Israel Commentary

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6626

Must see clips from the movie below:

Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) News
May 17, 2013

“Jihad in America: The Grand Deception,” a new film by Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson, was honored this week as the best documentary at the 2013 International Beverly Hills Film Festival.

A jury of entertainment industry professionals selected the film, which also won best documentary at last month’s Myrtle Beach International Film Festival.

The 70-minute film focuses on the Muslim Brotherhood and its penetration in the United States. It features documents and recordings from federal investigations, undercover recordings and interviews with FBI agents, federal prosecutors and Muslim experts on radical Islam.

“I am honored by the recognition the judges in Beverly Hills and Myrtle Beach have given ‘The Grand Deception,’” Emerson said. “This shows what happens when people break through the noise which often dominates discussion on this issue, actually watch the film and judge for themselves. The problem of covert Muslim Brotherhood activity in America is a serious one, and my film explores it with original source documents and a list of sources with first-hand experience combating it.”

The film also placed third at the Sunset International Film Festival in Los Angeles and is an official selection for upcoming festivals in New York and Madrid.

“As much of an honor as it is to be recognized for this work, Grand Deception co-director Rachel Milton told the Beverly Hills gala attendees upon accepting event’s crystal plaque, “it is more important that the subject matter of our film be recognized and discussed. And that is the subject of radical Islam, something that touches everyone’s life whether they realize it or not.”

Audience members from a screening in Myrtle Beach called the film “very powerful” and “a smack in the face.” “People really need to see this,” said another.

The Grand Deception is a follow-up to Emerson’s 1994 documentary “Jihad in America,” which won the George Polk Award for outstanding documentary and the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ Tom Renner Award for investigative reporting.

The documentary has impressed other viewers, with Orange County Register editorial writer Rory Cohen calling it a “must see” for showing “how far the Muslim Brotherhood has reached within our own political fabric in less than three decades.”

“‘The Grand Deception’ exposes radical Islamists in their own words,” wrote Muslim physician Qanta Ahmed, calling that something “shattering to any Muslim in America – and is exactly why our communities invite unwanted scrutiny. In their own voices, American Islamists demand violent jihad against the United States.”

Producers say they want the film to start a debate about the political application of Islam – or Islamism – as anti-Islamist Muslim activist Zuhdi Jasser explains in this outtake:

Clips from the movie:

Your support of The Investigative Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All donations are tax-deductible. The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation
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No. 341
Washington, DC 20015

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6623

By JAVIER MANJARRES

President Obama’s ‘yes men’ continue to spin the idea that the three scandals that have brought his administration to its knees, do not exist. That is what Obama’s main mouthpiece, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told CNN’s resident anti-gun zealot, Piers Morgan.

Carney told Morgan that there were no scandals, that “you’re concocting scandals that don’t exist.” Carney was also quick to try to dismiss the recent Benghazi probe in the U.S. House of Representatives, as merely a Republican witch hunt, that has, “fallen apart.”

Here is what our friends over at news service, Blaze reported:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney appeared on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live” Thursday night to answer questions related to the three separate scandals that have turned the federal government on its head over the last two weeks.

Carney’s answers summed up: There are no scandals.

“You’re concocting scandals that don’t exist,” Carney said, when show host Piers Morgan asked how the Obama administration would “restore the faith that some Americans have lost” in its transparency.

“Especially with regard to the Benghazi affair that was contrived by Republicans and, I think, has fallen apart largely this week,” Carney said.

He continued, “The fact of the matter is that this administration has a record on transparency that outdoes any previous administrations. And we are committed to that. The president is committed to that.”

Beginning last week when several high-level government officials testified on what happened leading up to the attack on an American consulate in Libya in September, two other scandals potentially implicating the Obama administration have developed: One in which the IRS unfairly targeted conservative non-profits for scrutiny, the other involving the Department of Justice secretly seizing the phone records of Associates Press reporters and editors last year.

Regarding the Benghazi attack, Carney dismissed it as “a faux controversy stirred up by Republicans.”

On the IRS issue: “When [President Obama] found out… that there had been inappropriate and wrong conduct by IRS personnel… he spoke out about it, he made clear he thought it was an outrage and he has taken action.” (Acting IRS Director Steven Miller submitted his resignation Wednesday.)

And on the Associated Press scandal, which Obama has only commented on to say that the White House had no knowledge of: “It is entirely inappropriate for a president… to engage in… a criminal investigation.”

At the start of the program, Carney said it’s been “a challenging week, but a week that I’ve enjoyed.”

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6620

By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Having no ancient Palestinian history, the Palestinian Authority has tried for many years to convince its people that they have a history going back many thousands of years, that there was an ancient Palestinian nation, and that one of the great figures of history, Jesus, was their “forefather” and they are “Jesus’ descendants.”

The fact that in Christian tradition Jesus is a Jew from the nation of Judea and that the historical record has no record of a Palestinian Arab people, is not taught by the PA. The PA also ignores the fact that Rome only changed the name of Judea to “Palestine” after the Judean Bar Kochba Rebellion in the year 136, long after the death of Jesus. Furthermore, according to Christian tradition, Jesus did not marry, had no children, and therefore Palestinians could not be “Jesus’ descendants.”

The following is another presentation of Jesus as a Palestinian. According to this op-ed in the official Palestinian Authority daily, Jesus the Palestinian was oppressed and persecuted by the Jews, similar to today’s Palestinians, who are likewise oppressed and persecuted by the Jews. Nonetheless, just as Jesus was resurrected, so too “the Palestinians, Jesus’ descendants, rose from the ashes,” the op-ed states.

Palestinian Media Watch has documented the PA’s presentation of Jesus as a Palestinian and as an Islamic Martyr (Shahid).

The following is a longer excerpt from the op-ed in the official Palestinian Authority (PA) daily:

Headline: “The resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection of the state”

Op-ed by Adel Abd Al-Rahman

“Easter… is not a holiday for Christian Palestinians only but a holiday for Palestinian nationalism, because Jesus, may he rest in peace, is a Canaanite Palestinian. His resurrection, three days after being crucified and killed by the Jews – as reported in the New Testament – reflects the Palestinian narrative, which struggles against the descendants of modern Zionist Judaism, in its new colonialist form, that conspires with the Western capitalists who claim to belong to Christianity.

Jesus, may he rest in peace, the virtuous patriotic Palestinian forefather, who renewed the Old Testament, split away from its followers, brought forth his New Testament and spread it among mankind — which led the Jews to persecute him until they caught him, crucified him and murdered him. Afterwards, he rose from the dead like the phoenix and set out to spread his teachings that still exist and will exist as long as mankind exists.

