COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Game of Thrones - Iraqi Style

George Galloway about Iraq in 2003:



George Galloway’s speech about Iraq to British Parliament, January 2007 :


Iraqis raise questions over armys collapse as jihadi advance slows

Several theories spread about why a force touted as the best trained and armed in the Arab world folded in contested region

Martin Chulov in Baghdad and Fazel Hawramy in Irbil 
The Guardian, Tuesday 17 June 2014 14.53 EDT
Last Wednesday, a day after Islamist fighters surged south towards Baghdad, an Iraqi officer in the town of Jalula heard tyres crunch on the gravel near his window and stepped outside to investigate.
A convoy of Kurdish military vehicles disgorged dozens of troops, known as peshmerga, who told him they had come to take over his base, 80 miles north-east of the Iraqi capital, and seize its weapons. The Kurds were a long way from home, having driven 220 miles south from Irbil, deep into a region that for decades has been fiercely contested by the Kurdish north and the rest of Arab Iraq.
The officer checked the Kurds' request with his superiors, who told him to comply. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing," he said. "The division commanders told us to leave."
Similar scenes were repeated at bases and outposts across the disputed areas of the north and in the K1 base west of Kirkuk, which was also in the midst of a historic changing of the guard. The extraordinary events were the final curtain for Iraq's army – a force that has spent billions on equipment and training and was touted as the best trained and armed military force in the Arab world.
In just three days, the army had simply folded as first the jihadist insurgents and then the Kurds rode into town. Its soldiers returned to their homes and its weapons were carted away, either by the peshmerga or the jihadists, depending on who got there first.
The army's collapse signalled a sudden and dramatic shift in the balance of power between Kurds, Sunnis and Shia. The significance of that shift has been obscured by a week of bloodshed and uncertainty. But as the jihadi advance has slowed, questions are being asked across Baghdad about how a region so central to the bitter feud between Iraq's Kurds and Arabs was so easily surrendered.
One scenario, given widespread credence, is that the three Iraqi generals responsible for Mosul, Tikrit, and Kirkuk simply didn't want to fight for a state that wasn't working. Another is that the Iraqi troops quickly realised they were no match for battle-hardened and ideologically motivated jihadis heading their way.
A third theory is that giving the Kurds the crown jewel of Kirkuk – capital of a region with huge oil reserves – would be the first step in a set of carefully choreographed moves to reframe relations between Baghdad and the Kurds and drag the dysfunctional country from a state of permanent chaos. Central to this theory is the reality that the Kurds had long ago lost faith in prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's ability to serve either their interests or those of Iraq.
Few of Iraq's Shia majority had much enthusiasm for the embattled leader, whose coalition won more seats than any other group in general elections seven weeks ago but nowhere near enough to secure a mandate. The result was sure to be many months of political stagnation.
Iran, weighed down in Syria and also disenchanted with Maliki, would not have cherished the prospect of its regional interests being threatened further by more political drift in Baghdad.
Maliki seems to have next to no chance of forming a government. Diplomatic sources have confirmed to the Guardian in recent days that Washington has also lost faith in its former ally. Iran is yet to declare its hand, but has told Iraqi politicians that it has a list of four acceptable candidates to form a government: Maliki; the former prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari; Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior political figure; or the former US ally and deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi.
Of the four, Chalabi has the support of many Kurdish leaders and has strong links to Iran. His links to Washington were severed more than a decade ago, after he helped persuade the Pentagon to invade Iraq. His return to political centre stage would be a remarkable twist in the contentious history of the former favourite of George W Bush.
"Maliki had no idea this was going to happen," said an Iraqi politician. "He was blindsided. But others weren't."
Officers with Kurdish and Iraqi units say they are still trying to fathom what took place in the north – why the army was told to stand down, and who ultimately called the shots. A Kurdish secret police officer in Kirkuk said Iraqi officers started to flee the day before the city fell. By then, Islamic insurgents had taken Kirkuk and Mosul and were on the move east. "We saw many Iraqi officers from Kirkuk mainly Arabs leaving the K1 base [the largest in northern Iraq]," he said. "We asked them why they were leaving when they were on alert. They all said they had orders from their superiors. The officers were leaving from afternoon until midnight.
"The following day … when we asked them why they were leaving they said their officers had left the base and switched off their telephones."
Shakhawan, a peshmerga fighter, said: "The night before [10 June] two Iraqi army outposts abandoned their positions in Kirkuk and we immediately moved in. A few days ago, my cousin who is also in the peshmerga saw an Iraqi army officer who came back to K1 because he had left some official documents.
"The officer was so overwhelmed when he saw the state of the base that he started crying. He said they had orders from their superiors to abandon the base."
Three other Iraqi soldiers told similar stories. All had asked for answers from their superiors, but said they were starting to believe that the questions would be better answered by politicians in Baghdad, the Kurdish north - or Tehran.
"This will all be sorted out sooner than most people think," a senior Iraqi official said. And clarity will emerge from the mist of last week."

