What Huwaida Araff Didn't Tell the SDSU Audience

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com

Hat tip Elder of Ziyon


On March 10, International Solidarity Movement co-founder Huwaida Araff spoke to an audience at San Diego State University. A description of her talk can be accessed here along with a video taken by myself.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2014/03/huwaida-araff-at-sdsu.html

As I previously described, Araff described the First and Second Intifadas launched against Israel as basically unarmed rock throwers facing off against armed soldiers with tanks and fighter planes. She only made passing reference to the suicide bombings that took place.

What she didn't talk about was this:

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

She didn't talk about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv_Jerusalem_bus_405_attack

That attack was attributed to Islamic Jihad.

She didn't talk about this: (Graphic)



Or this:


Sbarros Pizza attack 2001 - 15 dead 130 injured

Or this (Graphic)



Above is what remained of the Park Hotel in Netanya during Passover 2002

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

As Jews were gathered in the Park Hotel in Netanya to celebrate Passover, Abd al-Baset Odeh walked into the hotel dressed as a woman, found a crowded area and blew himself up. Thirty people were killed and 140 injured. It was the work of Hamas, whom Araff  refers to as a "political faction". Here is how the scene was described by one of the Zaka units sent in to gather up the body parts.

"The sprinklers had burst, so there was water all over he floor, mixed with blood. In the central area, where the bomb went off, it was nearly up to our knees because there was a wall surrounding the dance floor. When we first went in, we saw fingers, hands, eyeballs, and smaller bits of flesh floating in the water like fish."
- Preachers of Hate-Islam and the War on America, by Kenneth R Timmerman, Crown Forum 2003

Nor did Araff dwell on what has caused those conflicts between Israel and Gaza-namely the rocket attacks into southern Israel schoolyards launched by that well-known political faction Hamas. Just in the past couple of days, Hamas has sent more rockets into Israel. Oh, excuse me. Islamic Jihad has taken credit.

I could go on and on with more pictures of blown up buses and mangled corpses, but you get the idea. Ms Araff gave her audience of college students a one-sided account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that all but ignored the horrific acts of terror carried out by Palestinians against innocent Israeli men, women and children acting on the orders of "political factions" like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It  is all part of the dishonesty of the International Solidarity Movement, the same dishonesty that leads them to lure impressionable young Westerners to the region, indoctrinate them, train them, and put them in harm's way.

Huwaida Araff at SDSU

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://gqaryfouse.blogspot.com


Hat tip Discover the Networks






Last night, International Solidarity Movement co-founder Huwaida Araff spoke at San Diego State University as part of a program hosted by the Charles W Hostler Institute on World Affairs. The moderator was Professor Jonathan Graubart of the above organization. The event was attended by above 70 people almost all students, many of whom were Graubart's students were attending as part of a class assignment. Also present was Adam Shapiro, Araff's husband and also co-founder of ISM. In his introduction, Graubart said, "it was regrettable that a few outside groups had made some ungenerous comments about the lecture series and myself". The event lasted about two hours.

In her presentation, Araff told of her birth and upbringing in America (Her parents were Palestinians from Israel), her education, and her travel to Jerusalem, where she was to remain for a year working for an organization called Seeds of Peace.  She became a Palestinian activist working against Israeli "occupation" and stayed beyond the year after resigning from the above organization. She recounted the First Intifada (1991-93), the Second Intifada that began in 2000 when Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, and the creation of the International Solidarity Movement. (I may have missed it, but in her presentation-in-chief, I don't recall hearing her actually refer to the ISM by name.)

She then went on to describe efforts to bring in "internationals" to participate in protests against roadblocks and checkpoints etc. She stated that it was their reasoning that Israeli soldiers would be reluctant to use force against people who did not look like Palestinians.

Needless to say, her talk was long on Israeli injustices and violence on Palestinians and short on any Palestinian transgressions over the years including hijackings, the Munich Olympic massacre, bus bombings,  other suicide bombings, or rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel. The Intifadas, which she experienced, was basically characterized as resistance and rock-throwing against Israeli tanks and bullets. Rachel Corrie's death (2003) was also mentioned. (According to Araff's account, Corrie was trying to convince the bulldozer driver not to demolish a house and the driver ran over her). She also referred to Yasser Arafat as "Chairman Yasser Arafat" in obvious respect.

In the q and a, I got the first question (beginning of part 4) and asked her about her reported comment to a  Duke University audience (2004) that the ISM cooperated with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which are State Department-recognized terrorist organizations. I also asked her to comment on the reports that two British suicide bombers who attacked Mike's Bar in Tel Aviv in 2003 had stayed at an ISM facility prior to crossing over into Israel.

(Note: I am paraphrasing Araff's response. Refer to video for her exact words.)

