Wednesday, January 21, 2015

"Enlightened" secular Europeans will soon discover that a Judenrein Europe is just the beginning...

From JWR, 19 Jan 2015, by Mark Steyn:


Tribute to victims of the Paris kosher supermarket massacre

Had they not died as part of the Charlie Hebdo killers' final act, I wonder how much publicity the murders of Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, and François-Michel Saada at a kosher grocery store would have attracted. An Islamic fanatic killed another quartet of Jews at the Jewish Museum in Brussels last spring, and it was a big story for a couple of days, and then faded away.

Over the last decade, the Continent seems to have developed a certain psychological ease with the routine murder of Jews. What remains of Jewish communal life in Europe now takes place behind reinforced doors and barbed wire, and the actual extinction of an entire identity group's presence is discussed as calmly as the long-range weather. 


European leaders like M Hollande insist they're able to protect the Jewish community - or at least hold the remorseless picking-off of their members to manageable levels. The leader of the continent's biggest Jewish group is disinclined to take such assurances:

In a letter sent to interior ministries around Europe and obtained by Newsweek, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, director general of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE) and the European Jewish Association (EJA) - the largest federation of Jewish organizations and communities in Europe - writes:
"We hereby ask that gun licensing laws are reviewed with immediate effect to allow designated people in the Jewish communities and institutions to own weapons for the essential protection of their communities, as well as receiving the necessary training to protect their members from potential terror attacks."
The Jews are always the canaries in the coal mine, so they won't be the last in Europe to discover that, when it matters, the state isn't there for you. 

There is a memorable moment in Michel Houellebecq's new novel Soumission, released the day of the Charlie Hebdo slaughter, in which the protagonist's Jewish girlfriend Myriam decides it's time to get the hell out of France and flee to Israel. And François says bleakly, "There is no Israel for me."

Not many Frenchmen yet understand that. So they do not see the lesson for them in the dizzying and total de-normalization of Jewish life on the Continent in the 21st century. 

Here's what I wrote on the subject just under three years ago:
If the flow of information is really controlled by Jews, as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright assured his students at the Chicago Theological Seminary a year or two back, you'd think they'd be a little better at making their media minions aware of one of the bleakest stories of the early 21st century: the extinguishing of what's left of Jewish life in Europe. 
It would seem to me that the first reaction, upon hearing of a Jewish school shooting, would be to put it in the context of the other targeted schools, synagogues, community centers, and cemeteries. And yet liberal American Jews seem barely aware of this grim roll call. Even if you put to one side the public school in Denmark that says it can no longer take Jewish children because of the security situation, and the five children of the chief rabbi of Amsterdam who've decided to emigrate, and the Swedish Jews fleeing the most famously tolerant nation in Europe because of its pervasive anti-Semitism; even if you put all that to the side and consider only the situation in France...
No, wait, forget the Villiers-le-Bel schoolgirl brutally beaten by a gang jeering, "Jews must die"; and the Paris disc-jockey who had his throat slit, his eyes gouged out, and his face ripped off by a neighbor who crowed, "I have killed my Jew"; and the young Frenchman tortured to death over three weeks, while his family listened via phone to his howls of agony as his captors chanted from the Koran... 
No, put all that to one side, too, and consider only the city of Toulouse. In recent years, in this one city, a synagogue has been firebombed, another set alight when two burning cars were driven into it, a third burgled and "Dirty Jews" scrawled on the ark housing the Torah, a kosher butcher's strafed with gunfire, a Jewish sports association attacked with Molotov cocktails... 
Here's Toulouse rabbi Jonathan Guez speaking to the Jewish news agency JTA in 2009: "Guez said Jews would now be 'more discreet' about displaying their religion publicly and careful about avoiding troubled neighborhoods. ... The synagogue will be heavily secured with cameras and patrol units for the first time."
This is what it means to be a Jew living in one of the most beautiful parts of France in the 21st century.
Well, you say, why are those Jewish kids going to a Jewish school? Why don't they go to the regular French school like normal French kids? Because, as the education ministry's admirably straightforward 2004 Obin Report explained,   
... "In France, Jewish children, uniquely, cannot nowadays be provided with an education at any institution." At some schools, they're separated from the rest of the class. At others, only the principal is informed of their Jewishness, and he assures parents he will be discreet and vigilant. But, as the report's authors note, "The pupil's surname does not always allow for such discretion."
"Jews with a conscience should leave Holland, where they and their children have no future, leave for the U.S. or Israel," advised Frits Bolkestein, the former EU commissioner and head of the Dutch Liberal party. "Anti-Semitism will continue to exist, because the Moroccan and Turkish youngsters don't care about efforts for reconciliation."
Metropolitan Toulouse has a population of 900,000 or so, about the size of Jacksonville, Fla. Imagine if, in Jacksonville, synagogues were firebombed, and kosher butchers shot up, and Jewish schoolkids gunned down, and, in the dull, placid months between the spasms of front-page attention, the cold, ongoing Jew-hate were so routine that it was no longer safe for a Jew to walk his own city with any identifying mark of his faith, or for his child to reveal his Jewishness at school.
In Toulouse, much of the Jewish community arrived after the religio-ethnic cleansing of French North Africa in the Sixties and Seventies. What they fled has followed them to the Midi-Pyrénées, and now it's time to move on again — as it is elsewhere in Europe. 
Thus, posterity's jest. Pre-war Europeans would never have entertained for a moment the construction of mosques from Malmö to Marseilles. But post-war Holocaust guilt, and the revulsion against nationalism and the embrace of multiculturalism and mass immigration, enabled the Islamization of Europe.
The principal beneficiaries of the Continent's penance for the great moral stain of the 20th century turned out to be the Muslims — with the Jews on the receiving end, yet again.
It won't stop there. Mijnheer Bolkestein is not (yet) asking what else those "youngsters" don't care for, but like many other secular Continentals with no interest in Jews one way or the other he'll soon find out.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Nasrallah: more noise than an empty vessel

