American held without bail after tweets in support of Islamic State

An American accused of conspiring to aid the militant group Islamic State was ordered by a New York judge to be held without bail after he was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport earlier this month, according to the New York Daily News. Donald Ray Morgan was arrested by FBI agents on August 2 at Kennedy Airport when he returned to the United States following an eight-month stay in Lebanon where his wife lives, the Daily Newsreported. Morgan was allegedly attempting to broker deals for military-style weapons and ammunition in his home state of North Carolina. He was indicted for possessing a firearm as a felon since he has a previous conviction in North Carolina for firing a gun. Yet officials also cited concern over his aggressive rants on Twitter under the name“Abu Omar Al Amreeki”during his time in the Middle East. At a bail hearing last week, assistant Brooklyn US Attorney Nadia Moore painted Morgan as too dangerous to return to North Carolina. “It’s possible that he traffics in guns to people in this organization (Islamic State),”Moore said in Brooklyn Federal Court before Magistrate Ramon Reyes. Islamic State is also known as ISIS, or Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Morgan - who referred to himself as a mujahideen, or jihadist fighter - allegedly pledged allegiance to Islamic State chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi on Twitter. His sentiments on the social media site signaled that he may have been preparing to fight with Islamic militants in Syria, Iraq, or possibly in the US, law enforcement officials worried. There was no evidence of Morgan’s membership with Islamic State nor that he offered material support to the militant group, federal defender Peter Kirchheimer said. Yet Judge Reyes said the tweets“clearly implied to me that he is trying to go to Syria or Iraq as the next step and trying to be actively engaged.” Islamic State is an Al-Qaeda splinter group that has rampaged through Iraqin recent months, capturing large swaths of the western and northern parts of the nation. The group was known to have fought against Bashar Assad's government in Syria before seeking gains across the border in Iraq. The Iraqi government has been next to powerless against the extremist group's advances. In recent days, the United States has authorizedand conducted airdrops of humanitarian supplies to minoritiesin Kurdistan fleeing the violence as well as airstrikesagainst Islamic State positions in northern Iraq. The Islamic State wants to create a medieval-style caliphate across Iraq and Syria stretching to the Mediterranean. It recently tried to extend its bloody campaign to Lebanon, but was beaten back by the Lebanese army.

Comment

I believe U.S judges are very lay in practical wisdom and in deep understanding of human behaviors and ways of the society. They are clinically technical. People don't mean what they say most of the time. Some of their rantings may be like farts. Unless the person shows prolong persistence, makes some preparation or take first step towards the crime he should be kept under watch and not be booked. At time we get moved and say lot of bad things out of momentary out burst.

Iraq crisis: 'It is death valley. Up to 70 per cent of them are dead'

On board Iraqi army helicopter delivering aid to the trapped Yazidis,Jonathan Krohnsees a hellish sight Mount Sinjar stinks of death. The few Yazidis who have managed to escape its clutches can tell you why. “Dogs were eating the bodies of the dead,” said Haji Khedev Haydev, 65, who ran through the lines of Islamic State jihadists surrounding it. On Sunday night, I became the first western journalist to reach the mountains where tens of thousands of Yazidis, a previously obscure Middle Eastern sect, have been taking refuge from the Islamic State forces that seized their largest town, Sinjar Read More

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CHILLING CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-MOSSAD AGENT

CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-MOSSAD AGENT

Excerpt from Victor Ostrovsky's, "By way of deception" NOTE: Needless to say, the Israeli Lobby has demanded (and gotten) a total ban on this book in all major bookstore chains, while pro-Israeli experts have trashed it at every opportunity.Ostrovsky's book is available only online at places like Amazon Revealing the facts as I know them from my vantage point of four years spent inside the Mossad was by no means an easy task. Coming from an ardent Zionist background, I had been taught that the state of Israel was incapable of misconduct. That we were the David in the unending struggle against the ever-growing Goliath. That there was no one out there to protect us but ourselves - a feeling reinforced by the Holocaust survivors who lived among us. We, the new generation of Israelites, the resurrected nation on its own land after more than two thousand years of exile, were entrusted with the fate of the nation as a whole. The commanders of our army were called champions, not generals. Our leaders were captains at the helm of a great ship. I was elated when I was chosen and granted the privilege to join what I considered to be the elite team of the Mossad. But it was the twisted ideals and self-centered pragmatism that I encountered inside the Mossad, coupled with this so-called team's greed, lust, and total lack of respect for human life, that motivated me to tell this story. It is out of love for Israel as a free and just country that I am laying my life on the line by so doing, facing up to those who took it upon themselves to turn the Zionist dream into the present-day nightmare. The Mossad, being the intelligence body entrusted with the responsibility of plotting the course for the leaders at the helm of the nation, has betrayed that trust. Plotting on its own behalf, and for petty, self-serving reasons, it has set the nation on a collision course with all-out war. One of the main themes of this book is Victor's belief that Mossad is out of control, that even the prime minister, although ostensibly in charge, has no real authority over its actions ... Read More

Nigerians now calling on authorities to talk to the Boko Haram militants.

