From Ian:
PMW: Fatah: Netanyahu = Baby Killer
Dolphinarium disco: 15 years ago today Palestinian suicide bomber murdered 21 young Israelis
Jerusalem Unity Prize honors memories of slain teens
Krauthammer Shreds State Department’s ‘Commitment to Transparency’
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PMW: Fatah: Netanyahu = Baby Killer
A post on the official Fatah Facebook page presents Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a baby killer. The text posted by Fatah in English accompanying the above cartoon, asked the Israeli PM:
“How many Palestinian kids did it take you to kill to win the Israeli votes?
#Asknetanyahu”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, May 12, 2016]
The cartoon shows a rising graph made of dead Palestinian babies as PM Netanyahu walks across, rising in popularity. "#Asknetanyahu" is referring a May 12, 2016 event on Twitter in which PM Netanyahu responded to questions tweeted to him using the "Asknetanyahu" hashtag.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA and Fatah often repeat the libel that Israel, its leaders and soldiers deliberately target and kill Palestinians for no reason.
Dolphinarium disco: 15 years ago today Palestinian suicide bomber murdered 21 young Israelis
It’s a word that brings chills to those who have lived through or studied the Second Intifada, the murderous suicide bombing campaign targeting Israeli civilians.Time to truly liberate Jerusalem
Much like the Sbarro Pizza suicide bombing and the Park Hotel Passover suicide bombing, not to mention suicide bus bombings like Haifa Bus 38. Just a few of the more notorious attacks on a very long list of attacks on Israeli civilians starting in 2001.
The carnage only ended after the security barrier was built and Israel launched an intensive military operation in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”). And after almost 1000 Israeli civilians died.
You can’t understand the current Israeli political outlook without understanding the Second Intifada. I’ve heard so many times it was the event that soured so many Israelis on the Oslo Peace process. After all, we now know that the Second Intifada was a planned assault launched by Yasser Arafat after he couldn’t bring himself to say Yes to generous peace offers at Camp David an after.
15 years ago, on June 1, 2001, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 21 young Israelis outside the Dolphinarium disco.
Even as Israel prepares to celebrate the 49th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem next week, a shameful incident took place which should serve as a painful reminder that much still needs to be done to strengthen our hold over all parts of our beloved capital.
According to a report in Wednesday’s Yediot Aharonot, a busload of recruit’s to the IDF Paratroopers Brigade were on their way to the traditional military induction ceremony at the Western Wall when police ordered them to close the curtains over the windows, lest Arab onlookers attack as they arrived at the Old City’s Damascus Gate.
Yes, you read that correctly. Israeli soldiers were instructed to hide behind their bus curtains in the heart of Jerusalem.
The paper noted that the soldiers vehemently objected, but were forced by their commander to accede to the order, although not before they began to chant, “The eternal nation does not fear a long road.”
The irony of this incident is so profound, and so bitter, that it simply defies comprehension.
After all, it was none other than a heroic group of paratroopers – the 55th Paratrooper Brigade commanded by Colonel Mordechai “Motta” Gur – which liberated the Old City during the 1967 Six Day War.
Jerusalem Unity Prize honors memories of slain teens
The second annual Jerusalem Unity Prize was awarded at the President's Residence Wednesday to a number of organizations that work to promote and inspire Jewish unity.The Mottle Wolfe Show: American University Students are Dumbasses
The prize was established in a partnership with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, the Gesher Foundation and the families of the late Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel, the three teenagers who were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists in June 2014, leading to Operation Protective Edge.
The recipients of this year's award are Kesher Yehudi (Jewish Connection), which works to facilitate dialogue between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews, Jerusalem's Hapoel Katamon soccer club, which promotes youth community outreach, the Jewish Agency's Global School Twinning Network, which connects students around the world to discuss Jewish identity and social responsibility, and a joint initiative to increase interaction among the religious Bnei Akiva youth movement and the secular Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed and Dror youth movements.