In her response, she said that what she told the Duke audience was that while ISM's tactics were non-violent, she could not tell others not to employ armed resistance. She said that she considered attacks against unarmed civilians as illegal, but that there were rules of war that governed resistance to armed occupation. She said ISM would not reject someone joining them because they had connections to those organizations, but that she would explain that ISM rules dictated non-violent actions. She did not address my question about the above three organizations. As for the event at Mike's Bar, she said that when she received the news, she decided to call a press conference and inform the press that the two had been at an ISM facility. According to Araff, the two had shown up in Gaza and asked to visit. She said they came by the ISM house, had tea and left. According to Araff, the ISM had no idea of their intent to launch an attack. In a  followup question, I asked her pointedly if ISM had any connections to Hamas. She replied in the negative ("No".) She explained that ISM preferred to be independent and not be a part of any "political factions" because if they were aligned with one group, another group might not want to work with them as a result. (Again I am paraphrasing.) Interestingly, she never said anything close to, "We would never associate with Hamas because they are terrorists or  designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department.") There was absolutely nothing critical said about Hamas. She referred to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for Palestine merely as "political factions".

Below is the video in 5 parts. At one point, there is about a 20-second gap when I had to change the memory card in my video camera.




Part 1





Part 2

)


Part 3




Part 4

)

Part 5

)

The Breivik investigation missing key evidence

Sunday Times: Unmasked - Wealthy backers behind far-right league

Amazon.com Donating to MPAC

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Hat tip to Steve and Investigative Project on Terrorism

Amazon.com  announcing that it is donating a portion of its proceeds to the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

http://smile.amazon.com/ch/95-4675391

This means that I will no longer purchase any books or anything else through Amazon.com.

Abbas Sentenced Hundreds Of Syrian Palestinians To Death In 2013 (poster)

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

Hat tip to Elder of Zyion

Ma'an reports on a brand new Palestinian Arab lie:

Fatah central committee member Mohammad Ishtayyeh said on Thursday that the Palestinian Authority had attempted to negotiate the return of Palestinian refugees from Syria, but Israel had refused.

Ishtayyeh said in a meeting with diplomats organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Ramallah that the PA had tried with all its might to "end the suffering" of Palestinians in Syria through international mediation.

Israeli officials, however, had refused to allow them to come to the Palestinian territories.

What really happened, from AP, January 10, 2013:

The Palestinian president said he has rejected a conditional Israeli offer to let Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria resettle in the West Bank and Gaza, charging it would compromise their claims to return to lost homes in Israel.

Abbas said he asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon last month to seek Israeli permission to bring Palestinians caught in Syria's civil war to the Palestinian territories. The request came after fighting between Syrian troops and rebel fighters in Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. About half of the camp's 150,000 residents have fled, according to a U.N. aid agency.

Abbas told a group of Egyptian journalists in Cairo late Wednesday that Ban contacted Israel on his behalf.

Abbas said Ban was told Israel "agreed to the return of those refugees to Gaza and the West Bank, but on condition that each refugee ... sign a statement that he doesn't have the right of return (to Israel)."

"So we rejected that and said it's better they die in Syria than give up their right of return," Abbas told the group. Some of his comments were published Thursday by the Palestinian news website Sama.

Hundreds of Syrian Palestinians have died since then. And it is all because Abbas didn't even give them the choice to live. His "principles" are more important than their lives.

Even as Palestinian Arabs continue to die in Syria, no one is pressuring Abbas to reverse his death sentence. The UN is silent. NGO's are silent. World leaders continue to treat Abbas with respect. Newspaper editorials gush how "moderate" he is.

And Syrian Palestinians continue to die, every day, directly because of a decision Abbas made more than a year ago.

Every single "pro-Palestinian" activist should be asked in every venue they speak if they agree with Abbas. Amnesty International and Oxfam and Human Rights Watch should be asked whether they agree that Syrian Arabs are better off dead than given the even the choice to live.

The Heinrich Boll Foundation, which heard this new Palestinian Arab slander against Israel, should be told the truth.

Shouldn't everyone?

Obama To Israel: Commit Suicide Or I Will Destroy You

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

 Today President Barack Hussein Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet.  Netanyahu will remind Obama of his pledge not to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and Obama will demand that Israel commit suicide by giving everything from the river to the sea to the Fakistinians.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House tomorrow, President Barack Obama will tell him that his country could face a bleak future -- one of international isolation and demographic disaster -- if he refuses to endorse a U.S.-drafted framework agreement for peace with the Palestinians. Obama will warn Netanyahu that time is running out for Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy. And the president will make the case that Netanyahu, alone among Israelis, has the strength and political credibility to lead his people away from the precipice.

In an hour long interview Thursday in the Oval Office, Obama, borrowing from the Jewish sage Rabbi Hillel, told me that his message to Netanyahu will be this: “If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?” He then took a sharper tone, saying that if Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach." He added, "It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”

Unlike Netanyahu, Obama will not address the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, this week -- the administration is upset with AIPAC for, in its view, trying to subvert American-led nuclear negotiations with Iran. In our interview, the president, while broadly supportive of Israel and a close U.S.-Israel relationship, made statements that would be met at an Aipac convention with cold silence.

Obama was blunter about Israel’s future than I've ever heard him. His language was striking, but of a piece with observations made in recent months by his secretary of state, John Kerry, who until this interview, had taken the lead in pressuring both Netanyahu and the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to agree to a framework deal. Obama made it clear that he views Abbas as the most politically moderate leader the Palestinians may ever have. It seemed obvious to me that the president believes that the next move is Netanyahu’s.

“There comes a point where you can’t manage this anymore, and then you start having to make very difficult choices,” Obama said. “Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank? Is that the character of Israel as a state for a long period of time? Do you perpetuate, over the course of a decade or two decades, more and more restrictive policies in terms of Palestinian movement? Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?”