First it was the Christian area in Kano. Then the market in Jos and the villages of Shawa and Alagarno. Once again, authorities suspect that Boko Haram is behind the attack. And many Nigerians fear that the terrorists are trying to create a divide between the already fragile relationship between Muslims and Christians in the country. Pastor Yohanna Buro, who lives in the north-Nigerian city of Kaduna, has observed the growing fear and enmity in his community. In Kaduna State, the Muslim and Christian communities each make up about 50 percent of the population. "You begin to see a Muslim blaming a Christian of being part of a conspiracy - between the Jews, Christians and the West - against the Hausa-Fulani Muslims in northern Nigeria," says Buro. He therefore calls for the government to engage in talks with Boko Haram. His opinion is shared by other religious leaders like Pastor James Wuye and Imam Muhammad Ashafa. In the past decade, Kaduna repeatedly became the scene of political and religious fighting. Several thousands were killed during this period. As a result, the onetime enemies, Wuye and Ashafa, decided to resolve their differences and work towards a peaceful co-existence of the two religious groups. The two leaders facilitated an interreligious dialogue in Kaduna and were awarded for their efforts by the German Africa Foundation (DAS) in 2013. Read More

Till the birth of Israel & Zionism Jews were patronised by most of Muslim rulers.

Once upon a time, a widely circulated Jewish document described Islam as "an act of God's Mercy". Also, Jews in the near East, north Africa and Spain threw their support behind advancing Muslim Arab armies. No, these aren't fairy tales or propaganda. The relationship between Muslims and Jews really was that cooperative and marked by peaceful coexistence.

Just ask Khalid Siddiqi of the Islamic Education and Information Center in San Jose, California where he also teaches Islamic Studies and Arabic at Chabot College and Ohlone College. Siddiqi notes that the first quote above is from S. D. Goitein's book Jews and Arabs. The second is from Merlin Swartz's 'The Position of Jews in Arab lands following the rise of Islam' (reprinted from The Muslim World. Hartford Seminary Foundation LXI1970).

Swartz also says the Muslim Arab conquest marked the dawn of a new era. Those forces that had led to the progressive isolation and disruption of Jewish life were not only checked they were dramatically reversed.

In an interview with Sound Vision, Siddiqi gave numerous examples of Jews flourishing under Muslim rule in places like Spain, Morocco, North African in general and various parts of the Middle East.

Siddiqi points out that Islam as a religion has given specific guidelines for the followers of Islam to base their relationship with any non-Muslim. These include People of Scripture, like the Jews, people who belong to other religions, and even atheists. Non-Muslims must be treated on the basis of Birr (kindness) and Qist (justice), as referred to Surah 60 verse 8 of the Quran.

It started at the time of the Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) The peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Jews began at the time of the Prophet.

Siddiqi notes that the Jews welcomed the Prophet when he arrived in Madinah at the time of Hijrah (migration), along with the rest of the city's inhabitants. But the Prophet had begun the step towards good relations with Jewish and other communities in Madinah even before getting there. After receiving an invitation to Madinah from one of the city's tribes that had accepted Islam, the Prophet signed treaties with the city's Jewish, Christian and polytheist tribes before he arrived there.

These treaties clearly laid out responsibilities of each of the parties. It was based on these that the Prophet established the Mithaq al Madinah, the constitution of Madinah. Read More

