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NY Gov. Cuomo threatens to sue over proposed gun rights legislation
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters on Tuesday that he wouldn’t hesitate to file a lawsuit if Congress passes a federal bill that would override New York’s strict gun control law.
“If they try to overrule the state of New York, we will sue because this state has rights, too,” Cuomo said during a stop in upstate New York. “And especially with this federal government, it is very important that states represent their rights and assert their rights and I will assert my rights to the fullest extent of the law.”
The Second Amendment Guarantee Act, introduced to the House by Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) last week, would limit the authority of states and localities to pass legislation in relation to rifles and shotguns. It would not allow states to pass gun laws that are more restrictive than federal laws gun laws already in place, and would nullify any state laws that were previously passed on either subject.
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/08/02/ny-gov-cuomo-threatens-to-sue-over-proposed-gun-rights-legislation/
Richard: If he sues he will lose, The Second Amendment guarantees all US Citizens gun right, the lefts attempt to destroy the Constitution by reinterpreting the Constitution is failing and they are being forced to live under the law.
France: Over 700 refugees living in tent settlement near Metz, eastern France
Another day goes by for over 700 migrants living in Blida refugee camp, close to the city of Metz, Wednesday. Built on a parking lot, the camp opened in March this year to accommodate 300 refugees, however in its few months of operation the number of people has reached 700 with dozens arriving every week.
An open letter to Jack Conte, Founder of Patreon
Transforming the military, one tweet at a time
It took President Trump kicking a hornet’s nest to provide a moment’s distraction from the media’s obsession with all things Russian.
His tweeted reversal of President Obama’s transgender military inclusion mandate didn’t knock the Russians off the front pages or CNN for long. But it refocused the public on Mr. Trump’s signature promise to “make America great again.”
The abruptly issued order actually has little to do with sexual politics. It’s about restoring the singular purpose of the military, which is to wage wars and defend the nation. During the campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to rebuild the military, and that’s what he’s doing.
Anything that distracts from the military’s main mission or makes it harder for our troops to survive in combat is a stealth attack on our men and women in uniform. Mr. Trump made it clear that military readiness overrides all other considerations, including hurt feelings or threats by disappointed interest groups.
http://www.gopusa.com/?p=28035?omhide=true
Russia collusion may ensnare John McCain
With the “Russian scandal” continuing to roil the nation’s capital, Democrats and the media appear almost giddy with the prospect of inflicting permanent injury on the Trump presidency.
What set off the newest round of speculation about the Trump team’s Putin connection was the leak that Donald Trump, Jr., set up a meeting last June with a Russian lawyer after he had been informed that she had information proving Hillary Clinton had engaged in criminal conduct. Jared Kushner, Trump Sr.’s son-in-law, and Paul Manafort, then Trump Sr.’s campaign manager, were also in attendance and, as a result, are now in the cross-hairs of the Justice Department’s special counsel and various congressional committees.
But the Democrats and the media aren’t the only folks in high dudgeon. Charles Krauthammer and Andrew McCarthy, major stars in the conservative firmament, have joined in, accusing the Trump forces of having clearly “colluded” with Russian agents in this supposedly nefarious get-together, a word that the relentlessly anti-Trump Washington Post lovingly highlighted when posting their columns.
In my Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third Edition, the main definition says “collusion” is “a secret agreement for fraudulent or illegal purpose, conspiracy.” Similar definitions pop up in a host of major online dictionaries.
Yet Mr. Krauthammer and Mr. McCarthy admit there’s no evidence, none — at least so far — that any of the three engaged in fraud or illegal activity at the meeting or that the effort to gather opposition research — which was never produced — was a crime. So why then did these highly literate wordsmiths feel compelled to use a toxic term that so pleased President Trump’s enemies and instantly invokes evil or criminal conduct? Mr. McCarthy even vaguely hints that if it can be proved that the Trump campaign “covertly” acted with a foreign government “against U.S. interests” — how vague is that phrase? — impeachment might well be in order.
Based on the available evidence — though we never know what shoe is going to drop next — the meeting seemed neither fraudulent nor illegal nor even immoral.
Consider this: If you were a top adviser to a presidential campaign and someone close to President Putin promised to give you documents that showed the main opponent of your candidate had committed criminal conduct, wouldn’t you feel compelled to seek this information out? Even if that person had an unsavory reputation? Or had ties to an unfriendly foreign government? Wouldn’t you be derelict in your duty to spurn the chance to see the incriminating stuff that, if verified, could turn an election around?