George Galloway Vs Israeli General:

33 comments:

  1. Prescient:

    Knowing in advance: having or showing knowledge of actions or events before they take place

    ReplyDelete
  2. Prior to 2003 there were no al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But there were PLENTY of Sunni funded Palestinian and other arab terrorists

      what is the difference?

      Delete
  3. The author (s) asks: “Did the 2003 invasion of Iraq lead to the political and military crisis it faces today?”

    The answer is yes. The question needs to be broadened to find out who was responsible.



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  4. The pundits ask, “Will ISIS plan a 9/11-style terror plot against the U.S.?”

    Of course they will. Human beings always call for revenge when they see or experience an injustice done to them. Nothing will change that, other than to restrain from committing injustices.

    Who is paying for all of this? The answer is all of us. It has to stop because in one way or another it will stop.

    We let the genie out of the bottle. All the OOrahs in the world will not put it back.

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    Replies
    1. Better question.

      When did moslems of either shia or sunni not plot against the USA?

      Answer NEVER

      Delete
  5. WASHINGTON (AP) — People who signed up for coverage under President Barack Obama’s health care law are paying about $80 a month in premiums on average, the administration reported Wednesday.

    The new numbers from the Health and Human Services Department cover only the 36 states where the federal government took the lead in setting up new insurance markets, accounting for about 5.4 million of the 8 million people who signed up nationally.

    Major states like California and New York were not included, but that may not affect national averages by much. The law limits what people pay for a benchmark plan to a fixed share of their income, regardless of where they live.

    Among the major findings:

    — Taxpayers are subsidizing 76 percent of the average monthly premium in the 36 federally administered markets.

    — The average premium is $346 a month, but the typical enrollee pays just $82. Tax credits averaging $264 a month cover the difference. The government pays the subsidy directly to insurers.

    — After tax credits, Mississippians paid the least for coverage — averaging just $23 a month on average premiums of $438. Among people in the 36 states, New Jersey residents paid the most — an average of $148 on premiums averaging $465 a month.

    — For this year, the average consumer could pick from five insurance companies and 47 different plans, although choice was more limited in a small number of states. From a range of platinum, gold, silver and bronze plans, most people picked silver.

    — There was a link between greater competition and lower premiums. For each additional insurer in a local market, premiums for the benchmark silver plan declined by 4 percent.

    — Premiums varied widely between states, ranging from an average of $536 in Wyoming to $243 in Utah.

    Federal officials say they don't yet have complete data on the 14 states running their own markets.

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  6. It makes sense that the people that need the coverage the most will be the most enthusiastic about enrollment.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The economic question is, who bears the deficit of the tax burden? In many ways, this is a tax burden imposed on society by business and corporate interests as low-wage workers will receive a greater subsidy for insurance coverage that used to be placed on employers.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Increased healthcare costs result in more jobs being created in the domestic healthcare industry. It is also an incentive for employers to expand their workforces as the marginal cost of adding an employee comes with a subsidy on healthcare benefits.

    There is an obvious national support for public healthcare, an example being free or subsidized VA healthcare for all veterans, which include an overwhelming majority that did not see combat and the majority of combat veterans did not have any injury or service connected need of benefits. There is a subsidy program for VA benefits based on income similar to Obamacare:

    WASHINGTON –The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is eliminating the annual requirement for most Veterans enrolled in VA's health care system to report income information beginning in March 2014. Instead, VA will automatically match income information obtained from the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration.
    "Eliminating the requirement for annual income reporting makes our health care benefits easier for Veterans to obtain," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. "This change will reduce the burden on Veterans, improve customer service and make it much easier for Veterans to keep their health care eligibility up-to-date."
    Some Veterans applying for enrollment for the first time are still required to submit income information. There is no change in VA’s long-standing policy to provide no-cost care to indigent Veterans, Veterans with catastrophic medical conditions, Veterans with a disability rating of 50 percent or higher, or for conditions that are officially rated as “service-connected.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. According to Forbes:
      Obamacare was once called “The Job-Killing Health Care Law.” But the latest jobs report suggests that the broader economy—and the health care sector, specifically—is adding jobs at a healthy rate.