From Times of Israel, 19 January 2015, by Avi Issacharoff:

Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah speaking in southern Beirut on November 3, 2014 (photo credit: AP Photo/ Hussein Malla)
Nasrallah: full of bluster and threats, but anything else?

At the end of the day, the key to what happens on the northern border in the wake of the [alleged] Israeli attack in Syria on Sunday lies in Iran’s hands.

If Ali Khamenei and the Iranian leadership want an escalation, then an escalation there will be. If Tehran isn’t looking for one, then it simply won’t happen.

In contrast to earlier incidents, the midday attack near Mazrat Amal in in the Quneitra district didn’t end with only Lebanese casualties. Yes, initial reports gave the name of Jihad Mughniyeh, thought of as a symbol because of his father Imad Mughniyeh, as the most senior official killed in the attack.

But Colonel Ali Reza al-Tabatabai, commander of the Radwan force of the Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon, was also killed. 

This force, seen as a special operations unit, is responsible for planning attacks against Israel. These operations range from kidnappings and tunnel attacks to capturing territory.

It’s not likely Muhgniyeh and Tabatabai were on their way to a picnic when they were struck from the air, and it is very possible they were examining various ways to carry out attacks against Israel from the Syrian Golan Heights.

Still, it’s not clear how urgent this attack was for Israel. Iran’s and Hezbollah’s activities in the sector are not exactly secrets, and neither was the presence of the younger Muhgniyeh, the Hezbollah commander responsible for the sector.

...Iran’s dilemma right now is whether or not to allow Hezbollah to respond with force, which could well lead to a general escalation. A Hezbollah response is not necessarily what Iran wants, especially when the White House is pressuring Congress not to enact new sanctions on Iran. Tehran does not want to be seen as responsible for a regional deterioration, which could bring about new sanctions. In addition, it doesn’t want to get Hezbollah stuck in another active front while the drop in oil prices has left Iran with less and less money to fund its operations in Syria. What’s more, Hezbollah continues to lose men fighting the Islamic State and other jihadist organizations.