The Jewish Inquisition: An Eyewitness Account

In Part 45, when we discussed the Crusades, we covered the war of the Church against the Muslims in the Middle East. Now we turn to the war of the Church against Muslims in Europe. This war went on for quite some time in fits and starts—from the time the Muslim Moors arrived in Spain in 711. It took a long time for the Christians to vanquish them. The first Muslim stronghold to fall was Toledo in 1085; the last was Granada in 1492. As the Christian re-conquest gained momentum, Jews in these newly re-conquered Christians territories began to suffer from increasingly harsher persecutions. In their blood-thirsty vengeance against the Muslims, the Spanish Christians included the Jews, whom they put in the category of infidels. In 14th century Barcelona, for example, the whole Jewish community was murdered by a rioting mob. First given shelter by some Christians, these Jews were pressured to convert. Those who did not were refused protection. Writes Professor B. Netanyahu in his 1,400-page work,The Origins of the Inquisition, quoting an eyewitness account of the time: “Those of them who refused to accept baptism were immediately slain, and their corpses, stretched in the streets and the squares, offered a horrendous spectacle.” (p. 159) Just how many Jews converted in these forced mass conversions that accompanied the Christian conquest of Spain? Estimates rage between tens of thousands to as many as 600,000. (SeeThe Origins of the Inquisition, p. 1095.) Many of those who converted did so only outwardly, continuing to practice Judaism in secret. In due time, the Christians caught on to these phony conversions and decided to root out the heretics. THE SPANISH INQUISITION The Inquisition we are going to cover now is the Spanish Inquisition, which began officially by papal bull issued by Pope Sixtus IV on November 1, 1478. (We should note, however, that the very first Inquisition actually took place in 1233 under orders from Pope Gregory IX to combat a group of French-Christian heretics called “Albigenses.” This first Inquisition was relatively mild and did not as a rule sentence people to death. Not so the Spanish Inquisition which was directed against Jewish heretics.) Unlike its earlier version, the Spanish Inquisition sought to punish Jews who had converted to Christianity but were not really “sincere” in their conversions. There is a great deal of irony in this. First you tell people they have to convert or die, then, when they do convert, you decide to kill them anyway because their conversions are not “sincere.” There was another reason for the Inquisition, which had little to do with the sincerity of conversions. Once Jews converted to Christianity they had an open access to the playing field, economically and politically. And, of course, they prospered mightily. That engendered a lot of hostility from the Christians - a pattern we have seen in Jewish history ever since the enslavement of the Israelites by the Egyptians. Read More

CIA and Mossad alliance. Metsada: International killing unit of Mossad

The Mossad(Hebrew for "institution") is Israel's main intelligence agency. According to the Global Security site, Mossad also oversees "covert action and counterterrorism"; its operations are widely held to include targeted killings. At the time of its founding, the Mossad's motto was the biblical quote "By way of deception thou shalt make war." The motto was later changed to a different Proverbs passage: "Where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety." Sources refer variously to the Mossad's international assassination unit as "Metsada," "Caesarea,"or "Kidon"("Kidon" is Hebrew for "bayonet"). Rafi Eitan, a former director of Mossad operations, compared its assassins to "the official hangman or the doctor on Death Row who administers the lethal injection. We are simply fulfilling a sentence sanctioned by the prime minister of the day." In the past half-century, Israel has allegedly killed hundreds of members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas, Hebollah, and Islamic Jihad. Mossad targets have also reportedly included German rocket scientists working for Egypt in the 1960s and, from the 1980s to the present, Iraqi and Iranian nuclear scientists. Early on, the Mossad kidnapped and killed alleged Nazi war criminals; one well-known example was Adolf Eichmann, whom the Mossad abducted from Argentina and brought to Israel for trial and execution. Read More

Is Palestine now Germany for Israel? Historical quotes of Jewish leaders.

The Israeli people around the world declare economic and financial war against Germany. Fourteen million Jews stand together as one man, to declare war against Germany. The Jewish wholesaler will forsake his firm, the banker his stock exchange, the merchant his commerce and the pauper his pitiful shed in order to join together in a holy war against Hitler's people. -Daily Express, March 24, 1933

"All Jews world wide -- declared war on the Third Reich."(The London Daily Express, Front Page Story, 3/24/1933).

"Judea declares War on Germany."(Daily Express, March 24, 1934)

"The millions of Jews who live in America, England and France, North and South Africa, and, not to forget those in Palestine, are determined to bring the war of annihilation against Germany to its final end."(The Jewish newspaper, Central Blad Voor Israeliten in Nederland, September 13, 1939)

"Germany is the enemy of Judaism and must be pursued with deadly hatred. The goal of Judaism of today is: a merciless campaign against all German peoples and the complete destruction of the nation. We demand a complete blockade of trade, the importation of raw materials stopped, and retaliation towards every German, woman and child."(Jewish professor A. Kulischer, October, 1937)

"Kill the Germans, wherever you find them! Every German is our moral enemy. Have no mercy on women, children, or the aged! Kill every German -- wipe them out!"(Llya Ehrenburg, Glaser, p. 111).