      Since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March 2010, the health care industry has gained nearly 1 million jobs—982,300, to be more precise—according to Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates released on Friday.
      Meanwhile, the rest of the economy has added 7.7 million jobs since March 2010, and for the first time, more people are working since the recession began five years ago.
      Private-sector jobs also grew for the 51st straight month, Justin Wolfers observes at The Upshot, which ties the longest consecutive streak on record and overlaps with the passage of Obamacare 50 months ago. But that streak is piddling compared to health care, which just reported its 131st straight month of job gains.
      Booming growth in the heath care industry shouldn’t come as a surprise. The health care sector was gaining about 25,000 jobs per month in the years before the Affordable Care Act, and the law’s infusion of newly insured patients will help bolster providers’ bottom lines.


      Delete
  9. Hillary checks in on Iraq:
    “The Iraqi people need to think seriously about the kind of leader they need to try to unite Iraqis against what is a terrible, imminent threat,” Clinton said.

    Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step aside from his country as it gallops furiously toward civil war.

    In recent days, Sunni extremist fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria moved within 50 miles of Baghdad, an alarming escalation that, the former Secretary of State told Fox News on Tuesday, the Iraqi politician had only exacerbated. Clinton said al-Maliki showed weak leadership by exhibiting a preference for Iraqi Shi’ites and purging senior military leaders of the rival religious sect group.


    Hillary also covered her Aipac monitors:

    Clinton added that she is “not in favor of any formal relationships or agreements with Iran at this time.”

    “ the terrible imminent threat” against the Iraqi people is neither so terrible or imminent enough that the Iraqi people would be helped by Iranian assistance. What a fraud.

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  10. The Ukrainians are referring to Putin as Putler.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The Israelis are defending the right to hitchhike and have arrested and detained 150 Palestinians in their search for the missing teens.

    900,000 people go missing each year in the US. I cannot find statistics on how many Mexicans we pick up each time someone goes missing. Anyone have any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How about this for an idea.....pick them all up and send them back to Mexico where they belong.

      Or send the Mexicans, and other illegals from Central America, to Philly, and the Cherokee Reservations.

      Delete
  12. Iraqi Christians flee ISIS-controlled territory

    Robert Spencer Jun 17, 2014 at 2:46pm Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Muslim persecution of Christians 11 Comments
    Iraqi Christians attend a Christmas Eve mass at St. Joseph Chaldean Church in BaghdadWhy are they fleeing? The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria wants to create an Islamic state ruled by Sharia, and as every mainstream media reporter in the United States knows, Sharia is entirely benign, humane, and compatible with principles of human rights. So why are they fleeing? Have Iraqi Christians been reading the writings of greasy Islamophobes? Or could it be that they see what Sharia is with their own eyes, and that the mainstream narrative is wrong?

    “Iraqi Christians flee homes amid militant push,” Associated Press, June 16, 2014:

    Over the past decade, Iraqi Christians have fled repeatedly to this ancient mountainside village, seeking refuge from violence, then returning home when the danger eased. Now they are doing it again as Islamic militants rampage across northern Iraq, but this time few say they ever want to go back to their homes.

    The flight is a new blow to Iraq’s dwindling Christian community, which is almost as old as the religion itself but which has already been devastated since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. During the past 11 years, at least half of the country’s Christian population has fled the country, according to some estimates, to escape frequent attacks by Sunni Muslim militants targeting them and their churches.

    Now many of those who held out and remained may be giving up completely after fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant swept over the city of Mosul and a broad swath of the country the past week.

    “I’m not going back,” said Lina, who fled Mosul with her family as the militants swept in and came to Alqosh, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) to the north.

    “Each day we went to bed in fear,” the 57-year-old woman said, sitting in a house for displaced people. “In our own houses we knew no rest.” Like other Christians who fled here, she spoke on condition she be identified only by her first name for fear for her safety.