Israel is taking a beating on college Campuses across America. It is not because of apartheid, or occupation, but rather many University students are just plain stupid. Hen Mazzig, Israel Education Director of Stand With Us, joins Mottle to discuss the anti-Israel hate filled cesspit that is becoming campus life in America. Also, Claiming that Avigdor Lieberman is a right wing extremest while calling Abbas a ‘moderate’, is an example of the Subtle racism of low expectations often put forward by the Left.The Mottle Wolfe Show: Shoolgirl Hate Speech
British Schoolgirl, Leanne Mohamad, won a regional final Speak Out Challenge with her speech ‘Birds not Bombs’, in which she claims that the Jews have killed 30,000 Palestinian children in daily bombings since 1948. Israellycool blogger Brian John Thomas finds himself in the middle of this controversy and joins Mottle to discuss. Also a US election update, and a little background on Yom Yerushalayim.Netanyahu tries to turn Arab Peace Initiative on its head
But Netanyahu has a different vision. He believes, or at least purports to believe, that Israel’s nascent rapprochement with certain Sunni Arab states in the region could eventually lead to a situation in which those states pressure the Palestinians into the concessions required to reach a peace deal.PM blasts Paris summit: Peace cannot be coerced
It’s the Arab Peace Initiative turned on its head.
While the Arab world promises full diplomatic relations with Israel after an accord with the Palestinians is signed, Netanyahu evidently hopes this normalization process can take place now or in the near future, and then eventually bring along with it a deal with the PA.
“The conventional wisdom for the last few decades has been that a solution to the Palestinian issues will result in improved ties between Israel and the Arab world,” Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold told The Times of Israel on Wednesday. “But there is a serious basis for thinking that, actually, the sequence is exactly the opposite — that by improving ties with the Arab states, we set the stage for a future breakthrough with the Palestinians.”
Gold has recently met with several officials from Arab countries, including those with which Israel has no formal ties.
It is in this context that one can understand Netanyahu’s statement Monday, in which he declared that the Arab Peace Initiative “includes positive elements that can help revive constructive negotiations with the Palestinians.”
Ahead of the French peace summit meant to address the stalemate in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Wednesday that peace cannot be coerced and that the conference may actually harm future prospects for peace.Israel lobbying Trump, Clinton to blunt potential UN action
"If the countries gathering this week in Paris really want to advance peace, they must join my call to [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] to enter into direct negotiations," Netanyahu said Wednesday at the graduation ceremony of Bar-Ilan University's faculty of medicine in Safed.
"That is the only path to peace -- there is no other," he said. "The path to peace does not pass though international committees that are trying to coerce an agreement, radicalize Palestinian demands and in doing so, distance peace."
The prime minister insisted that Israel will continue to seek peace, even with the help of other regional players.
"The path to peace passes through direct negotiations between the two sides, without preconditions," he said. "That is how it was in the past when we made peace with Egypt and with Jordan, and that is how it must be with the Palestinians. We will not stop looking for paths to peace."
Senior government officials have reached out in recent weeks to advisers close to former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and real estate tycoon Donald Trump to begin lobbying against the prospect that President Barack Obama will join an international peace effort in his final days in office, The Jerusalem Post has learned.Aaron David Miller: Don't Expect Much from the French Summit on Middle East Peace
Israel is concerned Obama will try to pass a UN Security Council resolution during what is known as the “lame duck ” period – the time between the election on November 8 and the next president’s inauguration on January 20. Obama would no longer need to consider whether his actions would complicate the electoral prospects of the Democratic candidate for president, who is likely to be Clinton.
Clinton opposes international action on a two-state solution outside the framework of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
International initiatives would effectively impose parameters for peace “from without,” her campaign says.
And multiple senior officials in the Obama administration believe the president is unlikely to undermine his successor by switching courses, should she win in November.
Independent of her success, those officials told the Post that Obama is less supportive of a resolution on Middle East peace at the Security Council than he is opposed to an automatic veto for Israel at the council – in other words, nothing is guaranteed.