"Step by step, I have arrived at the conviction that the aims of Communism in Europe are sinister and fatal. At the Nuremberg Trials, I, together with my Russian colleague, condemned Nazi Aggression and Terror. I believe now that Hitler and the German People did not want war. But we, {England}, declared war on Germany, intent on destroying it, in accordance with our principle of Balance of Power, and we were encouraged by the 'Americans'{Jews} around Roosevelt. We ignored Hitler's pleading, not to enter into war. Now we are forced to realize that Hitler was right. He offered us the co-operation of Germany: instead, since 1945, we have been facing the immense power of the Soviet Empire. I feel ashamed and humiliated to see that the aims we accused Hitler of, are being relentless pursued now, only under a different label."(Ashamed and Humiliated The British Attorney General, Sir Hartle Shawcross, said in a speech at Stourbridge, March 16/84 (AP))

"Our fight against Germany must be carried to the limit of what is possible. Israel has been attacked. Let us, therefore, defend Israel! Against the awakened Germany, we put an awakened Israel. And the world will defend us."(Jewish author Pierre Creange in his book

Epitres aux Juifs, 1938) Read More

Is Palestine now Germany for Israel? Historical quotes of Jewish leaders.

The Israeli people around the world declare economic and financial war against Germany. Fourteen million Jews stand together as one man, to declare war against Germany. The Jewish wholesaler will forsake his firm, the banker his stock exchange, the merchant his commerce and the pauper his pitiful shed in order to join together in a holy war against Hitler's people. -Daily Express, March 24, 1933 "All Jews world wide -- declared war on the Third Reich."(The London Daily Express, Front Page Story, 3/24/1933). "Judea declares War on Germany."(Daily Express, March 24, 1934) "The millions of Jews who live in America, England and France, North and South Africa, and, not to forget those in Palestine, are determined to bring the war of annihilation against Germany to its final end."(The Jewish newspaper, Central Blad Voor Israeliten in Nederland, September 13, 1939) "Germany is the enemy of Judaism and must be pursued with deadly hatred. The goal of Judaism of today is: a merciless campaign against all German peoples and the complete destruction of the nation. We demand a complete blockade of trade, the importation of raw materials stopped, and retaliation towards every German, woman and child."(Jewish professor A. Kulischer, October, 1937) "Kill the Germans, wherever you find them! Every German is our moral enemy. Have no mercy on women, children, or the aged! Kill every German -- wipe them out!"(Llya Ehrenburg, Glaser, p. 111). "Step by step, I have arrived at the conviction that the aims of Communism in Europe are sinister and fatal. At the Nuremberg Trials, I, together with my Russian colleague, condemned Nazi Aggression and Terror. I believe now that Hitler and the German People did not want war. But we, {England}, declared war on Germany, intent on destroying it, in accordance with our principle of Balance of Power, and we were encouraged by the 'Americans'{Jews} around Roosevelt. We ignored Hitler's pleading, not to enter into war. Now we are forced to realize that Hitler was right. He offered us the co-operation of Germany: instead, since 1945, we have been facing the immense power of the Soviet Empire. I feel ashamed and humiliated to see that the aims we accused Hitler of, are being relentless pursued now, only under a different label."(Ashamed and Humiliated The British Attorney General, Sir Hartle Shawcross, said in a speech at Stourbridge, March 16/84 (AP)) "Our fight against Germany must be carried to the limit of what is possible. Israel has been attacked. Let us, therefore, defend Israel! Against the awakened Germany, we put an awakened Israel. And the world will defend us."(Jewish author Pierre Creange in his book Epitres aux Juifs, 1938) Read More

The shadow of anti-Jewish sentiments falls on Europe

The Hungarian government struggled to counter allegations of institutionalised anti-Semitism on Sunday after the country's far-right Jobbik party staged a mass rally in the capital Budapest in protest against a meeting of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in the city. The WJC usually holds its assembly in Jerusalem. But it chose Budapest for its meeting, which began yesterday, to highlight what it claims is growing anti-Semitism and a rise in support for the far right in Europe, where the economic crisis is fuelling distrust in mainstream political parties. Hungary has one of the largest Jewish populations in the European Union, but there is growing concern that the government is not doing enough to combat anti-Semitic rhetoric. Ronald S Lauder, the WJC president, complained last month that Hungary was on a "dangerous political path" and that its controversial right-wing nationalist Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, had "lost his political compass" and often told the far right "what they want to hear". Last night Mr Orban addressed the issue of growing anti-Semitism in a speech at the opening of the assembly, which runs until Wednesday. He defended the notion of strong national identity as beneficial for mutual co-existence, but said it is a "moral obligation to declare a policy of zero tolerance against anti-Semitism". In a gesture which underlined the problems in Hungary, the far-right and openly racist Jobbik party held a mass rally in Budapest on Saturday, less than 24 hours before the WJC was to open its assembly, claiming that the meeting was a "Jewish attempt to buy up Hungary". The Hungarian Prime Minister had previously tried to ban the rally by the Jobbik party, but was overruled by the courts. Read More

