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Category Archives: Regions

It’s Hard Helping You When You Are Anti-Semitic, Among Other Things

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Syria, Ukraine

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Ahmed al-Jarba, anti-Semitism, cynical rhetoric, political, politics, propaganda, Putin, Syria, Ukraine

From Syria with No Love for Jews

“The Diaspora” (Al-Shatat), a Syrian-produced TV series, aired last year during the Ramadan on Al-Manar (Hizbollah TV) is now being aired on Iranian TV. The series covers the period of the Zionist movement, and is primarily a depiction of the classic anti-Semitic libel that attributes to Jews the desire for world domination. The series revolves around the “Secret Jewish World Government . . . .”

Iranian TV now airing Al-Shatat, Horrific Syrian Anti-Semitic series | Conflict Resolutions and World Security Solutions | worldsecuritynetwork.com – 12/14/2014

* * *

The Syrian National Coalition recently released a statement denouncing what it perceived to be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s media exploitation of Israel’s medical care for wounded Syrian in the Golan area.

Calling it “nothing more than a publicity gimmick”, the statement from the SNC’s media center went on to say that “the Israeli entity stood against the Syrian uprising from the start”, and that wounded Syrian civilians were “forcedly [sic] taken to Israeli hospitals and are being employed today for marketing their political agenda”.

For the Sake of Syria, the Political Opposition Has to Grow Up » From Homs to Istanbul – 2/20/2014.

Remember the unholy troika: Putin-Assad-Khamenei.

Khamenei’s regime appears to enthusiastically endorse the most libelous and medieval of depictions of The Jew, but today with a television show.

And cartoons.

One may have hoped that the “moderate” revolutionary side would prove itself more enlightened, idealistic, and just in relation to its views about Jews and others in contrast to the rants and slants of Bashar al-Assad and Ayatollah Khamenei — and the helpful Russian who keeps his mouth wisely shut in this regard even as he maintains the post-Soviet architecture that has so far lengthened Assad’s tyrannical stay.

While Syrian National Coalition leader Ahmed al-Jarba calls for arms supply from the west, sustaining the self-defeating anti-Zionist creed and its correlates would appear to sustain also the coalition’s agony.

If Jarba’s begging arms while remaining anti-west, anti-Jew, anti-Israel, he may continue begging because those interests — democratic, modern, west, also informed by Jewish minorities in concert with others, also represented in the day-to-day politics and spirit of the Jewish State of Israel (which treats Syrian casualties as injured persons, ethically disregarding their politics while in care) — may also wish to be represented in the greater international community arrayed against Assad’s dictatorship in its every hideous aspect.

The reader may judge for himself the tone of the “moderate” revolution through the pages of the Syrian Free Press that purports to represent the main base of the revolution: Netanyahu Calls the Whole World “Anti-Semites” | – 2/24/2014.


Russia’s Leveraging of Anti-Semitic Disinformation in Ukraine Can Only Damage Russia’s Prestige

Putin at the global political poker table has strong cards in Russian anti-Islamist experience and, lately, a neutral to positive stance toward Jews, enabling him, cynically perhaps, to claim better defense of “western values” in Syria (while his client’s snipers paralyze children) and in Ukraine.

While pursuing Russian nationalist imperialism — well, I can’t call it “Soviet” — Putin may now amplify, invent, and portray opposition to Russian expansion as coming from fascist religious or nationalist movements.

It’s an awful strategy, relying as it does on political gaslighting — i.e., planting false information to produce some wanted perception.

What kicked off this rant is this from March 14: Kiev Mob Stabs Rabbi Hillel Cohen in Anti-Semitic Attack (IB Times).

True to thesis, or at least echoed by IB journalist Gianluca Mezoofiore: “The attack plays into the hands of ousted president Viktor Yanukovich’s rhetoric and to that of the Kremlin that Ukraine’s revolutionary movement that removed him is made up of Nazis and extremists.”

In Ukrainian uprising reality, Jews, ever among the oldest of liberation theologians, have played another role:

Balaclava-clad far-right paramilitaries fire into the air at the funeral in Ukraine of an anti-government protestor. This is not a tribute to a fellow right-wing nationalist, but to a Jewish construction worker, Alexander Scherbanyuk.