Jesus’ story is his [Palestinian] people’s story; the Zionist movement — tool of the capitalist West – wanted to falsify historical facts, to exile and crucify the Palestinian Arab nation and then murder it by means of ethnic cleansing... But the Palestinians, Jesus’ descendants, rose from the ashes, like the phoenix, from the ruins of the Nakba (i.e., “the catastrophe,” the Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) and the Naksa (i.e., “the setback,” Palestinian term for Israel’s victory in the Six Day War.) They dressed their wounds and raised the flag of nationality again by founding parties and factions…

Easter is a distinct [Palestinian] national holiday which doesn’t concern only Christians but rather all Palestinians believing in the different religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism.”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 6, 2013]

Viva Henry Kissinger!

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6523

Netanyahu’s Visit to China: Opportunities beyond Iran

Redacted from an article By Dr. Yoran Evron
The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Insight No. 422,
May 2, 2013

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to make an official visit to China in early May 2013. This would be the first visit by an Israeli prime minister to China in over six years, and given the rarity of the meetings between the two heads of state and China’s increased influence internationally, the trip is important. Furthermore, this past March, China completed a change of government, and new people are now holding top leadership positions. This will be an opportunity for Israel to meet China’s new leaders, some of whom are expected to remain in their positions for the next ten years.

No less important, China has been rethinking its Middle Eastern policy since the start of the Arab Spring. Since China opened up to the world in the late 1970s, its approach to the Middle East has been characterized by a lack of significant involvement in political and diplomatic processes in the region, exclusive focus on promoting its economic interests, and maintenance of a balanced policy toward states and other actors in the region. The Arab Spring, which damaged China’s economic interests in the region, coupled with Beijing‚s declared intention in recent years to acquire a significant status in world politics, led China to presume that its existing policy toward the Middle East has exhausted itself.

Instead, it must deepen its ties in the region in order to establish a firm, long term foothold while exploiting the fact that the regional array of forces is undergoing significant change. The highly influential October 2012 article by Wang Jisi, China’s leading Chinese scholar of international relations, created a stir by asserting that China needs to adopt a new strategy, strengthening its influence and position in Central Asia and the Middle East.

This trend entails a significant challenge for Israel. If China assumes that Israel’s close relations with the United States will prevent Israel from strengthening its relationship with China, and at the same time, Beijing assesses that its dependence on Arab (and Iranian) oil will grow, the process of its increasing involvement in the Middle East is liable to bypass Israel.

In the meantime, as is demonstrated by China’s invitation to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, at the same time Netanyahu will be visiting there (albeit for a slightly shorter visit), China is adhering to its balanced approach to Israel and the Palestinians and is linking bilateral relations with Israel to its regional policy. Clearly, the Sino-Israeli bilateral relationship still does not stand fully on its own.

Finding common interests with China is of great importance for Israel, and a meeting between the heads of state at this time can promote this. In spite of China’s traditional support for the Arab line and its energy ties with the Muslim states, it credits Israel with several important assets. One is that Israel holds one of the main keys to stability in the region, an issue in which China has much interest; another is that the events of the Arab Spring have demonstrated that Israel is an island of stability in the heart of a volatile region.

In addition, Israel is an important source of knowledge about events in a region in which China often feels at a loss. Israel is also seen in China as a source of advanced technologies, and China has an interest in promoting its science and technology ties with Israel and perhaps even energy ties as Israel’s natural gas industry develops.

Finally, while China no longer believes, as it once did, that Israel has unlimited influence in Washington, it does feel that strengthening its relationship with Jerusalem would be a sign that it gradually is coming to possess a foothold in the region, while somewhat offsetting, and perhaps even undermining, American political influence there.

Under these circumstances, Netanyahu’s visit to China provides a significant opportunity that should not be missed. One way, in fact, to miss the opportunity would be to place too much emphasis on the Iranian issue. The importance of the Iranian threat is clear and certainly Israel must do everything it can to thwart it, including raising the issue with China’s new top leaders.

However, the issue has been discussed in recent years at every significant meeting between the states, and more than once it has taken up the lion’s share of the agenda while pushing aside topics that from China’s point of view are no less important. Consequently, if Israel makes Iran the main focus of discussion, China will take this to mean that strengthening bilateral ties is not of primary importance to Israel; rather, from Israel’s perspective, China’s importance is limited to promoting Israel’s security interests.

Specific issues that can be raised in this context are promoting Chinese investments in Israel (an interest of both countries) and establishing formal and semi-formal high level dialogues between the two states. As for the China-Israel-United States triangle, Israel can make it clear to China that while its technological ties will remain subject to the framework of understandings between Jerusalem and Washington, it is working to promote its activities with China in a wide variety of non-sensitive areas. Finally, in light of China’s desire to play a more visible role in Middle Eastern politics, Israel can suggest that China participate in various international frameworks connected to the Middle East and discuss with it burning regional developments, such as Syria.

Mahmoud Abbas’ visit to Beijing at the same time as Netanyahu also invites a discussion of China’s possible contribution to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Placing these issues on the table would convey Israel’s recognition of China’s rising status and its increasing importance in the region, and would make it possible to express Israel’s concerns and expectations to China in a more balanced manner.

Finally, more than any other Israeli politician, Benjamin Netanyahu is identified with the close US-Israel relationship. This likely leads China to assume that he would refrain from taking significant steps to promote relations with China so as not to arouse the displeasure of the United States, which, since its decisive action against Sino-Israeli security relations, has been perceived as an impediment to their further development.

In spite of his limited role in the development of relations, his balance sheet is positive. This has been especially noticeable in recent years given his moves to promote economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries. His intentions to include Chinese companies in large infrastructure projects in Israel, for example, are known, as is his instruction to ministers in his government during a time of budget cuts to reduce official trips to every country except China.

Therefore, despite his commitment to ties with the United States, Netanyahu’s contribution to relations with China is largely positive, and the planned visit can help bolster this dynamic.

Dr. Yoram Evron
Department of Asian Studies
Ph.D.: Political Science, University of Haifa
The Institute for National Security Studies
Tel Aviv 61398 Israel

Boston bombers linked to triple murder of Jews

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6594

Exclusive: Pamela Geller reveals facts about brutal slayings that media won’t report

By Pamela Geller
World Net Daily

Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of the WND Books title “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.”

The Daily Mail reported shortly after the identities of the Boston jihad bombings were revealed that dead jihadist Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s “only American friend” had his ‘throat slit’ in an unsolved murder in 2011.” It struck me as odd, especially when the media said Tsarnaev was “changed” after the murders. I was stunned shortly afterward to learn that the boy who had his throat cut was Jewish. Worse still, there were two more victims with their throats slit.

This unsolved triple murder was of three young Jewish men (two devout). It was originally reported that the murders took place on Sept. 12, 2011, but that too was wrong. The bodies were found on the 12th, but these Jewish boys were murdered on Sept. 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of jihadi attack on American soil that killed 3,000 people. When I first heard that the older jihad bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was one of the victims’ best friends, it sickened me. The media called one of these Jewish victims the “bomber’s only American friend.”

I knew better. Beheading Jews on Sept. 11? It had to be devout Muslims. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a devout Muslim who opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq because they fought against jihadists. He read Islamic supremacist websites and literature that claimed that the CIA was behind the jihad attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that (of course) the Jews controlled the world.