    In leaving, the Christians are emptying out communities that date back to the first centuries of the religion, including Chaldean, Assyrian and Armenian churches. The past week, some 160 Christian families – mostly from Mosul – have fled to Alqosh, mayor Sabri Boutani told The Associated Press, consulting first on the number with his wife by speaking in Chaldean, the ancient language spoken by many residents.

    Alqosh, dating back at least to the 1st century BC, is a jumble of pastel-painted homes nestled at the base of a high craggy hill among rolling plains of wheat fields. The village’s population of 6,000 is about half Christian and half ethnic Kurds. Located just outside the autonomous Kurdish zone of northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga have moved into the town to protect it.

    Many Christians are deciding that the comparatively liberal and prosperous Kurdish regions are their safest bet.

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    1. “Every Christian prefers to stay in Kurdistan,” said Abu Zeid, an engineer. He too said he wouldn’t be going back to Mosul.

      “It’s a shame because Mosul is the most important city in Iraq for Christians,” he added. Mosul is said to be the site of the burial of Jonah, the prophet who tradition says was swallowed by a whale.

      Iraq was estimated to have more than 1 million Christians before the 2003 invasion and topping of Saddam Hussein. Now church officials estimate only 450,000 remain within Iraq borders. Militants have targeted Christians in repeated waves in Baghdad and the north. The Chaldean Catholic cardinal was kidnapped in 2008 by extremists and killed. Churches around the country have been bombed repeatedly.

      The exodus from Mosul – a Sunni-majority city that during the American presence in Iraq was an al-Qaida stronghold – has been even more dramatic. From a pre-2003 population of around 130,000 Christians, there were only about 10,000 left before the Islamic State fighters overran the city a week ago.

      Abu Zeid estimated that now only 2,000 Christians remain in the city.

      “They see no future there,” said George Demacopoulos, the director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York.

      “There is no short-term solution,” he said in a phone interview. “I think the only prescription for a long-term solution is a kind of political stabilization of the region that is enabled without military force.”

      Christians who have not left Iraq completely often flee their homes to other parts of Iraq when the danger is highest in hopes of returning later.

      Delete
    2. Boutani, the mayor, said this was the sixth time in 11 years that Christians from other areas have flocked to Alqosh for refuge. He himself fled here from Baghdad in 2009 after a church bombing in the capital.

      This is the third time that Adnan, a 60-year-old Mosul shoe shop owner, has sought shelter in Alqosh. He came in 2008 after a priest in Mosul was killed, then again in 2010 after rumors spread of an imminent attack on Christians. Each time, he and his family returned after Iraqi security officials guaranteed Christians’ safety.

      “They said, we will protect you,” he recalled. “But now – where’s the government?”

      The Vatican for years has voiced concern about the flight of Christians from the Middle East, driven out by war, poverty and discrimination.

      During his recent trip to Jordan, Pope Francis met with Iraqi and Syrian Christians and denounced the wars, weapons and conflicts that have forced them from their homes.

      “All of us want peace!” Francis told a gathering of refugees near the River Jordan. “I ask myself: who is selling arms to these people to make war?”

      In Alqosh, the newcomers and the residents united in prayer at Sunday Mass in the Chaldean Church of the Virgin Mary of the Harvest, held by Friar Gabriel Tooma.

      On the church floor was spread a mosaic made of beans, lentils, wheat and other produce from the area, assembled to commemorate the upcoming harvest. Before the service, volunteers hurried to finish the images of Jesus and Mary, and were filling out the details of Pope Francis’ face, sketched out with white beans.

      “People are afraid of what’s coming next,” Tooma said. “I fear there will be a day when people will say: ‘There were once Christians in Iraq.’”

      As he walked with his wife and daughter in the 7th century St Hormoz monastery, built into the hill overlooking Alqosh, Abu Zeid said he went back to Mosul on Friday to see if his house was still standing.

      Some of the militants in control of the city tried to show that Christians were welcome.

      Gunmen stopped him and asked if he was a Christian, Abu Zeid said. When he nodded back, a gunman told him: “Welcome to your home.”

      The Chaldean church in Mosul was looted, he said, and he saw gunmen drag the accused thieves to the church and order them to return stolen property.

      He and other displaced Christians highly doubt the shows of goodwill. Still, some said they have no choice but to eventually return.