Of the approximately 100 people killed during the protests in Kiev that swept Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich from power in February, three were Jews, according to Vyacheslav Likhachev, a Ukrainian anti-Semitism expert.

Three Jews among those killed in Ukraine uprising – Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz – 3/18/2014.

Facebook’s Euromaidan page has a note from February 20 on Alexander Scherbanyuk: “12:00 – Chernivtsi Alexander Scherbanyuk, a Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party member, has been killed. He was killed by a sniper bullet to the heart. Alexander Scherbanyuk, an Afghan, has left behind three children. – “LigaNews”

Of Joseph Shiling, the Voices of Ukraine blog notes, “He was 61. He and his wife Anna raised two daughters, and he has four granddaughters.”

That just doesn’t sound very fascist, nationalist, or particularly “thuggy” to me.

May Grandpa Shiling rest in peace.

The national or religious heritage of those who were killed is, of course, not important in truth. Just as their age, gender, political views aren’t important. Everything is unimportant, except the fact that they are Ukrainians and that they are heroes of Ukraine, who died in its honor while fighting against evil and injustice.

The Jewish Division of Ukraine’s Heaven’s Hundred | Voices of Ukraine – 3/11/2014.

The third Jewish martyr to the revolution: Evgeniy Kotlyar, an environmentalist.

Scary man, huh?

I kid, of course.

The Ukrainian revolutionary government knows it inherits an issue in regard to anti-Semitism, but anti-Semitism does not appear to be its problem but rather a common social issue, the same present in measures small and smaller — a little larger with Jobbik in Hungary — in every political community of the west.

During a special discussion called “The growth of extremism, radicalization and xenophobia”, Nalyvaichenko demonstrated to representatives of the parliamentary delegations of European countries examples of anti-Semitic and xenophobic images and publications on “Berkut” pages in social networks and talked about illegal actions of Special Forces. He noted that in the society, especially among law enforcement agencies, dissemination of information that might incite ethnic hatred and encourage violence against minorities, was unacceptable.

Nalyvaichenko raised the issue of xenophobia among “Berkut” at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly – News – Valentyn Nalyvajchenko – 2/14/2014.

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko heads Ukraine’s revolutionary security service.

Thank God.

______

Revolutions develop along two fronts: one is outside the person.

# # #

FTAC – On Global Conflict’s Edge

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journal, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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dictatorship, Far Left, information, political, politics, propaganda, rhetoric, totalitarianism

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yuri-Bezmenov/46501554141 Sign on. 🙂 Not quite everyone’s on Facebook, especially if they’re wanted (by INTERPOL) or popular in some heavy (as in the 1960’s “heavy, dude”) way, in which case they may be found at their university or think-tank address.

What’s interesting here, perhaps, is watching this edge in conflict surface, a conflict between the criminally deluded and utterly dishonest and the victims and targets of that form in political delusion and dishonesty.

Related: Yuri Bezmenov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; (1) Yuri Bezmenov (Facebook).

Video one-of-nine about control of political language:

Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press 1/9 – YouTube – 1/5/2009.

From the above-cited personality page for Yuri Bezmenov:

Yuri Alexandrovitch Bezmenov (1939 – 1993) is a former KGB propagandist who was assigned to New Dehli, India, defected to the West in 1970, and was interviewed by Edward Griffin in 1985. Bezmenov explains his background, some of his training, and exactly how Soviet propaganda is spread in other countries in order to subvert their teachers, politicians, and other policy makers to a mindset receptive to the Soviet ideology.

* * *

Not so oddly, I spent the morning watching Gene Hackman and Will Smith in Enemy of the State. Then after brunch this cold rainy day turned to Facebook where I had a message waiting from a correspondent in South America noting the Far Out Left’s desire to destroy Israel. My response to that:

Far Left: thieves.

I’m a liberal socialist.  Correa and I would probably understand one another.

These guys of the Far Out Left seem descended from the 1970s. Time Warped. Everyone’s a Carlos wannabee.

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

If he / they didn’t have a convenient political lingo, he / they would be — and have proven so — dumb criminals.

The world faces stark choices as regards the political kleptocrats (sometimes, when I’m feeling jazzy, I call them “kleptocats!”) we have come to know and sometimes love — for being too easily charmed — as dictators, but when you watch what they do to constitutions, courts, and laws, then to men — old ones too, and women and children — in their unbridled ambition for absolute control over others, you know that the war “over there”, or perhaps the one you’re in, is no longer a lonely war but rather a war — sub-state, transnational, global — neither contained nor isolated.