On the other hand, ignoring the incident will be taken as weakness, even cowardice.

Hezbollah itself will want to respond, of course, even though it has an even more difficult dilemma. It may be that the decision would be easier were it not for the stupid, arrogant interview Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah gave on Friday to the friendly Al-Madayeen channel. As he usually does, Nasrallah explained how strong Hezbollah is, and how its ability to strike Israel is limitless. He described his advanced Fateh-110 rockets as outdated, and claimed that his organization already had those weapons in 2006, and that today it has much more advanced weapons.

What’s more, Nasrallah promised that any Israel attack on Syria would lead to an attack by Hezbollah, in a time and place of its choosing.

And now, only two days after the interview was aired, Israel has made clear how high is the tree that Nasrallah has climbed. Israel assassinated one of his senior commanders, and a major symbol no less: Jihad Mughniyeh’s father founded Hezbollah’s military wing, and was considered for more than two decades one of the Middle East’s biggest terrorists.

Now, Nasrallah is seemingly bound to respond, at least to show he stands behind his word. One third of his organization’s fighting force is in Syria today, caught up in daily battles against radical Sunni groups. According to Israeli estimates, Hezbollah has lost around 1,000 men in Syrian fighting, with many more injured.

Hezbollah’s political situation is not much better, to say the least. Even Sunday after the results of the attack were made public, Lebanese critics continued to attack the Shiite organization. One called it a “terrorist organization,” while former president Amine Gemayel chose to focus on Nasrallah’s arrogant interview from Friday. “Whoever wants to protect Lebanon doesn’t need to attack Bahrain,” Gemayel said, referring to Nasrallah’s harsh verbal attack on Bahrain during the same interview.

But Nasrallah’s and Hezbollah’s decision will ultimately be made in Tehran. The commander of the Al-Quds Force, who was close to Mughniyeh and Tabatabai, according to reports, will be the one to decide the tone of the Shi’ite organization’s response.

And it may be that, for the time being, Hezbollah and Iran will be satisfied with a minor response, and at another time, in another place, they will try to carry out a much more dramatic strike.

12 birds with one stone...

From JPost, 19 Jan 2014:

The air strike attributed in foreign media reports to Israel which killed six Hezbollah agents in Syria on Sunday also killed six Iranian soldiers, including commanders, AFP quoted a source close to Hezbollah as saying on Monday.

"The Israeli strike killed six Iranian soldiers, including commanders, as well as the six members of Hezbollah. They were all in a convoy of three cars," the source said.

An Iranian semi-official news site reported that an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general was among those killed in the strike.

"Following the Zionist aggressions against the resistance in Syria, General Mohammad Allahdadi, a former commander of the Sarollah Brigade of the Revolutionary Guard, was martyred along with Jihad Mughniyeh and three others in the same car," the Dana news website said, referring to the son of Hezbollah's late military leader Imad Mughniyeh.
According to reports in Hezbollah-affiliated media, two Israel Air Force helicopters fired missiles at a target in the Syrian Golan, killing a number of Hezbollah operatives, including Mughniyeh.

Western intelligence sources said Jihad Mughniyeh headed a large-scale terrorist cell that enjoyed direct Iranian sponsorship and a direct link to Hezbollah. The cell had already targeted Israel in the past, launching attacks on the Golan Heights.

...Iran is Hezbollah's primary financial and military supporter. Both countries are aiding Syrian President Bashar Assad in his struggle to keep power against a coalition of Sunni opposition militias and Islamist radicals.

...and from Times of Israel, 19 Jan 2014:

....According to Israel’s Channel 10 Allahdadi, who had previously commanded Iran’s forces in the country’s Yazd province, had recently been reassigned to Syria to provide support for Shiite militias fighting for President Bashar Assad.

The operatives killed in the strike included

  • Abu Ali Tabatabai, who Channel 10 called the head of the group’s offensive operations; 
  • Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah commander killed in Damascus in 2008; and 
  • Mohammed Issa, responsible for the organization’s operations in Syria and Iraq.