After 20-plus years of planning mostly failed Middle East peace conferences for Republican and Democratic administrations, I know a fatally flawed one when I see it.Wapo: Paris peace summit onset of diplomatic onslaught on Israel
Here are five reasons why the French peace initiative that opens Friday in Paris–a ministerial meeting of nearly 30 nations; notionally designed to be followed by a fall conference including the Israelis and Palestinians—can’t deliver a serious and sustained negotiating process, let alone a breakthrough.
1. We are in a period of political maneuver, not serious decision-making. Time, flexibility, and motivation for real breakthroughs do not exist.
2. Peace conferences and summits are usually good for one of two things: launching a credible negotiating process or reaching an agreement to finalize one.
3. Israel has already rejected the French plan.
4. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has welcomed the French approach for the same reason Israel rejected it:
5. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to be in Paris but probably has low expectations. The Obama
France’s controversial "peace initiative" heralds a serious diplomatic threat for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Washington Post said in an editorial.Sick of the Middle East Balagan, Israel considers ‘MExit’ (satire)
According to the editorial published Wednesday evening on the newspaper’s website, the peace summit set to begin Friday in Paris without Palestinian or Israeli participation marks the beginning of a multilateral effort to formulate a plan for Palestinian statehood by Western powers, including the United States.
President Barack Obama, the unsigned editorial read, “is said to be weighing whether to support a UN Security Council resolution later this year spelling out terms for a two-state solution” – a move Israel has long opposed, worrying that it would produce results it found unacceptable.
Israel opposes the premise of the Paris summit — a gathering of foreign ministers from Western and Arab countries — because French diplomats have said they seek a deadline on talks, after which a Palestinian state would be recognized regardless of the outcome of the negotiations. Netanyahu, who argues the deadline would demotivate the Palestinians from compromising, also objects to indirect peace talks.
Amid growing polarization in Israel society, the op-ed said, Netanyahu elected to veer to the right by appointing Avigdor Liberman as defense minister in a coalition deal that broadened Netanyahu’s coalition by joining to its ranks Liberman’s nationalist Yisrael Beytenu party instead of Labor.
In a world of naff abbreviations, memes and soundbites, the Israeli Knesset this week debated a motion brought by rebel MKs on the benefits of an Israeli ‘MExit‘: an exit from the Middle East.Amid Renewed Talk of Historic Modi Trip to Israel, Spokesman in New Delhi Says ‘BDS Far From Indian Mentality’
Seeing how all the talk of a ‘Brexit‘ (British Exit) in Europe has engaged an apathetic British public from its political slumber and scared the bejesus heck out of the European Union, the Israeli PM agreed to the debate, which raged well into Friday night. Drunken new Defense Minister Avigdor ‘the Tom Jones of Odessa’ Lieberman cried into his vodka: “I don’t want to move but at least we would not have to find a lousy Eurovision entry. It’s humiliating. Like Arafat in a thong.”
One of the more sensible suggestions was to charter 2,300 El Al flights, 43,000 kosher meals and take Israeli citizens on a junket to northern Thailand – where most seem to spend their post-army travels and run travel agencies.
Another suggestion was to fit all of the Holy Land inside two streets in a Shanghai suburb, which raised the prospect of Tel Avivians enjoying Chinese food that was actually good.
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has no stronghold in India, a spokesman at the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.West Bank stabbing attempt: Female Palestinian attacks IDF soldiers, is shot dead
“BDS is far from the Indian mentality,” said Ohad Horsandi, who was discussing the intricacies of what he called the “improving, but delicate” relations between the two countries, in light of a report in The Hindu over the weekend that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduling a trip to Israel in a few months.
According to the report, the trip – which would be the first-ever visit of an Indian premier to the Jewish state – is being arranged to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between New Delhi and Jerusalem.
Horsandi confirmed that a visit by Modi is “being discussed,” simultaneously stressing that it is only in the theoretical stage at this point, but being seriously considered. “Such a trip would constitute the filling in of the last missing piece of the puzzle,” he said.
A Palestinian woman was shot and killed on Thursday after she tried stabbing IDF soldiers in the northern West Bank.Shin Bet: 73% of stabbers in latest terror wave have Israeli IDs
The IDF said that the knife-wielding Palestinian woman arrived at a military post near the Palestinian town of Anabta, where she tried attacking nearby troops. The soldiers reportedly left their guard post and initially tried apprehending the woman before firing shots at her.
