text:
Dog Brothers Public Forum
. Please
February 25, 2018, 04:03:17 AM
1 Hour
1 Day
1 Week
1 Month
Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search
Welcome to the Dog Brothers Public Forum.
Posts in
Topics by
Latest Member:
Dog Brothers Public Forum
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities
Politics & Religion
Israel, and its neighbors
« previous
next »
Topic: Israel, and its neighbors (Read 501869 times)
Power User
Posts: 42556
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1850 on:
March 12, 2014, 03:01:53 PM »
Click here to watch: Gazans bombard southern Israel in massive rocket attack
IDF tanks fired into Gaza over the past several minutes, and have already eliminated two terror targets, in response to the barrage of rocket fire on Israel. At least 60 rockets slammed into southern Israel on Wednesday, hitting several Jewish communities. Several were stopped by the Iron Dome; no injuries have been reported. Thousands of Negev residents remain in shelters Wednesday evening, however, until the attacks have subsided. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reacted to the attack by pledging a "forceful" response against those responsible. "This seems to be in response to our counterterrorism efforts yesterday," Netanyahu declared, according to Channel 2. "We will continue to strike those who want to harm us, we'll act against them very forcefully."
A video released online shows how Islamic Jihad terrorists fired this evening's barrage of rocket attacks from within heavily-populated areas in Gaza. The footage, which was posted on a Hamas-linked Facebook page, shows the challenges often faced by the Israeli military in responding to such attacks whilst avoiding civilian casualties. It illustrates what Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, have often referred to as a "double war-crime": the firing of rockets against Israeli civilians, whilst using the Palestinian Arab civilian population in Gaza as cover, and in the hope that any Israeli response will draw condemnation for striking a civilian area. Israeli reactions appear to indicate that a military reaction will not be long in coming. Netanyahu has already threatened a "forceful response" to the attacks, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman went a step further, calling for the IDF to retake the Gaza Strip. In the last few minutes Israeli army tanks reportedly destroyed two unspecified "terror targets" in the Islamist-controlled territory.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Major Iranian Arms shipment to Gaza ignored by pravdas
Reply #1851 on:
March 12, 2014, 03:29:53 PM »
Click here to watch: Netanyahu Slams International Hypocrisy Over Iran Arms Ship
Speaking to the press at Eilat port, in view of the ship's deadly cargo, Prime Minister Netanyahu noted - in both Hebrew and English - that the assorted rockets, mortars and other munitions were meant "for fatal purposes against Israel to hurt Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and even Haifa". "The goal was to have rained down on the heads of Israel's citizens," he said. "We are revealing the truth behind the deceiving smiles of Iran, to expose the delusion that Iran is changing direction," he continued. Netanyahu noted that the international community's decision to downplay the IDF's find is "evidence of the era of hypocrisy in which we are living." "The international community wants to ignore Iran's ongoing aggression and its part in the execution of the massacre in Syria," the Prime Minister fired. "They want to delude themselves that Iran has abandoned its intention to obtain nuclear weapons." "Just as Iran hid its deadly missiles in the belly of this ship, Iran is hiding its actions and its intentions in many of its key installations for developing nuclear weapons," he said. "My message today is simple: those engaged in self-deception must waken from their slumber, we cannot allow Iran to continue building nuclear weapons. Today, Israel exposed Iran's attempts against its people," he continued, "Tomorrow, the whole world could be involved."
Israel is displaying the weapons cache from the Iranian shipment to Gaza on Monday, in a bid to show the international community the 'true face' behind the Islamic Republic. The IDF spokesperson's office announced Sunday that the Klos C ship, which docked in Eilat over the weekend, has been unloaded and all the contents examined. The list includes: 40 M-302 rockets, with a range of 90 to 160 km; 181 mortar shells, 122 mm caliber; about 400,000 bullets, 7.62 caliber - which are usually used in Kalashnikov-type assault rifles. The IDF conducted the raid in the Red Sea Wednesday, between the waters of Sudan and Eritrea. The ship, which flew a Panamanian flag, carried weapons which were made in Syria under Irans directives and were being taken to Sudan. From there, they would be then taken to the Sinai Peninsula and smuggled to Gaza through the underground tunnels.
Source: Arutz Sheva
Power User
Posts: 1028
The Pravdas re: Israel...
Reply #1852 on:
March 12, 2014, 04:05:20 PM »
Let us not forget that The New York Times actively covered for the Nazis during the Second World War, and reported that the stories of death camps were "fables." I don't know my history specifically with regard to the LA Times, but in modern times, it has not been exactly what I would call a friend or supporter of Israel, either. Both papers have abysmal records when it comes to accurate reporting about Israel, and before the establishment of the modern state, the Jews of Europe.
They are not to be trusted.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1853 on:
March 15, 2014, 04:47:48 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42556
Glick: Surviving Obama
Reply #1854 on:
March 15, 2014, 04:56:02 PM »
second post
Surviving Obama
By Caroline B. Glick
March 7, 2014
Obama's newfound courage to begin abandoning his pretense of supporting Israel presents Israel with a new challenge
JewishWorldReview.com | Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg minced few words in discussing the interview that President Barack Obama gave him on the eve of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's latest visit to Washington.
Speaking with Charlie Rose, Goldberg equated Obama's threat to stop supporting Israel in international forums to the talk of a mafia don. Obama told Goldberg, that if Israel doesn't cut a deal with the Palestinians soon, "our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited." He added, "And that has consequences."
That statement, Goldberg noted, was a "veiled threat" and "almost up there with, 'Nice little Jewish state you've got there. Hate to see something happen to it.'"
Goldberg saw the interview as Obama's way of showing that he is beginning to abandon the pretense of supporting Israel, now that he no longer faces reelection. In Goldberg's words, "It's not that the gloves are coming off. It's more that the mask of diplomatic language is coming off a little bit."
Goldberg added that due to the fact that Obama, "doesn't have to run again for anything," he doesn't need to pretend feelings for Israel that he doesn't have, by among other things, going to AIPAC annual policy conference.
And indeed, Obama has achieved a comfort level with implementing anti-Israel policies. His threat to step aside and let Israel-haters have their way in places like the United Nations or in certain quarters of Europe is of a piece with several steps the he is already reportedly undertaking to harm Israel in various ways.
Before he was reelected in 2012, Obama felt it necessary to align his policies on Iran to the preferences of the public. And as a consequence, although he voiced harsh criticism of Congressional sanctions bills against Iran, he grudgingly signed them into law. (He then proceeded to use the sanctions he opposed but signed as proof that he supported Israel in speeches before Jewish audiences.)
Now that he no longer has to concern himself with the wishes of the American public and its representatives in Congress, Obama has dropped the mask of opposition to Iran and forged ahead with a diplomatic process that all but ensures Iran will acquire nuclear weapons.
The same is apparently the case with joint US-Israeli missile defense programs. Wednesday it was reported that the administration has slashed funding of those programs by two-thirds for the 2015 fiscal year. Obama touted his previous willingness to fully fund those programs manifested in his decision not to veto Congressional appropriations, despite his stated desire to slash funding as proof of his administration's "unprecedented" security cooperation with Israel.
Then there are the low-level bureaucratic sanctions that Obama began enacting against Israel last year. These involve State Department activities that are not subject to easy Congressional oversight.
For instance, last week it was reported that last year the State Department drastically decreased the number of Israeli tourist visa applications it approved. The rise in rejection rates has prevented Israel from participating in the visa waiver program. Foreign Ministry officials told reporters they believe this is a deliberate, premeditated policy.
And this week we learned that last year the State Department rejected hundreds of visa requests from members of Israel's security services.
Although White House spokesman Jay Carney was quick to claim that Israel's interception of the Iranian missile ship en route to Gaza Wednesday morning was the result of US-Israeli intelligence cooperation, the fact is that the US continues to undermine Israel's covert operations in Iran. Earlier this week, CBS reported that the Obama administration has demanded that Israel stop its reported covert campaign to kill Iranian nuclear scientists in order to delay or block Iran's nuclear progress.
Obama's new willingness to threaten Israel and to take the actions he feels it is safe to take to downgrade Israel's relations with the US, will likely only grow after November's midterm elections. After the Congressional elections, Obama will feel entirely free to attack the US's closest ally in the Middle East.
So what can Israel do? How can Israel safeguard its interests at a time when the US President publicly trashes and threatens those interests and privately undermines them?
Israel already did the most important thing in this regard when voters reelected Netanyahu to lead the government last year. During his trip to the US this week, Netanyahu made clear that he understands the challenge and is competent to handle it.
Since Netanyahu returned to the premiership in January 2009, he has implemented a policy of waiting Obama out. Over the past five years, Netanyahu has only directly challenged Obama when he had no choice. And that has been the right course. Little good comes to Israel from open fights with the White House. Such fights should only be engaged when the consequences of having a fight are less bad than the consequences of not fighting.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Abbas refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish State
Reply #1855 on:
March 18, 2014, 02:59:49 PM »
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Abbas refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish State
Reply #1856 on:
March 18, 2014, 03:39:26 PM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on March 18, 2014, 02:59:49 PM
The toughest part is getting Obama to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1857 on:
March 18, 2014, 03:53:51 PM »
I honestly don't think Obama would care - in fact he might consider it a benefit - if Iran nuked Israel and wiped it out. Obama considers Israel - as does Jimmy Carter and the rest of Europe - as THE problem in the Middle East. These fools, in addition to being clearly anti-Semitic, think that if we could only get rid of Israel, the Middle East would be one big happy family. What morons.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Obama: Abbas has "consistently renounced violence"...
Reply #1858 on:
March 18, 2014, 04:45:43 PM »
Obama: Abbas has consistently renounced violence
Robert Spencer Mar 17, 2014
This is not the first time that Obama has said something to suggest that he is smoking controlled substances.
Of course, Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with anyone who is dedicated to its destruction. But while I know you have had differences with the Palestinian Authority, I believe that you do have a true partner in President Abbas Barack Obama, March 21, 2013
As far as I am concerned, there is no difference between our policies and those of Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas, March 15, 2013
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, as quoted in the Hamas Charter
Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah Hamass Al Aqsa TV
Obama: Abbas Has Consistently Renounced Violence, by Adam Kredo for the Washington Free Beacon, March 17:
President Barack Obama welcomed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House on Monday in a bid to rekindle a fledgling peace process that has all but collapsed under Palestinian rejection and a massive influx of terrorist rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
Obama hosted Abbas in the Oval Office for a working lunch and praised the Palestinian leader as somebody who has consistently renounced violence.
Obama omitted all references to Palestinian terrorism and last weeks rocket attacks, many of which were claimed to have been launched by a militant branch of Abbas own Fatah political party.
Obama also did not mention Abbas efforts to honor Palestinian terrorists and more recent remarks by his senior adviser calling on Allah to kill the Israelis.
The meeting comes at a critical time in the Middle East peace process, a priority for Secretary of State John Kerry.
Efforts to push both sides into signing an interim agreement that would lay the groundwork for a permanent deal have crumbled in recent weeks after Palestinian factions rejected the deal and resorted to launching nearly 200 rockets at Israeli civilians.
Obama lavished praise on Abbas during a joint press conference held before the two retreated from reporters for a one-on-one discussion.
I have to commend President Abbas, Obama said. He has been somebody who has consistently renounced violence, has consistently sought a diplomatic and peaceful solution that allows for two states, side by side, in peace and security; a state that allows for the dignity and sovereignty of the Palestinian people and a state that allows for Israelis to feel secure and at peace with their neighbors.