During the interview, which took place a day before the Russian military incursion into Ukraine, Obama argued that American adversaries, such as Iran, Syria and Russia itself, still believe that he is capable of using force to advance American interests, despite his reluctance to strike Syria last year after President Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama's chemical-weapons red line.

“We’ve now seen 15 to 20 percent of those chemical weapons on their way out of Syria with a very concrete schedule to get rid of the rest,” Obama told me. “That would not have happened had the Iranians said, ‘Obama’s bluffing, he’s not actually really willing to take a strike.’ If the Russians had said, ‘Ehh, don’t worry about it, all those submarines that are floating around your coastline, that’s all just for show.’ Of course they took it seriously! That’s why they engaged in the policy they did.”

I returned to this particularly sensitive subject. “Just to be clear,” I asked, “You don’t believe the Iranian leadership now thinks that your ‘all options are on the table’ threat as it relates to their nuclear program -- you don’t think that they have stopped taking that seriously?”

Obama answered: “I know they take it seriously.”

How do you know? I asked. “We have a high degree of confidence that when they look at 35,000 U.S. military personnel in the region that are engaged in constant training exercises under the direction of a president who already has shown himself willing to take military action in the past, that they should take my statements seriously,” he replied. “And the American people should as well, and the Israelis should as well, and the Saudis should as well.”

I asked the president if, in retrospect, he should have provided more help to Syria’s rebels earlier in their struggle. “I think those who believe that two years ago, or three years ago, there was some swift resolution to this thing had we acted more forcefully, fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the conflict in Syria and the conditions on the ground there,” Obama said. “When you have a professional army that is well-armed and sponsored by two large states who have huge stakes in this, and they are fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict -- the notion that we could have, in a clean way that didn’t commit U.S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground there was never true.”

He portrayed his reluctance to involve the U.S. in the Syrian civil war as a direct consequence of what he sees as America’s overly militarized engagement in the Muslim world: “There was the possibility that we would have made the situation worse rather than better on the ground, precisely because of U.S. involvement, which would have meant that we would have had the third, or, if you count Libya, the fourth war in a Muslim country in the span of a decade.”

Obama was adamant that he was correct to fight a congressional effort to impose more time-delayed sanctions on Iran just as nuclear negotiations were commencing: “There’s never been a negotiation in which at some point there isn’t some pause, some mechanism to indicate possible good faith,” he said. “Even in the old Westerns or gangster movies, right, everyone puts their gun down just for a second. You sit down, you have a conversation; if the conversation doesn’t go well, you leave the room and everybody knows what’s going to happen and everybody gets ready. But you don’t start shooting in the middle of the room during the course of negotiations.” He said he remains committed to keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and seemed unworried by reports that Iran's economy is improving.

On the subject of Middle East peace, Obama told me that the U.S.'s friendship with Israel is undying, but he also issued what I took to be a veiled threat: The U.S., though willing to defend an isolated Israel at the United Nations and in other international bodies, might soon be unable to do so effectively.

“If you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction -- and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time,” Obama said. “If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.”

We also spent a good deal of time talking about the unease the U.S.'s Sunni Arab allies feel about his approach to Iran, their traditional adversary. I asked the president, “What is more dangerous: Sunni extremism or Shia extremism?”

I found his answer revelatory. He did not address the issue of Sunni extremism. Instead he argued in essence that the Shiite Iranian regime is susceptible to logic, appeals to self-interest and incentives.

“I’m not big on extremism generally,” Obama said. “I don’t think you’ll get me to choose on those two issues. What I’ll say is that if you look at Iranian behavior, they are strategic, and they’re not impulsive. They have a worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits. And that isn’t to say that they aren’t a theocracy that embraces all kinds of ideas that I find abhorrent, but they’re not North Korea. They are a large, powerful country that sees itself as an important player on the world stage, and I do not think has a suicide wish, and can respond to incentives.”

This view puts him at odds with Netanyahu's understanding of Iran. In an interview after he won the premiership, the Israeli leader described the Iranian leadership to me as “a messianic apocalyptic cult.”

I asked Obama if he understood why his policies make the leaders of Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries nervous: “I think that there are shifts that are taking place in the region that have caught a lot of them off guard,” he said. "I think change is always scary."

Below is a complete transcript of our conversation. I’ve condensed my questions. The president’s answers are reproduced in full.

Finish reading here.

I think it is time that Netanyahu reminds Obama what happened the last time Jerusalem was divided.  How the Arabs shot at Israeli civilians from the walls of the Old City, creating a No-Man's Land between the two parts.  Of how no Jew was allowed to worship at the Kotel.  Of how one CANNOT defend a land only 9 miles wide.

There is only one reason that Barack Hussein Obama wants Israel to accept this "deal".  So he can destroy Israel and thus fulfilling his pledge to his Fakistinian friends that he would do everything in his power to destroy Israel and the Jewish people.

Jizya and Dhimmitude in Syria and Silence in the West

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Hat tip Creeping Sharia, Frontpage Magazine, Joe and Chris


As the 5th Annual Islamophobia Conference is being organized at UC Berkeley, here is one topic you will not hear discussed.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/02/syrian-rebel-forces-looking-for-protection-money-in-form-gold-from-christian/?intcmp=latestnews

"Under the strict Islamic Sharia doctrine, non-Muslims living under their sovereignty must pay a special tax -- known as the "Jizyah" -- in return for the ruler's protection, or “Thima.”