Few condemned Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, for securing extremely damaging information contained in that now famous anti-Trump dossier based largely on Russian sources. Mr. McCain has no reason to like Mr. Trump: not only because of his rancid attack against the senator’s war record, but his multiple pro-Putin statements and Mr. Trump’s controversial belief that he has the moxie to carve out various deals with the Russian dictator.
Though Mr. Trump’s reading of the Russian oligarch may have merit, that’s a conceit many folks across the ideological spectrum find not only dubious but dangerous.
Thus Mr. McCain, fueled by his deep distrust of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, decided to seek out the nature of this material, not caring where it came from and even though current and ex-Russian intelligence officials and the FSB (formerly the KGB), provided some of the document’s most damning contents.
http://www.gopusa.com/russia-collusion-may-ensnare-john-mccain/?omhide=true
Click through to read the rest
BREITBART – Book Ban: Muslim News Site Demands Amazon Withdraws Kassam’s ‘No Go Zones’
A Muslim news website has demanded that online retailer Amazon remove Breitbart London editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam’s forthcoming book ‘No Go Zones: How Sharia Law is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You’ from its virtual bookshelves, branding it “Islamophobic hate”.
[…]Kassam’s book is also not released for another 12 days, and therefore would not have yet been read by Muslim Vibe writers.
more :
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/08/02/cair-linked-muslim-network-demands-amazon-withdraw-kassams-no-go-zones/
Trump vs. MS-13
Leave the poor misunderstood gangsters alone, cries the Left.
August 2, 2017
Matthew Vadum
Understanding the leftist mind is an inexact science but the complaints seem to center around the idea that in the Trump era trying to eliminate an ethno-culturally non-diverse criminal organization is somehow racist, no matter how horrifying and brutal the group’s crimes against innocent Americans may be. The Left habitually sides with antisocial causes, putting partisanship over the interests of the American people. Left-wingers promote so-called sanctuary cities which are magnets for illegal aliens and the crime that accompanies them. They don’t care about the damage such policies do to American society.
Although it may sound like hyperbole to some, leftists hate Donald Trump and everything he stands for, so if Trump comes out against rapists and serial killers, for example, the Left will defiantly take a stand in favor of rapists and serial killers.
Racist left-wing journalist Jamelle Bouie of Slate argues that MS-13 is nothing to be afraid of. It’s all hype. He writes that the president’s speeches on MS-13 and illegal aliens employ words to “make white people afraid.”
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267452/trump-vs-ms-13-matthew-vadum
Jim Acosta Gets Absolutely Destroyed By Trump Advisor Stephen Miller On Immigration
Iran’s Killing Fields
But UNESCO, UNHRC, and SJP would rather hate Israel.
August 2, 2017
Joseph Puder
Wonder why one should consider UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization), UNHRC (UN Human Rights Council), or Student for Justice in Palestine (SJP) anti-Semitic in nature? Consider the fact that these organizations have not demanded the de-legitimization of Iran, a country that violates the very essence of what we call human rights and religious freedom. Instead, these organizations have repeatedly selected the one democracy in the Middle East for boycotts, sanctions, condemnations and historical revisionism – Israel. Moreover, Israel, unlike Iran or its Arab neighbors, is a thriving democracy, where diversity is celebrated, human rights, religious freedom and the rule-of-law are respected, protected, and rigidly observed.
In a video presentation made for the Gatestone Institute, Denis MacEoin, a British analyst and writer who holds a PhD from Kings College at Cambridge University, pointed out that immediately following the 1979 Iranian revolution, “The clerical masters of Iran embarked on a campaign to demolish every single holy site and cemetery belonging to the Baha’i faith, the largest religious minority in Iran. The men in turbans love nothing more than to exterminate the Baha’is, hanging not only their leaders, but even a 15-year old girl for the ‘heinous crime’ of teaching Sunday school morality lessons to children. Hundreds of Baha’is are serving long prison sentences, and they are goaded by their jailers that if they would only recant their faith, they would be made free again. Young Baha’is are forbidden from attending any institution of higher learning, even those with outstanding academic grades. When Baha’is set up their own online university, the teachers were arrested.”
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267418/irans-killing-fields-joseph-puder
Kill the Alligators, Then Drain the Swamp
Deeds, not words, are the best defense.