However, talks have in part broken down on the Palestinians ongoing refusal to publicly recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Obama also did not touch on Abbass ongoing support for Palestinian terrorists who were released from Israeli jails last year in good faith as a precursor to the talks.
Abbas awarded in July the highest order of the Star of Honor to Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has killed Israeli schoolchildren and others.
In October of last year, Abbas welcomed back home a group of 26 released Palestinian terrorists as our heroic brothers, according to the media monitoring site Palestinian Media Watch.
We welcome our heroic brothers who come from behind bars to the world of freedom. We congratulate ourselves and we congratulate all of you in this great celebration that unifies and returns our sons to us, Abbas was quoted as saying of the terrorists.
He made similar remarks in December.
Abbas said during a press conference with the president on Monday that he is looking forward to the return of another group of Palestinian terrorists, which he views as a chief priority going forward.
We have an agreement with Israel, that was brokered by Mr. Kerry, concerning the release of the fourth batch of prisoners and we are hopeful that the fourth batch will be released by the 29th of March because this will give a very solid impression about the seriousness of these efforts to achieve peace, Abbas said.
Obama, in his own remarks Monday, said that the United States remains the Palestinian Authoritys biggest global champion.
The United States obviously has been a strong supporter of the Palestinian Authority, Obama said. Were the largest humanitarian donor and continue to help to try to foster economic development and opportunity and prosperity for people, particularly young people like those that I met.
As Obama struggles to put the peace process back on track, Abbas has indicated that he does not plan to negotiate past April 29, when he will revert to using the United Nations as a way to unilaterally gain recognition for a Palestinian state .
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Lurch's feeling hurt
Reply #1859 on:
March 20, 2014, 01:50:49 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42556
12 Tribes: Israel prepping to strike Iranian nukes
Reply #1860 on:
March 24, 2014, 05:51:22 PM »
Israel Preparing for Strike on Iranian Nuke Facilities
Click here to watch: Israel Preparing for Strike on Iranian Nuke Facilities
Israel is still preparing for a strike on Irans nuclear facilities, including a specific military budget running to NIS 10 billion ($2.89 billion), despite the developments in talks between world powers and Tehran. Details of the budgeting came to light during Knesset joint committee sessions on IDF plans that were held in January, Haaretz reported on Thursday. Three MKs, who were present during the hearings but asked to remain anonymous, said that the funding was to cover preparations throughout 2014 and was similar in size to the Iran strike budget for 2013, the report said. According to the report, some of the legislators present at the sessions grilled Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, and Brig. Gen. Agai Yehezkel of the IDFs Planning Directorate, about the necessity of a strike plan despite talks between world powers and Iran. Those talks led to an initial agreement in November 2013 for Tehran to scale back its nuclear program, and are still ongoing. The IDF officials responded that they had received instructions from the highest levels of government, apparently Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, to continue with preparations for a strike, the report said. Netanyahu publicly slammed the November interim deal as a historic mistake, and he has demanded the full dismantling of Irans military nuclear capabilities under a permanent deal, whereas US President Barack Obama has spoken of allowing Iran to maintain a closely supervised low-level enrichment capability. Haaretz noted that both the Prime Ministers Office and the IDFs Spokesperson declined to comment on the report.
Last week Yaalon hinted at a change in his stance from opposing to supporting solo action by Israel on Irans nuclear program. The one who should lead the campaign against Iran is the US, he said, but instead, the US at a certain stage began negotiating with them, and unfortunately in the Persian bazaar the Iranians were better, he said. Therefore, we (Israelis) have to look out for ourselves. Two days of talks between world powers and Iran came to an end on Wednesday with what EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton described as substantive and useful discussions covering a set of issues including (uranium) enrichment, the Arak reactor, civil nuclear cooperation and sanctions. The parties agreed to reconvene April 7-9. However, Russia has warned that tensions with the US over the Crimea crisis could lead to it altering its position regarding Iran to erode the unified front that Western countries have presented against Tehran. The US and Europe have been strongly critical of Russian actions to annex Crimea following a revolution in Ukraine last month.
Source: Times of Israel
Power User
Posts: 42556
Yet another "Let's negotiate with these guys" 4.0
Reply #1861 on:
March 25, 2014, 04:55:58 PM »
Click here to watch: Hamas Renews Call to Massacre Jews, Destroy Israel
Yesterday the Prime Minister of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, gave a feverish speech in front of thousands of supporters at Saraya Square in the Gaza Strip. The message: Palestinians should not and will not stop fighting through terrorist acts against the State of Israel. Haniyeh encourages Palestinians to attack innocent Israelis and he explicitly outlines a new plan to use tunnels on an offensive against Israel. His speech also refers to striking Tel Aviv as thousands of supporters cheer him on.
A lawmaker from Hamas recently called for a massacre of Jews, explaining that the Koran indicates that this must be done. In a televised address the lawmaker, Yunis Al-Astal, also said that Jews must be forced to pay the jizya tax, which under the strict Islamic Sharia doctrine, non-Muslims living under Muslim sovereignty must pay in return for the ruler's protection. Jihadist rebels who have taken control of areas in Syria have imposed such a tax on Christian minorities. MEMRIs release of Al-Astals comments comes on the same day that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh threatened Israel it would pay dearly if it heeded the growing calls to retake Gaza. "We tell the enemy and (Foreign Minister Avigdor) Liberman who is threatening to reoccupy Gaza that the time for your threats is over," Haniyeh declared, at a rally in Gaza City. "Any aggression or crime or stupidity you commit will cost you a very high price." Arab incitement against Israel has continued throughout the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA). It is not only Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by most Western countries, that has incited against Israel, but also the PA under Mahmoud Abbas, who is often described as a moderate peace partner. The Israeli government only recently released its annual "Palestinian Incitement Index", which showed that incitement against Israel and the Jewish people is continuing on official media channels including - inter alia - by bodies that are very close to the PA Chairman and in educational and religious networks. Such incitement ranges from the glorification of Nazism and the lionization of Adolf Hitler, to programs on official PA television featuring heavily-stereotyped Jews as villains (and encouraging violence against them), and various TV and radio shows which literally wipe the Jewish state off the map. In addition, top officials in Abbass Fatah party have openly supported Hamass efforts to kidnap Israeli soldiers. One of these officials, Abbas Zaki, recently declared that "Allah will gather [Israelis] so that we can kill them."
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1862 on:
March 25, 2014, 05:31:21 PM »
Partners in peace!
Power User
Posts: 42556
Hamas imposes Sharia
Reply #1863 on:
March 28, 2014, 10:26:40 PM »
Hamas Imposes Radical New Law: Lashings, Amputations, and Massive Executions
by IPT News Mar 28, 2014 at 2:39 pm
Hamas is now trying to outdo the Taliban in imposing new Shar'ia inspired draconian punishments, including amputations of limbs and massive increases in lashings and executions. A senior Hamas official told Gulf News that a new punitive law, "inspired by" Shar'ia Law, is required to replace the former and "impractical" one. The article states that there will be a minimum of 20 lashes for minor offenses and a minimum of 80 lashes for criminal cases: the death penalty will also be expanded in accordance with the Shar'ia. In addition, the new law includes cutting off the hands of a thief.
By replacing an almost 80-year old punitive law with a new radical one, Hamas has earned widespread condemnation by other Palestinian factions. Even other terrorist groups condemn Hamas' new law.
"The new law will harm the interests of the Palestinians and perpetuate the Palestinian internal split. Hamas must retreat and show priority and preference to the higher Palestinian interests," according to The Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) statement.
According to the article, Hamas asserts that the law aims at deterring criminals in Gaza.
Instead of planning to alleviate Gaza's deteriorating economic situation or reining in terrorist groups operating in the Strip, the Hamas regime is reinforcing its radical rule. Clearly, Hamas prioritizes imposing its radical Islamist agenda on Palestinian society over enhancing Gaza's standard of living.
It remains to be seen whether Hamas' front groups and supporters in the United States, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, American Muslims for Palestine and the Muslim American Society, who claim to be civil rights organizations, will condemn Hamas for implementing this new law
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1864 on:
March 28, 2014, 10:47:51 PM »
Anyone expect Buraq to condemn this?
Power User
Posts: 42556
Syrian opposition member advocates peace with Israel
Reply #1865 on:
April 01, 2014, 02:51:27 PM »
Click here to watch: Syrian Opposition Member Advocates Peace with Israel
A member of the Syrian opposition recently said that it is in our interest today to engage in a peace process with Israel. The comments were made by opposition activist Dr. Kamal Al-Labwani, who spoke in a March 19, 2014 interview with the Syrian Orient News TV channel. The interview was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). He also noted, in his push for peace, that Israel has genuine fears about its security. If we realize that and allow Israel to feel secure in its Sunni surroundings after all, it is Arab Sunni land that Israel has taken and if we make Israel feel more welcome, it may yet give up its hostile mentality which is the cause for the destruction. When the interviewer told Al-Labwani that Israel has expansionist goals he replied, Not true. The people of Israel fled persecution in the Nazi Holocaust, and they want to live in peace.
The statements are not the first time that Syrian opposition members have reached out to Israel. In February, the Syrian opposition thanked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for visiting an IDF field hospital where wounded Syrians are being treated. Leaders of the opposition who spoke to Kol Yisrael radio said that Netanyahu's public support for wounded Syrians sends an important message to the Syrian people, particularly after the failure of recent talks in Geneva between the opposition and the regime in Damascus. One of the leaders of the Syrian opposition said as far back as 2012 that if the Assad regime falls, the Syrian people will seek regional peace, including with Israel. In September, one of the rebel leaders in northern Syria expressed his appreciation for Housing Minister Uri Ariels comments regarding the chemical attack near Damascus last August. Ariel had said that, as Jews who suffered during the Holocaust, Israelis could not be silent over what was going on in Syria. Allow me to send a message of thanks and appreciation to Housing Minister Uri Ariel for his humane and valuable statements and for his beautiful expression of emotion toward the children killed in Syria and toward the women being killed in Syria, the Syrian rebel leader told Channel One News at the time. Israel has clarified that it is not a part of the civil war in Syria and does not take sides in the fighting, but Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has claimed that Israel is assisting the rebels fighting to topple his regime. A commander in the Syrian opposition at one point claimed the exact opposite, that Israel was collaborating with Iran and Hezbollah to keep Assad in power.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Spengler on Glick's "The Israeli Solution"
Reply #1866 on:
April 02, 2014, 11:10:08 PM »
The Phantom Menace in the Middle East: Review of Caroline Glicks The Israeli Solution
Crossposted from Asia Times Online.
By any standard, the Palestinian problem involves the strangest criteria in modern history.
To begin with, refugees are defined as individuals who have been forced to leave their land of origin. A new definition of refugee status, though, was invented exclusively for Palestinian Arabs, who count as refugees their descendants to the nth generation.
All the worlds refugees are the responsibility of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, except for the Palestinians, who have their own refugee agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine.Among all the population exchanges of the 20th century Greeks for Turks after World War I, Hindus for Moslems after the separation of India and Pakistan after World War II, Serbs for Croats after the breakup of Yugoslavia during the 1980s the Palestinians alone remain frozen in time, a living fossil of long-decided conflicts.
Some 700,000 Jews were expelled from Muslim countries where they had lived in many cases more than a thousand years before the advent of Islam, and most of them were absorbed into the new State of Israel with a territory the size of New Jersey; 700,000 or so Arabs left Israels Jewish sector during the 1948 War of Independence, most at the behest of their leaders, but few were absorbed by the vast Muslim lands surrounding Israel.