There were no injuries among the Israelis.
While the frequency of lone-wolf violence that plagued Israel in recent months has simmered down, sporadic attacks continue to occur.
Earlier in the week, a Palestinian teenager stabbed and lightly wounded a soldier in Tel Aviv in what police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) were investigating as a likely terrorist attack.
Police said Monday that a Palestinian teen with a screwdriver stabbed and lightly wounded a 19-year-old soldier at the scene, before he was cornered by bystanders in an apartment building nearby.
Thirty of the terrorists who attacked Israelis during the wave of stabbings in late 2015 and early 2016 -- 73% of all the terrorists in that time span -- possess Israeli identification cards, the Shin Bet security agency told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday.Building site shuttered for illegally hiring Palestinian who stabbed soldier
The security agency presented the figures within the framework of a government request to extend the Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law by one year, which curbs family unification, preventing Arabs in the Palestinian territories or beyond from marrying Arab Israelis for the purpose of receiving Israeli residency.
The figures also revealed that between 2001 and 2106, 104 people involved in terrorist activity had received official residency status in Israel due to family unification. Among them, 17 received their status through marriage to Israelis, while 87 were relatives of those who received residency status.
The Shin Bet representative told the committee that in light of these numbers, the agency believes the population of family unification seekers represents a risk, particularly after residency status is received, because they can be used by external forces to support terrorist and espionage activity.
The Israel Police shut down a construction site in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim Thursday for illegally employing a 19-year-old Palestinian who stabbed an IDF soldier earlier this week.Gan Shmuel terrorist rammer gets 25-year prison sentence
The Israeli employer hired the Palestinian man despite the fact that he did not have a legal permit to enter and work in Israel. The site’s owner may also have provided housing for the worker, a police spokesperson said.
Construction at the site will be frozen for 15 days, police said.
The site’s owner was brought in for questioning this week, but has not been charged with a crime at this point, a police official told The Times of Israel.
“The police call on the public to abide by the law and not employ, house or transport people who do not have legal permits,” a police statement said.
The Haifa District Court on Wednesday sentenced Israeli Alaa Ziad to 25 years in prison for four attempted murders following an October 11 car-ramming terrorist attack that he carried out. Ziad was convicted on March 10.Israeli Military Builds New ‘Command Pit’ to Combat Cyber Threats
He both ran over and stabbed two soldiers and two civilians, one of whom was a 15-yearold girl, at Kibbutz Gan Shmuel near Hadera toward the start of the current wave of Arab violence.
This was the second time this week that Ziad was in the news after Interior Minister Arye Deri on Sunday filed a request with the Haifa District Court to revoke his citizenship over the attack.
The state filed Deri’s request after it was approved as legal by Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, a requirement under the law.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is expected to complete construction of a new cyber defense “command pit” in the coming weeks, as part of the military’s efforts to enhance its cyber capabilities and transition to becoming fully digitalized.New defense minister recognizes bereaved same-sex families
The announcement was made Wednesday by Brig. Gen. Danny Bren, commander of the Lotem (Telecommunications and Information Technology) unit of the IDF Teleprocessing Branch (or C4I Corps). The corps is responsible for all areas of teleprocessing and communications in the IDF.
“Israel is the only democratic country whose enemies wish to destroy it both physically and cybernetically, and they say so openly,” Bren, who is leaving his post next month after three and a half years in the role, told reporters in a briefing about teleprocessing and technology in the IDF.
“This is what we must contend with, simultaneous to defending against cybernetic terrorism and cyber threats that many other countries face,” said Bren. “The IDF is doing all it can to meet the challenges, physical and cybernetic, and the Teleprocessing Branch plays a significant role in that. The commanders have to understand the need to transition into the digital age and internalize that the age of compartmentalized branches [of the army] is over.”
New Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued an official document on behalf of the Defense Ministry on Wednesday declaring that the ministry "views same-sex and heterosexual families of fallen soldiers equally, and operates in accordance with this equality so that there is no difference in recognition and rights."Arab Israeli Salafists take aim at sports and culture
With the document, Lieberman reiterated the policy formulated by his predecessor, Moshe Ya'alon, who recently made a similar declaration. Since bereaved families are eligible for financial benefits, the distinction has far-reaching implications.
Following a meeting of defense officials and bereaved families a few weeks ago, before he left the minister's post, Ya'alon said, "We are treating bereaved same-sex and heterosexual families the same. It would never occur to us that it could be otherwise, and it won't be."
Members of Ya'alon's bureau said the meeting had been convened at the request of MK Amir Ohana, and was attended by Defense Ministry Director General Maj. Gen. (res.) Dan Harel and the ministry's Families and Commemoration Department head, Aryeh Muallem.
When Hanin Radi tried to make her dream come true of staging a marathon in her hometown, the Arab Israeli received death threats from radical Islamists.U.S. Grants Refuge To Openly Gay Grandson Of Hamas Founder
“I’ve run marathons everywhere, but in the streets of my town I’m afraid to run,” said Radi, who is from the Arab town of Tira in central Israel.
The 36-year-old mother of four is among those who have stirred the wrath of Salafist Islamists increasingly asserting themselves among Israel’s Arab population.
Citing their strict interpretation of Sunni Islam, Salafists have taken their campaign to cultural institutions and local governments, opposing anything they view as immoral.
In the case of Radi, who has finished third in the Tel Aviv marathon, her running in public in exercise gear violates the Salafists’ rigid ideas about women and modesty.
The openly gay grandson of a West Bank Hamas founder has finally found refuge in the United States, VICE News reported.Israel to release Palestinian MP after 14 months in prison
The renamed John Calvin (pictured) was living under the threat of deportation for years while waiting for political asylum from Canada. According to the report, Calvin said that if he were to heed a Canadian court’s decision to deport him back to the Palestinian territories he would face certain death for coming out as gay, converting to Christianity, and renouncing the Islamist terror organization his grandfather co-founded.
Eventually rejected by the Canadian immigration system, the 25-year-old crossed into the U.S. late last year and was placed on immigration hold until his release.
However, a deferral of removal granted him by a Massachusetts immigration court under the Convention Against Torture means that Calvin will be able to stay in the U.S. indefinitely. However, the ruling does not grant any permanent immigration status and neither will Calvin be able to apply for a green card.
“I’ve literally been to hell and back, so it’s going to take a while for me to rebuild my life,” Calvin told VICE News.
Israel is set to release a prominent Palestinian lawmaker who has been in prison since April 2015, Palestinian and Israeli sources said Thursday.PA: Only 40% of Gaza donations have been received
Khalida Jarrar will be set free at the Jubara checkpoint near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem on Friday morning, the Israel Prison Service and the Palestinian Prisoners Club told AFP.
Jarrar, a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a well-known political figure, had been sentenced by Israel to 15 months prison for encouraging attacks against Israel and violating a travel ban.
The prison service spokesman said she was being released a month early as part of an “administrative release,” which can take place when prisons are filled beyond capacity.
Israel considers the PFLP a terrorist organization and at the time of her arrest the Israeli army said Jarrar posed “substantial security risks.”
Only some 40% of the $3.5 billion pledged for the reconstruction of Gaza has been received, because donor countries have yet to fully make good on their pledges from almost two years ago, the Palestinian Authority said on Wednesday.MEMRI: London-Based 'Al-Sharq Al-Awsat': Lebanese Government Paying Salaries Of Hizbullah MPs, Ministers In Cash To Bypass Potential American Sanctions
Money is therefore available only to rebuild 5,615 of the 11,000 homes that were totally destroyed during the 2014 war with Israel, the PA said.
In addition, the report stated, another 6,800 homes sustained severe damage and 5,700 were severely damaged. Some 147,500 sustained minor damage.
There is a funding gap of $183 million to fix 59,567 of those homes, the report stated.
If more funds do not come in, not only will it be impossible to repair these homes, but it will not have $37 million needed in rental subsidies for those families whose homes are still uninhabitable, the report said.