* * *

Often for revolutionaries there are two wars: one rages outside of the person, the other rages within.

* * *

My South American correspondent acknowledged (and here I quote with light editing for style), “many studied in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with scholarships.”

Such would be at least in their 40s — it has been more than 22 years — and in the prime of their programming.

Others, say the first to rifle through abandoned STASI offices in defunct East Germany, may be in the prime of their counter-programming program, and I should think them today an unknown quantity in the former Soviet empire.  Perhaps they too will surface in the coming days, weeks, and months.

# # #

Ukraine – Crimea – Design by Putin – Whitewash by Potemkin – Plus Obama’s Sanctions Announcement

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Crimea, Obama speech, Revolution, Russia, Ukraine, Yanukovych

THE outcome of the “referendum” in Crimea was never in doubt. With Russian troops occupying the peninsula and anyone who does not want to join Russia staying away from the bogus procedure, the 97% vote in favour of becoming part of Russia is not a surprise.

Crimea votes to secede: Ukraine’s amputation | The Economist

* * *

The government in Kiev has accused Moscow of deliberately stirring up tensions in the east by bringing in professional activists and provocateurs from across the border. In a series of ominous statements, Russia’s foreign ministry has said it may be forced to act to “protect” ethnic Russians – an expression that appears to provide a rationale for future military incursions.

Crimea votes to secede from Ukraine in ‘illegal’ poll | World news | The Guardian – 3/16/2014.

* * *

The Kremlin describes last month’s uprising in next-door Ukraine as an illegitimate fascist coup. It says dark rightwing forces have taken over the government, forcing Moscow to “protect” Ukraine’s ethnic Russian minority . . . With Ukraine on the brink of invasion and division, most people in Kiev blame the country’s troubles on the former president. “This is Yanukovych’s fault,” Zhenia, a pensioner, said, surveying the battleground in Institutska Street, where many were gunned down. She was crying.

Kiev’s protesters: Ukraine uprising was no neo-Nazi power-grab | World news | The Guardian – 3/13/2014.

* * *

Links between Yanukovych, the Party of Regions and crime have been long known to policymakers as seen in U.S. cables from Kiev available through WikiLeaks.

At least 18 Party of Regions deputies have criminal ties, according to Hennadiy Moskal, deputy head of Parliament’s Committee on Organized Crime and Corruption.

Viktor Yanukovych: From partner to violent kleptocrat – UPI.com – 2/14/2014.

Related: Yanukovych Leaks

* * *

Criminals lie.

When one wants something one shouldn’t have, when one wishes to hide something with which one doesn’t wish to be associated, one may resort to lying but not always, much less inevitably, erase the trail.

In fact, the trail follows in the kept anger of those wronged by criminal behavior, in the bent verdicts and forged documents attending sophisticated theft, or, in Yanukovych’s case, which journal keeping may be likened to the records of plunder and murder maintained by benumbed Nazi officials, the diary of bribes and of breathtaking sums acquired and spent across multiple estates and headier symbols of wealth.

A liberal socialist myself, somewhat, I’d nonetheless offer the problem of whether men shouldn’t be wealthy, filthy rich, swimming in moolah — I think private wealth is great but legally obtained, earned or inherited for a generation or two.

The truth is simple: I’d rather the rich man were the audited owner of a Fortune 500 company than a dumb mafia boss or vicious — and equally vacuous — pirate.

Stalin engineered the famine to rid himself of a stubborn enemy. Ukrainians had fought for their independence during the Russian Revolution, and for a short time, they had beaten back the Reds. What’s more, Ukraine, being the “bread basket of Europe,” had a rich and ancient culture of farmers, who wanted to hold on to their language, their land and their identity. As a civilization, Ukraine is a thousand years older than Moscow. For Stalin, as for Putin today, this would be a very hard back to break.

How to Explain What’s Happening in Ukraine | TIME.com – 12/17/2013.

* * *

The combination of military adventurism and domestic crackdown is not a well-advised recipe for stabilizing the regime. This Saturday’s planned march in downtown Moscow against the war on Ukraine will now be joined by people outraged at the imposition of censorship. Putin’s Kremlin, not opposition leaders, remains the best recruiter for the Russian protest movement.