Instead, the so-called refugees were gathered in camps (now for the most part towns with a living standard much higher than that of the adjacent Arab countries thanks to foreign aid) and kept as a human battering ram against Israel, whose existence the Muslim countries cannot easily accept.
Some 10 million Germans who had lived for generations in what is now Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic were driven out at the end of World War II (more than half a million died in the great displacement).
Imagine that Germany had kept these 10 million people in camps for 70 years and that their descendants now numbered 40 million and that Germany demanded on pain of war restitution of everything from the Sudetenland to Kaliningrad (the former Konigsberg). That is a fair analogy to the Palestinian position.
It is a scam, a hoax, a put-on, a Grand Guignol theatrical with 5 million extras. Because polite opinion bows to the sensibilities of the worlds 1.4 billion Muslims, it is treated in all seriousness.
As a matter of full disclosure, I want to put my personal view on record: The mainstream view amounts to a repulsive and depraved exercise in hypocrisy that merits the harshest punishment that a just God might devise.
In this looking-glass world of hypocrisy and hoax, though, the most noteworthy deception is the physical existence of the Palestinians themselves: in Judea and Samaria (sometimes called the occupied West Bank), there are perhaps half the number of Arabs as the Palestinian Authoritys census has counted, or the international community acknowledges. As Jerusalem Post reporter Caroline Glick reports in her new book, Israeli researchers have demonstrated that the 1997 Palestinian census was a fraud. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics [PCBS] had exaggerated the Palestinian population figures by nearly 50 percent, or 1.34 million people First, it had inflated the existing Palestinian population base. In the 1997 census, the PCBS had included 325,000 Palestinians who lived abroad. It had also included 210,000 Arab residents in Jerusalem, who had already been accounted for in Israels population count.
The Palestinian census had included an additional 113,000 persons whose existence was not noted in the 1996 Israeli civil administration. When the data was compared to the voter base published by the Palestinian Central Elections Commission (PCEC) in 1996 and 2005, the PCEC data substantiated the Israeli data. That is, the 113,000 people did not exist.
Taken together, these three moves increased the Palestinian base population by 648,000 people or approximately 27 percent. Imagine if the US Census Bureau had predicted that, in 2012, the United States would have a population base of 400 million, instead of its actual 2012 base size of 314 million. The second stage of the population inflation involved exaggerating future growth. First, it predicated the projections for future growth on a population base that as we have seen was massively inflated. Every annual growth assessment based on an inflated population model is necessarily false and inflated.
This fundamental problem was compounded by other factors. The PCBS inflated birthrates and massively inflated immigration rates . Moreover, it ignored the high numbers of Palestinians who immigrated to Israel by marrying Israeli citizens. All told, the PCBS census claimed that the compound annual growth rate of the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza was 4.75 percent the highest population growth rate in the world. Significantly, just as the Palestinians were claiming to be the fastest-growing population in the world, the Arab world, and the larger Muslim world, were entering a period of unprecedented demographic contraction, even collapse.
The data are well known and long-debated; I took the same position as Ms Glick in a 2011 essay for the Jewish webzine Tablet. But Ms Glick, an American immigrant to Israel and a former captain in the Israel Defense Forces, draws a bold conclusion: Israel should annex Judea and Samaria just as it did the city of Jerusalem. Jews will comprise a demographic majority well in excess of 60% between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. As Palestinians continue to emigrate and Jewish immigration picks up, she adds, some anticipate that due almost entirely to Jewish immigration, Jews could comprise an 80 percent majority within the 1949 armistice lines and Judea and Samaria by 2035″.
Under Ms Glicks plan, Israel would offer to West Bank Arabs the opportunity to apply for Israeli citizenship; all would have full civil rights, and those who chose Israeli citizenship would have voting rights as well. Israeli no doubt would earn the anathema of the international community were it to annex Judea and Samaria, but from Ms. Glicks way of looking at the matter there is little to lose.
As an American friend of the State of Israel, I do not instruct Israelis as to which of the unpleasant choices they should choose among the many that confront them. Caroline Glicks one-state plan, though, stands on its merits. As she reports, it has been obvious since the Six-Day War of 1967 that Israel required most of the West Bank in order to defend itself:
Just weeks after the end of the war, President Lyndon B Johnson instructed the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare a map of the territories that they believed Israel would require in perpetuity to ensure its ability to defend itself. A few weeks later, General Earl Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, presented a map to Johnson that included most of Judea and Samaria, parts of the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the eastern Sinai, as well as Sharm el-Sheikh, along the Suez Canal at the southern tip of Sinai.
If you read only one book about the Middle East this year, it should be Caroline Glicks. Whether or not you agree with her conclusions, she illuminates the contorted landscape by pointing to an audacious solution. It is only by considering alternative actions that we understand our present circumstances, and Ms Glick concentrates the mind wonderfully.
What are the chances that the Palestinian regime might implode and force Israels hand? The Palestine Authority, established two decades ago by the Oslo Agreements, is in extreme disarray. Its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is in the seventh year of a four-year term and loathe to call new elections, for he might lose to the Iran-backed rejectionists of Hamas, who have ruled Gaza since 2007. Abbas last year dismissed the one senior Palestinian official who might be viewed as a moderate, Salam Fayyad. New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, an embittered left-wing critic of Israel, lamented at the time that Fayyads resignation was a reflection of Palestinian paralysis and disarray. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president with whom Fayyad feuded, knows that he needs his outgoing prime ministers rigorous competence. He needs Fayyads standing with the United States and Europe, major sources of funding for the beleaguered Palestinian Authority. He needs Fayyads grip on security. Yet the Fatah old guard with their sweet deals wants Fayyad gone; Hamas hates him as a supposed American stooge, and Abbas has tired of this US-educated turbulent priest.
In theory, Israel might beneficially maintain the messy status quo indefinitely after the American-mediated peace talks collapse, as they inevitably must. With Syria in full-scale civil war and Egypt and Iraq in low-intensity civil war, and Turkey in a major internal crisis, the entire surrounding region is in disarray, excepting the small Kingdom of Jordan.
To presume that the bitterly divided Palestinian kleptocracy might create an island of stability amid the surrounding chaos seems whimsical. No Palestinian government can agree to a formal end of conflict with Israel on any terms without meeting violent opposition from its rejectionist constituency, much less acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish State, so there will not even be the charade of a peace agreement.
It is hard to imagine Israel executing Ms Glicks approach unless the Palestinian Authority broke down into chaos. A powerful constituency inside Israel, with the support of the majority of the American Jewish leadership, continues to take at face value the Palestinians own population count. The Hebrew University professor usually characterized as Israels foremost demographer, Sergio della Pergola, continues to warn of demographic disaster for Israel (on the strength of numbers that Ms Glick and the critics have shown to be at least questionable and at worst fabricated out of whole cloth).
Professor della Pergola has said in an interview:
Demography is changing rapidly. The Arabs are multiplying twice as fast as the Israelis. The Israeli majority over the whole territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River is shrinking so that they may have at the moment an advantage of 52%, but they cannot govern effectively with such a slim majority. It was as if the democrats in America were trying to govern the US with a 52% majority in the congress. If we limit our geography to Israel plus the West Bank Gaza, having been effectively evacuated in 2005 the Jewish majority in Israel overall would still be slightly above 60%. There is no way that Israel might call itself a Jewish state with a Palestinian minority of 40%. But if we consider Israel within the 1967 boundaries, plus east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the Israeli majority would be less than 79%, a significant difference. The demographic question continues to loom high, and only some territorial sacrifice (beginning with the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem) on the Israeli side will guarantee that Israel remains Jewish and democratic. By denying the right of Palestinians who are under Israeli control to vote might eventually generate unbearable international pressure on Israel, causing damage to both its image and economy.
The claim that Arabs are multiplying twice as fast as the Israelis rests on the premise that there are twice as many Arab women of child-bearing age as Israeli women, and that in turn relies on the phony Palestinian Census. Nonetheless, della Pergolas view still has considerable purchase.
The chairman of one of Americas largest Jewish organizations assured me recently that he continues to believe della Pergolas version of Palestinian demographics. I cannot think of another occasion in history when the question of the self-determination of a people revolved around the factual question of whether the people were there or not. The matter will be settled on the strength of the facts eventually, but clarification of the facts will not make liberal American Jews any happier.
The so-called world community, to be sure, would express outrage at the annexation that Ms Glick advocates. No doubt the European Community might try to punish Israel with economic measures, but the risk of Israeli isolation is far smaller than timid minds conceive. The efficacy of international law has been thinned by the corrosive effect of having been bathed in hypocrisy for decades. Historical rights of the kind that Israel might assert to Judea and Samaria have a certain resonance: think of China in Taiwan and Tibet, or Russia in Crimea.
The Israeli Solution, by Caroline Glick. Crowne Forum, New York 2014. ISBN-10:0385348061. Price: US$19.08; 352 pages.
Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman. He is Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and Associate Fellow at the Middle East ForumHis book How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too) was published by Regnery Press in September 2011. A volume of his essays on culture, religion and economics, Its Not the End of the World Its Just the End of You, also appeared that fall, from Van Praag Press.
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1867 on:
April 02, 2014, 11:18:16 PM »
Speaking of China, the Chinese have/are killing more muslims than Israel ever imagined in Xinjiang. Nary a peep of outrage from the so-called international community.
It's almost like the concern for the "Palestinians" is just a fig leaf for hating Jews.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Myths & Lies About Israel...
Reply #1868 on:
April 08, 2014, 08:26:37 AM »
Israels Worst Enemy: Lies and Myths
Posted By Bruce Thornton On April 8, 2014 @ frontpagemag.com
The Washington Post reports that some members of Secretary of State John Kerrys senior staff think its time to say enough of Kerrys futile and delusional attempts to broker peace between the Israelis and Arabs and implement the two-state solution. Thats a revelation one would think the chief diplomat of the greatest power in history would have experienced decades ago. Since the failed 1993 Oslo Accords, it has been obvious to all except the duplicitous, the ignorant, and the Jew-hater that the Arabs do not want a Palestinian state living in peace side-by-side with Israel, something they could have had many times in the past. On the contrary, as they serially prove in word and deed, they want Israel destroyed.
As Caroline Glick documents in her new book The Israeli Solution, the two-state solution is a diplomatic chimera for the West, and a tactic for revanchist Arabs who cannot achieve their eliminationist aims by military means. But the Palestinian state is merely one of many myths, half-truths, and outright lies that befuddle Western diplomats and leaders, and put the security and possibly the existence of Israel at risk.
First there is the canard that Israel is somehow an illegitimate state, a neo-imperialist outpost that Westerners created to protect their economic and geopolitical interests. In this popular myth, invading Jewish colonists stole the land and ethnically cleansed the region of its true possessors, the indigenous Palestinian people. This crime was repeated after 1967 Six Day War, when Israel seized the West Bank, occupying it as a colonial power and subjecting its inhabitants to a brutally discriminatory regime. The continuing power of this lie can be seen in the frequent comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa. And this false historical analogy in turn drives the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement, which is attempting to make Israel even more of a pariah state in order to duplicate the success of those tactics in dismantling white rule in South Africa.
Every dimension of this narrative is false. The state of Israel came into being by the same legitimate process that created the other new states in the region, the consequence of the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Consistent with the traditional practice of victorious states, the Allied powers France and England created Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan, and of course Israel, to consolidate and protect their national interests. This legitimate right to rewrite the map may have been badly done and shortsightedregions containing many different sects and ethnic groups were bad candidates for becoming a nation-state, as the history of Iraq and Lebanon proves, while prime candidates for nationhood like the Kurds were left out. But the right to do so was bestowed by the Allied victory and the Central Powers loss, the time-honored wages of starting a war and losing it. Likewise in Europe, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dismantled, and the new states of Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia were created. And arch-aggressor Germany was punished with a substantial loss of territory, leaving some 10 million Germans stranded outside the fatherland. Israels title to its country is as legitimate as Jordans, Syrias and Lebanons.