Creeping Sharia has a more detailed report on what this is all about.

http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/why-wont-western-churches-condemn-muslim-oppression-of-christians-commentary-magazi

Which begs the question: Where are the voices of Christian leaders in the West? Well, there's an answer for that question too. The Presbyterian Church USA, a solid ally of the Palestinians in their struggle to annihilate the Jewish state of Israel, has just contributed its latest contribution to anti-Semitism, a pamphlet entitled, "Zionism Unsettled".

Then you have useful idiots like Pastor Ed Bacon of the progressive All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, who loaned out his facility in December 2012 for the annual conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Not only that, but Bacon proclaimed (in my presence during the session) that "the history of Christianity is littered with acts of evil by Christians," and listed as one example, "evangelical Zionism". But don't take my word; watch the video for yourself. The words come at the 60 minute and 40 second mark.

So where does all this leave the Christians of Syria? On their own, just like the Christians in Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, Iran, Libya, and every other predominantly Muslim country. Nobody of any power and influence wants to speak out because they are deathly afraid of offending the Islamic world. So the horrors continue and those clowns up in Berkeley enjoy the chutzpah of putting on an annual conference devoted to the scholarly study of Islamophobia-however they define the word.

What is Behind the Israel Apartheid Weeks?

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Hat tip JJ and Miggie


As March approaches, we can expect another wave of organized Israel-Apartheid weeks being held in Europe and North America-largely on university campuses. Once again, the pro-Palestinian forces will  erect mock apartheid walls, bring in radical speakers, wave Palestinian flags, and accuse Israel of apartheid and genocide against the  benighted Palestinian people, who in spite of the supposed genocide have seen their population numbers explode. Indeed, the Arabs who have deigned to call themselves Palestinians have increased in numbers (through high birth rates) since the creation of Israel. Where is the genocide? Where are the death camps? As for the charges of apartheid, anyone familiar with the apartheid system of South Africa can readily list the differences. In this 5-minute video published by Prager University, South African Parliament Member Kennith Meshoe explains the differences.

But anyone who studies or works on a university campus might ask him or herself why this issue, this conflict, has assumed so large a role on campus. It is because a well-organized worldwide Palestinian lobby has made it so. We  are not talking about a few Arab students standing on a soap box at some corner of a university yelling at uninterested  students who pass by. We are talking about university recognized student groups who have the ability to rent space and bring in invited speakers largely using university funds (from tuition fees) made available to such groups. We can begin with the various chapters of the Muslim Student Association (a creation, by the way of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) and their sister organization, Students for Justice in Palestine. They are the ones who host the annual hate fests that come to so many campuses each year devoted to de-legitimizing the Jewish state.

Then you have the various university student governments who devote so much time and energy to repeated efforts to pass resolutions urging the university to boycott, sanction and divest from companies that do business with Israel. The University of California campuses have been especially active lately. One such resolution was narrowly voted down last week at UC Riverside after 4 hours of debate. (The universities uniformly issue statements rejecting such measures if they pass.) So  how is it that student governments allow themselves to get tied up with this issue when their efforts, time and resources could be better spent on other issues affecting the student body? It is because anti-Israel activists are getting themselves elected to student government positions and dominating said student governments.

Then there is the faculty, largely in the humanities, stuffed with left-wing radicals all too willing to use the issue as part of their bash America agenda. Burgeoning Middle East studies departments, funded by Saudi Arabia, are staffed with pan-Arab, anti-Israeli professors dedicated  to indoctrinating their students against Israel and the West.

Thus, what you have is the perfect marriage of convenience between the pro-Palestinians, Islamist forces, and the left.

But what is especially troubling is that the ultimate root cause of the Israel-Arab conflict is infecting our own campuses and our societies in the West. It is anti-Semitism-or if you prefer, pure Jew-hatred, plain and simple. At its source, the Arab world in the Middle East will never accept the idea of a Jewish state in its midst. The Palestinians are mere pawns. In the West, they have large armies of activists to do their bidding.

Of course, here in the US, it would be bad tactics to scream anti-Semitic insults on college campuses-though some speakers actually have (Amir Abdel Malik Ali, Alim Musa, Mohammed al Asi). For the most part, the speakers who come to campus will  insist that they are merely anti-Zionist-not anti-Jew. Indeed, the clever pro-Palestinian organizations on campuses have succeeded in bringing in a ready stable of Jewish activists who fervently hate Israel. From left-wing professors like (ex-professor) Norman Finkelstein and Judith Butler, to anarchist Israelis like Matan Cohen, to Neturei Karta rabbi Ysroel Dovid Cohen, to the Jewish Voice for Peace, these useful  pawns are all too ready to travel the university lecture circuit and denounce the Jewish state on behalf of forces that want to drive every last Jew from the Middle East.

Sadly, in the process of all this activity in the past several  years, our country has witnessed a revival of anti-Semitism, the oldest hatred in the history of our planet. It is just the most recent form of Jew hatred. From charges of killing Christ to the Blood Libel to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to  being nationless, mercenary cheats, to being non-Aryan race defilers, to dominating Wall Street, Hollywood and the banks, it is the evil Zionist Israelis and their Jewish coreligionists in the West that are now the problem.  The modern anti-Semitism (or is it post-modern?) is now incorporating some of the old canards to gather public opinion against Israeli and Jews in general. Even the Blood Libel has been revived.

