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Only the US Congress could take this Ass Clown seriously

Leak: Netanyahu’s 2012 Iran Bomb Warning refuted by Israeli Intel

By contributors | Feb. 24, 2015 |

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Cenk Uygur | (The Young Turks) –

“Benjamin Netanyahu’s dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document.

It is part of a cache of hundreds of dossiers, files and cables from the world’s major intelligence services – one of the biggest spy leaks in recent times.

Brandishing a cartoon of a bomb with a red line to illustrate his point, the Israeli prime minister warned the UN in New York that Iran would be able to build nuclear weapons the following year and called for action to halt the process.

But in a secret report shared with South Africa a few weeks later, Israel’s intelligence agency concluded that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons”. The report highlights the gulf between the public claims and rhetoric of top Israeli politicians and the assessments of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment.”

The Young Turks: “LEAK: Netanyahu Lied About Iran Nuclear Threat” 

Posted in Iran,Israel,Nuclear Energy | 3 Responses | Print |

“In Sarajevo and in Syria, these are societies — in Bosnia, in Serbia, in Kosovo, in Syria — where ethnicities live side by side and intermarry for long periods of time until it becomes valuable to exploit the division. And yes, the division's there because you can always revert back to history, you can always inflame it, but it is manipulated for political ends.” -Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO of the New America Foundation

Islamic State 'abducts dozens of Christians in Syria'

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Islamic State

• Asymmetry of fear
• Kobane unbeaten
• What is IS?
• Key countries

Islamic State (IS) has abducted dozens of Assyrian Christians from villages in north-eastern Syria, activists say.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 90 men, women and children were seized in a series of dawn raids near the town of Tal Tamr.

Some Assyrians managed to escape and made their way east to the largely Kurdish-controlled city of Hassakeh.

It comes as Syrian Kurdish fighters backed by US-led air strikes continue to advance into IS-held territory.

Hassakeh province is strategically important in the fight against IS because it borders both Turkey and areas controlled by the group in Iraq.

'Searching for news'

Activists reported that IS fighters swept through a string of villages along the banks of the Khabur river around dawn on Monday.

There has been heavy fighting between Kurdish fighters and Islamic State militants in Hassakeh province

IS has forced Christians living in its territory to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that monitors the four-year conflict in Syria, said at least 90 Assyrians had been taken captive, most of them from the village of Tal Shamran, about 45km (28 miles) from Hassakeh.

The head of the group A Demand For Action, which focuses on religious minorities in the Middle East, said between 70 and 100 were seized.

Nuri Kino told the Associated Press that about 3,000 managed to escape and had sought refuge in Hassakeh and Qamishli, to the north-east.

He said his group had spoken to several villagers and their relatives.

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“Start Quote

I feel so helpless... I cannot do anything for them but pray”

Assyrian woman from Tal Shamran

An Assyrian woman from Tal Shamran who lives in Beirut told AP that she had been unable to make contact with members of her family.

"Landlines have been cut, their mobiles are closed," she said. "Have they been slaughtered? Are they still alive? We're searching for any news.

"My family visited me last month and returned to Syria. There were clashes but it was normal, nothing exceptional. 

"I feel so helpless. I cannot do anything for them but pray."

The Syrian Observatory also said Tal Tamr had seen heavy clashes between IS and the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia.

On Monday, the group and Kurdish officials said IS militants had been forced back to within 5km (3 miles) of the town of Tal Hamis, to the east.

Ancient community

Christians are believed to have constituted about 10% of Syria's 22 million people before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began almost four years ago.

Assyrians, of whom there were about 40,000 in Syria, are Nestorian Christians and speak Syriac, a form of Aramaic, the language of Christ.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians, many of them Assyrians, have fled Syria to escape the violence

The largest concentration of Assyrians in Syria is in Hassakeh province, but there are also smaller communities in Aleppo, Homs and Damascus. 

The Assyrian villages along the Khabur river were established by the French authorities during the mandate era for Assyrians who fled persecution in Iraq in 1933.

Many Assyrians are believed to have fled Syria not only to escape the conflict in the country but also violent attacks by extremist groups like IS, which has forced Christians living in the territory it controls to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death.

It was not clear what IS intended to do with its Assyrian captives. 

Earlier this month, militants in Libya affiliated to the group released a video showing them beheading 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. 

1-3 Billion Dollar Terrorism Case Against the PA and the PLO in the United States

Meanwhile the Israelis can’t help themselves from making people miserable and creating another generation of those that hate them 

Malcolm X - Fifty Years on - His last speech - I think you will be surprised

How are the Duopoly of Polity Potomac going to spin this in 2016?

Who would you rather have three shots and a beer with?

1. Barack Obama  or Bibi Netanyahu?

2. Jeb Bush or Ron Paul?

3. Ted Cruz or absolutely anyone else?

4. Doug or Bob?

5. WIO  or DR?

6. Ash or Quirk?

7. Nobody in their right mind would want to have a drink with Rufus  :)

Israel’s state policy of moving its citizens into occupied territory — a position that violates international law - supported by US taxpayers through tax deductions claimed by billionaire American Zionists

Can I Take a Tax-Deduction on My Donation to Israeli Settlements in Palestine?

FOREIGN POLICY

Eric Goldstein

American charities funnel millions of dollars to support the building of illegal settlements in the occupied territories. It’s time for this to end.