Then there is the melodrama of the displacement of the Palestinians, who have been condemned to live as stateless refugees because of Israels aggression. This narrative of course ignores the fact that most of the Arabs fleeing Palestine left voluntarily, the first wave, mainly the Arab elite, beginning in November 1947 with the U.N. vote for partition. At the time it was clear to observers that most of the Arabs chose to flee their supposed ancestral homeland. In September 1948 Time magazine, no friend of Israel, wrote, There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors [explaining the Arab flight] were the announcements made over the air by the Arab Higher Committee urging the Arabs to quit. These were followed in 1948 by 300,000 others, who either were avoiding the conflict, or were induced by the Arab Higher Committee with the promise that after victory they could return and find, as Arab League Secretary-General Azza Pasham said in May 1948, that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean. Indeed, the withdrawal of Israelis from Gaza in 2005 confirmed the prediction that failed in 1948. The Gaza greenhouse industry, which American Jewish donors purchased for $14 million and gave to the Palestinian Authority in order to help Gazas economy, was instead destroyed by looters.
But from a historical perspective, it is irrelevant how the Arabs became refugees. When in 1922 the Greeks lost their war they fought against the Turks in order to regain their sovereignty over lands their ancestors had lived in for nearly 3000 years, 1.5 million Greeks were transferred out of Turkey in exchange for half a million Turks from Europe. After World War II, 12 million Germans either fled or were driven from Eastern Europe, with at least half a million dying. In both cases, whether justly or not, the wages of starting a war and losing included the displacement of the losers. Yet only in the case of the Palestinian Arabs has this perennial cost of aggression been reversed, and those who prevailed in a war they didnt start been demonized for the suffering of refugees created by the aggression of their ethnic and religious fellows.
In still another historical anomaly, in no other conflict have refugees failed to be integrated into countries with which they share an ethnic, religious, and cultural identity. Most of the some 800,000 Jews, for example, driven from lands like Egypt and Iraq in which their ancestors had lived for centuries, were welcomed into Israel, which footed the bill for their maintenance and integration into society. The Arab states, on the other hand, kept their brother Arabs and Muslims in squalid camps that have evolved into squalid cities, their keep paid for by the United Nations Relief Works Agency, the only U.N. agency dedicated to only one group of refugees. Thus the international community has enabled the revanchist policy of the Arab states, as Alexander Galloway, head of the UNRWA, said in 1952: It is perfectly clear that the Arab nations do not want to solve the Arab refugee problem. They want to keep it an open sore, as an affront against the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders dont give a damn whether the refugees live or die.
This brings us to the chief myth: that there exists a distinct Palestinian people, the original possessors of the land who have been unjustly denied a national homeland. In the quotes above notice that no Arab ever refers to these people as Palestinians, but as Arabs, which is what most of them are, sharing the same religion, language, and culture of their Arab neighbors in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. In fact, as Shai ben-Tekoa documents in his book Phantom Nation, the first U.N. resolution referencing Palestinians instead of Arabs occurred 3 years after the Six Day War, marking international recognition of a Palestinian people and nation as yet another Arab tactic in gaining support in the West by exploiting an idea alien to traditional Islam. Before then Palestinian was a geographical designation, more typically applied to Jews. Numerous quotations from Arab leaders reveal not a single reference to a Palestinian people, but numerous one identifying the inhabitants of the geographical entity Palestine as Arabs.
For example, in 1937, Arab Higher Committee Secretary Auni Abdel Hadi said, There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine is a country the Zionists invented. Palestine is alien to us. The Christian Arab George Antonius, author of the influential The Arab Awakening, told David Ben-Gurion, There was no natural barrier between Palestine and Syria and there was no difference between their inhabitants. Later in his book he defined Syria as including Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan. In testimony to the U.N. in 1947, the Arab Higher Committee said, Politically the Arabs of Palestine are not independent in the sense of forming a separate political identity. Thirty years later Farouk Kaddoumi, then head of the PLO Political Department, told Newsweek, Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people. After the Six-Day War a member of the Executive Council of the PLO, Zouhair Muhsin, was even more explicit: There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.
Such examples can be multiplied, which makes all the talk of a separate Palestinian people deserving of their own nation nothing but propaganda supported by a bogus history that claims the Arabs who came to Palestine in the 7th century A.D as conquerors and occupiers, or later as migrant workers and immigrants, are the indigenous inhabitants descended from Biblical peoples like the Canaanites or the shadowy Jebusitesa claim unsupported by any written or archaeological evidence. Meanwhile, of course, abundant evidence exists showing that the Jews have continuously inhabited the region since 1300 B.C. Once more the logic of history is turned on its head, with the descendants of the original inhabitants deemed alien invaders, while the descendants of conquerors and occupiers are sanctified as victims.
Such an inversion is worthy of Orwells 1984. Yet these lies and mythsand there are many more have shaped and defined the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, and set the parameters of diplomatic solutions. But we should heed the Biblical injunction about the liberating power of truth. And the truth is, for a century fanatics filled with genocidal hatred have violently and viciously attacked a liberal-democratic nation legitimately established in the ancient homeland of its people. Until our diplomacy and foreign relations in the region are predicated on this truth, the two-state solution will continue to be a dangerous farce.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 42556
12 Tribes: New Satellite
Reply #1869 on:
April 10, 2014, 12:24:10 PM »
Israel's Ministry of Defense and Israel Aerospace Industries launched the advanced, radar based, observation satellite "Ofek 10" into space Wednesday evening from the Palmahim air force base. The satellite's cameras are capable of maintaining all their capabilities during any type of weather and also during the night, and thus serve Israel's security systems. It is confirmed that after the first few minutes of flight "Ofek 10" was in good working condition. If and when the satellite begins its orbit around the planet, it will undergo a series of detailed tests to check its functionality and performance level. The newest of Israel's satellites will complete a full orbit around the globe every 90 minutes and when "Ofek 10" reaches the airspace above Israel it will send back all the imagery it captured. The addition of "Ofek 10" to Israel's satellite arsenal, will compliment the "Ofek 9", which is already in orbit. In this way, one of the advanced satellites will pass over Israel every 45 minutes, thus limiting the time gaps during which security officials can't access visual information from its targets, in particular Iran. If, for example, Iran attempts to hide military movements like mounting missiles on their launchers, Israeli satellites will now be able to see and confirm the move twice as fast.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Podhoretz: Pity the Palestinians? Count Me Out
Reply #1870 on:
April 10, 2014, 05:23:53 PM »
Pity the Palestinians? Count Me Out
Thousands of Arabs are dying in Syria and South Sudan. Where's the outrage on behalf of those truly suffering?
By Norman Podhoretz
April 9, 2014 7:26 p.m. ET
Provoked by the predictable collapse of the farcical negotiations forced by Secretary of State John Kerry on the Palestinians and the Israelis, I wish to make a confession: I have no sympathynonefor the Palestinians. Furthermore, I do not believe they deserve any.
This, of course, puts me at daggers drawn with the enlightened opinion that goes forth from the familiar triumvirate of the universities, the mainstream media and the entertainment industry. For everyone in that world is so busy weeping over the allegedly incomparable sufferings of the Palestinians that hardly a tear is left for the tribulations of other peoples. And so all-consuming is the universal rage over the supposedly monumental injustice that has been done to the Palestinians that virtually no indignation is available for any other claimant to unwarranted mistreatment.
In my unenlightened opinion, this picture of the Palestinian plight is nothing short of grotesquely disproportionate. Let me leave aside the Palestinians who live in Israel as Israeli citizens and who enjoy the same political rights as Israeli Jews (which is far more than can be said of Palestinians who live in any Arab country), and let me concentrate on those living under Israeli occupation on the West Bank.
Well, to judge by the most significant measure and applying it only to two instances of what is going on at this very moment: In Syria, untold thousands of fellow Arabs are starving, while according to the United Nations official on the scene in South Sudan, 3.7 million people, amounting to one-third of the population, are now facing imminent death by starvation.
And the Palestinians? True, when they wish to go from the West Bank into Israel proper, they are forced to stop at checkpoints and subjected to searches for suicide vests or other weapons in the terrorist arsenal. Once, when she was secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice bemoaned the great inconvenience and humiliation inflicted by such things on the poor Palestinians. Yet she had nothing to say about Palestinians dying of starvation on the West Bank, for the simple reason that there were none to be found.
Nor did anyone starve to death in Gaza when it too was under Israeli occupation. And despite propaganda to the contrary, neither is anyone facing the same fate in Gaza today because of the blockade the Israelis have set up to prevent clandestine shipments of arms intended for use against them.
Speaking of Gaza, it can serve as a case study of the extent to which the plight of the Palestinians has been self-inflicted. Thus when every last Israeli was pulled out of Gaza in 2005, some well-wishers expected that the Palestinians, now in complete control, would dedicate themselves to turning it into a free and prosperous country. Instead, they turned it into a haven for terrorism and a base for firing rockets into Israel.
Meanwhile little or nothing of the billions in aid being poured into Gazasome of it from wealthy American Jewish donorswent to improving the living conditions of the general populace. Which did not prevent a majority of those ordinary Palestinians from supporting Hamas, under whose leadership this order of priorities was more faithfully followed than it was under Fatah, its slightly less militant rival.
As for the monumental injustice supposedly done to the Palestinians, it consists largely of losing territory in the war they themselves provoked in 1967, and the refusal of their demand that every inch of it be returned to them by the Israeli victors in that war. Such demands have always been known and universally denounced as revanchism or irredentism, most recently over the Russian seizure of Crimea. But where Israel is concerned, everything goes topsy-turvy, so that Palestinian irredentism is universally supported.
The accompanying and equally great injustice allegedly suffered by the Palestinians is that they have been denied a state of their own. But this hardly qualifies as unique, given that dozens of other ethnic groupsthe Kurds being the most prominentare in the same boat.
In any event, this "injustice" is also self-inflicted, since three times in the past 15 years the Palestinians have refused offers of a state on most of the territory taken by Israel in 1967 and with Jerusalem as its capital. They have justified these refusals by one pretext or another, but as anyone willing to look can see, what they truly want is not a state of their own living side by side with Israel but a state that replaces Israel altogether.
With this we come to the main reason I believe that the Palestinians do not deserve any sympathy, let alone the astonishing degree of it they do receive (and not least from many of my fellow Jews). It is that ever since the day of Israel's birth in 1948, they have never ceased declaring that their goal is to wipe it off the map. In all other contexts, this would be called by its rightful name of genocide and condemned by all decent people. Yethere we go topsy-turvy againfor any and every step Israel takes to defend itself against so shamelessly evil an intent, it is the Israelis who are obsessively condemned at the U.N. and by the increasingly strident propagators of what calls itself "anti-Zionism" but is also increasingly indistinguishable from anti-Semitism.
Nor, alas, is it only the leaders of the Palestinians who harbor this evil intent. As revealed by poll after poll, as well as by the elections that led the way for Hamas to take power in Gaza, a decisive majority of the Palestinian people does so as well. No doubt this is the fruit of relentless indoctrination from above, but the damage has been done, and the end result is what it is.