The shadow of anti-Jewish sentiments falls on Europe

The Hungarian government struggled to counter allegations of institutionalised anti-Semitism on Sunday after the country's far-right Jobbik party staged a mass rally in the capital Budapest in protest against a meeting of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in the city. The WJC usually holds its assembly in Jerusalem. But it chose Budapest for its meeting, which began yesterday, to highlight what it claims is growing anti-Semitism and a rise in support for the far right in Europe, where the economic crisis is fuelling distrust in mainstream political parties. Hungary has one of the largest Jewish populations in the European Union, but there is growing concern that the government is not doing enough to combat anti-Semitic rhetoric. Ronald S Lauder, the WJC president, complained last month that Hungary was on a "dangerous political path" and that its controversial right-wing nationalist Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, had "lost his political compass" and often told the far right "what they want to hear". Last night Mr Orban addressed the issue of growing anti-Semitism in a speech at the opening of the assembly, which runs until Wednesday. He defended the notion of strong national identity as beneficial for mutual co-existence, but said it is a "moral obligation to declare a policy of zero tolerance against anti-Semitism". In a gesture which underlined the problems in Hungary, the far-right and openly racist Jobbik party held a mass rally in Budapest on Saturday, less than 24 hours before the WJC was to open its assembly, claiming that the meeting was a "Jewish attempt to buy up Hungary". The Hungarian Prime Minister had previously tried to ban the rally by the Jobbik party, but was overruled by the courts. Read More

Hungarian mayor leads protests against Israel

The extremist right-wing mayor of a town in eastern Hungary held a mock-execution in which effigies of the Prime Minister and former President of Israel were hanged, in what he claims was a protest against the war in Gaza. Erpatak mayor Mihaly Zoltan Orosz told reporters on Monday that the “Jewish terror state” is trying to obliterate the Palestinians and said he opposed “the efforts of Freemason Jews to rule the world.” Hungary's foreign ministry condemned the mayor's actions, saying he was using innocent victims of the war “to spread hate-inducing propaganda.” An online video of Saturday's event shows an executioner with a black hood over his face kicking chairs out from under the puppets of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former President Shimon Peres, each tied to a gallows. Flanked by flag-bearing youths, he holds an Israeli-like flag, where the Star of David has been replaced with the Freemason symbol. Read more: Jobbik: The shadow of anti-semitism falls on Europe once more Owen Jones: We can’t just wish away anti-Semitism Orosz has been mayor of the town 240km from the capital of Budapest since 2005, and is affiliated with the ultra-nationalist group Jobbik. The group are part of a trend of so-called ‘Putinism’in Hungary, characterised by support for nationalism, religion, social conservatism, state capitalism, and government domination of the media. Earlier in the year, anti-racism groups in the UKattempted to ban Jobbik’sleader, Gabor Vona, from making a speech in Londonwhich co-incided with Holocaust Memorial Day. At the time, the then-leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, had spoken of a “common core” of shared values with Jobbikand the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn

The Nakba anniversary: Land, myths and the Zionist 'miracle'

Whenever the anniversary of the Zionist rape of Palestine comes, Arab memory in general, and Egyptian memory in particular, recalls images of Palestine under occupation or the British Mandate letting hordes of rapists of all nationalities pass to its lands. Nothing unified those hordes except the Zionist dream of raping Palestine. The British Mandate gave them public lands and granted them all forms of assistance with the consent and support of the US and the West in general. It allowed them to have the most advanced weapons to form criminal gangs for intimidating and expelling the Arabs and committing heinous massacres against them. Memory also recalls Zionist and Western myths around Zionist superiority that established an "advanced state" in a developing region and the myth, which is more false still and mean-minded, about Palestinians selling their lands, as if Zionists established Israel on lands they bought, not through raping the land, state and rights of another people. They have transformed a large part of its people into the homeless in their own lands, or in the lands of other neighbouring Arab countries and the world in general. While Arab states offered one concession after another in an attempt to deal with the colonial de facto reality, building a peace based on co-existence and to keep what has remained of the Palestinian people's rights after the Nakba )or catastrophe(, Israeli authorities practiced, during a quarter of a century of negotiations since the start of 1990s, a policy of prevarication and evasion of the moment of truth. This moment of truth requires either the acceptance of a democratic state without any religious or racial discrimination, and ending the Zionist occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, or accepting the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip based on the UN Partition Resolution, to which the Arabs made another concession, replacing that formula with the lands before the aggression of June 1967. Read More