And the focal point for this resurgence in the US is on our university campuses.

Posted on "Apartheid Wall" at UC Irvine in May 2008 and personally witnessed by this writer


If you thought that  today's anti-Semitism in the West was something that was re-hatched by some neo-Nazi dropout types at punk rock concerts, think again. A recent study in Germany turned up some interesting results.

This is what our children are being exposed to when we send them off to college. These are the future leaders of our country, and their minds are being poisoned by rhetoric that often degenerates into out and out hate speech. Mix this up and throw it in with all the leftist race-conscious rhetoric that already predominates on our campuses, where "victimized and oppressed people of color" are aligned against "privileged whites", and what you have is a dangerous cocktail with the potential to explode some day in deadly violence on a US university campus.

But make no mistake: No matter how loud or how gentle the speakers words at these Israel Apartheid events; no matter whether the speaker is Arab, Jew or other; no matter how much the speaker sprinkles his/her words with phrases like "human rights", "justice", or "peace". It all boils down to one thing: For them, there is no room for Jews in the Middle East. And that is anti-Semitism or Jew-hatred, whichever you choose to call it.



 

Robert Spencer & Walid Shoebat

Article: Walid Shoebat

Article: Robert Spencer

Follow on Facebook: Defence of the Realm

Susan Rice Has No Regrets

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


In an administration filled with people who have no shame, Susan Rice stands out like a Texas-size turd blossom. In this interview with NBC's David Gregory on Meet the Press today, she continues the great Benghazi lie and says "she has no regrets".



http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/23/rice-acknowledges-some-her-benghazi-info-was-incorrect-but-has-no-regrets/

Here is the text of the above Fox News article. My comments are interjected in bold print.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Sunday she has no regrets over what she told the American public about the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks in the immediate aftermath of the deadly strikes.

"Je ne regrette rien" as Edith Piaf sang

Rice did a round of Sunday TV interviews a few days after the attacks, in which some of the information she gave was later proven incorrect.

Not incorrect. Lies.

“What I said to you that morning, and what I did every day since, was to share the best information that we had at the time,” Rice told NBC's “Meet the Press” moderator David Gregory on Sunday. “The information I provided … was what we had at the moment.”

Nonsense. The people on the ground in Libya told their superiors in Washington that it was a coordinated terrorist attack and that there was no protest that went out of control. That information was provided to DOS before Rice appeared on the Sunday talk shows. Indeed, it has been shown that the Pentagon, General Martin Dempsey, and Leon Panetta were told a terrorist attack was happening just before they went to the White House to meet President Obama.

Rice said “No,” when Gregory asked whether she had any regrets about her statements.

She should tell that to the families of the four dead Americans and those that survived the attack and in some cases, are still recuperating from their wounds.

She also said nobody in the administration intended to mislead the public, but acknowledged some of her information was inaccurate.

Lies. Flat out lies. Not some of the information. All  of it.

“That information turned out, in some respects, not to be 100 percent correct," Rice said. "But the notion that somehow I or anybody else in the administration misled the American people is patently false. And I think that that's been amply demonstrated."

Note the equivocal choice of words ("..in some respects not to be 100 percent correct"). Amply demonstrated? What has been amply demonstrated is that the administration perpetrated a lie upon the public. The talking points memo was changed by people within the administration and State Department to fit their own narrative that what happened at Benghazi was a protest gone awry and to continue the myth that Libya was stable. The administration and State also knew that if it got out that al-Qaeda-linked terrorists were running loose all over Eastern Libya, the previous pleas for enhanced security from the post at Libya would surface and put the lie to the entire narrative.

She was, at the time, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a top candidate to become secretary of state.

However, Rice withdrew herself from consideration in the wake of the attacks on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, after the firestorm of criticism she received for her response.

Rice said Sunday she didn’t know whether her responses killed her chances of getting the top U.S. diplomatic post.

She  doesn't know. I know. Anybody with half a brain knows.

“I don’t know,” she said. “What I do know is that I [now] have a great job.”

She has a great job, and four Americans don't have a great job because they are dead.

Four Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, and State Department information management officer Sean Smith, also died in the attack. 

Rice said the Benghazi attacks appeared to be a "spontaneous reaction” to an anti-Islamic video on the Internet.

The administration later said the attacks appeared pre-planned, but exactly who and what started them remains unclear, despite several investigations.

Pseudo investigations-like that DOS Accountability Review Board "investigation" that cleared Hillary Clinton without even interviewing her.

Ms Rice may have no regrets, but an entire nation has regrets over this tragedy that never should have happened. Rice may argue that as then-ambassador to the UN, she was not directly involved in the information flow, but she sure was in a position to find out what the facts were within the next five days when somebody handed her a doctored sheet of talking points and sent her of all people out to face the Sunday talk shows instead of Hillary Clinton, who was "too tired" to do her job (translation: answer hard questions about where she was and what she was doing on that fateful evening).