I tried to hire a private investigator to look into the case, but no one would touch it. It was white-hot and active. But it only became active after the Boston Marathon jihad bombing, a year-and-a-half after the murders. What took the police so long? If they had solved this murder, there would have been no bombing at the Boston Marathon.

Throat-slitting is a jihad specialty. Under Islam, slaughtering Jews is the most “righteous” of all murder of infidels. Sébastien Selam was a popular disc jockey at Queen, a hot Parisian nightclub. In 2004, a Muslim neighbor of Selam slit his throat and gouged his eyes out. Then he cried out, “I killed my Jew. I will go to heaven!” Ilan Halimi was a young Jewish man kidnapped by a Muslim gang in France. He was targeted, tortured for weeks and ultimately murdered because he was Jewish.

The murder of Ilan Halimi can only be described as an unspeakable horror. A group calling itself the Muslim Barbarians targeted Jewish men for torture and murder. Halimi was held captive for weeks in an Islamic homemade concentration camp that the Muslim Barbarians had set up. Apartment dwellers, all Muslims, heard Ilan’s screams and cries of torture over a period of three weeks, and yet did not call the cops. The screams must have been loud, because the torture was especially atrocious: The thugs cut bits of flesh off the young man. They cut his fingers and ears. They burned him with acid. They poured flammable liquid on him and set him on fire. Not only did the Muslims in the building not go to the police – they did nothing at all. Worse, many took part in the tortures.

It’s not just in Europe or in most obviously and viciously anti-Semitic Muslim countries in the Middle East. It’s here in America. A Muslim gang plotted to blow up synagogues in New York City. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder said, “These were people who were eager to bring death to Jews. It’s hard to envision a more chilling plot.”

Emerson Begolly, an American convert to Islam indicted on terror charges in 2011, wrote songs and posted them on jihadi websites. Sample lyrics: “When the Jew’s blood reds my knife, then my life is free from strife … shoot and kill Jews one by one.” Zachary Chesser, another U.S. convert to Islam who was arrested trying to join a jihad terror group, wrote: “May Allah blow up the Jews.”

And there are so many others like these. While Hamas-CAIR whines and moans about a mythical “anti-Muslim” backlash following in the wake of the Boston jihad bombings, or about a photo of the World Trade Center left on the grounds of a mosque, let me be perfectly clear: The murders of Brendan Mess, Erik Weissman and Raphael Teken were hate crimes. Jihad is a hate crime. Islamic Jew hatred is a hate crime.

Every news story about the triple murder of these three young Jews omits the most crucial fact in the case as to motive. These boys were Jewish, and that is why they were practically beheaded by these Muslim supremacists. Islamic Jew-hatred – Jews the world over (and most assuredly in Israel) know it well – has persisted for 1,400 years. The Quran says: “Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews …”

And Muhammad said that “the last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him” (Sahih Muslim 6985).

New evidence has come to light in the triple murder of these three boys. ABC News is reporting that forensic evidence at the crime scene links the Boston jihad bombers to the murders, and that their cell phone records show that they were in the area at the time of the killings.

Will this horrific slaughter get the same media attention as the Jody Arias case? Will the media speak to the motive of the mass slaughter of the Jews? Or they will continue to whitewash and scrub the most vicious, brutal ideology on the face of the earth?

“THIS IS TYRANNY”— MSNBC HOST LAMBASTS OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND IRS OVER ‘UNSPEAKABLE’ TARGETING OF CONSERVATIVES

(See video below)

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6597

By Billy Hallowell
May. 13, 2013

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough tore into the federal government over the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups.

In addition to calling the admitted actions “mind-boggling,” the personality highlighted the assertion that “this government is using the Internal Revenue Service to target people with whom they disagree.” Others, like co-host Willie Geist, jumped in say that the collective actions constitute”tyranny.”

“When it comes to political speech, it’s sacrosanct. Our founding fathers meant for it to be sacrosanct,” Scarborough said, going on the lambaste the IRS. “Liberal and conservative Supreme Courts alike do not allow the government to tread on political speech. There is a wall around that, and the wall has been knocked down by the IRS for several years now.”

Geist mirrored these sentiments, as did other “Morning Joe” panelists and co-hosts. While he noted that other claims about the government coming after guns have been overblown, the threat to free-speech posed by the IRS in this instance, in Geist’s view, is a true government-led assault.

“There’s been many overblown claims of tyranny and abuse of power from the government over the last few years. We’ve heard those. We’re coming for your guns — that kind of thing,” he said. “This is tyranny. If this is the government, a nonpartisan agency coming after specific groups, this time it’s real.”

Scarborough also called for Obama to “fire people” and to come out condemning the “unspeakable” actions of the IRS in the harshest terms possible. Rather than sitting back and ignoring the scandal, he implored the president to demand answers.

(And the best kind of ally, friend, marriage partner — where both recognize the vital importance of the relationship)

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6504

By Michael Freund
The Jerusalem Post
April 30, 2013

Tomislav Nikolic, the president of Serbia, began an official state visit to Israel Monday, marking the first time that he has traveled to Jerusalem since his election triumph last year.

Normally, the only excitement generated by a visiting head of state is some rowdier honking of Israelis’ car horns, as drivers find themselves trapped in a series of capricious and unforgiving traffic jams. But Nikolic’s three-day stopover is far more than just another diplomatic social call. Serbia is an important friend and ally of the Jewish State and the Serbian leader’s visit underlines just how close relations have become between the two countries. Israelis and world Jewry should welcome this turn of events and seek additional ways to broaden and deepen the relationship still further.

Indeed, the parallels between Israel and Serbia could not be more striking. Both are small countries in combustible regions which the international media love to criticize. Neither Serbia nor Israel gets a fair hearing at various international forums, and each is coming under relentless pressure to accede to the demands of their foes.

Much of the world has been pressing Serbia to forgo the breakaway province of Kosovo, even though it is the cradle of Serbian civilization.

And Israel of course is constantly being pressured to withdraw from Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem, the heart of our ancient homeland.

But it is not only in our present predicaments that one can find such compelling similarities.

Our history and that of the Serbs are also profoundly intertwined, both in triumph and in tragedy.

In the mid-19th century, one of the founding fathers of Zionism, Rabbi Yehuda Alkalay, served as a rabbi in the Serbian town of Zemun outside Belgrade. Historians say his views were influenced greatly by the Serbian nationalism of his day, and that his writings inspired Theodor Herzl’s grandfather to embrace the Zionist cause.

In this sense, the two countries can each trace their modern-day yearnings for freedom and independence to the same period and source.

Nearly a century later in World War II, at the Jasenovac concentration camp run by Croatia’s fascist Ustashe regime, Jews and Serbs found themselves side by side as both were targeted for extermination by the Nazis and their sympathizers.

It is precisely because our historical experiences bear such a likeness to one another that Jews and Serbs share such strong bonds of friendship and understanding.

