" against Iran.

Malbrunot noted Abed's close links with the Kuds force, the clandestine external wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Both he and other sources hinted at the possibility that the murdered man may have been involved in the transfer of Iranian weaponry to Hizbullah. An unnamed source claims that "one thing is for sure: Most of those murdered in Syria in recent years were on the list of those wanted by Israel." Is this a coincidence, Malbrunot asks by way of conclusion.

In the usual manner of things Syrian, the real perpetrators of the murder and their motives are likely to remain shrouded in mystery and to remain the subject of much speculation.

But as with many such affairs, perhaps the most interesting aspects are ultimately those clearly visible to the naked eye. A senior operative in the most clandestine element of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is gunned down in broad daylight in the heart of one of the most heavily watched areas of the Syrian capital. The Syrian authorities delay the announcement of the killing and make no comment upon it.

Rumors of who might be responsible abound.

The regime of Bashar Assad has shown itself to be an enthusiastic practitioner of the "strategy of tension" in Lebanon, in Iraq and elsewhere over the last halfdecade.

It appears that someone or other is currently keen on demonstrating to the Syrian leader that this can also be a game played by two sides.

caption:

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, speaks via a video link during a rally commemorating the second anniversary of the assassination of top Hezbollah's commander Imad Mughniyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.

photo: ap

by dr. jonathan spyer