Jerusalem Post: Netanyahu: Hamas uses civilian deaths as PR fodder

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the foreign press in the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge on Wednesday, emphasizing how careful the IDF was to prevent civilian casualties.
He showed videos displaying Hamas's use of human shields and firing of rockets from populated areas.
"Hamas uses civilian deaths as PR fodder," the prime minister said. "Can we accept a situation where terrorists are exonerated, and victims accused."
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UN chief: Gaza deaths and destruction shame world

UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says “the massive deaths and destruction in Gaza have shocked and shamed the world” and is demanding an end to “the senseless cycle of suffering” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We will build again, but this must be the last time to rebuild,” the UN chief told the General Assembly Wednesday. “This must stop now. We must go back to the negotiating table.”
Ban said the UN understands Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas rockets but “the horror that was unleashed on the people of Gaza” raises serious questions about respect for international law that requires a distinction between civilians and combatants and proportionality.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay told the assembly that “any attacks in violation of these principles .... may amount to war crimes.”

Israel's nine years of failure in Gaza

The very last salvo of mid-range rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza - minutes before the 8 A.M. ceasefire - hit south of Jerusalem, around Bethlehem and Gush Etzion. Shrapnel fell a short distance away from the bus stop where the three Israeli teens - Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah - took the fateful hitchhike to their deaths 54 days ago. A poignant end to this round of violence. Read More

Nine years of failure in Gaza

The very last salvo of mid-range rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza - minutes before the 8 A.M. ceasefire - hit south of Jerusalem, around Bethlehem and Gush Etzion. Shrapnel fell a short distance away from the bus stop where the three Israeli teens - Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah - took the fateful hitchhike to their deaths 54 days ago. A poignant end to this round of violence. Read More

Gaza op spurs Italian call for 'Nuremberg for Israel' trial

A petition by academics, describing Israel's 'slow genocide' of Palestinians, is one of many signs - including incendiary slogans, swastikas and vandalism - that reflect anti-Semitic undercurrents in Italy. MILAN, Italy – An online petition posted recently by hundreds of Italians during Israel's operation in Gaza calls for creation of “an international tribunal," in which the State of Israel and its people will be put on trial for the “slow genocide of the entire [Palestinian] people.” Signed by 525 Italians, most of them academics, the petition does not target just Israel Defense Forces' commanders or the government of Benjamin Netanyahu: The signatories want “the whole State of Israel” and its “racist society” to appear in an international court, in a Nuremberg-like trial, for war crimes. And not just due to Operation Protective Edge, but because of events in "the past, the present and the foreseeable future.” This petition is but one example of the increasingly sharp criticism in Italy of Operation Protective Edge, criticism which some are saying is tainted by anti-Semitism. Indeed, the petitioners literally called for a “Nuremberg for Israel” – a reference to the military tribunals created by the Allied forces after World War II, in which 24 German officials were tried for war crimes. The document, whose intent is ostensibly symbolic, has been widely publicized online. It originally appeared on a small academic website, Historia Magistra, and later ended up in the online edition of Il Manifesto, a respected left-leaning newspaper. The petition is titled “Noi Accusiamo” (We Accuse) after Émile Zola’s famous "J’Accuse," an open letter published on the front page of a newspaper in France, denouncing the widespread anti-Semitism there in the 1890s, sparked by the Dreyfus Affair (in which a Jewish officer in the French army was unjustly convicted of treason). Read More

Mass shootings kill far more than Muslim American terrorism – research

Mass shooting fatalities by far exceed the number of those killed in Muslim-related terrorism in the US, new research says. The number of terrorist incidents involving Muslim Americans has shown a dramatic drop since 2009. ­Fourteen Muslim-Americans committed or were charged with terrorist crimes in 2012, down from 21 in 2011, 26 in 2010 and 49 in 2009, according to the fourth annual reportby North Carolina's Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. (Image from tcths.sanford.duke.edu) Of the 14 offenders in 2012, only one was accused of executing a violent attack (the bombing of a Social Security office in Casa Grande, Ariz.). The other perpetrators were arrested at an early stage of their terrorist plots. The author of the research, sociology professor Charles Kurzman, who has been studying the issue for the past three years, concluded that"the number of Muslim-Americans indicted for support of terrorism — financing, false statements, and other connections with terrorist plots and organizations, aside from violent plots — fell from 27 individuals in 2010 to 8 in 2011, bringing the total to 462 since 9/11." Read More