Indeed, the best that can be said of both Palestinian leaders and led is that many of them no longer imagineas did Gamal Abdel Nasser, the former president of Egyptthat they have the power to drive the Jews of Israel into the sea. Therefore they are now willing to give up pursuing the goal of genocide and to settle for the more modest objective of politicidethat is, to get rid of the Jewish state by transforming it, through various "peaceful" means like the "right of return," into a state with a Palestinian majority.
I for one pray that a day will come when the Palestinians finally let go of the evil intent toward Israel that keeps me from having any sympathy for them, and that they will make their own inner peace with the existence of a Jewish state in their immediate neighborhood. But until that day arrives, the "peace process" will go on being as futile as it has been so many times before and as it has just proved once again to be. Another thing that never changes: When John Kerry testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, it was the Israelis he blamed for this latest diplomatic fiasco.
Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995. His most recent book is "Why Are Jews Liberals?" (Doubleday, 2009).
Power User
Posts: 42556
12 Tribes: Now here's a shocking revelation , , ,
Reply #1871 on:
April 11, 2014, 11:49:23 AM »
As Palestinian Authority president, Yasser Arafats public condemnations of terror attacks against Israeli civilians were lies born of Egyptian pressure, his ex-bodyguard said. In an interview with BBC Arabic last week, newly translated by media watchdog group MEMRI, Muhammad Al-Daya said that Arafat would condemn the bombing in his own special way, saying: I am against the killing of civilians. But that wasnt true. The denouncements were not issued of Arafats own volition, Al-Daya explained, but were rather the result of badgering by the then-Egyptian president. This would happen due to pressure, especially by President Hosni Mubarak, he said. Mubarak would call Arafat and say to him: Denounce it, or they will screw you. Arafat would say to Mubarak: Mr. President, we have martyrs. The [Israelis] have destroyed us. They have massacred us. But Mubarak would say to him: Denounce it, or they will screw you.
These lies were in no way opposed to Islamic law, Al-Daya continued. Islam allows you to lie in three cases: In order to reconcile two people, he said. If your wife is ugly, you are allowed to tell her she is the most beautiful woman alive. The third case is politics. You are allowed to lie in politics. Arafat was the chairman of the PLO from 1969-2004, and PA president from 1994 until his death in 2004. While he was in office in the PA, the Second Intifada erupted, sparking a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks throughout Israel, which consistently accused him of sanctioning the attacks.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Reply #1872 on:
April 11, 2014, 12:22:40 PM »
This is actually a well-accepted doctrine in Islam - that it is OK to lie to unbelievers to advance the cause of Islam. Robert Spencer and others have written about this extensively. It's actually encouraged.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Israel's new satellite
Reply #1873 on:
April 22, 2014, 07:28:30 PM »
New Israeli Satellite Eyes Iran Nuke Program, Terrorist Arms Smuggling
by Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
April 22, 2014
An advanced satellite with radar sensors Israel launched into space earlier this month which is expected to enhance surveillance of the two greatest threats to Israeli and international security: Iran's nuclear program, and the extensive Iranian terrorist arms smuggling network.
The SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite, called Ofek (Horizon) 10, creates high definition, radar-generated images, that look as if they've been taken by an optical camera. As it circles the Earth every 90 minutes, it can hover over several targets, peering through all weather conditions to beam back data to Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate.
Once it becomes fully operational, it will assist Israeli efforts to catch any Iranian nuclear transgressions. This development comes as defense officials in Jerusalem continue to warily follow diplomatic negotiations between an Islamic Republic that has reached nuclear breakout status, and an international community that may, according to Israeli fears, lack the resolve to force Iran back from its nuclear advances.
The Ofek 10 spy satellite soared into orbit on board a Shavit (comet) rocket, produced by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). The latest launch, which was overseen by the Israeli Defense Ministry's Space Administration, means that Israeli intelligence can now fall back on several spy satellites to create one rolling evaluation of targets of interest, Amnon Harari, who heads the Space Administration, said this month.
Israel designed the satellite to be able to maneuver easily over multiple targets, meaning that Military Intelligence operators can direct the radars not only at nuclear sites in Iran, but also at ongoing Iranian efforts to smuggle powerful weapons, including missiles and long-range rockets, to terrorist proxies such as Hizballah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Israel's intelligence agencies divide their time between watching the Iranian nuclear program and working to disrupt the arms smuggling network, in a covert campaign that sees frequent, yet classified, successes.
The nuclear program and the arms-to-terrorists program are interlinked threats. The former, if completed, would enable Iran to threaten Israel and Sunni states with mass destruction, and the latter already enables pro-Iranian terror groups to do Tehran's regional bidding and sow radicalism and instability. If Iran went nuclear, its terrorist arms program could serve as a potential delivery mechanism for a dirty bomb that could be deployed anywhere in the world.
As a result, Israel is heavily investing in upgrading intelligence capabilities.
Ofer Doron, who heads the IAI's Mabat Division, which develops space systems, said the new satellite has "an incredible ability to take photographs, and it is very small."
The Ofek 10 can provide very precise, high quality images under all conditions, he added.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon alluded to the satellite's future role against Iran's conventional and unconventional proliferation activities when he stated that it would enhance Israeli capabilities to deal with threats "near and far, at any time of the day, and in all types of weather."
"This is how we continue to consolidate our enormous qualitative and technological edge over our neighbors," Ya'alon said.
Although Israeli officials have decreased the number of public statements expressing concern over the Iranian nuclear program, the issue remains at the top of the national security ladder in the eyes of the military and government, and considerable resources are being invested quietly to cope with the program.
Those efforts include ongoing refinements to a military strike option in the event that Iran is caught making a secret effort to break out to the weaponization stage.
The Iranian arms network represents the largest known program of state sponsorship of terrorism. It reaches far beyond Gaza and Lebanon, and includes Shi'ite militias and pro-Iranian terror groups in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Pakistan, the Far East, Afghanistan, and even Latin America, according to Israeli intelligence assessments.
Iran is also facilitating the arrival of thousands of Shi'ite foreign fighters into Syria, to fight on behalf of the Assad regime. Many of these militiamen may go on to form Quds Force cells when they return to their countries of origin, according to a report released in March by the Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
Yaakov Lappin is the Jerusalem Post's military and national security affairs correspondent, and author of The Virtual Caliphate (Potomac Books), which proposes that jihadis on the internet have established a virtual Islamist state.
Power User
Posts: 42556
US will withdraw financial support to the PA if
Reply #1874 on:
April 28, 2014, 11:39:32 PM »
Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dismantle the PA on Sunday, in a move which would dissolve the Oslo Accords and allegedly make Israel "vulnerable" to international legislation, according to some analysts. But the move could have serious consequences for Palestinian Arabs, not Israel, in the event the PA chooses to disband. "Of course [the PA disbanding] will have serious consequences," US State Department Jen Psaki stated Monday to Yediot Aharonot. "Obviously this is not in the interest of the Palestinian people , and all that has been achieved will be lost."
Psaki stated that the US would withdraw financial support for the PA, and for the Palestinian Arab people as a political body, in the event Abbas follows through on his threats. "The US has made tremendous efforts to build Palestinian institutions in the PA, and so has the international community," she explained. "The move will seriously harm the US-PA relationship, including in terms of financial aid." The move may be another serious blow to US-PA relations, after Washington threatened to cut financial aid to the PA for torpedoing peace talks. The PA receives about $400 million annually in US aid.
Source: Israel National News
Power User
Posts: 1028
Caroline Glick: John Kerry's Jewish Best Friends...
Reply #1875 on:
April 30, 2014, 07:25:40 AM »
John Kerrys Jewish Best Friends
Posted By Caroline Glick On April 30, 2014
Originally published by the Jerusalem Post.
Anti-Semitism is not a simple bigotry. It is a complex neurosis. It involves assigning malign intent to Jews where none exists on the one hand, and rejecting reason as a basis for understanding the world and operating within it on the other hand.
John Kerrys recent use of the term Apartheid in reference to Israels future was an anti-Semitic act.
In remarks before the Trilateral Commission a few days after PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas signed a unity deal with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups, Kerry said that if Israel doesnt cut a deal with the Palestinians soon, it will either cease to be a Jewish state or it will become an apartheid state.
Leave aside the fact that Kerrys scenarios are based on phony demographic data. As I demonstrate in my book The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, Israel will maintain a strong and growing Jewish majority in a unitary state that includes the territory within the 1949 armistice lines and Judea and Samaria. But even if Kerrys fictional data were correct, the only Apartheid state that has any chance of emerging is the Palestinian state that Kerry claims Israels survival depends on. The Palestinians demand that the territory that would comprise their state must be ethnically cleansed of all Jewish presence before they will agree to accept sovereign responsibility for it.
In other words, the future leaders of that state from the PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad alike are so imbued with genocidal Jew hatred that they insist that all 650,000 Jews living in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria must be forcibly ejected from their homes. These Jewish towns, cities and neighborhoods must all be emptied before the Palestinians whose cause Kerry so wildly champions will even agree to set up their Apartheid state.
According to the 1998 Rome Statute, Apartheid is a crime of intent, not of outcome. It is the malign intent of the Palestinians across their political and ideological spectrum to found a state predicated on anti-Jewish bigotry and ethnic cleansing. In stark contrast, no potential Israeli leader or faction has any intention of basing national policies on racial subjugation in any form.
By ignoring the fact that every Palestinian leader views Jews as a contaminant that must be blotted out from the territory the Palestinians seek to control, (before they will even agree to accept sovereign responsibility for it), while attributing to Jews malicious intent towards the Palestinians that no Israeli Jewish politician with a chance of leading the country harbors, Kerry is adopting a full-throated and comprehensive anti-Semitic position.
It is both untethered from reason and libelous of Jews.
Speaking to the Daily Beast about Kerrys remarks on Sunday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was quick to use the some of his best friends are Jewish, defense.
In her words, Secretary Kerry, like Justice Minister [Tzipi] Livni, and previous Israeli Prime Ministers [Ehud] Olmert and [Ehud] Barak, was reiterating why theres no such thing as a one-state solution if you believe, as he does, in the principle of a Jewish state. He was talking about the kind of future Israel wants.
So in order to justify his own anti-Semitism and sell it to the American Jewish community Kerry is engaging in vulgar partisan interference in the internal politics of another country. Indeed, Kerry went so far as to hint that if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is forced from power, and Kerrys Jewish best friends replace him, then things will be wonderful. In his words, if there is a change of government or a change of heart, something will happen. By inserting himself directly into the Israeli political arena, Kerry is working from his mediator Martin Indyks playbook.
Since his tenure as US ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration, Indyk has played fast and dirty in Israeli politics, actively recruiting Israelis to influence Israeli public opinion to favor the Left while castigating non-leftist politicians and regular Israeli citizens as evil, stupid and destructive.
Livni, Olmert, Barak and others probably dont share Kerrys anti-Semitic sensitivities. Although their behavior enables foreigners like Kerry to embrace anti-Semitic positions, their actions are most likely informed by their egotistical obsessions with power. Livni, Olmert and Barak demonize their political opponents because the facts do not support their policies. The only card they have to play is the politics of personal destruction. And so they use it over and over again.
This worked in the past. That is why Olmert and Barak were able to form coalition governments. But the cumulative effects of the Palestinian terror war that began after Israel offered the PLO statehood at Camp David in 2000, the failure of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and the 2006 war with Lebanon have brought about a situation where the Israeli public is no longer willing to buy what the Left is selling.