On a visit to Belgrade last week, I had the opportunity to speak to numerous Serbs, from taxi drivers to government officials, all of whom expressed admiration for Israel and its accomplishments.

And unlike in many other European capitals, I did not feel in the least bit uncomfortable roaming the streets of Belgrade with a kippa on my head. Just days before my arrival, the Conference of European Rabbis had held a large gathering in the city which brought together rabbinical leaders from across the continent.

Sure, for some Jews, the very mention of the name “Serbia” still conjures up vicious stereotypes of war criminals and racists. But that is neither fair nor accurate. This is 2013. Serbia is no longer an autocracy in conflict with its neighbors. The country has transformed itself into a vibrant model of democracy, one that has gone to great pains to put the past behind it. In an unprecedented move, Serbia extradited two former presidents, various government ministers, three army chiefs of staff and several police and army generals to stand trial in The Hague on charges related to the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

And the Serbs have done so even though the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has proven to be decidedly one-sided in its handling of various cases that have come before it. Moreover, to lump all Serbs together and label them in a derogatory manner is intellectually dishonest and even slanderous. In fact, it is because Belgrade has made such great strides over the past decade that the European Union agreed last year to make Serbia an official candidate for EU membership.

Given these changes, it is time for those who still consider Serbia to be a villain to reconsider their position. This intrepid and spirited nation, standing at the crossroads between East and West, has repeatedly seen its territory occupied, its people expelled and its good name vilified.

As Jews, we know all too well what such suffering means, which is why we should view Serbia as a natural partner and move to boost our trade, investment and tourism with the Balkan nation, whose importance in the region will only continue to grow.

So “Dobrodosli u Izrael,” (Welcome to Israel), our friend President Nikolic.

And may your visit signal the further strengthening of relations between Serbs and Jews.

“Chazak Chazak Vinitchazeik” – (At the end of the reading of each of the Five Books of Moses) “Be strong, be strong and we should strengthen ourselves.”

I Whistleblowers: High-level Bureaucratic Errors Caused Benghazi

II Wall Street Journal Version, May 8, 2013 – A riveting account from diplomat right on the scene

III Ambassador John Bolton comment

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6563

By John Rossomando • May 8, 2013
Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) – Steven Emerson, Executive Director

May 8, 2013

Three State Department whistleblowers told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday that bureaucratic wrangling led to the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012 that left four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, dead.

The whistleblowers included Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of Mission and Charge d’Affairs in Libya; Eric Nordstrom, diplomatic security officer and former State Department regional security officer in Libya; and Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary for Counterterrorism.

Inadequate security, combined with substandard building requirements at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, resulted in the tragedy, Hicks’ testified.

A seven-member security team was dispatched from Tripoli to Benghazi as soon as reports emerged that the diplomatic mission was under attack. Stevens was reported missing by the time the team arrived, according to a timeline provided by the Defense Department last year.

As the assault unfolded, four Army Special Forces members, part of a second team, were told not to go although they were poised to board a Libyan C-130 bound for Benghazi as early as 1:45 a.m.

“They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it,” Hicks said.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., pressed Hicks on whether Stevens had told him about a demonstration outside the consulate the afternoon before his death.

Stevens had made no mention of any demonstration before the consulate was attacked, Hicks said. He was “shocked and embarrassed” when U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday morning talk shows the following Sunday to say that the attack had been the result of protests against the “Innocence of Muslims” video.

Gowdy then disclosed the contents of an email sent to top State Department officials the day after the attack saying Ansar al-Shariah was responsible. The email from Beth Jones, acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“When he (the Libyan ambassador to the United States) told me that former elements of the Gaddafi regime was responsible, I told him that the group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Shariah, is affiliated with Islamic terrorists,” the email said.

Rice’s comments hindered the FBI investigation into the Benghazi attacks because it made getting the Libyans to cooperate more difficult, Hicks said.

Fellow whistleblower Nordstrom testified that the Benghazi consulate was considered temporary and was not built to the specifications needed for a high-risk area.

Nordstrom blamed Clinton for the less-than-secure design of the Benghazi consulate, saying she was the only person who could grant waivers to except it from the standards put in places following the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

All three witnesses placed responsibility for the inadequate security at the Benghazi mission on the higher ups of the Departments of State and Defense. (Obama, H. Clinton, Hagel, Susan Rice and loyal Democratic Party Associates and Enablers) jsk

II Diplomat Airs Benghazi Attack Details in Riveting Account of Libya Raid, Official Knocks Administration Response
Article

Redacted from article by SIOBHAN HUGHES And ADAM ENTOUS

WASHINGTON—A high-ranking American diplomat delivered an emotional reconstruction Wednesday of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, providing the first detailed public account from an American official who was on the ground in Libya.

Gregory Hicks told a House hearing of the harrowing attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

The testimony from Gregory Hicks, the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also drew new attention to key questions about the attacks, and how the administration handled the aftermath.

The diplomat said he believes the U.S. military could have done more to assist U.S. personnel on the ground. He also said top officials in Washington overlooked information in their early conclusion, since abandoned, that the attack began as a protest.

The riveting narrative from Mr. Hicks, a career diplomat, could revive an issue that had begun to fade after the re-election of President Barack Obama and the confirmation this year of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Mark Thompson, the deputy coordinator for operations at the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism in Washington, and Eric Nordstrom, who was in charge of U.S. security in Libya until shortly before the attacks, also testified.

Mr. Hicks recounted his last conversation with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, his own desperate appeals for help, and the moment he received “the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life.” Mr. Stevens and three other Americans died in the attacks.

Mark Thompson, Gregory Hicks and Eric Nordstrom of the State Department give testimony to Congress about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Photo: Getty Images.

Republicans charge the Obama administration hasn’t told all it knows about the periods before, during and after the assault. The administration and Democrats say that dozens of hours of public testimony and thousands of pages of documents, along with an exhaustive independent investigation, have settled the outstanding questions.

Pentagon officials rebutted Mr. Hicks’ testimony Wednesday, saying the military wasn’t in position to mount a rescue that night, and on that critical matter, the hearing didn’t shed new light. The administration’s allies have called the Republican-led House investigations, under way in five different committees, politically motivated, aimed at discrediting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a leading candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Mr. Hicks alleged he was demoted for challenging the official line, specifically the picture painted during TV interviews by United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, who said the rampage grew out of a protest over a U.S.-made, anti-Islamic video that sparked anti-American demonstrations across the Mideast and Europe.

“I was stunned, my jaw dropped and I was embarrassed,” Mr. Hicks said of his reaction to Ms. Rice’s statements.

During a return to Washington to attend a funeral for one of the men killed, Mr. Hicks said he was summoned to the office of an undersecretary “and she delivered a blistering critique of my management style.” Based in part on the criticism, Mr. Hicks said he agreed to curtail his employment in Libya. Mr. Hicks said he wound up as a foreign affairs officer.

“I’ve been effectively demoted from deputy chief of mission to desk officer,” Mr. Hicks said.