And isn't it interesting that Rice, instead of appearing on all five networks today as she did after the Benghazi attack, chose to appear only with a sympathetic David Gregory and the friendly confines of NBC?

Either Susan Rice knowingly lied on those Sunday talk shows, or she was incredibly derelict and naive in not asking the people around her for the facts before blindly going out and repeating those absurd talking points about a video. In either case, she "amply demonstrated", to  borrow a phrase,  that she is unfit to be either secretary of state or national security adviser.

SecState Clinton Before, During and After Benghazi

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Hat tip Family Security Matters and Squid






The below report in pdf format was compiled by a group of special ops veterans and former intelligence officers known as Opsecteam. The report is published by Frank Gaffney's Family Security Matters. The below report paints a damning picture of Hillary Clinton in the time before the Benghazi mission attack when the State Department was going full speed ahead with supporting the new Libyan government, setting up an expanding mission in Benghazi, and collecting surface to air missiles left over from the Libyan insurgency while ignoring warning signs of terrorist activity and pleas for more security in Benghazi. It then paints a picture of Clinton as basically missing in action with her whereabouts and actions unaccounted for in the hours of September 11 when the mission was under attack. Finally, it describes her actions and the actions of her underlings in the cover-up of the motive for the attack and the propagation that it was a protest over a video. The authors state that the information is derived from public source documents and reports.

http://opsecteam.org/download/breach.pdf

Comment: Of course, detractors will say that the writers are anonymous, shadowy, right-wing activists with an ax to grind against Clinton and the Obama administration. The above FSM link has a link to a review by Reuters which pretty much implies that it is a Republican smear job.

"Thomas Pickering, who chaired the State Department's official inquiry, said his panel concluded Clinton's performance was appropriate: "We did look at her role. We thought that she conducted her meetings and activities responsibly and well."
-Reuters

Yet Reuters never informs its own readers that Thomas Pickering's Accountability Review Board investigators never interviewed Clinton! To be sure, Family Security Matters is a conservative site that focuses on the threat of Islamic terrorism. They have been critical of the Obama administration's handling of the threat. So evaluate it as you will. I assume, being former intelligence operatives,  that they also have inside contacts.

The fact does remain, however, that Hillary Clinton has never fully accounted for her actions and whereabouts on the night of September 11. For that matter, neither has Obama.

Couple Stoned in Pakistan

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Here's the latest from that area in Pakistan where the Taliban and al Qaeda reign supreme. A couple has been stoned to death for adultery. Reuters has the report.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/17/us-pakistan-couple-stoned-idUSBREA1G18F20140217

This is what the concept of human rights is in Pakistan. But you say, "Fousesquawk, six people have been arrested." Yes, but the sad reality is that none of these people will be in jail say a year from now. If punished at all, it will be merely a slap on the wrist. This atrocity is considered an "honor killing". Adultery is punished by death-stoning.

And here is what is especially disturbing. A cleric ordered the stoning, and it was carried about by the immediate families of the victims.

So what is to be done? The  answer, as far as we are concerned, is nothing. There is nothing that we here in the West can do. This is Pakistan-to be exact- an area called Baluchistan, in which the central government has no control. This is the way things are done there and have been done for hundreds of years. We can't change it. I doubt the Pakistani government in Islamabad can change it. How can we educate these people that this is wrong and a violation of basic human rights? In truth, we cannot. That is the code they live by.

But if we want to maintain our concepts on human rights, we don't have to allow folks like this to immigrate to our country (ies). They can stay right where they are and practice their barbaric customs all they want and if the Pakistani authorities in Islamabad or Baluchistan want to intervene, arrest them, prosecute them, and put them in jail for 30 days, or do nothing, that is their business.

But I don't want to see that mentality here in the US. And that is where we can do something. You talk about immigration reform? This is an area where immigration reform is badly needed.

No Thank You!

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

Was the words coming from workers in Tennessee who work for Volkswagen to the United Auto Workers (UAW).

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Workers at a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee have voted against union representation, a devastating loss that derails the United Auto Workers union's effort to organize Southern factories.

The 712-626 vote released late Friday stunned many labor experts who expected a UAW win because Volkswagen tacitly endorsed the union and even allowed organizers into the Chattanooga factory to make sales pitches.

But the union faced stern opposition from Republican politicians who warned that a union win would chase away other automakers who might come to the region. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee was the most vocal opponent, saying that he was told that VW would not build a new SUV in Chattanooga if workers approved the union. That was later denied by a VW executive in Tennessee.

The UAW for decades has tried without success to organize a foreign-owned plant in a region that's wary of organized labor. The loss now makes it even harder for the union to recruit members at another Southern factory, a key priority of outgoing UAW President Bob King. He has said in the past that the union has no long-term future if it can't organize the Southern plants.

"It is pretty devastating" for the union, said Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor and industry group at the Center for Automotive Research, an industry think tank in Michigan. "If this was going to work anywhere, this is where it was going to work."

Gary Casteel, a UAW regional director who headed organizing efforts at the plant, hinted that the union may challenge the election results with the National Labor Relations Board.

"We think that it's unfortunate that there was some outside influence exerted into this process," Casteel said Friday night. "There are still some issues that have to be sorted out about this election, and we'll let the people that do that evaluate the impact of others and whatnot further down the road."