August 2, 2017
Bruce Thornton
Donald Trump campaigned on the promise to “drain the swamp” ––the D.C. establishment made up of most Congressmen from both parties, employees of executive agencies and bureaus, the political appointees who head up those agencies, and the hordes of lobbyists, fundraisers, Congressional staffers, “consultants,” “journalists,” and pundits. These are the “Beltway insiders” or the “political establishment” whose natural habitat is the swamp. These are the alligators Trump needs to get rid of.
Of course, many of these D.C. denizens of the establishment are permanent dwellers in the swamp, beyond the reach of the president or even Congress. Besides, monitoring Congressmen should be the business of their constituents, who should hold them accountable. But too often voters like the pork their alligators bring back to their states or districts. As for pundits, consultants, lobbyists, fundraisers, and journos, they are employees of private businesses, with the right of political free speech and association. Keeping them in line is the responsibility of citizens trading in the market-place of ideas, and imposing ballot-box accountability to punish the office-holders corrupted by these parasites.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267434/kill-alligators-then-drain-swamp-bruce-thornton
Douglas Murray: Have We Had Enough Diversity?
Independent Man
LSU Conference Forces Engineers to Take ‘Microaggression’ Workshop
“At one point they had us write a microaggression that we gave or someone gave us.”
August 2, 2017
Mark Tapson n
Louisiana State University hosted its second annual Consortium for Innovation in Manufacturing and Materials (CIMM) RII Symposium last week, and some engineering students were confused by the addition of an hour-long workshop on microaggressions, according to Campus Reform.
A befuddled graduate student who went by the user name “CuseTiger” at TigerDroppings, a forum for LSU fans, posed the question, “Who all has had implicit bias, sterotypes, microinsults, microaggressions, and [T]itle IX training? Cause I’m at an engineering symposium in lod cook today and have been dealing with snowflakes and trigger warnings all morning. They scheduled an hour for us to learn about all this.”
CuseTiger added a screenshot of the Symposium’s agenda, which included the “workshop/panel discussion” on “implicit bias, stereotypes, microinsults, microaggressions, [and] Title IX” just before the conference broke for lunch.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267454/lsu-conference-forces-engineers-take-mark-tapson
How will they cope with microaggressions in bootcamp?
One thing about war: it concentrates the mind, that’s for damn sure!
If they return to the Army I was in they will either learn to handle them or go crazy. One of the reasons the PTSD rate is so high now is the recruits are no longer stressed in training and don’t learn how to handle stress. Go back to that because it is better that they break in training then in combat.
An NSC Staffer Is Forced Out Over a Controversial Memo
The document charges that globalists, Islamists, and other forces within and outside the government are subverting President Trump’s agenda.
A top official of the National Security Council was fired last month after arguing in a memo that President Trump is under sustained attack from subversive forces both within and outside the government who are deploying Maoist tactics to defeat President Trump’s nationalist agenda.
His dismissal marks the latest victory by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in the ongoing war within Trump’s White House between those who believe that the president is under threat from dark forces plotting to undermine him, and those like McMaster who dismiss this as conspiratorial thinking.
Rich Higgins, a former Pentagon official who served in the NSC’s strategic-planning office as a director for strategic planning, was let go on July 21. Higgins’s memo describes supposed domestic and international threats to Trump’s presidency, including globalists, bankers, the “deep state,” and Islamists. The memo characterizes the Russia story as a plot to sabotage Trump’s nationalist agenda. It asserts that globalists and Islamists are seeking to destroy America. The memo also includes a set of recommendations, arguing that the problem constitutes a national-security priority.
“Globalists and Islamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be destroyed,” the memo warns. It argues that this has led “Islamists [to] ally with cultural Marxists,” but that in the long run, “Islamists will co-opt the movement in its entirety.”
Higgins wrote the memo in late May, and at some point afterwards it began circulating among people outside the White House associated with the Trump campaign to whom Higgins had given it.
Higgins, according to another source with direct knowledge of the incident, was called into the White House Counsel’s office the week before last and asked about the memo. On July 21, the Friday of that week, he was informed by McMaster’s deputy Ricky Waddell that he was losing his job.
NSC spokesman Michael Anton declined to comment on Higgins’s firing, saying that the White House does not comment on internal personnel matters.