Realizing this, Barak, Livni and others have based their claim to political power on their favored status in the US. In Netanyahus previous government, Barak parlayed the support he received from the Obama administration into his senior position as Defense Minister. Today, Livnis position as Justice Minister and chief negotiator with the PLO owes entirely to the support she receives from the Obama administration.
Neither Barak nor Livni ever lost sight of the cause for their political elevation, despite their electoral defeats.
Like Barak in Netanyahus previous government, today Livni provides Kerry and Indyk with Israeli cover for their anti-Israeli policies. And working with Kerry and Indyk, she is able to force herself and her popularly rejected policies on the elected government.
Livni again, like Barak in Netanyahus previous government has been able to hold her senior government position and exert influence over government policy by claiming that only her presence in the government is keeping the US at bay. According to this line of thinking, without her partnership, the Obama administration will turn on Israel.
Now that Kerry has given a full throated endorsement of anti-Semitic demagoguery, Livnis leverage is vastly diminished. Since Kerrys anti-Semitic statements show that Livni has failed to shield Israel from the Obama administrations hostility, the rationale for her continued inclusion in the government has disappeared.
The same goes for the Obama administrations favorite American Jewish group J Street. Since its formation in the lead up to the 2008 Presidential elections, J Street has served as the Obama administrations chief supporter in the US Jewish community. J Street uses rhetorical devices that were relevant to the political realities of the 1990s to claim that it is both pro-peace and pro-Israel. Twenty years into the failed peace process, for Israeli ears at least, these slogans ring hollow.
But the real problem with J Streets claim isnt that its rhetoric is irrelevant. The real problem is that its rhetoric is deceptive.
J Streets record has nothing to do with either supporting Israel or peace. Rather it has a record of continuous anti-Israel agitation. J Street has continuously provided American Jewish cover for the administrations anti-Israel actions by calling for it to take even more extreme actions. These have included calling for the administration to support an anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council, and opposing sanctions against Iran for its illicit nuclear weapons program. J Street has embraced the PLOs newest unity pact with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And now it is defending Kerry for engaging in rank anti-Semitism with his Apartheid remarks.
J Streets political action committee campaigns to defeat pro-Israel members of Congress. And its campus operation brings speakers to US university campuses that slander Israel and the IDF and call for the divestment of university campuses from businesses owned by Israelis.
On Wednesday, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is set to vote on J Streets application to join the umbrella group as a pro-peace, pro-Israel organization.
Kerrys Apartheid remarks are a watershed event. They represent the first time a sitting US Secretary of State has publically endorsed an anti-Semitic caricature of Jews and the Jewish state.
The best response that both the Israeli government and the Jewish community can give to Kerrys act of unprecedented hostility and bigotry is to reject his Jewish enablers. Livni should be shown the door. And the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations should reject J Streets bid for membership.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1876 on:
April 30, 2014, 08:08:32 AM »
Who could have forseen this?
Power User
Posts: 42556
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1877 on:
April 30, 2014, 08:20:48 AM »
Glick is awesome. A very sharp and penetrating intellect.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1878 on:
April 30, 2014, 08:24:09 AM »
Just a bit of sarcasm there, eh, GM?
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 9483
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1879 on:
April 30, 2014, 09:03:54 AM »
Quote from: G M on April 30, 2014, 08:08:32 AM
Who could have forseen this?
Right. Did they "cut off ears" and "raze villages" too? http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/VVAW_Kerry_Senate.html
The apartheid description is common among Israel's haters, see Roger Waters posts just last week. They can say reckless things like that among leftists and get nothing but agreement, and forget that their inciteful hatred might be taken seriously in a country under current threat of annihilation.
The party of anti-science is the party of anti-history. Does the analogy of Israel to apartheid South Africa hold up to scrutiny? No and even he knows that. He has his facts exactly backwards.
Glick: "even if Kerrys fictional data were correct, the only Apartheid state that has any chance of emerging is the Palestinian state that Kerry claims Israels survival depends on. The Palestinians demand that the territory that would comprise their state must be ethnically cleansed of all Jewish presence before they will agree to accept sovereign responsibility for it."
Under Obama-Kerry, the US is supporting this ethnic cleansing.
What does it tell us about both parties in the US Senate that confirmed this oaf 94-3. Ted Cruz and two others, Cornyn and Inhofe, (and our G M) saw this coming:
Nothing in his past indicated he would make a good or even acceptable Secretary of State. You have to distort the facts to support the policy or accept the rhetoric.
Power User
Posts: 42556
The call to war, to wipe out Israel
Reply #1880 on:
May 01, 2014, 12:41:45 PM »
Power User
Posts: 15533
a new, but not unexpected low
Reply #1881 on:
May 03, 2014, 04:24:54 PM »
Power User
Posts: 1028
Caroline Glick: Rand Paul's Support for Israel...
Reply #1882 on:
May 07, 2014, 07:44:31 AM »
EXCELLENT analysis - as usual - by Glick. Rand Paul is a complicated character, indeed. See her article below:
Rand Pauls Support for Israel
Posted By Caroline Glick On May 7, 2014
Originally published by the Jerusalem Post.
Republican Senator Rand Paul is an isolationist. This ought to make him a natural ally for appeasers like Steve Walt and John Mearshimer and the whole blame Israel first crowd.
And indeed, he has taken positions, like opposing additional sanctions on Iran that placed him in their camp.
But Paul is a mixed bag.
Last week, following the PLOs unity deal with terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Paul introduced the Stand With Israel Act. If it had passed into law, Pauls act would have required the US to cut off all funding to the Palestinian Authority, including its security forces. The only way the administration could have wiggled out of the aid cutoff would have been by certifying that the PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had effectively stopped being the PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Pauls conditions for maintaining aid would have required the President to certify to Congress that the PA run jointly by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PLO formally and publicly recognized Israel as a Jewish state; renounced terrorism; purged all individuals with terrorist ties from its security services; terminated all anti-American and anti-Israel incitement, publicly pledged not to engage in war with Israel; and honored previous agreements signed between the PLO and Israel.
Pauls bill was good for America. Maintaining financial support for the Palestinian Authority in the aftermath of the PLOs unity-with-terrorists deal constitutes a breach of US anti-terror law.
Financing the PA also harms US national security. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are financed by Iran. So by funding the PLOs PA, which just united its forces with theirs, the US is subsidizing Irans terror network.
Ending US financing of the PA would certainly be good for Israel. Indeed, just by sponsoring the bill Paul has helped Israel in two critical ways. He offered Israel friendship, and he began a process of changing the mendacious narrative about the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel to one based on the truth.
By extending his hand to Israel, Paul gave Israel an opening to build relationships with political forces with which it has not traditionally had close ties. Because most of Israels supporters in Washington support an interventionist US foreign policy, isolationists like Paul have generally either stood on the sidelines of the debate, or in light of their desire to beat a quick retreat from the region, they have been willing, even happy to support the Arabs against Israel and blame Israels supporters for getting the US involved in the Middle East.
The hard truth is that while American isolationism is bad for the US, it isnt necessarily bad for Israel. To date, under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, there has been a direct correlation between the level of US involvement in Israels affairs and US hostility towards Israel.
Pauls pro-Israel detractors note that he also supports cutting off US military aid to Israel. But that doesnt necessarily make him anti-Israel.
Despite the protestations of AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups, it is far from clear that Israel would be worse off if it stopped receiving US aid. Indeed, it is likely that Israels economy and military strength would both be enhanced by the strategic independence that an aid cut-off would bring about.
Yes, Paul is a complicated character. But that doesnt make him Israels enemy. His bill was an act of friendship. And Israel can use more friends in Washington who actually do things that help it rather than suffice with declaring their support for Israel while standing by as its reputation is trashed.
And thats the thing of it. The Obama administration cant stop trash talking Israel. And more than ever before, Israel needs allies who are willing to take real action to defend it.
Israel received yet another reminder of this basic fact last Friday when Yedioth Aharonoths senior writer Nahum Barnea published an interview with unnamed senior American officials involved in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Those officials, it quickly became apparent, turned out to be the one and only Martin Indyk, Secretary of State John Kerrys senior mediator.
In that interview, Indyk showed that among members of the Obama administration, Israel is friendless. Indyks interview, like serial anti-Israel statements made by Kerry, (most recently his anti-Semitic Israel apartheid remarks to the Trilateral Commission), and by President Barack Obama himself, was notable for its utter hostility to Israel and its Jewish leaders.
Not only did Indyk blame Israel for the failure of Kerrys peace process. Like Obama and Kerry, Indyk insisted that Israels failure to bow to every PLO demand has opened it to the prospect of a renewed Palestinian terror war against it, to international isolation and to European trade embargoes.
Like Kerry, Indyk casually employed anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jewish cleverness and greed.
From the perspective of continued US aid to the PA, by far the most important part of Indyks remarks, like those that Kerry made to the Trilateral Commission, was his claim that the Palestinians will likely respond to the failure of Kerrys peacemaking by initiating another terror war against Israel.
Indyks assertion or was it a threat? was notable because the US government is training and financing the Palestinian forces that would be directing the terror war.
Since 2007, the US has spent billions of dollars financing and training Palestinian security services and transforming them into a professional military. Trained using US doctrine, they are the strongest military force the Palestinians have ever fielded against Israel.
These forces commanded by Abbas share his supportive view of the terrorist mass murder of Jews. They share his position that Israel has no right to exist, that Jews have no history and are not a nation.
Since 1996, every Palestinian terror campaign has been directed by these security services. And as US Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who served as the first commander of the US training mission has stated publicly, these US trained forces can be expected to turn their guns at Israel.
While the PLO was competing with Hamas for leadership, Abbas deployed these US trained forces against Hamas. Now that the PLO and Hamas are unified, these operations will necessarily end.
Moreover, these US trained forces are already involved in terrorism. Over the past six months, IDF commanders have repeatedly pointed fingers at PA security forces claiming that the steep rise in terrorist attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria is being organized and directed by them.
This is brings us to the second reason why Pauls initiative is so important. While it is important for Israel to find new friends in Washington, it is even more important for it to change the narrative about the Palestinians and their conflict with Israel.
The false narrative, which claims that the PLO is moderate and that Mahmoud Abbas is a statesman and a man of peace, has made Israels old friends in Washington unable to understand reality. So unlike Paul, these friends are incapable of taking actions that actually advance Israels interests and strengthen its alliance with the US.
The false narrative of PLO moderation has monopolized the discourse on the Palestinians to the point where adherence to the two-state policy has more in common with a religious faith than a policy preference.
Indyks hysterical assault on Israel is textbook behavior of a believer lashing out at a person who exposes the utter falsity of his faith.
The believer cannot disown his phony messiah. So his only option is to present the party that unmasked the lie as the devil.
Hence, Indyks vulgar assault on Israelis.
But while Indyks faith is fanatical, many others share it in more moderate, but still devastating forms. And they too lash out at anyone who exposes their irrationality.
Case in point is the pro-Israel communitys opposition to Pauls bill.
The day after Paul introduced his bill, AIPAC came out against it. AIPAC opposed the bill, according to the Washington Posts Jennifer Rubin, (who herself violently opposed it), because its leadership believes that the PA security forces play a key role in fighting Hamas.
So a week after the Israeli government formally ended negotiations because the PA supports terror, AIPAC opposed ending US aid to the PA because, AIPAC claimed, it fights terror.
For her part, Rubin railed against Pauls initiative claiming that it was a phony pro-Israel bill.
Paul submitted his bill for unanimous consent in order to fast track it to a vote and into law. AIPAC convinced some senators to vote against Pauls bill, and so killed it.