Dziczek said the union may have to change its tactics in future organizing efforts, because King's strategy of the union and company working together to help each other did not work.

But she does not expect the well-funded union to give up on organizing Southern factories. "I think they will continue to push everywhere they were pushing and see if they get more traction," she said.

Many viewed VW as the union's only chance to gain a crucial foothold in the South because other automakers have not been as welcoming as Volkswagen. The vote means the union may be quarantined to its base with the Detroit Three automakers in the Industrial Midwest and Northeast.

King, however, stuck to statements he made earlier that the union would seek a vote and respect any decision made by workers. "While we certainly would have liked a victory for workers here, we deeply respect the Volkswagen Global Group Works Council, Volkswagen management and IG Metall for doing their best to create a free and open atmosphere for workers to exercise their basic human right to form a union," King said in a statement.

SOURCE

The truth is that American workers are seeing the truth about the modern union movement.  They don't see the friend of the worker as was seen in the 1920s and 1930s, but a corrupt entity that is only interested in how much dues they receive and how many Democrats they can support.

 The workers in Tennessee aren't dumb hicks.  They are educated patriots who see the harm that unions have caused this nation.  And have voted to remain free.

Ten Reasons Why The BDS Movement Is Immoral And Hinders Peace ~~ By Alan M. Dershowitz

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle


From The Gatestone Institute

As a strong supporter of the two state solution and a critic of Israel's settlement policies, I am particularly appalled at efforts to impose divestment, boycotts and sanctions against Israel, and Israel alone, because BDS makes it more difficult to achieve a peaceful resolution of the Mid-East conflict that requires compromise on all sides.

The BDS movement is highly immoral, threatens the peace process and discourages the Palestinians from agreeing to any reasonable peace offer. Here are ten compelling reasons why the BDS movement is immoral and incompatible with current efforts to arrive at a compromise peace.

1. The BDS movement immorally imposes the entire blame for the continuing Israeli occupation and settlement policy on the Israelis. It refuses to acknowledge the historical reality that on at least three occasions, Israel offered to end the occupation and on all three occasions, the Palestinian leadership, supported by its people, refused to accept these offers. In 1967, I played a small role in drafting UN Security Council Resolution 242 that set out the formula for ending the occupation in exchange for recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace. Israel accepted that Resolution, while the Palestinians, along with all the Arab nations, gathered in Khartoum and issued their three famous "nos:" No peace, no negotiation, no recognition. There were no efforts to boycott, sanction or divest from these Arab naysayers. In 2000-2001, Israel's liberal Prime Minister Ehud Barak, along with American President Bill Clinton, offered the Palestinians statehood, and the end of the occupation. Yasser Arafat rejected this offer—a rejection that many Arab leaders considered a crime against the Palestinian people. In 2007, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians an even better deal, an offer to which they failed to respond. There were no BDS threats against those who rejected Israel's peace offers. Now there are ongoing peace negotiations in which both parties are making offers and imposing conditions. Under these circumstances, it is immoral to impose blame only on Israel and to direct a BDS movement only against the nation state of the Jewish people, that has thrice offered to end the occupation in exchange for peace.

2. The current BDS movement, especially in Europe and on some American university campuses, emboldens the Palestinians to reject compromise solutions to the conflict. Some within the Palestinian leadership have told me that the longer they hold out against making peace, the more powerful will be the BDS movement against Israel. Why not wait until the BDS strengthens their bargaining position so that they won't have to compromise by giving up the right of return, by agreeing to a demilitarized state and by making other concessions that are necessary to peace but difficult for some Palestinians to accept? The BDS movement is making a peaceful resolution harder.

3. The BDS movement is immoral because its leaders will never be satisfied with the kind of two state solution that is acceptable to Israel. Many of its leaders do not believe in the concept of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. (The major leader of the BDS movement, Marwan Barghouti, has repeatedly expressed his opposition to Israel's right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people even within the 1967 borders.) At bottom, therefore, the leadership of the BDS movement is opposed not only to Israel's occupation and settlement policy but to its very existence.

4. The BDS movement is immoral because it violates the core principle of human rights: namely, "the worst first." Israel is among the freest and most democratic nations in the world. It is certainly the freest and most democratic nation in the Middle East. Its Arab citizens enjoy more rights than Arabs anywhere else in the world. They serve in the Knesset, in the Judiciary, in the Foreign Service, in the academy and in business. They are free to criticize Israel and to support its enemies. Israeli universities are hot beds of anti-Israel rhetoric, advocacy and even teaching. Israel has a superb record on women's rights, gay rights, environmental rights and other rights that barely exist in most parts of the world. Moreover, Israel's record of avoiding civilian casualties, while fighting enemies who hide their soldiers among civilians, is unparalleled in the world today. The situation on the West Bank is obviously different because of the occupation, but even the Arabs of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Tulkarim have more human and political rights than the vast majority of Arabs in the world today. Moreover, anyone—Jew, Muslim or Christian—dissatisfied with Israeli actions can express that dissatisfaction in the courts, and in the media, both at home and abroad. That freedom does not exist in any Arab country, nor in many non-Arab countries. Yet Israel is the only country in the world today being threatened with BDS. When a sanction is directed against only a state with one of the best records of human rights, and that nation happens to be the state of the Jewish people, the suspicion of bigotry must be considered.