“In Maoist insurgencies, the formation of a counter-state is essential to seizing state power,” the memo reads. “Functioning as a hostile complete state acting within an existing state, it has an alternate infrastructure. Political warfare operates as one of the activities of the ‘counter-state.’” I was able to review large portions of the memo, and to secure extracts for publication.
“Because the left is aligned with Islamist organizations at local, national, and international levels, recognition should be given to the fact that they seamlessly interoperate through coordinated synchronized interactive narratives … These attack narratives are pervasive, full spectrum, and institutionalized at all levels. They operate in social media, television, the 24-hour news cycle in all media and are entrenched at the upper levels of the bureaucracies.”
Sources offered conflicting accounts of how the memo came to McMaster’s attention. Several sources with knowledge of the events said they believed the memo made its way to Trump’s desk, a version that others disputed.
Higgins’s bosses at the NSC were not pleased with the memo, sources say, the creation of which was not part of Higgins’s job. Higgins, seen as an ally of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, had only served on the council for a couple months.
Higgins had also “pushed for declassification of documents having to do with radical Islam and Iran,” according to a source close to the White House. A source close to Higgins said that specifically, Higgins had been pushing for the declassification of Presidential Study Directive 11, a classified report produced in 2010 by the Obama administration which presaged the Arab Spring, outlining unrest throughout the Middle East. The directive has become a shibboleth of activists such as Frank Gaffney, who see it as evidence of the Obama administration’s links to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.
Higgins’s past writings focus on similar themes. “National Security officials are prohibited from developing a factual understanding of Islamic threat doctrines, preferring instead to depend upon 5th column Muslim Brotherhood cultural advisors,” he wrote in September. Higgins gave an interview to the Daily Caller News Foundation last year that outlines many of the same ideas laid out in the memo.
Since Higgins’s removal, there have been further changes inside the council. McMaster fired Derek Harvey, the senior director for the Middle East, last week. Also a Bannon ally, Harvey had a difficult relationship with his staff. Though Harvey sent a note over the weekend to contacts and friends sharing his personal contact information and previously confirmed his departure from the council in a statement, he may get another job within the administration. Higgins appears to have been afforded less of a soft landing.
In recent months, the conservative media have increasingly focused on the idea that a “deep state” or “holdovers” from the past administration are working against Trump from inside the government. Earlier this year, Harvey was reported to have produced a list of such holdovers on the NSC whom McMaster declined to fire, though an administration official familiar with the matter told me Harvey had not compiled the list.
McMaster has pushed back on such efforts, reportedly telling an NSC town hall meeting that “there’s no such thing as a holdover” and emphasizing career staff’s loyalty.
McMaster has also sparred with Bannon, who was removed from the NSC principals’ committee at McMaster’s behest shortly after McMaster became national security adviser following the ouster of Michael Flynn after just 24 days on the job. McMaster’s relationship with Trump himself has likewise been difficult.
McMaster has faced setbacks on policy, with a recent NSC plan for Afghanistan being initially rejected by the President. He has been the frequent subject of speculation about whether his job is safe, fueled by unflattering leaks, such as a recent AP story that detailed his having disagreed with Trump on Russia in conversations with foreign officials. Earlier this year, his attempt to fire Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the NSC’s top intelligence official, was blocked by Bannon, Jared Kushner, and Trump.
But more recently, he appears to have wrested back control of personnel decisions. In addition to Harvey and Higgins, former Breitbart writer Tera Dahl recently left the NSC. The moves suggest an ongoing struggle within the Trump White House over the nature of the threats facing the United States, and how to address them.
Read the excerpt from the memo:
Through the campaign, candidate Trump tapped into a deep vein of concern among many citizens that America is at risk and slipping away. Globalists and Islamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be destroyed. … Islamists ally with cultural Marxists because, as far back as the 1980s, they properly assessed that the left has a strong chance of reducing Western civilization to its benefit. Having co-opted post-modern narratives as critical points, Islamists will co-opt the movement in its entirety at some future point. (NOTE! Communist take over of Russian revolution against the Czars, N Vietnamese against the South, Maoists against the democratic forces against the Chinese dynasty.)