      “I’m 60 years old,” said Adnan, the shoe salesman. “It would be hard to start over again.”

      Delete
    3. Sad, is it not.

      http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/06/iraqi-christians-flee-isis-controlled-territory?

      Delete
  13. Getting some tail -

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2660148/Indian-teenager-worshipped-seven-inch-TAIL-need-removed-hes-unable-walk.html

    Pretty nice looking kid. Nice tail too.

    I always envision desert rat with a tail like that, though I certainly hope no one worships him !!

    Cheers

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  14. Continuing my civic duty of countering Rufian bullshit.....

    Crime Up in Denver Five Months into Legal Pot Sales
    By Sierra Rayne

    Ads by BlockAndSurfAd Options


    The misinformation continues regarding how Denver's crime rate has changed following Colorado's legalization of recreational marijuana sales in January.

    Vox.com claims that "5 months into legal pot sales, crime is down in Denver." Nothing could be farther from the truth. Actually, after five months of legal pot sales, crime is way up in Denver.

    Denver's crime statistics for the first five months of 2013 and 2014 are available here. The total number of reported offenses has increased by more than 10 percent, from 17,450 in 2013 up to 19,234 in 2014.


    German Lopez at Vox states that "both violent and property crimes are down 1.9 percent and 11.5 percent, respectively, from January through May 2014 compared to the same time period last year." Nope. "Crimes Against Property" (aka property crimes) are only down 7.5 percent compared to the same period last year, but this has been more than offset by a 24-percent increase in "Crimes Against Persons," another 24-percent increase in "Crimes Against Society," and a 155-percent increase in "All Other Offenses" since 2013.

    Of course, Denver is not the only city in Colorado. Over in Aurora, violent crime is up 10 percent so far this year after pot legalization, with sex assaults up 30 percent and aggravated assaults up 24 percent. In Englewood, robberies have increased 11 percent since 2013, and burglaries are up more than 68 percent.

    Whether or not you support marijuana legalization, the facts are the facts. Total crime is up in Denver this year.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/06/crime_up_in_denver_five_months_into_legal_pot_sales.html

    ReplyDelete
  15. You know, these Oreo Cookie McFlurrys are really good !

    Try one sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  16. John Bolton has just confirmed that the Biden/Miss T/Bob solution has come to pass and Iraq is now de facto partitioned.

    The Kurds are planning some pipeline to the north.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When asked if Baghdad was going to fall he said "Naw".

      Delete
    2. He also was of the opinion that the person directly responsible for the current situation is Obama for not insisting on an extended Status of Forces Agreement.

      He could have easily come to some agreeable terms with Maliki about liability, but rather than make the effort, and since he wanted out, he simply used that as an excuse to boogie and pull all the troops out.

      All of Iraq is now divided into three parts.

      A monster draw up on a napkin is now in a more natural state.

      Shia Iraq is now a client state of Iran.

      We will have to print up some new maps soon.

      Delete
    3. Buy Rand McNally stock now.

      Here's their homepage -

      http://www.randmcnally.com/

      Delete
    4. Don't fall for 'Quirk's Authentic Maps and GPS Devices'.

      These are just Rand McNally rejects that didn't pass the inspection process.

      Delete
  17. "Crazy George" Galloway

    Personal life
    From 1979 to 1999, he was married to Elaine Fyffe, with whom he has a daughter, Lucy, who herself has four children.[210] The couple separated in 1987 and divorced in 1999.[28] In 1994, he married Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad in a Muslim ceremony; a civil ceremony around 2000 followed his divorce from Fyffe. Abu-Zayyad was granted a "quicky" divorce at the beginning of 2009, after an estrangement of several years, on the grounds of "unreasonable behaviour".[217] Galloway third wife was his Lebanese former researcher, Rima Husseini.[28] They had two sons, born in May 2007 and December 2011. In March 2012, Galloway married his fourth wife, Putri Gayatri Pertiwi, a consultant with a Dutch research firm[218] in an Islamic ceremony in Amsterdam.[219] The couple announced in January 2014 that they are expecting their first child.[210]

    By his own account, he decided, at the age of 18, never to drink alcohol. He disapproves of it and describes it as having a "very deleterious effect on people".[12][220] He stated at a March 2012 rally "We stand for justice and haqq" and "A Muslim is somebody who is not afraid of earthly power but who fears only the Judgment Day. I’m ready for that, I’m working for that and it's the only thing I fear".[221]

    In April 2012, Jemima Khan interviewed Galloway for the New Statesman magazine. In the article, Khan asserted that the politician had become a Muslim around 2000, but had not advertised this fact.[222][223] Galloway subsequently denied that the ceremony had taken place: "I have never attended any such ceremony in Kilburn, Karachi or Kathmandu. It is simply and categorically untrue." He does not answer questions about his religious beliefs saying that this is a "personal matter".[219]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway

    Deuce, the guy obviously needs a drink or five.