The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Hicks also criticized Mrs. Clinton for minimizing debate about when the administration realized the attacks were terrorism. In January, questioned by lawmakers, she threw up her arms and, noting there were four dead Americans, asked, “What difference at this point does it make?”

Mr. Hicks said Libya’s new leader, Mohamed Magariaf, who was trying to establish credibility after the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, had already declared that the attack resulted from terrorism. Mrs. Clinton’s statement, Mr. Hicks said, was an affront to the Libyan leader.

“His credibility was reduced,” Mr. Hicks said. “And I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi” to investigate the attacks.

Mr. Hicks, by turns calm and emotional, told lawmakers his story of the night of last Sept. 11. He said he was at home in Tripoli watching television when a foreign-service officer ran in at 9:45 p.m. local time, yelling, “Greg, Greg, the consulate’s under attack.”

Checking his cellphone, Mr. Hicks said he saw two missed phone calls, one from Mr. Stevens and one from a phone number he didn’t recognize.

Mr. Hicks said he called the number he didn’t recognize and Mr. Stevens answered. “Greg, we’re under attack,” Mr. Stevens said before the call cut off. It was the first stage in a frightening and chaotic episode for State Department staffers in Libya.

Just before 11 p.m., Mr. Hicks said he asked the embassy’s defense attaché, who was in contact with the Pentagon’s Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, whether any military aircraft were on the way.

“Is anything coming? Will they be sending us any help? Is there something out there?” Mr. Hicks said he asked.

The defense attaché told him that the nearest fighter jets were based in Italy, and it would take two to three hours for them to “get on-site”—but there were no air-refueling aircraft available so they could make the trip.

“I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And we went on with our work,” Mr. Hicks testified.

At about 12:30 a.m. local time, diplomats in Tripoli learned of a new threat by Islamists—to attack the embassy complex in the Libyan capital city. The 55 diplomatic personnel in two facilities began to prepare to evacuate.

Through the night, Mr. Hicks and his team frantically decided they needed to send a second team from Tripoli to Benghazi to secure the airport for the withdrawal of personnel. They decided that a team of special-operations forces should go. But the team was told to stand down, a call Mr. Hicks said he believed came from the military.

Mr. Hicks quoted a lieutenant colonel as telling him: “This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.”

At 2 a.m., Mrs. Clinton and her top advisers called Mr. Hicks for an update. “She asked me what was going on and I briefed her on developments,” Mr. Hicks said, adding that most of the call was about the search for Mr. Stevens.

Mr. Hicks said that he didn’t discuss whether the attack was terrorist-related with Mrs. Clinton, because he had already reported that assertion.

Mr. Hicks said during the night, the embassy received several calls from Mr. Stevens’s phone in which a caller said: “We know where the ambassador is. Please, you can come get him.”

Mr. Hicks said the Americans feared the calls were a hoax, designed to lure the Americans into “a trap.”

Then, around 3 a.m., Mr. Hicks received a call from the prime minister of Libya, informing him that Mr. Stevens was dead. “I think it was the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life,” Mr. Hicks said, choking up. He said he immediately called the State Department to inform them.

Mr. Nordstrom said the Accountability Review Board didn’t properly delve into the matter because it didn’t talk to the right people. “They stopped short of interviewing people who I personally know were involved in key decisions,” he testified.

III “John Bolton: Benghazi Could Topple Administration” -NewsMax

Make no mistake… before the Benghazi hearings even started, damning details from witnesses, who were being intimidated into silence, started to leak… but those damning allegations were just the tip of the iceberg.

An unprecedented and putrid cover-up of the highest magnitude is taking place… the rotting stench of which leads all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And finally, the American people are beginning to learn the horrendous truth.

II Musical video – Jerusalem of Gold Land of Promise

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6552

One Jerusalemite Recalls Dark Years under Jordanian Rule

By Anav Silverman,
Tazpit News Agency
May 8th, 2013

“It felt like Messiah had come,” says Avigail Shlesinger, 81, about the day Jerusalem was liberated from Jordanian Legion rule, 46 years ago.

Shlesinger, who is a sixth-generation Jerusalemite, recalls what life was like in the Holy City during the time the Jordanians were in control of East Jerusalem, from 1949 to 1967. “It was a dangerous era,” she tells Tazpit News Agency. “There were areas in the city, like King George Street, where barriers had to be built to stop the bullets that Jordanian soldiers would shoot at us.”

“We felt like we were living under siege. It was dangerous to ride on busses and cars because stray bullets could hit anytime,” Shlesinger continues.

“When Jerusalem became reunited, I remember feeling that a very small city had suddenly become large.”

During the Jordanian rule, Jews were denied access to the Old City and Jewish holy sites such as the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, while Christians were granted only limited access to their sites. The Jordanians expelled all the Jewish residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and destroyed 58 synagogues and yeshivas. On the Mount of Olives, 38,000 Jewish tombstones were destroyed, and used to pave roads, build fences, and lay down latrine floors for the Jordanian army.

Shlessinger recalls that her grandfather’s yeshiva Torat Chaim, established by Rabbi Yitzchak Winograd in 1886, was the only yeshiva in the Old City that wasn’t burned down by the Jordanians. An Arab guard protected the yeshiva and safeguarded 3,000 holy books and the Torah Ark until the yeshiva students returned when the city was reunified.

For three millennia, since the time of King David, Jerusalem remained the center of Jewish faith. And after the Six Day War, for the first time in two thousand years, Jerusalem had come under Jewish sovereignty once more. The Israeli government mandated at that time that everyone, regardless of religious affiliation, has the right to visit all holy places within Israel.

Jerusalem Day, or Yom Yerushalayim in Hebrew, marks the anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem and is being celebrated on the 28th of Iyar, which this year falls on May 8.

“We went from darkness to light,” concludes Shlesinger. “Today I appreciate Jerusalem so much – just to be able to walk safely on the streets and to pray at the Kotel anytime I want. My grandchildren carry Israeli flags and march in the Jerusalem Day parades. On Jerusalem Day, we celebrate the fact that this city has been home to eight generations of our family.”

(And … the Arabs want to make Jerusalem as their so-called Palestinian capitol! It remains to be seen how self-destructive Israeli leadership truly is.) jsk

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6538

By Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
Israel Hayom, Israel’s most widely read newspaper
May 3, 2013

The recycled Arab League peace proposal — based on the Palestinian claim of return and the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swap — attempts to sell oceanfront property in Arizona. If Israel would buy it, the Arab League would throw the Golden Gate in free.

Those who welcome the Arab League proposal demonstrate suspension of disbelief. They subordinate reality to wishful-thinking, urging Israel to assume tangible lethal risks in return for an intangible agreement. They ignore the lessons of the 1993 Oslo Accord – replete with intensified Palestinian hate education, terrorism and the abrogation of agreements — as well as the last three years on the tumultuous, boiling, seismic Arab Street.