So far it has received only 57% of the $58 million needed to rebuild the electricity sector.
On May 29, 2016, the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported on attempts by the Lebanese government to bypass the new U.S. sanctions recently imposed on Hizbullah. Citing Lebanese sources, including Hizbullah sources within the Lebanese parliament, the daily wrote that for the past two months the Lebanese finance ministry has been paying the salaries of Hizbullah ministers and MPs in cash in contrast to the payment method it uses when paying the country's other MPs and ministers. It should be noted that Lebanese banks recently closed accounts of several Hizbullah ministers and MPs in compliance with the U.S. sanctions.'DELIBERATE' DELETION: State Dept. admits scrubbing video of Fox reporter's questions on Iran talks
In December 2015, U.S. Congress passed the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act, aimed at curtailing the organization's funding of its domestic and international activities, and also at combatting its global criminal activities – including money laundering, drug trafficking, and human trafficking – by which it funds the terror operations that it carries out worldwide. The law bars any "foreign financial institution" that engages in transactions with Hizbullah or with persons or bodies affiliated with it, or which provides them with financial services or launder money for them, from maintaining a relationship with the U.S. banking system. This means that any bank in the world, including in Lebanon, that provides financial services to the organization will be denied access to U.S. financial institutions – and thus to the global financial sector. The ramifications of this are far-reaching and can lead these banks to collapse. The law also imposes sanctions and penalties (fines, imprisonment or both) on individuals or bodies that violate its provisions. It came into effect on April 15, 2016, after the U.S. Treasury issued regulations for its implementation; the Treasury also published a list of some 100 bodies and figures associated with Hizbullah with whom financial institutions may not conduct dealings.
The State Department had faced questions earlier this year over the block of missing tape from a December 2013 briefing. At that briefing, then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked by Fox News’ James Rosen about an earlier claim that no direct, secret talks were underway between the U.S. and Iran – when, in fact, they were.State Department Admits It Obeyed ‘Deliberate Request’ to Purge Video of Iran Lies
Psaki at the time seemed to admit the discrepancy, saying: “There are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that.”
However, Fox News later discovered the Psaki exchange was missing from the department’s official website and its YouTube channel. Eight minutes from the briefing, including the comments on the Iran deal, were edited out and replaced with a white-flash effect.
Officials initially suggested a "glitch" occurred.
But on Wednesday, current State Department spokesman Kirby said someone had censored the video intentionally. He said he couldn't find out who was responsible, but described such action as unacceptable.
While saying there were “no rules [or] regulations in place that prohibited” this at the time, Kirby said: "Deliberately removing a portion of the video was not and is not in keeping with the State Department's commitment to transparency and public accountability.”
The State Department press corps grilled Kirby on the intentional deletion Wednesday, trying to find out more about how it could have happened.
The video cut occurred the same day as the press briefing, according to Kirby, who added the request to do so was made over the phone.
“The recipient of the call, who is one of the editors, does not remember anything other than that the caller was passing on a request from somewhere else in the [Bureau of Public Affairs in the State Department],” Kirby added.
The department is not investigating the matter further to see who may have wanted the video deleted or why because there were no rules in place to govern this sort of action.
“So while I believe it was an inappropriate step to take, I see little foundation for pressing forward with a formal investigation,” Kirby said, adding his goal is to make sure policies are put in place to ensure something like this does not happen again to maintain transparency.
“Clearly somebody, however, is not as committed to transparency and disclosure as you are,” Reuters reporter Arshad Mohammad said. “Because it affected a very sensitive matter, not merely the Iran nuclear negotiations, but more importantly whether a previous person at that podium spoke truthfully. I wonder why you are not making a greater effort to find out who sought to burglarize the record. Even if there weren’t rules, it stands to common sense and your own inclinations that you’d be transparent. So I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to find out who tried to subvert what has historically been a transparency of the department in these matters.”