Moscow Braces for Protests Against Ukraine Aggression | World Affairs Journal – 3/14/2014.

Related: Thousands In Moscow Protest Crimea Military Action – 3/15/2014.

______

Obama says U.S. will “stand firm” in support of Ukraine, expands sanctions on Russia – YouTube – (today).

# # #

It was May on the Left Bank of Paris. About Four Years Ago . . . .

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, France, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Regions

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Tags

anti-Semitism, Arab anti-Semitism, civility, France, humanism, policing, political, politics

When I was in France about 4 years we found a man who was severely beaten in nearby park at 8 am. There was a police station nearby and we went there to get him help. Speaking in French, I told the policeman about the man, his injuries and where to find him. He stared bankly at me. I started to repeat it again. He stopped me and said I understand you, I just don’t know what you want me to do about it and told me to go away. They have lost their humanity.

Artist Michelle Vezina Peterlin responding to a report about a Jewish girl beaten in a suburb of Lyon, France when she was seen wearing on a necklace a Star of David.

‘Dirty Jew, Go Home to Israel:’ Jewish Girl in France Attacked by Arab Mother and Daughter | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com – 3/12/2014.

# # #

Ukraine and the Shrewd Kleptocrat

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Russia, Ukraine

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dictatorship, mafia state, political, politics, Putin, Putinism, Russia

She warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that his actions would lead to “catastrophe” for Ukraine.

“It would also change Russia economically and politically,” she said.

But Putin has reiterated his previous stance: Ukraine’s crisis was caused by internal factors, not by Russia.

Change course in Crimea or face costs, West warns Russia – CNN.com

* * *

President Obama has one crucial lever he can activate immediately, as was done in the case of deposed Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovich: identify, freeze, and disclose stolen assets hidden in the West.

Want Putin’s Attention On Ukraine? Follow His Money – 3/3/2014.

Related: Putin’s Watch Collection Dwarfs His Declared Income | The Moscow Times – 6/6/2012; Helping Russia avoid Putin kleptocracy – CSMonitor.com – 9/27/2011; WikiLeaks cables condemn Russia as ‘mafia state’ | World news | The Guardian – 12/1/2010.

* * *

Britain has been handing visas to hundreds of Russian oligarchs in return for them paying at least £1million towards our £1.2trillion national debt.

Russian and Chinese businessmen have been allowed to jump to the front of the immigration queue by ‘investing’ a seven-figure sum in Government gilts.

Russian oligarchs buy UK visas for £1million | Mail Online – 2/25/2014.

* * *

MOSCOW — When Vladimir V. Putin returned to the Russian presidency in 2012, one of the first messages he sent to his political elite, many of them heads of banks and large corporations, was that the times had changed: Owning assets outside Russia makes you too vulnerable to moves by foreign governments, he told them. It is time to bring your wealth home.

Titans in Russia Fear New Front in Ukraine Crisis – NYTimes.com – 3/10/2014.

* * *

One notable statistic about Russia is that the mean wealth of its 110m adults last year was $10,980 while the median was $870. In other words, if the country’s assets were equally divided, the man in the middle would possess more than $10,000 but, in practice, his net worth is less than a 10th of that sum. This is the result of 110 billionaires controlling 35 per cent of the wealth.

Punishing a few oligarchs in London is not enough – FT.com – 3/5/2014.

______

The pundits fret over what to do with the Russia-Crimea-Ukraine debacle not in relation to mere Slavic expansionism — start, oh Russians, with investments in the east for that — but rather the expansion of Putin’s “mafia state“.

______ For readers who have a couple of hours to spare (right now) ______

Putinism and Russian Protest – YouTube – 2:02:48 – posted 10/29/2012.

That I find this kind of thing exciting scares me!

Panels about Putin may be inseparable from concerns associated with political psychology.

* * *

Garry Kasparov’s Advice to Obama: ‘Forget About Diplomatic Solution’ with Putin – YouTube 3/6/2014.

* * *

On Viktor Yanukovych:

Revelations In The Yanukovych Papers – YouTube – 3/12/2014.

Primary Source: What the Ousted Ukrainian President Tried to Hide Before He Fled | New Republic – 3/12/2014.

Related Reference

Garry Kasparov on Putin | Fox Business Video (today).