Tabatabai’s identity was disputed: Channel 10 reported that Tabatabai was the most senior official killed in the group, and was likely the primary target of the Israeli strike. According to its report Tabatabai was considered a central Hezbollah figure and was charged with planning the group’s offensive on Israel’s northern border in a future war — including the invasion and takeover of northern Israeli communities.

Meanwhile other outlets, including Israel Radio and Walla News, had Tabatabai as an Iranian officer and a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, sent to assist Hezbollah in an advisory position.

As for Mughniyeh, Dubai-based news outlet Al-Arabiyah reported that he was under the command of Issa, who was responsible for Hezbollah’s forces and fortifications on the Israeli-Syrian border in the Golan Heights.

The bases they commanded in Syria contained missiles belonging to the Syrian regime, as well as missiles sent by Iran and Hezbollah. Those weapons were meant to be used in “a new front” with Israel if Assad were to fall, the report said.

As the son of slain Hezbollah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, and with close personal connections to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the commander of the Iranian Republican Guard’s special forces unit, Qassem Soleimani, Jihad Mughniyeh was known as “the Prince” within the Lebanese terror organization....

The West's failure to read the Writing on the Wall...

From the Jewish Press, 18 Jan 2015, by Yoram Ettinger:

...In 2015, Western civilizations must ...desist from ambiguity, denial and political correctness and embrace clarity, realism and political incorrectness, in order to survive and overcome the clear and present lethal threat of Islamist takeover, which gathers momentum via demographic, political and terrorist means.
...during the 1930s ...Germany abrogated the Treaty of Versailles, which called for German disarmament, reparations and territorial concessions; German military spending skyrocketed, military conscription was reintroduced and the Rhineland was remilitarized; Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and annexed Austria.  Still, on September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact, declaring “Peace for our time.” He refused to recognize Hitler’s strategic, global, supremacist goal, assuming that Hitler’s appetite could be satisfied with a tactical, limited gain in Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, thus signing a “peace accord” which triggered the “war of all wars.”
Hitler’s master plan was highlighted in 1925-26 by the two volumes of the supremacist, anti-Jewish Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which is currently a best seller in the Muslim world, particularly in Iran and the Palestinian Authority.
During 1977-79, President Carter did not read the writing on the wall, supporting Ayatollah Khomeini’s battle against the Shah of Iran, who was in fact the US Policeman of the Persian Gulf.  Overwhelmed by denial and wishful-thinking, and heavily influenced by the US foreign policy establishment, Carter ignored the litany of sermons delivered by Khomeini, which exposed the Iranian cleric as an enemy of Western civilization and civil liberties. He despised the US and aligned himself with the enemies of the US, while protected by a Palestinian-PLO praetorian guard. Thus, the US betrayal of the Shah eliminated a most effective and loyal strategic partner of the US, gave rise to the most lethal, conventional and non-conventional threat to vital US interests in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and beyond and generated a robust tailwind to Islamic terrorism.
In 1990, on the eve of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the US stated that an Iraq-Kuwait military clash would be an intra-Arab, rather than a US, concern.  The Bush/Baker Administration assumed that “the enemy of my enemy (Iran) is my friend (Iraq),” supplying Saddam with dual-use sensitive systems, providing him with $5bn loan guarantees and concluding a US-Iraq intelligence sharing agreement. The 1990 policy of denial triggered a conventional conflict, a $1.25 trillion cost to the US taxpayer, 4,500 US military fatalities, a surge of anti-US Islamic terrorism and a dramatic destabilization of the Persian Gulf.
Since the conclusion of the 1993 Oslo Accord, Western democracies have refrained from reading the writing on the Palestinian (Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas) wall: hate education in grades K-12; unprecedented terrorism; systematic non-compliance with agreements; naming squares, streets and tournaments after terrorists; monthly allowances for families of terrorists; responding to Israeli retreats with intensified terror.
In 2011, Western democracies denied the eruption of an Arab Tsunami, welcoming the violence on the Arab Street as an Arab Spring, transitioning the Arabs toward democracy. The Obama Administration embraced the Muslim Brotherhood (while turning a cold shoulder toward General Al-Sisi), refusing to recognize its well-documented intra-Arab terrorism, the offshoot of its motto: “Allah is our objective; the Qur’an is the Constitution; the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is our wish.”
The 2015 failure to carefully read the Iranian writing on the wall could produce a nuclear conflict at a mega-trillion dollar cost to the US taxpayer, an unprecedented level of fatalities, a tidal wave of Islamic terrorism throughout the globe, including in the USA, decimation of the pro-US Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf and Jordan, an unprecedented disruption of the supply of Persian Gulf oil, further radicalization of the anti-US regime in Venezuela with ripple effects in Latin America, including Mexico, and additional tectonic eruptions of insanity throughout the globe.
At stake is not only freedom of expression and the safety of European Jewry, but the survival of Western democracies.
Solidarity demonstrations and eloquent speeches will not spare Western democracies the wrath of Islamic terrorism and domination, unless accompanied by clarity, realism and the willingness to take military, legislative and political action in order to thwart the writing on the walls of the mosques
  • submission of humanity to the Prophet Muhammad;
  • submission of the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jewish Kuffar (“infidel”) to Muslims and to Sharia’ laws; 
  • Jihad – holy war on behalf of Islam – is the duty of Muslims; 
  • Waqf – Muslim land – is ordained by Allah; 
  • Dar al Salaam (the residence of the believers) must take over Dar al Harb (the residence of the Kuffar); and 
  • Islam-sanctioned Taqiyyah (dissimulation, deception and concealment of inconvenient data) aimed at shielding Islam and “believers” from “disbelievers.”