Mass shootings kill far more than Muslim American terrorism – research

Mass shooting fatalities by far exceed the number of those killed in Muslim-related terrorism in the US, new research says. The number of terrorist incidents involving Muslim Americans has shown a dramatic drop since 2009. ­Fourteen Muslim-Americans committed or were charged with terrorist crimes in 2012, down from 21 in 2011, 26 in 2010 and 49 in 2009, according to the fourth annual reportby North Carolina's Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. (Image from tcths.sanford.duke.edu) Of the 14 offenders in 2012, only one was accused of executing a violent attack (the bombing of a Social Security office in Casa Grande, Ariz.). The other perpetrators were arrested at an early stage of their terrorist plots. The author of the research, sociology professor Charles Kurzman, who has been studying the issue for the past three years, concluded that"the number of Muslim-Americans indicted for support of terrorism — financing, false statements, and other connections with terrorist plots and organizations, aside from violent plots — fell from 27 individuals in 2010 to 8 in 2011, bringing the total to 462 since 9/11." Read More

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'Islam is reviving British values', says former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

Saturday 02 August 2014 Islam is rejuvenating “British values”, the former Archbishop of Canterbury has claimed while lambasting sections of the press for presenting Muslims as “un-British”. Rowan Williams was giving a speech at the annual Living Islam Festival in Lincolnshire on Friday, discussing what British values were and how Muslims could affect them. He said one of the greatest gifts to Britain had been bringing back “open, honest and difficult public discussion”, the Times reported. Asked if he thought Islam was restoring British values, he said: “Yes. I’m thinking of the way in which, for example, in Birmingham we have seen a local parish and a mosque combining together to provide family services and youth activities, both acting out of a very strong sense that this is what communities ought to do. ” Dr Williams was one of several speakers at the event organised by the Islamic Society of Britain, which saw thousands of people gather for four days of talks, debates, music, worship and bazaars. The now Master of Magdalene College in Cambridge praised both Christianity and Islam for working towards community cohesion and promoting a sense of duty. But in comments reported by the Guardian, he also objected to the notion of British values, saying they should be more universal. “The setting-up therefore of British values against any kind of values, whether Muslim or Christian, just won't do,” he said. Read More

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Gaza: How neutral is U.N? Washington Post

The mortar shells that struck a United Nations-run schoolin Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 20 Gazans — including children — and injuring dozens of others, marked the sixth time that U.N. facilities have been hit during this conflict. U.N. officials have presented these incidents as attacks on the international community as a whole. “This is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame,” said Pierre Krähenbühl, a senior U.N. refugee official. “Today the world stands disgraced.” While Israeli officials have never admitted intentionally targeting the United Nations, many Israelis contest the notion that the United Nations is a benign and impartial actor in Gaza, devoted only to ensuring the well-being of refugees in the territory. The Israeli government and the U.N. refugee organization for Palestinians — the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — regularly trade accusations: U.N. officials have criticized Israel’s economic blockade of the territory, while Israeli officials have routinely accused UNRWA of parroting Hamas’s arguments and even being complicit in some of its activities. The United Nations’ struggles in Gaza are an extreme version of a dilemma the global body faces in hot spots around the world: how to preserve its prized neutrality as it becomes involved in bitter conflicts with very little middle ground? In Gaza, the bad blood has some history. During the 2008-2009 Gaza incursion, UNRWA reported that Israeli strikes damaged dozens of its facilities. In one strike, Israeli shells set fire to a U.N. warehouse, and Israel eventually paid compensation. For its part, Israel has accused the United Nations of specific misconduct, including transporting Hamas rockets in a U.N. ambulance — a charge Israeli officials later retracted. The broader Israeli critique is that UNRWA nurses Palestinian grievances and has acquiesced to the militarization of the territory by extremists such as Hamas. In 2002, a spokesman for then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for an investigation of what he described as “30 years of abuse of refugee camps by the Palestinians” and the United Nations’ “bond of silence” toward it. Animated by similar concerns, the U.S. government has conducted investigations of UNRWA’s operations on its own, and Canada recently redirected some of its funding from UNRWA to other channels. The discovery of Hamas rockets in several UNRWA schools during the current conflict — quickly condemned by U.N. officials — has only deepened the suspicions of Israel’s supporters that UNRWA is, in effect, aligned with Hamas. The controversy surrounding the United Nations is particularly intense in Gaza but not unique to it. In some conflict zones, the United Nations has come to be seen as a proxy for one side or as the embodiment of an international policy that certain combatants reject. In these cases, the organization serves as a tempting target for extremists looking to make a point and generate headlines. Two U.N. aid workers were shot and killed in Somalia in late 2011. Earlier that year, Boko Haram militants detonated a bomb outside a U.N. building in Abuja, Nigeria, killing 21. In 2009, Taliban operatives killed five U.N. workers in Afghanistan. And most notorious, Iraqi insurgents bombed the U.N. compound in Baghdad in August 2003, an attack that claimed the lives of top official Sergio Vieira de Mello and more than a dozen others. Of course, all humanitarian actors face challenges in maintaining wartime neutrality. But the agencies of the United Nations, including UNRWA, carry an additional burden. They are attached to a global organization that is, in fact, highly political. U.N. humanitarian operations fall under the very loose purview of the organization’s General Assembly, comprising more than 190 often fractious states. Its peacekeeping operations are directed by the 15-member Security Council. For Israelis, in particular, it is difficult to separate the United Nations’ role as a relief agency in Gaza from the hostility it perceives in the organization as a whole. Every year, the assembly and several of its subsidiary bodies pass a sheaf of resolutions criticizing Israel for its occupation and various other practices. American and Israeli diplomats have regularly complained about what they describe as a skewed and unbalanced view of Israel prevailing in Turtle Bay and Geneva. If the United Nations struggles to maintain an image of impartiality and neutrality in its humanitarian operations, those qualities can be even more elusive when its personnel don helmets and pick up rifles. Since the late 1940s, generations of U.N. peacekeepers have patrolled conflict areas in an effort to tamp down violence. Sometimes they manage to win the trust of the key parties.