Russia’s Putin Cracks Down on Media When We Need Journalism the Most | New Republic (today): Most of Lenta’s reporters have resigned in protest, writing in a farewell letter, “The trouble is not that we’ve lost our jobs. The trouble is that you’ve got nothing to read.”

Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina on Putin’s War in Crimea | New Republic – 3/2/2014.

Is Vladimir Putin insane? Hardly – latimes.com – 3/11/2014.

Russia – A mafia state? – YouTube – 1:43:47 – roundtable with Luke Harding – posted 7/27/2012.

Can Putin Contain Post-Putinism? – YouTube – 1:24:23 – – 11/28/2012.  AKA “Can Putinism Be Reformed?”

Putinism and Russian Protest – YouTube – 2:02:48 – 10/29/2012: “Dictators will always steal as much as they can.”

Yanukovych Leaks

Reference – Media and Propaganda

Stephen Colbert Tackles Vladimir Putin’s TV Propaganda – 🙂

Crimea: Putin vs. Reality by Timothy Snyder | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books – 3/7/2014.

Russia blocks internet sites of Putin critics – Courant.com (today).

Russian Aggression

Russian troops gather at Ukraine border – World – The Boston Globe (today); Russian troops gathering at Ukraine border for exercises as standoff continues – The Washington Post; Russia might halt nuclear inspections | Concord Monitor; Ukraine: Russia Fired On Plane Over Crimea.

Source: Ukraine: Russia Fired On Plane Over Crimea (today): “Kyiv Post’s Christopher Miller tweeted this video that allegedly shows a pro-Russian group attacking pro-Ukrainian groups in Donetsk today”.

Related: Ukraine: deadly clashes in Donetsk | euronews, world news; Violent clashes in Donetsk between Ukrainians and pro-Russian groups as Moscow moves thousands of troops to border | Mail Online.

______

President Obama’s Bilateral Meeting with Prime Minister Yatsenyuk of Ukraine – YouTube – 3/12/2014.

# # #

FNS – Israel – Of Rocket Squads and an Isolated Hamas

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Regions

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Al Qaeda, Hamas, Israel, political, politics

The Israeli military said a total of four rockets were fired Thursday from Gaza. Israeli officials previously refused to confirm any cease-fire deal was in place.

Rockets Strike Israel, Jeopardizing Truce Talk – ABC News

* * *

“Our mujahedeen responded to the Zionist aggression by firing tens of rockets,” Islamic Jihad said in a statement to the BBC.

“The rockets fired today came in response to the occupation aggression against us and does not mean the collapse of the ceasefire agreement [with Israel],” it said.

BBC News – Israeli planes hit Gaza in response to rocket strikes

______

End the brutal and senseless preoccupation with the Jews!

Because impotence and obsession are what Hamas and companies are all about: if only Israel didn’t exist; if only the Jews disappeared (after being plundered — let’s not be in too much of a hurry about this); if only the “occupation aggression” did not include trade throughput, medical assistance, basic utilities deliveries, employment, and so on, then the Arab mind (of the Islamic Jihad) might find itself at peace.

Last spring, scholar Mordechai Kedar noted in “An Open Letter to the Arab League”, “The way you relate to one another is so terrible that we are not sure that we want anything to do with you.”

If as much was true then, it’s certainly true now.  Hamas may value its post-Cast Lead (2009) truce with Israel, but it evidently cannot contain either itself or less encumbered — for being less governmental — Islamic Jihad movements on its own block.

Last night, Israel returned like fire in response to yesterday’s rocket and mortar barrage (the latest news reports four more rockets fired from Gaza today).  That tit-for-tat is an old show: curtain up, please, on the mindlessness, the essential empty thoughtlessness, of Islamic Jihad and the whole bogus mission that has proved convenient for shielding the destruction of other cultures and the theft of wealth (for Gaza, start with the UNRWA annual contribution intended to secure some benefits in qualities of living, and then move swiftly on to Arafat and funds never accounted).

Because of what it really represents, because of what it does to its own constituents and others, because of its self-serving and grandiose delusions, Hamas finds itself in trouble today.

An Egyptian court ruled on March 4 to forbid all activities in Egypt by Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas. The court ruling cuts off all official Hamas-Egyptian ties and closes all Hamas offices and infrastructure within Egypt.