POLITICAL WARFARE ATTACKS—a primer
As used here, “political warfare’ does not concern activities associated with the American political process but rather exclusively refers to political warfare as understood by the Maoist insurgency model. Political warfare is one of the five components of a Maoist insurgency. Maoist methodologies are described as synchronized violent and non-violent actions. This approach envisions the direct use of non-violent operations arts and tactics as elements of combat power In Maoist insurgencies, the formation of a counter-state is essential to seizing state power. Functioning as a hostile compete state acting within an existing state, it has an alternate infrastructure. Political warfare operates as one of the activities of the “counter-state.” Political warfare uses non-violent methods such as participation that undermines the morale or offers to engage in discussions, as a adjunct to violence. Political warfare methods can be implemented at strategic, operations, or tactical levels of operation.
Political warfare is warfare. Strategic information campaigns designed to delegitimize through disinformation arise out of non-violent lines of effort in political warfare regimes. They run on multiple lines of operation, support the larger non-violent line of effort, are coordinated with violent lines of effort, and execute political warfare agenda promoting cultural Marxist outcomes. They principally operate through narratives. Because the left is aligned with Islamist organizations at local, national and international levels, recognition should be given to the fact that they seamlessly interoperate through coordinated synchronized interactive narratives … These attacks narratives are pervasive, full spectrum and institutionalized at all levels. They operate in social media, television, the 24-hour news cycle in all media and are entrenched at the upper levels of the bureaucracies …
Political Warfare has been described as “propaganda in battledress.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/a-national-security-council-staffer-is-forced-out-over-a-controversial-memo/535725/
Trump loyalist Ezra Cohen-Watnick fired from NSC, sources say
MCMASTER’S PURGE OF CONSERVATIVES CONTINUES.
Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council, has been dismissed from the White House, two senior administration officials who are not authorized to discuss personnel matters told Conservative Review on Wednesday.
Cohen-Watnick, 31, was originally brought on board by former NSC chief Gen. Michael Flynn.
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has, in the past, attempted to rid the council of Cohen-Watnick, but was overruled by President Trump, Steve Bannon, and Jared Kushner.
He has been described as an “Iran hawk” who wanted to revamp counter-Iran efforts in the Middle East, and sought to reform the intelligence community to rein in the “deep state” of unaccountable bureaucrats with rogue agendas.
Cohen-Watnick is the latest Trump loyalist to be fired by Gen. McMaster, whose security council continues to be overwhelmingly staffed with Obama holdovers (almost all of whom have retained their positions).
In the past, McMaster has refused to fire the Obama holdovers. Now-fired Middle East NSC director Derek Harvey compiled a list of Obama holdovers and took that list directly to the president, who requested that McMaster follow through with Harvey’s recommendations. McMaster outright refused.
Under McMaster, the National Security Council has leaked classified information at an unprecedented rate, leading Congress to issue a report warning about its ramifications.
Additionally, top Obama officials continue to come and go in and out of the White House compound as they please. One prominent official, Robert Malley (Obama’s “ISIS czar”), has continued to brief National Security Council staff.
Update:
The White House confirmed in a statement that Cohen-Watnick has left the NSC:
General McMaster appreciates the good work accomplished in the NSC’s Intelligence directorate under Ezra Cohen’s leadership. He has determined that, at this time, a different set of experiences is best-suited to carrying that work forward. General McMaster is confident that Ezra will make many further significant contributions to national security in another position in the administration.
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/trump-loyalist-ezra-cohen-watnick-fired-from-nsc-sources-say#undefined.uxfs
McMaster is HORRIBLE !!
But I’m repeating myself…
I don’t think the swamp dwellers understand what is going to hap[pen if they manage to Block the President and destroy his agenda.
His own appointments are out to destroy his agenda!
McMaster is fighting the Swamp fighters!
Policies and people from the 0 era.
They’re not on our side!
Not many people in DC are.
Deadly False Narratives Drove the Temple Mount Crisis
The crisis between Israel and the Palestinians that raged in recent weeks over the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa holy site in Jerusalem has died down, but the affair provides important clues about the rising ability of fundamentalist Islamists to seize control of the narrative.
Radical rhetoric espoused by those who sought to inflame religious conflict dominated the Temple Mount crisis.
“Israel wants more than ever before to implement its plan for complete control over al-Aksa Mosque,” Hamas politburo chief Ismael Haniyeh said, even after Israel moved to defuse the situation. Days earlier, Hamas had called for a “religious war” against Israel.
Islamists in Gaza, Jordan, east Jerusalem, and within the Israeli Arab community, had the upper hand in their ability to push their interpretation of events. They claim Israel wants to take over the holy site and destroy the mosque to make way for a third Temple. This baseless narrative sweeps away the terrorist attack that caused the crisis and presented three Palestinians killed in subsequent clashes with Israeli security forces in Jerusalem as martyrs who died defending Islam.