Krauthammer Shreds State Department’s ‘Commitment to Transparency’
Columnist Charles Krauthammer tore apart the Obama administration’s so called “commitment to transparency” on Fox News’ Special Report in the wake of the State Department’s admission that they had removed a portion of a 2013 press briefing regarding deception over the Iran nuclear deal.Harvard Hires Iranian Regime Supporter Who Warned of ‘Jewish Threat’
Fox News host Bret Baier played a couple of clips of administration officials blaming failing memories for not remembering key facts from two or three years ago. Then Krauthammer went on the attack.
“Look, this incident is so appalling, it’s almost comical. In the old Soviet Union, if Stalin decided he didn’t like you, you disappeared. But then you were airbrushed out of all the pictures, the photographs that had been taken in the past and this was a source of a lot of amusement in the West,” Krauthammer said. “The old joke was, ‘Everywhere else it’s impossible to predict the future, in the Soviet Union, impossible to predict the past.’ This is now happening in the U.S.
“Remember, they tried to pass it off as a glitch. So that was either an obvious lie or sort of a lame attempt at a cover-up. And I love what Kirby had to say today, the State Department spokesman. He said this was not and is not in keeping with State Department’s commitment to transparency. Well, no kidding Sherlock! When you actually lie about deleting history, that is not transparent.
“The real story is why are they pretending that they can get away with the passive. A request was made, ‘Well, why can’t you find out who made it. There were only a finite number of people there. This is important to find out. This is a big deal.”
Harvard University is currently employing as a “visiting scholar” an Iranian hardline regime supporter who has warned against the “Jewish threat” and has been critical of Judaism and Israel, according to multiple sources.Erdogan slams Germany for Armenian genocide vote, recalls envoy
Ali Akbar Alikhani, an associate professor at the University of Tehran, is currently serving as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, where he is on a project centered on “peace and peaceful coexistence in Islam.”
Alikhani argued that “the Jewish dissidents of Zionism” were in fact “propagandistic exploitations” created by the “Jewish government” to “pretend that Israel is a free country.”
His paper cited several controversial academics, including Roger Garaudy, a French scholar known for denying the Holocaust. Garaudy’s death in 2012 was commemorated by the Iranian regime.
Alikhani’s other works have touted Rachid Ghannouchi, a Tunisian Islamist figure who has promoted violence against Jewish people and heads a group that is accused of having ties to Hamas.
The academic also has close ties with other Iranian regime-backed academics and political leaders.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday warned that the German parliament’s recognition of World War I killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide would “seriously affect” bilateral ties.Saudi Family Therapist Condemns Johnny Depp for Hitting Wife Incorrectly (satire)
“The resolution adopted by the German parliament will seriously affect relations between Germany and Turkey,” Erdogan said, confirming that Ankara has recalled its ambassador to Germany for consultations.
Germany’s charge d’affaires in the capital has also been summoned to the Turkish foreign ministry later in the day, a spokesperson for German embassy in Ankara told AFP.
Only one MP voted against and another abstained, as parliament approved overwhelmingly by a show of hands the resolution titled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916.”
Johnny Depp, recently accused by estranged wife Amber Heard of domestic violence, has undergone an extra amount of scrutiny from lead Saudi Arabian family therapist Khaled Al-Saqaby today as he expressed his disappointment toward the actor in an ‘open letter’.
“There is a proper and an improper way to beat one’s wife, as I’ve successfully taught here in The Kingdom for many years. This is a tricky topic, but Allah willing we will help Johnny understand his mistakes and hopefully learn from them for his next marriage to a young starlet.” Al-Saqaby stressed that “the necessary Islamic conditions for beating must be met! You may only lightly beat your wife with a soft object such as a handkerchief or a Shamwow. In Johnny’s case, he could have hit Amber with the ratty bandana he wore in the Pirates of the Caribbean films. That would have been a great choice. Instead, he hit her in the face with an iPhone. That is not a pre-approved wife-smacking object in the eyes of Allah.”
Met with opposition over his statement concerning the truth of Heard’s allegations, Al-Saqaby concluded that it’s all the more reason for Johnny to learn how to perform domestic violence. “Had he done it right, if at all, she’d have known better than to speak in the first place.”
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