With Israel’s campaign season in full swing, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will add a new stop to his campaign trail. At U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation, Netanyahu is slated to address Congress on March 3 to advocate for a tougher line against Iran, in particular regarding the ongoing negotiations over its nuclear program. If Congress gives Netanyahu a platform to address these issues, it should also begin a conversation with President Barack Obama’s administration about how the United States can strike a blow against Israel’s continued settlement construction.

Since Netanyahu took office in March 2009, the population of Israeli settlements has grown dramatically. According to recently released Israeli government data, from the beginning of 2009 until the beginning of 2014, the settlement population grew 23 percent — more than double the rate of the overall Israeli population, which expanded 9.6 percent. In late December, another 380 new housing units in East Jerusalem settlements were approved.

This growth is partly being funded by millions of dollars from tax-exempt American charities, which help expand and support settlements.

This growth is partly being funded by millions of dollars from tax-exempt American charities, which help expand and support settlements. Even though this revenue stream arguably violates Internal Revenue Service rules, neither Congress nor the Obama administration has done anything to stop it.

In late September, settlers moved into 25 housing units in Silwan, an East Jerusalem neighborhood that abuts the Old City to the south and is home to 50,000 Palestinians. The move prompted the Obama administration to condemn the organization that engineered the purchase — a reference, apparently, to an Israeli association known as Elad — as one “whose agenda, by definition, stokes tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Elad’s name is an acronym for “To the City of David,” the name Israelis use for Silwan. The name reflects the organization’s mission to, in its own words, “strengthen the Jewish connection” in the neighborhood, in particular, and East Jerusalem more broadly “through settlement and environmental and touristic development.” Elad’s agenda coincides with Israel’s state policy of moving its citizens into occupied territory — a position that violates international law. The Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, provides that the court may prosecute government officials responsible for the “transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

American taxpayers indirectly subsidize Elad’s work. In 2011 and 2012, the two most recent years for which tax filings are publicly available, Elad received around two-thirds of its donations through a New York-based charity, Friends of Ir David. The charity transferred $5.6 million in grants in 2012 and $6.9 million in grants in 2011 to Elad — almost its entire revenue stream. The founder of Elad, David Be’eri, is also a board member of the American charity.

In late October 2014, nine more Israeli families moved into Silwan. They were assisted by Ateret Cohanim, another Israeli settlement association largely funded through its U.S.-based charity, which raises between $1 million and $2 million in tax-deductible contributions annually for Ateret Cohanim’s benefit.

Israeli officials claim disingenuously that Jewish citizens are merely buying property in Arab neighborhoods. In reality, the Israeli government has collaborated closely with organizations like Elad to boost the presence of Israelis in occupied Palestinian territory, a policy that could complicate the path to any eventual solution to the conflict based on a partition of the land.

The Klugman Report, commissioned by the Israeli government in 1992 and produced by a committee headed by Haim Klugman, then director general of the Justice Ministry, revealed that Elad gained its foothold in Silwan by persuading the government to evict Palestinian families from their homes and transfer their property to Elad. This government decision was based in part on allegedly fraudulent evidence purporting to show that the land belonged to the state. Israel Nature and Parks Authority also gave Elad a contract to assist in the administration of an archeological site in Silwan, further expanding Elad’s control over the neighborhood.

In occupied East Jerusalem, Israel has built more than 50,000 housing units for Jewish Israelis in areas it declared state land. Israel still severely restricts the 39 percent of Jerusalem’s population who is Palestinian from building there, partly to implement the Jerusalem municipality’s policy of achieving a “demographic balance” of 70 percent Israeli Jews to 30 percent Palestinians in the contested city.

The role of American charities in supporting settlement construction has long been known — even if, in the words of Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, “it was a thing you didn’t talk about in polite company.” Breaking this taboo, Marc Ginsberg, a former U.S. ambassador to Morocco, and others have recently called on the Obama administration to stop the spigot of tax-free dollars coming from, as Ginsberg writes, “international and American ‘philanthropies’ that fund these settlements.” Internal Revenue Service rules prohibit tax-exempt organizations from engaging in, planning, or sponsoring illegal acts or acts contrary to established U.S. public policy, such as discrimination. Funding settlement expansion likely falls within that category: The United States has long called settlements “illegitimate,” and there is no question that they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition on transfer of civilians to occupied territory.

The Obama administration should direct the Internal Revenue Service to ensure that U.S. charities do not contribute to settlement expansion by clarifying its policy on settlements and conducting an audit of organizations that help support settlements. Members of Congress should also request that the Government Accountability Office conduct an audit of such organizations. While some tax-exempt organizations, such as the Hebron Fund and Christian Friends of Israeli Communities, make settlement expansion an explicit part of their mission, other more established charities aren’t clear about what percentage of the dollars they raise go to settlements. Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organization that encourages immigration to Israel from North America, is one non-profit that includes settlements as potential communities for immigrants in promotional material on its website.*

For decades, even as every U.S. administration condemned settlement construction, they all allowed it to continue with impunity by avoiding policies that could extract a price for the settlements’ continued expansion. The United States has consistently vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions critical of settlements, pressured the Palestinians not to go to the International Criminal Court to examine settlements as a possible war crime, and allowed charities to freely send donations to build and expand settlements. It’s up to Congress and the Obama administration to put an end to this double standard and stop enabling Israel’s violations of international law.

*Correction: This article originally included a reference to the Jewish Agency as an organization involved in settlement expansion. This reference has been removed, as the Jewish Agency does not direct Israelis to settlements. The organization assists new immigrants in the immigration process to Israel, but does nothing to predispose them to live in any particular area of the country.