Prosecutor in Argentina Jewish center bombing found shot dead

Alberto Nisman shot dead; was set to testify that Argentine government had covered up Iranian involvement in 1994 Jewish Center bombing

Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman

The Argentinean prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires was found dead in his apartment on Sunday night with a gunshot wound to the head, hours before he was set to testify before lawmakers on his accusations of a cover-up by his country’s president in the case.

... Police were investigating and had initially ruled the death a likely suicide.

The timing of Nisman’s death raised eyebrows, as the prosecutor had been set to speak before a congressional panel about his assertions, made public last week, that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman had covered up Iran’s involvement in the attack.

Nisman had filed a 300-page complaint naming Fernández, Timerman and others of seeking to “erase” Iran’s role in the bombing at the AMIA community center offices in which 85 people were killed. He had said he wanted to question the president and other officials whom he claimed were involved in the cover-up.

Nisman claimed that the president had decided to “not incriminate” former senior Iranian officials for their roles in planning the bombing, and instead has sought a rapprochement with Tehran, “establishing trade relations to mitigate Argentina’s severe energy crisis,” the Buenos Aires Herald reported.

When her agreement with Iran was challenged in the Argentinean courts...the president ordered to divert the investigation, abandoning years of a legitimate demand of justice, and sought to free the Iranians imputed (in the case) from all suspicions, contradicting their proven ties with the attack.
“The president and her foreign minister took the criminal decision to fabricate Iran’s innocence to sate Argentina’s commercial, political and geopolitical interests,” the [the Buenos Aires Herald] quoted Nisman as alleging.
Last May, an Argentine court declared unconstitutional an agreement Between the Argentinian government and Iran to jointly probe the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish center. The agreement had been approved in 2013 by Argentina’s congress, at the request of the executive branch. Nisman consistently argued that the agreement constituted “undue interference of the executive branch in the exclusive sphere of the judiciary.”

Since 2006, Argentine courts have demanded the extradition of eight Iranians, including former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former defense minister Ahmad Vahidi and Mohsen Rabbani, Iran’s former cultural attache in Buenos Aires, over their alleged involvement in the bombing.

Buenos Aires was the site of two major attacks on Jewish sites in the 1990s: A 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy killed 29, while the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center left 85 dead.