Fans of the Arab League proposal ignore fundamental Middle East constraints, which are highlighted by the non-existence of a single Arab democracy, the AWOL of intra-Arab comprehensive peace, the lack of intra-Arab ratification of all intra-Arab borders and the absence of compliance with most intra-Arab agreements for the last 1,400 years. Why would anyone assume that Arabs would shower upon the “infidel” Jewish State that which they have never shared among themselves — a long-term comprehensive peace carved in stone!

Western policy-makers and public opinion molders call upon Israel to commit to “painful concessions” in the most conflict-ridden region in the world. They would never assume such concessions in their own less violent regions. However, they expect Israel to accept an Arab League peace proposal, in a region which has not tolerated non-Moslem sovereignty since the seventh century. They provide a tailwind to a recycled Arab League “peace” proposal in a region where Christians, Jews and other non-Moslem minorities are systematically oppressed, persecuted and annihilated.

Western promoters of the Arab League initiative are oblivious to inherent features of intra-Arab relations, which have been underscored during the last three years from North Africa to the Persian Gulf: Violent intolerance of the other Moslems/Arabs (let alone of the “infidel”); flaming fragmentation along tribal, ethnic, religious, ideological and geographic grounds; shifty, unpredictable, unstable and unreliable regimes, policies and alliances; and the tenuous nature of agreements, which are usually “written on ice.”

Contrary to the worldview of Western policy-makers who embrace the Arab League proposal, the Arab Street has not experienced an Arab Spring, a transition to democracy, Facebook or youth revolution, the reincarnation of Gandhi and MLK or a quest for dignity. The tide on the Arab Street – independent of the Arab-Israeli conflict — has been predominantly anti-democratic, anti-US, violently Islamist and therefore dramatically more threatening.

A Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would import the tempestuous Arab Street into the Judean and Samarian suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It would establish another rogue/terrorist state, doom Jordan’s pro-US Hashemite regime, add another anti-US vote at the UN and enhance the Russian, Chinese and North Korean profile in the eastern flank of the Mediterranean. The establishment of a Palestinian state would reward those who triggered the flight of Christians from Bethlehem, Beit Jallah and Ramallah.

Palestinian Arabs have systematically attempted to annihilate the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel since the anti-Jewish pogroms/terrorism of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, through the 1948/9 War and the sustained campaign of terrorism since 1949. The Palestinian track record also highlights their alliance with Nazi Germany, the USSR, Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden and other enemies and adversaries of the Free World. Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat and their allies were expelled from Egypt (1950s), Syria (1966), Jordan (1970), Lebanon (1982/3) and Kuwait (1991) for subversion, hence the limited Arab support of the Palestinians.

The violent Palestinian track record reaffirms that Palestinian Arabs have never been preoccupied with the size — but with the existence — of Israel.

The Arab League proposal distorts, once again, the positive elements of Land-for-Peace, which was displayed at the end of the Second World War: deterring future aggression by punishing the aggressor (Nazi Germany) and rewarding the intended victims (France, Poland and Czechoslovakia) with land. Land-for-Peace as promoted by the Arab league, and Western political-correctness, fuels aggression by punishing the intended Israeli victim and rewarding the Arab aggressors.

In order to survive, the Jewish State must control Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish history. In order to withstand the Middle East challenges, Israel must control the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which tower over pre-1967 Israel – a 9-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean. Judea and Samaria are “the Golan Heights” of Israel’s soft belly: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructures. The higher the level of Middle East violence, unreliability, unpredictability and intolerance, the more intensified the threat, the stricter must be the security requirements, most especially the irreplaceable value of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria.

The Arab League proposal for Israel to depart from Judea and Samaria is not a peace plan; it is a suicidal proposition.

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6513

President Shimon Peres, 30 April 2013, conducted a historic visit to the Vatican and held a first diplomatic meeting with Pope Francis. At the beginning of the meeting President Peres congratulated the new Pope and said, Your appointment as Pope is a welcome message to the whole world and not just to Catholics. Your leadership is characterized by humility, the pursuit of peace and not by force. Your leadership creates a new spirit of hope for peace, of dialogue between nations and of the promotion of a solution to global poverty and illiteracy.

Sadly, there are many religious leaders in the Middle East and across the world who advocate terror and bloodshed and do so in the name of the Lord. We all have an obligation to stand up and say, in a loud and clear voice, that the Lord did not give anyone the authority to murder and carry out bloodshed. Your voice has a great impact in this matter. Pope Francis thanked President Peres for his words and expressed his agreement and support. The Pope suggested creating a global meeting of hope with the heads of all the world’s faiths and to come out against violence and terror.

During the meeting Pope Francis raised the issue of anti-Semitism in the world and made clear that anti-Semitism contravenes the beliefs of Christianity and that it must be opposed in every country in the world and every corner of the globe. Pope Francis asked to hear from President Peres about the state of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and the situation in the wider Middle East.

President Peres said, “The Middle East is disintegrating, it is in a real existential danger with a severe lack of employment, of food and of water. If those existential problems are not solved then violence and terror will gain a central place, as dangerous weapons fall into the hands of extremists. Iran is developing nuclear weapons for mass destruction and Syria is housing huge quantities of chemical weapons. I fear for the fate of the people of Iran and Syria under their current fanatical leadership.” President Peres added that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons and that Syrian chemical weapons must not fall into irresponsible hands.

President Peres reiterated that the great hope in the Middle East is peace and welcomed the meeting between the American Secretary of State, John Kerry, and the Foreign Ministers of the Arab League in Washington. “I believe that there is chance to open negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and that Abu Mazen is a genuine partner for peace. The ministers of the Arab League once again expressed their support for the two-state solution, which is also accepted by us and a broad structure of
support is being created for making progress,” President Peres said to Pope Francis, “You have an important role in progressing peace and the belief in it, I turn to you and ask that within your sermons in front of millions of believers in the world you include the hope for peace in the Middle East and the whole world.”

At the end of the meeting President Peres invited Pope Francis to come for an official state visit in Israel and said, “I would like to invite you to visit the Holy Land. I am sure that you will be received warmly by all the citizens, regardless of religion, race or nationality. The citizens of Israel see in you a leader of peace and good will. The sooner you visit the better as in these days a new opportunity is being created for peace and your arrival could contribute significantly to increasing the trust and belief in peace.” Pope Francis thanked President Peres for the invitation and said that he greatly wishes to visit Israel and would try to find a time to do so in the near future.

President Peres was welcomed in the Vatican with an honor guard of the Swiss Guard and took part in a ceremony of gift exchanges with Pope Francis during which he gave to the pope a Bible which was specially bound for him and on it were the words “So that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go” from the Book of Kings. Pope Francis gave President Peres a medal of gold to mark his visit.

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6518

In an interview on BBC Arabic radio, Dr Walid Phares said, “The ongoing investigation with three more suspects in the Boston Terror attack may lead to serious charges of aiding the main suspects or may not. But what this investigation is showing that more individuals, according to authorities, may have been part of a support network at various levels.