Egypt Bans Hamas – theTrumpet.com

Special interest press bias?

Related: With the Egyptian blockade, is Hamas in deep financial trouble? Well, its employees are complaining about not being paid | Al Bawaba – 3/5/2014; Saudi Arabia declares Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group – McClatchy DC News – The Sacramento Bee – 3/7/2014; AP Interview: Jihadi head says Gaza groups growing – 3/9/2014; Al Qaida-inspired jihadi movement growing in Gaza, says group leader – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz – 3/10/2014.

It would appear that when it comes to attacks against Israel, which it falls to Hamas to police, Hamas has found itself between a fiercely active and impossibly passive place: it either can’t or won’t stand up to or stall “Gaza’s secretive jihadist groups”; it won’t itself step out from beneath the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella; it won’t step forward to make peace with the Jewish State of Israel but it will allow itself to be cajoled and dragged into fairly begging Israel for incursion and real occupation on the turf it was supposed to govern (x suspect election followed by civil war with Fatah) independently.

In fact, Hamas has gotten itself so into trouble, so isolated between worlds, so caught between al-Qaeda, the Ayatollah, Egypt, and Israel, that I would not be surprised were it to look to the IDF to defend its interests from the local competitors that have infiltrated its writ and compromised whatever integrity and self-possession it once may have had.

Salafi groups have been suspected in the bombings of Internet cafes and music stores, intimidation of Gaza’s small Christian community, the kidnapping of a BBC journalist in 2007 and more recently, the death of an Italian activist in 2011. Salafi groups are also believed to cooperate with militants in the neighboring Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to attack Egyptian and Israeli targets.

Gaza’s Salafis support al-Qaida’s campaign of global jihad, but are not believed to have direct links with the global terror network. In contrast, Hamas says its struggle is solely against Israel.

Al Qaida-inspired jihadi movement growing in Gaza, says group leader – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz – 3/10/2014.

______

Netanyahu Warns Gaza Militants Against Attack on Purim Holiday – SFGate

Oren: Why Gaza conflict risks wider war | News – Home

Israel fires on 29 ‘terror sites’ after rockets from Gaza hit towns – CNN.com – 3/12/2014 (updated).

Middle East and Terrorism: Mordechai Kedar: An Open Letter to the Arab League – 5/10/2013.

# # #

FNS – Israel – Gaza Rocket Fire

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Regions

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Gaza, Hamas, Israel, middle east conflict, political, politics, rocket barrage, rockets

Since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, terrorists have fired more than 8,000 rockets into Israel. Over 3.5 million Israelis are currently living under threat of rocket attacks.

More than half a million Israelis have less than 60 seconds to find shelter after a rocket is launched from Gaza into Israel. Most rockets launched from Gaza into Israel are capable of reaching Israel’s biggest southern cities.

Rocket Attacks on Israel From Gaza • IDF Blog | The Official Blog of the Israel Defense Forces

Related: List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2014 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* * *

Israel’s military said more than 20 rockets were fired. Israeli media reported more than 50 rockets were fired.

The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks over the years. Israel’s military said they had targeted the militants on Tuesday after they fired at Israel.

Gaza militants fire large barrage of at least 20 rockets into Israel; no casualties reported

______

If the weapons stored in Gaza allow it, this can only escalate unless or until the IDF steps in with boots to stop it.

The news also tells the effect of having intercepted a major arms shipment last week: is the one shipment caught, however substantial it may be, the only shipment that needed to be caught?

The numbers seem to be going up.  The news broke with the term “barrage” used, then noted “more than 20”, and recently AFP reported “over 50” and this latest link — BREAKING: Palestinians Fire at Least 60 Rockets At Southern Israel – The Tower – The Tower – reports “at least 60”.

The saddest statement for reading from the above:

A top Hamas official publicly boasted this week that the Iran-backed terror group intends to blanket Israel with missiles and rockets during any future conflagration. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had warned as far back as last fall that Hamas was arming itself in anticipation of “a renewal of violence,” an assessment that came amid increasingly specific intelligence indicating that the organization was looking to provoke a conflict with Israel in order to reverse what had become a precipitous decline in its domestic and international positions.

Competing to hate, to express more hate than someone else’s hate, to do more with hate and thereby garner “prestige” . . . .