5. The BDS movement is immoral because it would hurt the wrong people: it would hurt Palestinian workers who will lose their jobs if economic sanctions are directed against firms that employ them. It would hurt artists and academics, many of whom are the strongest voices for peace and an end to the occupation. It would hurt those suffering from illnesses all around the world who would be helped by Israeli medicine and the collaboration between Israeli scientists and other scientists. It would hurt the high tech industry around the world because Israel contributes disproportionally to the development of such life enhancing technology.

6. The BDS movement is immoral because it would encourage Iran—the world's leading facilitator of international terrorism—to unleash its surrogates, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, against Israel, in the expectation that if Israel were to respond to rocket attacks, the pressure for BDS against Israel would increase, as it did when Israel responded to thousands of rockets from Gaza in 2008-2009.

7. The BDS movement is immoral because it focuses the world's attention away from far greater injustices, including genocide. By focusing disproportionately on Israel, the human rights community pays disproportionately less attention to the other occupations, such as those by China, Russia and Turkey, and to other humanitarian disasters such as that occurring in Syria.

8. The BDS movement is immoral because it promotes false views regarding the nation state of the Jewish people, exaggerates its flaws and thereby promotes a new variation on the world's oldest prejudice, namely anti-Semitism. It is not surprising therefore that the BDS movement is featured on neo-Nazi, Holocaust denial and other overtly anti-Semitic websites and is promoted by some of the world's most notorious haters such as David Duke.

9. The BDS movement is immoral because it reflects and encourages a double standard of judgment and response regarding human rights violations. By demanding more of Israel, the nation state of the Jewish people, it expects less of other states, people, cultures and religions, thereby reifying a form of colonial racism and reverse bigotry that hurts the victims of human rights violations inflicted by others.

10. The BDS movement will never achieve its goals. Neither the Israeli government nor the Israeli people will ever capitulate to the extortionate means implicit in BDS. They will not and should not make important decisions regarding national security and the safety of their citizens on the basis of immoral threats. Moreover, were Israel to compromise its security in the face of such threats, the result would be more wars, more death and more suffering.

All decent people who seek peace in the Middle East should join together in opposing the immoral BDS movement. Use your moral voices to demand that both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority accept a compromise peace that assures the security of Israel and the viability of a peaceful and democratic Palestinian state. The way forward is not by immoral extortionate threats that do more harm than good, but rather by negotiations, compromise and good will.

Michael Behenna Wins Parole

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

Good news for his family.

Former U.S. Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna has won parole and will be released from Fort Leavenworth on March 14, his mother, Vicki Behenna, said Wednesday.

Behenna, who was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone, learned early Wednesday morning and called his parents in Oklahoma City.

“We go between tears and laughing,” Vicki Behenna, of Edmond, told The Oklahoman. “I’m just so thankful. I’m just so very very thankful. It’s wonderful.”

Behenna, 30, has served five years of a 15-year sentence. He was convicted in 2009 of killing an Iraqi man connected to al-Qaida while questioning him.

This was his first year of eligibility for parole.

His parents, Vicki and Scott, and brother Brett appeared last month before the U.S. Army Clemency and Parole Board outside Washington and presented the members with a 400-page report that included a letter from Michael, letters of support from Gov. Mary Fallin and members of the congressional delegation and law enforcement officials.

The family told the board that Michael would work on a western Oklahoma cattle ranch and take classes at Oklahoma State University in ranch operations.

“They came and got him about 7:30 this morning and gave him a letter to read,” Vicki Behenna said. “The letter said his request for clemency (a reduction in sentence) had been denied but that his request for parole had been granted.”

She said, “I think he’s in shock. I started crying immediately when he told me. Of course over the phone I can’t see his expression. He would kind of go, ‘Yeah, it’s good, mom. It’s good.”

She said he immediately expressed concern about two fellow inmates.

Behenna was officially dismissed from the Army last month. The secretary of the Army signed his dismissal, which had been pending during Behenna’s appeals through military courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lt. Col. Alayne Conway, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army, said, “The recommendation of the Army Clemency and Parole Board was based on a thorough review of Mr. Behenna’s case. While Mr. Behenna was denied clemency, members voted unanimously in favor of parole based on a number of factors, including a strong parole plan with family and community support.

“Mr. Behenna will have served five years confinement, and will continue to be under parole supervision for ten years.”

Gov. Mary Fallin, who has been monitoring the case closely since she was in Congress, said, “I am glad this long ordeal has finally come to an end for Michael Behenna and his family. Michael went to Iraq to serve his nation and to defend liberty both here and abroad. Instead, he found himself mourning the loss of his friends from the inside of a cell.

“I believe the Army acted appropriately and compassionately in offering him parole.”

Rep. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, whose district includes Edmond, has sent staff members to every hearing in the Washington area and has written officials about the case. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, has also dispatched staff to official hearings and led congressional delegation letters to the Army.

Lankford said Wednesday that when one of his staff members got the call from the Pentagon and relayed the information, “everyone in our office spontaneously burst into tears. It’s a really good day for the Behenna family … I’m looking forward to meeting Michael sometime soon.”

SOURCE

An innocent man has to admit guilt to be set free. Michael Behenna did nothing that my father and thousands of US troops in combat zones have done through out the ages.

Now to work to clear his name.