In an interview with Newsmaxs Steve Maltzberg after the vote, Paul attacked AIPAC saying, I think the American people, if they knew that [AIPAC opposed his bill], would be very, very upset and think, you know what, those people are no longer lobbying in favor of America and Israel if theyre not willing to put restrictions on aid to Palestine.
In other words, Paul was saying, it is time to move on, and those who insist on acting as though nothing has changed since 1994 are not behaving as one would expect Israels friends to behave.
And he is right.
Paul may be a cynical opportunist. But thats better than a messianic that prefers to believe that Israel is the devil than accept that the Peace Fairy doesnt exist.
And yes, his refreshing embrace of the truth as the basis for US policymaking makes him a better friend to Israel today than AIPAC that refuses to accept the truth, (and like him, failed to support additional sanctions against Iran).
Rand Paul told Fox News after his bill failed to pass that he will not abandon the fight against US aid to the PA. We must hope that he is true to his word.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1883 on:
May 07, 2014, 07:57:10 AM »
We shouldn't be giving the so-called "palestinians" one red cent./
Power User
Posts: 1028
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1884 on:
May 07, 2014, 08:03:47 AM »
Glick's point exactly. Taken as a whole, Rand Paul is a friend to Israel.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 9483
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1885 on:
May 07, 2014, 09:23:10 AM »
Glick: "Republican Senator Rand Paul is an isolationist."
5+ years of Obama has lowered the bar for so may things. Glick spells that out on this brilliantly. Israel used to hope they had a leader in Washington who would stand with them militarily without hesitation in the event of attack, crisis or war. Now they are happy to see a potential leader who would just stop funding and supporting Israel's enemies.
Rand Paul has needed to step forward on this because he is otherwise perceived as the opposite. Paul's father carried anti-Israel baggage. Rand retains his father's supporters, doesn't disavow his father's politics, but separates himself only by building his own record.
A few weeks ago he was quoting Roger Waters by name - on a different topic. This move separates Rand from the allies of the enemies.
All the hopefuls cherry pick from Reagan what makes them the next Reagan. Who really knows which one would really step up in a crisis. What we can measure is who is committed to build and maintain sufficient military assets to deter, and to respond in a crisis, not only for Israel but in multiple corners of the globe - at the same time.
Rand Paul might prefer being called "complicated" rather than "isolationist" in these times of major threats and turmoil.
Power User
Posts: 1028
"Saving Barack Obama" parody posters in L.A...
Reply #1886 on:
May 07, 2014, 12:18:58 PM »
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Partners in Peace
Reply #1887 on:
May 09, 2014, 12:09:11 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42556
If Abbas had a Palestinian state.
Reply #1888 on:
May 09, 2014, 11:28:20 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42556
An American and Israeli Jew converse
Reply #1889 on:
May 16, 2014, 04:14:34 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42556
One side wants the other side dead
Reply #1890 on:
May 20, 2014, 02:44:19 PM »
For example , , ,
Guest Column: Palestinian TV Teaches Kids The Way to 'Jihad Street'
by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
May 20, 2014
Every day, hundreds of millions of children in more than 120 countries settle in to watch their local versions of "Sesame Street" or similar shows inspired by the Muppet model. They learn to read, to write, to count. They learn about things like "sharing," and "friendship," and how to be kind to others. They learn what it is to love.
Except in Palestine, where the lessons from Hamas children's television are aimed at something else: to kill.
Take, for instance, "Pioneers of Tomorrow," with its fluffy talking bee who encourages viewers to "throw stones" at Jews, and a pretty young host who, in one episode, praises a little girl for her desire to be a police officer and "shoot Jews." Or consider the show's transformation, some years ago, of Mickey Mouse, into an Islamic supremacist character named Farfour. When international protests erupted, producers gave Farfour an honorary farewell: in his final episode, he is "martyred" by Israelis.
For years, reports have emerged of children's programming in the Palestinian Territories, mostly on Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV, whose shows often teach Palestinian children not just to hate Americans and Jews, but to kill them preferably through acts of martyrdom, or suicide bombings. As the New York Times reported in 2009, when "Sesame Street" announced plans to broadcast in the region, "The official Hamas channel, Al-Aqsa television, has several children's shows, and Al-Aqsa's director of children's programming, Abu Amr, told me the network is considering starting a station devoted entirely to children. Al-Aqsa TV's most famous (and infamous) children's program is 'Tomorrow's Pioneers,' in which Saraa, a Palestinian girl, and several animal characters teach ideological lessons: why it is bad to speak English and good to memorize the whole Koran; how the Danes are infidels who should be killed. Occasionally an animal character will die as a martyr for Palestine."
Other programs, both for children and for adults, have also included children who speak glowingly of their suicide-bomber fathers and promote violent jihad, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In one such show, the ADL says, "One of the girls said 'I want to fire missiles at the Jews and be martyred like my father.' One of the boys also said that he wants to follow in his father's path, 'I want to follow the path of Jihad like daddy and I want to be martyred like daddy.'"
And then there are the programs that don't just teach hate, as the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported in 2007:
Palestinian children in Hamas-controlled Gaza are being taught to take an active role in terrorist operations against Israel and are thus placed in mortal danger by those who should be responsible for their safety and well-being. The children, too young to fully understand even the meaning of death, are taught to aspire to such "martyrdom" in children's television shows produced by the Hamas.
Every Monday afternoon Al-Aqsa TV, the Hamas' main television station, broadcasts a children's program called "The Gifted". In a special episode marking the beginning of the school year, a two-year old toddler named "Ahmad" was featured. Ahmad was praised for his expertise in the area of "holy war" (jihad).
Interestingly, many of the recent Al-Aqsa programs, including the 'Pioneers of Tomorrow" episode praising the little girl who hopes to grow up and shoot Jews, are in fact reruns of shows first broadcast as long as nine years ago an effort, it would seem, to reach a new generation of impressionable minds.
Unsurprisingly, such programming is not unique to Palestine: Iranian children's shows have also been known to glorify suicide bombings, while Al Aqsa programming continues to be broadcast in other countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia.
But more significantly, Al-Aqsa programming now reaches into Europe, thanks not only to satellite access, but to European mosques which serve as broadcasting centers.
The result? "It is hard to overlook how hatred imported from Beirut and Gaza resurfaces in the form of daily acts of anti-Semitism in schools and athletic clubs, on streets and in the subway," German magazine Der Spiegel reported as far back as 2008. "Young children raised to be anti-Semitic are already using the phrase 'You Jew!' as a derogatory expression in kindergartens and on playgrounds. Schoolchildren berate their teachers, calling them Jew dogs, for not offering Sharia-compatible instruction, and Jewish schoolchildren are attacked and feel compelled to switch to Berlin's Jewish high school and to hide the insignia of their Jewish faith -- the yarmulke and the Star of David -- when in public."
That a government anywhere would actively advocate murder, genocide, and terrorist activity, training children as young as four years old to hate and kill, is almost inconceivable. But it seems equally unfathomable that the international community now seeks to legitimize such a government. And it's not just about the astonishing lack of outrage in much of the mainstream media (this, while one can scarcely imagine the same shoulder-shrugging if such programs were instead aimed at killing Muslims or anyone else, for that matter; can you imagine the outrage, the lawsuits, the threats we would hear from the Hamas-affiliated Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR]?).
Nor is it just about upgrading the status of the Palestinian territories in the United Nations, an organization that defines itself as "committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights." It is about continuing to support the notion that the Palestinian government is simply seeking the "freedom" of its people.
Because the fact is that Hamas's Al Aqsa, and the spread of its hate-filled programming, puts the lie to the (naïve) notion that this is all simply about Israel and Palestine, that it's all about human rights and justice and a pursuit of some kind of peace. And yet despite this, the West's ongoing faith in a Palestinian state, in "unity," continues to ignore the basic foundations of its politics and values values which aim to contaminate, like a plague, the entire next generation and not just of Palestinians, but of Muslims everywhere.
But it isn't just Hamas's fault: it's ours, too. We in the West including (if not especially) the United Nations must begin to understand the "war on terror" as a war most of all on propaganda and arm ourselves accordingly. If there is to be a "Sesame Street, Palestinian Edition," then such a program must begin to employ the same methods of teaching justice, tolerance, and truth that make it so valued by parents in America and Europe. And other private enterprises, along with government projects, are going to have to do the same not just in the interest of securing our own world today, but as a promise to the children of tomorrow.
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands.
Last Edit: May 20, 2014, 03:53:42 PM by Crafty_Dog
Power User
Posts: 42556
Jewish Home Paraty Proposal for peace
Reply #1891 on:
May 21, 2014, 01:29:20 PM »
A New Plan for Peace in Palestine
Dismantle the security barrier in the West Bank. Let most Palestinians who live there govern themselves.
By Naftali Bennett
May 20, 2014 6:38 p.m. ET
On May 14 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in London to discuss the "unity government" that Mr. Abbas announced unexpectedly last month. Mr. Abbas's decision to establish a national government in coalition with Hamas is the latest example in a long line of Palestinian intransigence.
Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel's destruction. The group has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and missile attacks. That is the organization's very mission: The Hamas charter calls for perpetual jihad against the Jewish State while forever rejecting peace negotiations or compromise. Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.
So how should Israel respond to Mr. Abbas's announced plan for such a government? I propose what I call the Stability Plan, which I will promote throughout Israel's new Knesset legislative session.
Palestinians living in certain portions of the West Bank (known as Area A and Area B) should govern themselves. They should hold their own elections, run their own schools, issue their own building permits and manage their own health-care system. In short, they should run their own lives. Israel should not interfere in day-to-day governance.
To achieve this, Israel must allow Palestinians complete freedom of movement, which requires removing all roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank. In particular, Israel should dismantle the security barrier erected throughout the last decade to defend against Palestinian terror attacks during the Second Intifada.
Many Israelis credit the barrier with the dramatic increase in security over the past decade. Not a single Israeli was killed by terror in the West Bank in 2012, making it the first year without bloodshed since 1973. Yet this was not solely due to the barrier. The remarkable drop in terror happened thanks to high-quality intelligence coupled with Israel's ability to conduct targeted military operations in the West Bank. The number of Israeli operations in the West Bank has dropped significantly because the military now only carries out pinpointed operations based on reliable intelligence.
Israel can now stay reasonably secure without the barrier. This will prove especially true if the Israeli government works with the international community to promote Palestinian economic development in Areas A and B. There's no perfect solution to the conflict, and the wait for one has allowed the Palestinian economy to languish. The hope of independence and statehood has delayed crucial economic investments.
So, during the past few months, Israel's Ministry of Economy, which I lead, has reviewed different options for helping the Palestinian economy grow. We have looked at the export and import systems, work permits, the climate for international investment and more.
One promising idea is to encourage multinational corporations to invest in Palestinian areas by offering economic incentives such as insurance guarantees and tax breaks. There are also ways to streamline the export process for Palestinian manufacturers so products can reach their destination quickly and in perfect condition. Israel has become known as the "Startup Nation," but now it is time to build a "Startup Region."
The other part of the Stability Plan deals with the remaining portion of the West Bank, known as Area C, where 400,000 Israelis and 70,000 Palestinians live. Under my plan, Israel would annex this territory, much as it exercised sovereignty over East Jerusalem in 1967 and the Golan Heights in 1981. The Palestinians who live in Area C would be offered full Israeli citizenship.
East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights still aren't recognized by the international community as part of Israel. But it is impossible to imagine a state of Israel without the Western Wall. Israel could not withdraw from the Golan Heights while the Syrian civil war rages nearby. East Jerusalem and the Golan are Israeli territory, and the same should be true of Area C.