What’s garnered universally by such a philosophy: contempt.

______

Video Shows Terrorists Fired From Civilian Areas – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News

Israel vows tough action after Gaza rocket salvos | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

Army Chief Rushes Back to Israel and IDF Tanks Return Fire After Massive Rocket Barrage Hits Israel (VIDEO) | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com

Israeli tanks hit terrorist targets in S. Gaza after 70 rockets on Israel

Earlier

Gaza rocket barrage strikes southern Israel – Middle East – Al Jazeera English

Gaza Terrorists Fire More Than 30 Rockets at Israel, IDF Responds • IDF Blog | The Official Blog of the Israel Defense Forces

AFP: Gaza militants fire ‘over 50 rockets’ at Israel

Gaza militants fire large rocket barrage at Israel – The Washington Post

# # #

Guest Post by Amil Imani – Obama: Expect No Respect from the Islamic Revolution in Iran

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Regions

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Tags

Iran, Islamofascism, negotiations, Obama, political, politics, Revolution

What we should envision is a secular Iran which will allow the seeds of our ancient wisdom and goodness to grow and flourish again through our art, music, poetry and social dynamics. The U.S. has, in secular Iranians, its best friends in the entire Islamic world. It is imperative for the U.S. to help these Iranians to dislodge the vicious doomsday Mullahs, not as an act of altruism, but as a prudent measure of enlightened self-interest.

______

My Fellow Traveler,

We no longer have any choice. We no longer can engage in the same old practices to deal with the massive and debilitating threats that face humanity. We must band together and pool our resources to meet the challenges. Our planet’s problems are no longer local problems that a parochial thinking and practices can address successfully. We cannot squander even an ounce of our sorely needed energy in petty squabbles and personal fights.

Unlike anything encountered in recent memory, the formidably complex and unique situation present in today’s world poses an enormous challenge. It defies any conventional solution, and simply resorting to civil disobedience is the equivalent of fighting off a pack of hungry and blood-thirsty wolves with tooth-picks!

The Western leaders and, in particular, President Obama, must know that Hassan Rouhani and his ilk are not interested in any substantial negotiation, any compromise or live-and-let-live policy. President Obama should reconsider his good faith gesture of opening dialogue with this brutal, inhumane and illegitimate Islamic government. The Islamic Republic has no respect for the olive branches being extended to it by the Obama administration; it still continues with full-speed ahead in its quest for nuclear weaponry — and the power to intimidate the region as well as the entire world.

The best predictor of the future is the past. The religious fanatic mullahs’ record is one of deception, dissimulation, treachery, violence and much more. These Quran-trained and directed agents of a wrathful Allah can never be trusted. They are master schemers. They have been at the business of scheming for centuries. They have perfected the art of deception, doubletalk, double-dealing and treachery.

The Western world must rid themselves of the “happy talk” as we tranquilize ourselves by reasoning that these doddering old-world religious fools may be mischievous, but they could never do real harm. Oh, sure, they might be arming some Iraqi Shiites, killing a few .U.S soldiers, providing a little support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas terrorists in Palestine, building several bases in South America and Africa, murdering Iranian people and calling for the eradication of Israel—but they have no global destructive capacity. After all, we pacify ourselves that we’re not exactly talking about criminal masterminds like Hitler, or are we?

I do not claim to have all the answers, but have a fair idea of where to begin. It is high time to realize that we are not dealing with the same social factors or even the same people of three decades ago. We need to collaborate on this effort and invite others who can contribute to this cause without placing personal fame and secondary gains ahead of the ultimate goal of reeducating, rebuilding and liberating Iran.

What we should envision is a secular Iran which will allow the seeds of our ancient wisdom and goodness to grow and flourish again through our art, music, poetry and social dynamics. The U.S. has, in secular Iranians, its best friends in the entire Islamic world. It is imperative for the U.S. to help these Iranians to dislodge the vicious doomsday Mullahs, not as an act of altruism, but as a prudent measure of enlightened self-interest.

Amil Imani

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Author Amil Imani writes on this web site, “My mission is to raise the clarion call about the imminent and present danger of expansionist theocratic Islam. Having witnessed first-hand the horrors and indignity that Islamofascism visits on people it subjugates, I have taken it upon myself to do my part in defeating this ideology of oppression, hate and violence.”  Amil Imani 

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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