Israeli newspaper invokes biblical verses to justify genocide

1 Samuel 15:18-Samuel said, “Is it not true, though you were little in your own eyes, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the LORD anointed you king over Israel, 18and the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’ 19“Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the LORD?”… Saul was anointed king of Israel by G-d and given the mission to join the tribes of Israel as one nation and to protect them against their enemies. This has been the primary job of leaders from the beginning of time-to defend their citizens and national rights before any other obligation. For without security, without the power to protect what is basically, the lives of one’s charges and the land that sustains the people, all else is of less than secondary interest or importance. A nation that will not defend itself, in whatever manner that the “king”, or the president or the prime minister is empowered to do, is not a civilization that will be sustainable nor credible. There are religious folks that place everything that happens to some esoteric or supernatural dimension, but I, a rather secular man, believe that much of what is in the Hebrew Bible (except for much of the already evidentiary history) as allegorical, and in some manner, presented in order to teach us how to live as a society. However, the passage from Samuel is an admonishment on the primary duty of a leader. To me, Samuel represents the people of Israel today, questioning and redressing a grievance to the “king,” or, in this case, our prime minister. One might say that the right to redress of grievances as written in many modern constitutional documents, is one of the fundamental rights of a free people in a republic-the inherent obligation of citizens to make their voices heard when their government either fails to carry out a particular policy or fails to adhere to the voice of the electorate that placed them in position of power. G-d might be meant to illustrate that voice of the people-the vox populi. In this case, G-d had demanded that Saul (or the “prime minister”) enter into battle with the Amalekites (Hamas and its savage partners) and destroy them utterly even if that means to the last child, cow and goat. As cruel as this appears, it is a lesson that teaches a nation in terrible danger that it has a legitimate obligation to put a definite end to a substantial threat. The end of such a conflict must make it impossible for that enemy to rebuild and continue to vex one’s nation forever. Time and again, throughout Jewish history, we have been told that Amalek will arise in every generation to try to destroy this people. Saul refuses to kill Agag, the king of the Amalekites. In his disobedience, his defying of G-d, is equivalent to our present leadership attempting to fight Hamas while refusing to employ the means to destroy it entirely. By discovering and exploding all the tunnels, or seizing all their arms, is inadequate to assure the utter destruction that is necessary in this war against the Amalekites of today. There must be no quarter given, no “humanitarian ” ceasefires, but a resolute combat without the words and demands of a hateful, hypocritical cabal barking like angry dogs, at our heels.. Because, just as the Amalekites fell upon the rear of the Israelites as they passed through their lands on the way to Canaan, the terrorists will violate every ceasefire, every truce and every politically machined halt to the fighting to retreat and bind their wounds waiting for the next opportunity to attack us