    It's all on me.

    BARKEEP !!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Crazy George takes another wife......

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2124227/George-Galloways-new-Dutch-bride-Putri-Gayatri-Pertiwi.html

    Poor girl, she is younger than George's daughter, who just gave birth.

    This won't stand up much longer than any of the other couplings.

    Gorgeous George must have some love potion he slips into the lemonade.

    They think they are marrying a Prince, when actually they are in bed with a muzzie toad.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Ignoring the Elephant
    June 18, 2014 by Caroline Glick

    Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.


    West Bank Israeli Teens KidnappingOriginally published by the Jerusalem Post.

    Three Jewish boys were abducted by Palestinian terrorists while trying to catch a ride home from school Thursday night. And as far as the foreign press is concerned, it’s their own damned fault.

    As Honest Reporting documented, everyone from The Guardian to CNN, to Sky News to the Christian Science Monitor blamed Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frankel for their victimization.

    The boys deserve whatever they get, according to the media, because they are Jews and Jews have no right to be located anywhere that the Palestinians demand be cleansed of Jewish presence. And the Palestinians demand that Gush Etzion be emptied of Jews. So the boys, who dared to be located in Gush Etzion, had it coming.

    And the blame doesn’t end with the victims. In trying to rescue them, the Israeli government is also committing an unpardonable crime – against Palestinian unity, no less.

    According to The New York Times’ Israel bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, by searching for the boys, Israel has “further destabilized Israeli-Palestinian relations, and challenged the new Palestinian government’s ability to hold together disparate political factions and reunite the West Bank and Gaza after a seven-year split.”

    ReplyDelete
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    1. As Seth Mandel wrote in Commentary, “If the unity government can survive only by being permitted to carry out terrorism against Israel without response or consequences, it is not so much a government as a sadistic terrorist gang.”

      Mandel understated the problem. There is no conditionality. The Palestinian government is “a sadistic terrorist gang.” “The disparate political factions,” Rudoren was referring to are Fatah and Hamas.

      Hamas, as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, kidnapped the teenagers. Hamas is a jihadist movement recognized by the US State Department and the EU as a foreign terrorist organization.

      Its declared goal is the genocide of world Jewry. And to advance its aim, it has murdered Jews, and incited, trained and indoctrinated Palestinians to murder Jews every single day since it was founded in 1988.

      As for Fatah, since Frankel, Shaer and Yifrach were taken on Thursday night, Fatah has glorified and celebrated their capture on its official Facebook page and its official newspaper. Fatah’s Facebook page depicted the boys as rats, reeled in by a fishing pole.

      The Palestinian Authority’s daily newspaper Al Hayat al Jadidapublished a mock World Cup logo in which three hands held three people who held their hands up in surrender.

      Delete
    2. And Fatah activists posted a revealing directive on Facebook after the boys were abducted.

      No, Abbas’s “moderate” faction of the Palestinian unity government, so energetically supported by the US, the EU and the western media, did not call for the public to quit celebrating the abduction. Nor did it condemn the brutal assault.

      The Fatah activists called for shopkeepers in the vicinity of the kidnapping to destroy any footage their security cameras filmed in the 24 hours following the operation to prevent the IDF from seizing the footage and using it in its efforts to locate the boys.

      That makes Fatah an accessory after the fact to the attack. And yes, that means that the PA – which is comprised of Fatah and Hamas – is in fact one great big terrorist organization.

      When Rudoren and her colleagues in the media look in the mirror, they don’t see themselves as enablers of murderers and champions of terrorists.

      They see themselves as right-minded people who seek peace.

      The same of course goes for the EU, which celebrated the formation of the Fatah-Hamas unity government, and has so far refused to condemn the kidnapping.

      Delete
    3. Fuck it. Just read it here -

      http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/ignoring-the-elephant/?

      Delete