Authorities will inform the public about their findings, but on an analytical strategic level we can project that a wider Jihadi network is operating in the United States.” Phares said “to understand the Boston attack, you must link the patterns behind the Ft Hood Terror shooting, the Arkansas killing and dozens of attempts over the past few years. What the Administration and Congress must do is to launch a bipartisan strategic investigation into the Jihadi operations against the US homeland.”

You might want to check out the following:

South Florida Jews help unearth clues to genetic diseases

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6465

Redacted from an article By Nicole Brochu, Staff Writer
Florida Sun Sentinel
April 27, 2013|

South Florida has one of the world’s largest populations of Ashkenazis — Jews of Central and Eastern European descent — making it home to some potentially groundbreaking medical research. In Boca Raton, the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center is in the midst of a project, funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, to study local Ashkenazi Jews in the hopes of better understanding what causes Parkinson’s, and how to prevent it. At the University of South Florida, a study involving Ashkenazi women from the Miami area explored cultural and religious influences on colorectal cancer.

Other recent studies have tapped Ashkenazis to learn more about the causes and potential treatments for breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, Crohn’s disease, autism and a host of other ailments. After decades of scientific study, researchers know more about Ashkenazi Jews’ genetic history than many other ethnic groups, and what they’ve discovered may appear disturbing: More than 20 genetic diseases are more common to these descendants of Central and Eastern Europeans, and many are carriers for at least one illness.

But there’s power in that knowledge.

“It’s extremely important” to be able to study a group of people with known ties to particular disorders, said Dr. Stefan Glück, a breast oncologist at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. “You can transpose the data studied in Ashkenazi Jews onto other patients.”

As just one example, Montreal researchers found they could successfully treat breast cancer with DNA-damaging agents by studying Ashkenazi patients then broadening the research to a wider population, Glück said.”That continues to be a very important study in the treatment of breast cancer,” he said. It is the kind of research undertaken since the 1960s and 1970s, when studies on Tay-Sachs, a deadly disease of the nervous system passed down through families, found that the disorder had an inordinately high incidence among a group known as Ashkenazi Jews.

Estimated by some historians to account for about 80 percent of the world’s Jews today, Ashkenazis trace their ancestry to the Israelite tribes of Canaan in the Middle East, whose descendants later settled in the 11th through 19th centuries in Central and Eastern Europe, in countries now known as Poland, Russia, Germany, Lithuania, Ukraine and the like.

In the years since those first Tay-Sachs studies, scores of research projects — many of them led by Jewish doctors and scientists with a natural interest in diseases afflicting their relatives — have uncovered data linking dozens of inherited diseases to gene mutations that are more common to Ashkenazis than the general population, experts say.

“We have our genetic and medical history written into our cells,” said Bennett Greenspan, president of Family Tree DNA, a Houston, Texas-based genetic testing service. “Science and technology are only now beginning to write the book.”

Ashkenazis’ genetic inscriptions, it turns out, are a function of their early ancestors’ close-knit interfamilial ties and habits, experts agree. A culturally isolated group, they married among themselves “in a damn-near exclusive way,” becoming so-called “founders” of genetic traits passed on through the ages, Greenspan said.

All of us carry some recessive genetic mutations in our cells, but like Bahamians, some Africans and other isolated groups, Ashkenazis’ early marital and childbearing patterns made their mutations more prevalent among later generations, said Dr. Deborah Barbouth, director of the Victor Center for the Prevention of Jewish Genetic Diseases at Miami Children’s Hospital.

But don’t let the laundry list of disorders fool you. It’s not that this population of Jews is more sickly than anyone else, Barbouth said. Decades of study have just revealed more about their genetics.

Potential marital candidates should really be screened for the following diseases.

(By the way Orthodox Jews have been doing this testing, in a very private mutual manner, for years, and well before the final commitment is made.) jsk

Jewish Genetic Diseases:
• Bloom syndrome • Canavan Disease • Cystic fibrosis • Dihydrolipoamide
• Dehydrogenase Deficiency (DLD Deficiency) • Familial Dysautonomia
• Familial Hyperinsullnism • Fanconi Anemia Type C
• Gaucher’s disease • Glycogen Storage Disease, Type la ;
• Joubert Syndrome • Maple syrup urine disease • Mucolipldosis IV (ML4)
• Nemaline Myopathy • Niemann-Pick Disease Type A • Spinal Muscular Atrophy
• Tay-Sachs Disease • Usher Syndrome Type IF • Usher Syndrome Type 3
• Walker-Warburg syndrome.

Other diseases prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews include Parktnson’s Torsion Dystonia, breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

(Of course, we don’t want to include familial neurosis. No one would ever get married!) jsk

Sources: Victor Center for the Prevention of Jewish Genetic Diseases plus multiple online sources

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6491

By Sharona Schwartz

The Blaze.com
April 21, 2013

Police stand guard outside Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Friday, April 19, 2013, after an ambulance carrying Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old Massachusetts college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings, arrived. (Patient doing OK and now transferred to US Military Hospital for security purposes)

As 19-year-old Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev “clings to life,” Israeli media revealed that two of the senior doctors treating Tsarnaev have abundant past experience treating victims of terror. That’s because they’re from Israel!

Dr. Kevin (Ilan) Tabb, president and CEO of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston told the Israeli website Ynet that Tsarnaev is in stable condition but that because of wounds to his throat, he may never be able to speak again.

Tabb received his medical degree at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is also a board member of Hadassah-Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. That background gave him a unique perspective in responding to Monday’s terrorist attack. “Unfortunately, I have had a lot of experience with these types of injuries after years of treating people injured in terror attacks in Israel,” Tabb said.

Ynet Israel News service reports:

He told Ynet that the Boston Marathon attack resulted in “numerous leg injuries from the blasts, and there were many amputations as well. In Israel we are used to this and here they are not, but the hospital was prepared. Most of those who were seriously injured in the attack were sent to the three main trauma centers in Boston, including ours.”

“It was very similar to what I was used to in Israel in that we had to admit many injured people in a short period of time,” Professor Tabb said. “The fact that we are treating both the victims and the suspected terrorist also reminds me of similar situations in Israel. In Israel we frequently had an injured soldier and a terrorist lying on adjacent beds. When an injured person is admitted to the ER, the doctor or nurse treats him without asking questions.”

“We have a few Israeli doctors in the emergency room here, and the director of the ER is also Israeli. But, most of the physicians at the hospital are not Israeli, and they functioned exceptionally well,” Tabb added. Dr. Daniel Talmor, the Israeli physician who heads the ER at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center tells Israel Army Radio that Tsarnaev has “serious injuries, but I believe he will live.”

Police asked the medical staff not to offer further details on the specifics of the medical treatment being provided to the suspect, who Talmor says is in isolation with “very, very tight security.” He gave kudos to the staff’s professionalism while treating the suspect authorities believe to be behind Monday’s atrocity.