Not to be outdone by their Islamist rivals, Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders peddled the same falsehoods. Religious Affairs Minister Sheikh Yusuf Idai’is told the official PA television channel that Israel “has plans to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and establish the alleged Temple in its place.”
Those seeking religious strife were able to mobilize masses onto the streets, with the help of self-organizing demonstrators and rioters who were infected with the Islamist fervor, and spread it themselves on social media.
Together, these elements forced pragmatic Arab leaders – who do not subscribe to Islamist ideology – to adopt the Islamist narrative, and to deal with Israel as if it was guilty of the Islamic hard-liners’ fabricated accusations.
A recap: The crisis erupted when a terrorist jihadist cell, made up of three Arab-Israeli gunmen, used firearms smuggled into the Al-Aqsa Mosque – Islam’s third holiest site – to shoot dead two Israeli police officers. Security forces then returned fire, killing the gunmen.
Until the attack, Israel had been relying on intelligence alerts, rather than physical security measures, to defend the site. But the shootings led the Israel Police to ask the Israeli government to beef up security, and install metal detectors.
The government agreed, despite the misgivings of the Israeli defense establishment, which was concerned that the move would fuel the propaganda of fundamentalist forces, leading to unrest and instability.
The defense establishment’s concerns came true. Rioting erupted in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Mass demonstrations were held in Israel’s eastern neighbor, Jordan, and included members of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood.
A Palestinian knife attacker, pledging to “die for Al-Aqsa” on his Facebook page, massacred three members of an Israeli family in their home in the West Bank.
All of these events were driven by incitement to religious violence. The unrest was sparked by the false accusation that Israel was seeking to change the status quo at Al-Aqsa, and that the site needed defending from Israelis schemes. It is a conspiracy theory that has been peddled by Palestinian hardliners for decades, dating back to the days of Hajj Amin Al Husseini in the 1920s and 30s.
Hamas in Gaza and Palestinian Islamic Jihad praised the Temple Mount shooters as “heroic,” and called for more attacks. They issued a rallying call to defend Al-Aqsa. A Salafist-jihadist group in Gaza fired two rockets at southern Israel.
Israel responded with tank fire at a Hamas military post.
Turkey, ruled by a pro-Hamas variant of the Muslim Brotherhood, exploited the tensions to urge all Muslims to “protect Jerusalem,” and called on Israel to end the crisis. Israel’s Foreign Ministry called it “absurd that the Turkish government, which occupies northern Cyprus, brutally represses the Kurdish minority and jails journalists, lectures Israel, the only true democracy in the region. The days of the Ottoman Empire have passed.”
Iran helped fuel the unrest, Israel Hayom reported, by sending protesters “tens of thousands of … prepackaged meals along with notes in each one citing a famous quote attributed to 1979 Iranian Revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: ‘With the help of Allah, Palestine will be liberated! Jerusalem is ours.’ The note also depicted the Dome of the Rock and the Palestinian flag.”
Additionally, a senior Iranian official reportedly met with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad representatives in Iran, offering them assistance for Palestinians injured in clashes. The IRGC released a statement, condemning “the Zionist regime’s aggressive and criminal actions against Al-Aqsa mosque.”
In Israel, Sheikh Raed Saleh, the former leader of the now banned Islamic Movement – a sister organization to Hamas – led a funeral procession for the three Arab Israeli terrorists. Thousands of mourners marched belligerently by the coffins of the terrorists, shouting, “By fire and with blood we will redeem you, Al-Aqsa,” and, “You are the martyrs of Al-Aqsa.”
Palestinian social media buzzed with calls to defend Al-Aqsa. The Islamist narrative had won the day.
Israel tried to challenge this mythology by directly addressing Palestinians. “So that the truth is clear, when did the Temple Mount incidents erupt?” IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai asked in Arabic on Al Jazeera. “A week ago. After a terror attack was committed by three Muslims, who entered the Temple Mount with weapons and opened fire. Israel does not want to change the status quo. This is a clear message to the world from the Muslim world.”
His message appeared to largely fall on deaf ears. With the fundamentalist rhetoric leading the way, even pragmatic Arab leaders, some of whom rely on cooperation with Israel for the very stability of their rule, felt the need to play according to the radical playbook, in order to avoid being tagged as Israel’s ‘abettors.’