Annexing Area C would limit conflict by reducing the size of the territory in dispute, which would make it easier to one day reach a long-term peace agreement. Annexation would also allow Israel to secure vital interests: providing security for Jerusalem and the Gush Dan region along Israel's central coast, protecting Israeli communities within Area C, and applying Israeli sovereignty over national heritage sites such as the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
This arrangement might not be the utopian peace Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat imagined when they shook hands in the White House Rose Garden in 1993. But it offers Palestinians independent government and prosperity, while ensuring Israeli security and stability. That would improve lives and foster a much healthier coexistence, major progress for a region that has known conflict for decades.
Mr. Bennett is Israel's minister of economy and leader of the Jewish Home Party
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1892 on:
May 21, 2014, 01:34:37 PM »
Yeah, I'm sure the "palestinians" will refrain from terror attacks once the barriers come down.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Pope Francis: "Che Guevara of the Palestinians"...
Reply #1893 on:
May 22, 2014, 01:31:56 PM »
Pope Francis: The Che Guevara of the Palestinians?
Posted By Robert Spencer On May 22, 2014
The Che Guevara of the Palestinians is set to visit Palestinian Authority-controlled Judea and Samaria next week, beginning in Bethlehem, and the city of Jesuss birth is already in high excitement. The bearer of that illustrious title is none other than Pope Francis. According to Israel National News, Rabbi Sergio Bergman, a member of the Argentinian parliament and close friend of Pope Francis said that the pope intends to define himself as the Che Guevera of the Palestinians and support their struggle and rights during his visit.
If the Pope or anyone around him has expressed a similar intention to speak out about the Muslim persecution of Palestinian Christians, it has not been recorded in sharp contrast to the abundance of signals that the Pope has sent to Palestinian Authority officials. Fr. Jamal Khader of the Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem explained: He is taking a helicopter directly from Jordan to Palestine to Bethlehem. Its a kind of sign of recognizing Palestine. In anticipation of his doing just that officially, Palestinian officials have put up posters proclaiming State of Palestine and depicting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Pope Francis, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople.
Not only that, but while in Bethlehem, Pope Francis will meet with Abbas; he also plans to celebrate Mass there rather than in Jerusalem, a move that Israel National News says has been called a show of support for the PA. He then plans to visit a Palestinian refugee camp.
Khader predicted: Knowing who he is, and his sensitivity for all those who suffer, I am sure that he will say something defending all those who are suffering, including the Palestinians who live under occupation. Ziyyad Bandak, Abbass adviser for Christian affairs, was enthusiastic: This visit will help us in supporting our struggle to end the longest occupation in history .We welcome this visit and consider it as support for the Palestinian people, and confirmation from the Vatican of the need to end the occupation.
All this comes after a Church official in Jerusalem criticized Israeli authorities for asking that a sign announcing the Popes visit be taken down from a historic site on which such signs are prohibited for preservation reasons. The unnamed official referenced recent Hebrew-language hate graffiti spray-painted on mosques and churches, saying that he and other Church officials question the fact that the police, instead of taking action against the extremists who paint hate slogans on mosques and churches, choose to remove a sign with a positive message that welcomes the pope in three languages. We hope the police will act with the same determination to prevent the growing incitement and violence against Christians.
While referring to the graffiti as incitement and violence against Christians, however, Church officials have been much more reticent regarding Muslim persecution of Palestinian Christians, even when it has included actual violence. According to Israel National News, Christian Arab residents of the village of El-Khader in the Bethlehem area were savagely attacked by local Muslims as they celebrated a Christian holiday two weeks ago. A report by CAMERA, an organization which monitors anti-Israel bias in the media, reported that Christians attempting to enter Saint Georges Monastery in the village were intimidated and attacked with rocks and stones.
Yet about this and other incidents of Muslim persecution of Christians, Pope Francis, as well as Vatican and Church officials, have said little. Last November, Pope Francis decried the plight of Christians who suffer in a particularly severe way the consequences of tensions and conflicts in many parts of the Middle East. He added that Syria, Iraq, Egypt and other areas of the Holy Land sometimes overflow with tears and declared: We wont resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians who for two thousand years confess the name of Jesus, as full citizens in social, cultural and religious life of the nations to which they belong.
Neither on that occasion or any other, however, has Pope Francis ever ascribed the suffering of Middle Eastern Christians to anything beyond the consequences of tensions and conflicts in many parts of the Middle East. Apparently he believes that if those tensions and conflicts could somehow be resolved, Christians would be able to live freely in the Middle East. After all, he has famously asserted that authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence, thereby dismissing the possibility that Christians may be facing persecution from Muslims who are obeying the Quranic imperative to fight them until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (9:29).
Whats more, when Pope Benedict XVI spoke out in January 2011 against the jihad bombing of the Coptic cathedral in Alexandria, Egypt, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the worlds most prestigious Sunni Muslim institution, reacted angrily, breaking off dialogue with the Vatican and accusing the Pope of interference in internal Egyptian affairs. In a statement, Al-Azhar denounced the pontiffs repeated negative references to Islam and his claims that Muslims persecute those living among them in the Middle East. When Pope Francis succeeded Benedict, Al-Azhar and other Muslim authorities expressed hopes that he would repair relations between Muslims and Christians by not repeating the mistakes of his predecessor including speaking out about the Muslim persecution of Christians.
Francis complied, affirming his respect for Islam and apparently accepting al-Azhars stipulation that casting Islam in a negative light is a red line that must not be crossed. He has not, in any case, crossed it, even to decry the actions of Muslims to harass, victimize and persecute Christians because of Quranic declarations that they are accursed of Allah for saying Jesus is the Son of God (9:30); are unbelievers for affirming the divinity of Christ (5:17; 5:72); and must be warred against and subjugated (9:29).
And so during his trip that the Palestinians are awaiting with such excitement, it is likely that he will have little, if anything, to say about how core beliefs held by the Palestinians he is celebrating are used to justify the oppression of their Christian brethren. It is even less likely that he will note that Christians in Israel enjoy greater rights and freedoms than their brethren in any Muslim country. We may only hope that whatever the Che Guevara of the Palestinians says in Bethlehem or elsewhere in the Palestinian Authority, that it will not be capable of being exploited, by those persecutors of Christians he seems determined to ignore, to justify their actions and perpetuate that persecution.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Pope Francis Makes a Grave Error...
Reply #1894 on:
May 27, 2014, 07:10:30 AM »
For the record, I was raised by Roman Catholic parents in the R.C. church, and though I consider myself a devout Christian, and have great respect for many of the traditions of the R.C. church, I do not consider myself a "practicing Catholic." I do not know if this Pope is making a calculated and foolish political decision in stating these falsehoods, or is simply ignorant. Either is unacceptable, especially when Christians are being slaughtered in record numbers in Islamic countries all over the Middle East right now. See story below:
Pope Francis: Mahmoud Abbas is a Man of Peace
Posted By Robert Spencer On May 27, 2014 @ jihadwatch.org
AP reported Sunday that Pope Francis delivered a powerful boost of support to the Palestinians during a Holy Land pilgrimage Sunday, repeatedly backing their statehood aspirations, praying solemnly at Israels controversial separation barrier and calling the stalemate in peace efforts unacceptable.
Not only that, but Palestinian officials hailed Francis decision to refer to the state of Palestine. In its official program, the Vatican referred to President Mahmoud Abbas as the president of the state of Palestine, and his Bethlehem office as the presidential palace. He pointedly called Abbas a man of peace.
This is not really all that surprising. After all, this is the Pope who wrote last November that authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence. If authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence, then Abbas is certainly a man of peace.
Abbas is the man of peace who said on March 15, 2013: As far as I am concerned, there is no difference between our policies and those of Hamas. He said that while undoubtedly knowing that Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna is quoted in the Hamas Charter as saying: Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. Hamass Al Aqsa TV has featured a music video that proclaimed: Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah.
The man of peace heads up Fatah, which is hardly more moderate. Palestinian Media Watch reported on May 14 that on one of its official Facebook pages the Fatah movement, which is headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, yesterday posted a warning to Israelis. A sign showed an assault rifle and a map of Palestine that included both PA areas and all of Israel. In Arabic, Hebrew, and English it said: Warning. This is a land of a Palestinian state and the occupation to leave immediately (English original).
Likewise, in mid-March, Palestinian official Abbas Zaki, a close friend of the man of peace, declared: These Israelis have no belief, no principles. They are an advanced instrument of evil. They say, the Holocaust, and so on fine, why are they doing this to us? Therefore, I believe that Allah, will gather them so we can kill them. I am informing the murderer of his death. Fatah has also vowed to adhere to the option of armed resistance until the liberation of all of Palestine, and threatened to turn the beloved [Gaza] Strip into a graveyard for your soldiers, and we will turn Tel Aviv into a ball of fire.
On top of all this, the spot where the Pope paused to pray at what AP called Israels controversial separation barrier actually its security barrier featured graffiti referring to the barrier as an apartheid wall and comparing Bethlehem to the Warsaw Ghetto. Middle East analyst Tom Gross noted that in reality, the security barrier, which has saved countless lives, was built to protect Israelis after some 1000 civilians were killed by suicide bombers. Israel did not build the barrier because of racism or a desire to emulate apartheid South Africa to compare Israel to apartheid South Africa is a monstrous piece of disinformation, as a black South African has explained.
Moreover, Gross points out: Bethlehem is a relatively prosperous town where restaurants and juice bars are packed, and BMWs, Mercedes and Humvees compete for parking spaces in the center or town. By contrast, 400,000 Jews were herded into the Warsaw Ghetto and those who werent beaten or starved to death there, were taken to be exterminated at nearby camps.
In allowing himself to become an instrument of Palestinian jihad propaganda, and spreading that propaganda himself, the Pope has done a grave disservice to free people and aided and abetted the genocidal jihad against Israel. The damage resulting from his trip is impossible to calculate at this point, but it could be immense. Pope Franciss jaunt in the State of Palestine, was a tremendous show of support for the jihad against Israel, and a dark day for the papacy, the Roman Catholic Church, and free people everywhere.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1895 on:
May 27, 2014, 07:45:03 AM »
The current pope is a creature of the left.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Re: Current Pope...
Reply #1896 on:
May 27, 2014, 07:47:28 AM »
Does that mean he is ignorant, that he really believes this garbage he is spouting, or that he knows it is false and doesn't care?
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 15533
Re: Current Pope...
Reply #1897 on:
May 27, 2014, 07:57:59 AM »
Quote from: objectivist1 on May 27, 2014, 07:47:28 AM
Does that mean he is ignorant, that he really believes this garbage he is spouting, or that he knows it is false and doesn't care?
I think he earnestly believes it.
Power User
Posts: 1028
Re: Current Pope...
Reply #1898 on:
May 27, 2014, 08:11:37 AM »
I think you are right - which to repeat - indicates massive and unacceptable ignorance of the facts - particularly for the leader of the largest group of Christians on the planet.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
Power User
Posts: 42556
Re: Israel, and its neighbors
Reply #1899 on:
May 27, 2014, 10:13:17 AM »
Maybe his time would be better spent cleaning up the Church of its many and vast conspiracies of pedophiles , , ,
« previous
next »
Jump to:
Please select a destination:
DBMA Martial Arts Forum
=> Martial Arts Topics
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities
=> Politics & Religion
=> Science, Culture, & Humanities
DBMA Espanol
=> Espanol Discussion
Powered by SMF 1.1.21
SMF © 2015, Simple Machines