Prosecutor Nisman traced the authorization for the July 18, 1994, terrorist attack to a meeting of Iran’s National Security Council held a year before, and compiled sufficiently compelling evidence of Iran’s role in the crime as to have several leading Iranian figures, including Vahidi and former presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai, placed on an Interpol “red notice” list. The final decision to attack the AMIA center was allegedly made by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and then-president Rafsanjani.

The specific motivation for the 1994 AMIA bombing, according to Nisman, was to punish Argentina for suspending its nuclear cooperation with Iran. Once the decision was taken to act against the country, Nisman told The Times of Israel, it was a Jewish target that was decided upon — again, a familiar Iranian strategy. “When they choose to act against a country, the attack is commonly on the Jewish community,” he said. “It’s the first target.”

*JTA and AFP contributed to this report.



Jihad Mugniyeh & 6 Others Killed in Air Strike

From Arutz Sheva, 18 Jan 2014: by Gil Ronen:

Jihad Mughniyeh, son of Imad Mugniyeh, was commander of Hezbollah's Golan forces. He was reportedly helping to prepare rockets for launch against Israel. 

Jihad Mughniyeh in 2008
Jihad Mughniyeh in 2008
Reuters


Hezbollah admitted Sunday that one of its senior men was killed along with five or six other operatives in an [air] strike in Syria. Reports ...said that the man is Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah officer who was also killed by Israel several years ago. Hezbollah reportedly called the death of Mughniyeh "an unbearable blow." He was reportedly very close to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

The men killed in the strike were reportedly assisting terrorists in preparing missiles for launch against Israel. 

Besides Mughniyeh, six other fighters were killed...They included 

  • Hezbollah field commander Mohammad Issa, whose kunya name is Abu Issa...
  • An Iranian field commander, Abu Ali Tabtabai...
...the strike...entirely destroyed one Hezbollah vehicle and damaged another...

"A group of Hezbollah mujahedeen were martyred in a Zionist rocket attack in Quneitra, and their names will be revealed later," said a message flashed on Hezbollah's Al Manar news channel Sunday.

Jihad Mughnieh was 'Commander of Golan'
...An interview given by an official in the Syrian opposition to CNN Arabic in October said that Jihad Mughniyeh has been appointed “commander of the Golan Heights area” by Hezbollah.

Mueid Razlan, a member of the Syrian opposition forces fighting the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, told CNN at the time that Hezbollah is expanding its operations on the border between Syria and Israel and warned of a possible crisis in the region.

Imad Mughniyeh’s death in a car bomb attack in Damascus in February of 2008 has been blamed on Israel, and Hezbollah has promised to avenge his death.

Imad Mughniyeh was on the most wanted list of the US for attacks on Israeli and Western targets until his death.



Supporter holds poster of Imad Mughniyeh 
Reuters

IAF helicopter fired missiles
Al Manar reported Sunday that an IAF helicopter fired two rockets at a target in Mazraat al-Amal near Quneitra.

Al Mayadeen TV said that the missiles were launched by an IAF aircraft, without specifying that it was a helicopter.

Western security sources said that the missiles were fired at a team of terrorists who had begun laying explosive charges on the Syria-Israel border near Quneitra.

According to the report, shortly before the IAF struck, two drones were seen circling above the area, apparently to collect intelligence.

Mazraat al-Amal is located in the Syrian Golan, near the border with Israel, and recent reports said that Jabhat al-Nusra forces were occupying it.

The IDF refused to formally confirm or deny the report of the strike and said that it “does not respond to reports in foreign media.”

Earlier in the day, it was reported that Israeli forces fired smoke grenades and tear gas toward Lebanese territory. Three Lebanese soldiers were taken to a hospital for treatment following that incident...

From another Arutz Sheva report:
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon refused to say anything Sunday evening about the ...strike in the Syrian Golan that killed Jihad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah man whose father, Imad Mughniyeh, was ...assassinated by Israel.

However, Yaalon [responded] to the reports from Hezbollah...said that they contradicted Hezbollah's own official claims, made in recent years, that they do not operate in the Golan.
"If Hezbollah say their people were hurt in the targeted killing, let them explain what they were doing in Syria...”...