Talmor said in the interview Sunday morning, “The staff is very professional. Just like it responded professionally to the wounded on Monday, it responded professionally to [the arrival of] both of the terrorists. We admitted both of them. The main feeling of the staff is a feeling of closure that they were able to capture the terrorist and to arrest him. The people are treating him like any seriously injured patient, professionally, exactly like Israeli doctors, Israeli [hospital] staff treat all the injured who arrive.”

Talmor worked in Israel during the 1990s and treated victims of Palestinian terror attacks then that killed and maimed civilians. “The feeling is always that Israel is home, especially in days like today,” he said. “The subject of a mass terrorist act is something we practice a lot. I think one of the reasons for the good treatment the patients received on Monday is because we were already trained for a mass terrorist act at the marathon.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk also noted the similarity of Monday’s scene with Israel’s experience with Palestinian suicide bombings. While on a visit to Israel this weekend, he told Israel Channel 2, “It’s strange that I’m here…and now it’s happening back home.” “Israel is usually Ground Zero for terrorism” he said. “Home grown terrorism is a very scary thing to imagine that they are in our beds,” he added, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren described the shared U.S.-Israeli experience of being in the crosshairs of terrorists: “The people of Boston, who on the day of the bombing were celebrating liberty’s birthday, will not submit. Our experience in Israel has taught us that communities and caregivers, police and security forces, elected leaders and volunteers can unite at such times and block the terrorists from achieving their objectives,” Ambassador Oren wrote on CNN.com. “While taking all possible measures to prevent further loss of life, we adamantly refuse to forfeit our way of life,” Oren added.

Sharona Schwartz is a Middle East correspondent for The Blaze. Prior to joining the site, she was coverage manager at CNN’s Washington bureau. She also served at the network as scriptwriter for Wolf Blitzer, State Department producer and Middle East producer. She and CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta received the Clarion award for their report, “Sabrina’s Law.”

http://israel-commentary.org/?p=6404

By Raymond Ibrahim
Special to Investigative Project on Terrorism News
April 18, 2013

Overlooked and virtually completely ignored is the great frequency with which Muslims collectively punish the religious minorities living under their authority, often in atrocious ways.

Consider Egypt alone. The most recent attacks on Egypt’s Copts, culminating in the unprecedented besiegement of the St. Mark Cathedral, the holiest site of Coptic Orthodoxy, is the latest large-scale “collective punishment” of the nation’s indigenous Christian minority. Indeed, almost all of the major attacks on Copts are carried out in the context of collective punishment, based on the idea that, if just one Christian upsets Muslims, all Christians—and their churches and their women and children—become fair game.

Collectively punishing “upstart” religious minorities who refuse to know their place in the Islamic order actually has doctrinal backing. According to Mark Durie, author of The Third Choice: “Even a breach by a single individual dhimmi [non-Muslim living under Muslim authority] could result in jihad being enacted against the whole community. Muslim jurists have made this principle explicit, for example, the Yemeni jurist al-Murtada wrote that ‘The agreement will be canceled if all or some of them break it’ and the Moroccan al-Maghili taught ‘The fact that one individual (or one group) among them has broken the statute is enough to invalidate it for all of them.’”

The latest collective punishment visited upon the Copts began in Khosous, near Cairo, on April 5, when a longstanding feud between a Christian family and a Muslim family—based on male Muslims sexually harassing Christian girls—culminated in the violent deaths of six Christians, including one set on fire, and one Muslim. In retribution, Muslims went on yet another “Friday-rampage”—Friday being the day Muslims meet and pray and hate and call for jihads on Christians—resulting in the injury of at least 20 other Copts, an attack on a Coptic church, and an Evangelical church set on fire.

Then, two days later, after Copts mourned their dead in their cathedral, Muslim mobs awaiting them outside launched yet another attack, one that was actually aided by state security, firing into the cathedral compound. Eyewitnesses said as many as 40-50 tear gas canisters targeted the mourners, many of whom were women and children. Other officers stood by as the Muslim mob tried to ravage the cathedral. Two more Copts were killed and many dozens wounded. Since then, more reports have emerged of Copts being targeted and some even killed.

The fact is, collectively punishing Christian Copts for the purported crimes of individual Copts is a regular occurrence in Egypt, and perhaps the chief mode of their persecution. Other recent examples include:

July, 2012: When a Christian launderer accidentally burned the shirt of a Muslim customer, a brawl ensured between the two Egyptians. The next day “the Muslim, with approximately 20 of his followers, went to the Christian’s home to attack him. Expecting this, the Christian was prepared and climbed to the highest point of his roof, hurling Molotov cocktails at the Muslims.” One Muslim man was injured and later died in a hospital.

Before he died, between 2,000-3,000 Muslims attacked the Christians of the village, leading to an exodus of approximately 120 Coptic families. In the words of one report: “The sectarian crisis in the village of Dahshur escalated on August 1 after the burial of the Muslim man who died yesterday in hospital. Hundreds of Muslims torched and looted Coptic businesses and homes despite hundreds of security forces being deployed in the village. Eyewitnesses reported that security forces did not protect most Coptic property. As 120 families had already fled the village the day before after being terrorized, the businesses and homes were an easy game for the mob to make a complete clean-up of everything that could be looted. The security forces were at the scene of the crime while it was taking place and did nothing at all. After the violence, the family of the deceased Muslim said that destroying Coptic property is not enough and that Copts have to “pay for their son’s death” with their lives.

January, 2012: A mob of over 3,000 Muslims attacked Christians in an Alexandrian village because a Muslim accused a Christian of having “intimate photos” of a Muslim woman on his phone. Terrified, the Christian, who denied having such photos, turned himself in to the police. Regardless, Coptic homes and shops were looted and set ablaze. Three Christians were injured, while “terrorized” Christian women and children, rendered homeless, stood in the streets with no place to go. As usual, it took the army an hour to drive 2 kilometers to the village: “This happens every time. They [security] wait outside the village until the Muslims have had enough violence, then they appear.” None of the perpetrators were arrested. Later, in an effort to empty the village of its 62 Christian families, Muslims attacked them again, burning more Coptic property. According to police, the Muslim woman concerned has denied the whole story, and no photos were found.

April, 2011: When a Christian was falsely blamed for the deaths of two Muslims, an ensuing rampage left one Christian dead, 10 hospitalized; an old woman reportedly was thrown out of her second floor balcony. Christian homes and properties were plundered and torched.

November, 2010: When a teenage Christian youth was accused of dating a teenage Muslim girl, 22 Christian homes were set ablaze to Islam’s war cry of “Allahu Akbar.” During the attack the Muslim mob threw fireballs, gasoline, and stones at Coptic homes and detonated butane gas cylinders.

One can find similar examples in other Muslim countries where religious minorities, especially Christians, live. In short, while other societies, particularly in the context of war, may collectively punish their enemies, Islam is the only “religion” that actually mandates it—that unjustly punishes large numbers of innocent people for the purported crimes of the individual, as the aforementioned clerics from one end of the Arab world to the other maintain. This alone should raise questions about the very nature of Islam.

Raymond Ibrahim is author of the soon-to-be-released book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.