The most obvious example was Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas. Without Israel’s steps to quell Hamas in the West Bank, Abbas’s Palestinian Authority would have faced multiple armed attempts by Islamists to depose him .
During the Temple Mount unrest, Abbas cut security coordination between his forces and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“Jerusalem is ours. It is our capital and our sovereignty. As long as the situation in occupied Jerusalem does not return to what it was before July 14 [when Israel installed metal detectors], there will be no changes [in our position],” Abbas said, according to a Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translation.
Promoting the lie that the Al-Aqsa Mosque required protection from Israel, Abbas told east Jerusalem Palestinians, “What you did was defend your honor, your religion and your holy sites. It was the true answer to those who wish to harm our holy sites and the principles of our faith. We supported you in what you did and are [still] doing. We decided to suspend the security coordination; [that decision] still holds. We [decided to] defend the holy sites; that still holds as well.”
The Fatah movement, which runs the Palestinian Authority, added fuel to the fire. With the full knowledge that it was risking new clashes, Fatah’s Central Committee called for mass protests.
Egypt and Jordan, both of whom are busy combating Islamist threats at home, called on Israel to remove the metal detectors.
The situation in Jordan became even more complicated when an Israeli embassy guard was stabbed by a local youth. The guard opened fire to defend himself, killing the attacker and accidentally shooting dead a second Jordanian citizen who was nearby.
Jordan’s King Abdullah refused to allow the Israeli guard to leave Amman, reversing his decision only after Israel said it would remove the metal detectors.
King Abdullah, one of the Arab worlds’ most moderate leaders, whose Kingdom shares many common interests with Israel, still felt the need to issue a statement vowing to prevent the “Judaization” of holy sites in Jerusalem.
Jordan controls the Jerusalem Islamic trust in charge of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, called the Waqf. Behind the scenes, Jordan helped end the Temple Mount crisis, which threatened to destabilize it.
The Waqf told Islamic worshipers that they could re-enter the Temple Mount after Israel had removed the metal detectors.
Even after the crisis reached a resolution, the Palestinian Authority remained highly wary of being labeled as a collaborator with Israel.
An aide to Abbas said security coordination with Israel would only be resumed “gradually,” to avoid giving the impression that the Palestinian Authority is too enthusiastic about working with the Israeli military in the West Bank.
The crisis provides a clear indication of the influence that Islamist propaganda has on the area. Even Arab leaders who are directly threatened by radical forces feel they must march according to their drumbeat, or risk their very legitimacy.
Israel’s decision to dismantle the metal detectors was designed to prevent the Islamist pyromaniacs from using the Al-Aqsa crisis to set the region on fire.
The fact that the Islamists came so close to succeeding, however, is the latest indication of who is in charge of the popular narrative in the region.
https://www.investigativeproject.org/6433/deadly-false-narratives-drove-the-temple-mount
Palestinian UN ambassador justifies slaughter of Israeli family, July 24, 2017
Europe’s Cities Absorb Sharia Law
by Giulio Meotti
August 2, 2017 at 5:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10754/europe-sharia-law
Within days after the Islamic State conquered the city of Sirte in Libya two years ago, enormous billboards appeared in the Islamist stronghold warning women they must wear baggy robes that cover their entire bodies, and no perfume. These “sharia stipulations for hijab” included wearing dense material and a robe that does not “resemble the attire of unbelievers”.
Two years later, Europe’s three most important cities — London, Paris and Berlin — are adopting the same sharia trend.
Paris has said au revoir to “sexist” ads on public billboards. The Paris city council announced its ban after the Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the move meant that Paris was “leading the way” in the fight against sexism. London Mayor Sadiq Khan also banned advertisements that promote “unrealistic expectations of women’s body image and health”. Now Berlin is planning to ban images in which women are portrayed as “beautiful but weak, hysterical, dumb, crazy, naive, or ruled by their emotions”. Der Tagesspiegel’s Harald Martenstein said the policy “could have been adopted from the Taliban manifesto”.
The irony is that this wave of morality and “virtue” is coming from cities governed by uninhibited leftist politicians, who for years campaigned for sexual liberation.
The State Department’s Report on Terrorism Should Be Discredited
by A. Z. Mohamed
August 2, 2017 at 4:30 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10762/state-department-terrorism-report
A newly-released report on terrorism by the US State Department so completely distorts the situation in Israel and the Palestinian Authority — the areas it refers to as “the West Bank and Gaza, and Jerusalem” — that one can assume the rest of its findings are equally inaccurate.
To set the stage for its unfounded and biased claim that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been engaged in a serious effort to combat terrorism, the report equates “extremist” Palestinians, who “continued to conduct acts of violence and terrorism in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” with “[e]xtremist Israelis, including settlers, [who] continued to conduct acts of violence as well as ‘price tag’ attacks (property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups in retaliation for activity they deemed anti-settlement) in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”
At the top of the list of supposed “continued drivers of violence” in the Palestinian Authority is an assertion even more fabricated:
No.
The people who wrote it and the cabinet member who signed off on it should be burned at the stake.
Turkey: Erdogan’s New Morality Police
by Burak Bekdil
August 2, 2017 at 4:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10735/turkey-morality-police
Their number is just 17,000 in a population of 80 million (0.02%). They are full Turkish citizens. Most come from families living for centuries in what today is modern Turkey. They pay their taxes to the Turkish government. Their sons are conscripts in the Turkish army. Their mother tongue is Turkish. When someone asks them where they are from they say they are Turkish — because they are Turkish. Nevertheless, the Turks think of them as “Israelis” — not because they are not Turkish, but because they are Turkish Jews.
The members of Alperen Hearths — a bizarre name for a youth group — are also Turkish. They speak the same language as Turkish Jews and they carry the same passport that proudly sports the Crescent and Star. The members of this group, however, think that they are Turks but that Turkish Jews are not.
The Alperen group fuses pan-Turkic racism with Islamism, neo-Ottomanism, anti-Western and anti-Semitic ideas. It promotes an alliance spanning Central Asia to the Middle East based on “common historic [read: Turkish] values”.
Canadian govt dilemma on Saudi arms deal – ‘awful lot of money vs. risk of rights violations’ (RT, Aug 2, 2017)
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/398368-saudi-weapons-deal-canada/
“If there is reasonable risk arms sold by Canada could be used in humans rights abuses, it shouldn’t proceed with the deal, says Thomas Woodley, President of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME).
Ottawa is investigating allegations Saudi Arabia used armored vehicles made in Canada against civilians in the Shia dominated town of Awamiya.
The suspected incident has sparked fresh calls from human rights activists for Canada to review its $15 billion arms deal with the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia was ranked among the top destinations for Canadian arms exports in 2016; the military purchases were worth Can$142 million…”
Did Huma send classified info over email?
State Dept. documents reveal exchanges of classified info over insecure email and alleged examples of Clinton Foundation donors receiving special treatment from Hillary Clintons staff. Judicial Watch Pres. Tom Fitton gives the inside story
BAE posts $733m profit weeks after Saudi arms sales review (middleeasteye, Aug 2, 2017)
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/bae-records-rise-amid-opposition-to-arms-sales-409065882
“Britain’s largest defence firm has made $733m in six months, and expects further growth, in results posted weeks after surviving a High Court challenge to its multi-billion-dollar arms deals with Saudi Arabia.
BAE Systems lauded the sale of Typhoon jets to Oman and noted its court victory over anti-arms trade campaigners in the results, saying net profits soared 36 percent to £555m ($733m) in the six months to the end of June, compared with £408m a year earlier.
It said profits were boosted by UK government defence spending and a weak pound following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Sales forged almost 10 percent higher to stand at £9.565bn…”
NGO ship Iuventa confiscated – judge’s order (ansa, Aug 2, 2017)
http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2017/08/02/ngo-ship-iuventa-confiscated-judges-order-2_a060bd16-4d5c-41c3-b3bf-04d5bdc4881a.html
“Italian police and Coast Guard authorities on Wednesday executed an order by a Trapani judge for the preventative seizure of the Iuventa, a ship flying the Dutch flag operating for the German NGO Jugend Rettet, sources said.
The order is related to a probe into alleged aiding of illegal immigration. Jugend Rettet is one of several NGOs conducting migrant rescues in the Mediterranean that refused to sign a new code of conduct at the Italian interior ministry this week.
The European Commission has said that NGOs that do not sign the code will not be guaranteed of access to Italian ports.
Earlier on Tuesday, Jugend Rettet said via Twitter that the vessel “has not been confiscated” after it was stopped and checked at the Italian island of Lampedusa.”
France: First deradicalisation centre closes less than one year after opening