Similar Shades of Terror Practices

 

The media coverage has been very interesting in a peculiar and unnerving manner since the presence of ISIS exploded out of Syria onto the front pages and lead stories on every media form informing of the current events and especially the atrocities perpetrated almost daily under presumably false pretense in the name of Islam. I honestly believe and know that there are a great majority of Muslims who are just as unsettled and repulsed by the actions and displays of executions performed and proudly presented by ISIS. We saw two proud and upstanding Muslims who as followers of Islam worked and did all they were able, one giving his life, to protect and save lives in the three days of horrors in Paris during the Charlie Hebdo terror slaughters just last month. Officer Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim police officer who arrived to the scene and attempted to stop further mayhem, paid for his efforts with his life. Badly injured from shots taken in an initial exchange of fire, Officer Ahmed Merabet raised his empty hands signaling that he was unarmed and posed no threat to their escape yet was mercilessly shot one last time directly to the head by one of the brothers, whose names we will not honor with mention, went out of his way to commit the execution. Additionally, Lassana Bathily represented the other face of Islam when he harbored many of the patrons in Hyper Cacher kosher market sheltering them inside the freezer after raising the temperature and then facilitated police efforts by giving them vital information which assisted the authorities in timing and executing their final assault ending that stand-off. The complete story as we covered can be read at “Two Faces of Islam in Charlie Hebdo Attacks.” The problem is that news always gives a jaundiced view on every facet of society as their product demands that they cover the worst of human misery or violence as if they covered the news by reporting that at Main Street and Third Avenue there were no accidents and the traffic light functioned perfectly; who would read or watch such coverage.

 

Yet the coverage given by much of the mainstream media, especially such as the BBC (British Broadcasting Company), AFP (Agency France Press), FOX, CNN (Cable News Network) and too many others, has given titles exclaiming horrific headlines using expletives expressing their revulsion of the scenes they are either about to broadcast or describe in every minute and despicable detail of the latest disgusting deeds of ISIS or the further devastation across Syria. The stories are enough to turn even the strongest of stomachs to churning with uneasy nausea from images which the steeliest of gazes must turn aside and the coverage informs that ISIS affronts deserve societal sanction and the use of military force to prevent their spreading their horror any further and subjugating even more people to such horrors and injustices. Yet many of these very same newscasts will report on the importance of allowing the Palestinian Authority to found their own nation in the “West Bank” and Gaza, and note their use of the Jordanian invented terminology for the expressed purpose of removing any Jewish historic identity to the actual names, Judea and Samaria, and make stealing the historic heartlands of the ancient Hebrew homelands to form a terror state which subjects their own people and any Israelis they are able to victimize using horrors equal in revulsion and barbarity as ISIS has used but somehow the mainstream news manages to turn their heads and ignore what occurs right before their cameras and the views of their reporters and camera crews. For the doubters, perhaps a few examples from the recent past which have largely been ignored as such does not fit the story of inhuman denials of decency by Israel and the righteous longing of the Palestinian Arabs for a state in their ancient lands dating back years uncountable, largely because there never has been such an Arab state ever in these lands thus no such days exist, let alone years.

 

The current horrific murder by ISIS was the absolutely horrific burning to death the Jordanian Pilot, who was a prisoner of war who should have been treated with certain assurances and decencies as dictated by the Geneva Convention, who was placed in an iron cage in gasoline soaked orange jumpsuit above gasoline soaked sands with a stream of gasoline soaked sand tailing to two men who lighted the ditch which resulted in the scene which most of us have chosen not to watch for we are of sensitivities to which we defer when possible and refuse to view such inhumanity of those who have regressed to such depravities. The news story for the Jordanian pilot’s fate has been given wall to wall coverage, as it deserves. A story just as horrific was all but ignored by the international news services and never got a first play in most markets, let alone second coverage or similar emphasis as the Jordanian pilot’s story. I am speaking of Ayala Shapira and her father, Avner Shapira, who were almost burned to death and young Ayala remains in the hospital, an eleven year old girl who had been full of life and now has recently been removed from a ventilator and is able to breath on her own but still must use nonverbal communication when communicating with her parents. Ayala was caught in the car where an Arab in Judea or Samaria violently threw a Molotov cocktail through the vehicle window of the family vehicle which exploded in her lap covering her entire body in flames trapping her in the vehicle until her father grasped her free of the car and extinguished the flames saving her life but leaving her with burns over more than three-quarters of her body and nearly causing her death. She is facing a future which will include who knows how many operations to reconstruct her body and attempt to rehabilitate her face returning her at least to a resemblance of her former soft and gentle features. In the more immediate future she will not be attending school and missing being with her friends or any other vestige of a normal life of such a young girl. Her horrors and the violent savagery of her attack equaled that of the Jordanian pilot with one major difference; Ayala was simply driving home with her father and was not operating a fighter-bomber jet aircraft in a war zone when she was set on fire. We covered her tragic story in the editorial named, “May These be the Last Victims of this and All Intifada.”

 

Those of us who have followed the atrocities committed by ISIS have read of their throwing homosexuals from rooftops simply for their sexual preferences. Certainly no such atrocities have been committed by any other entities. Well, not so much actually. After Hamas in Gaza fought the fifty day war with Israel this past summer they performed some cleansing where they took the liberty of removing some of the leadership from Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party. The preferred means of removing these undesirable political individuals are by two methods largely, shooting them as they kneeled before their executioner who would walk down a line of fellow Palestinian Arabs from a different political party shooting each in the back of their heads or by taking them to the tops of buildings and tossing them off. The slaughter in Gaza was not given lengthy coverage as such was not a story which fit any narrative or support any government or media interests thus was relegated to non-news items. We have heard about the horrific murders of women in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other nations in the Middle East yet seldom are those same honor killings committed by Palestinian Arabs given similar coverage as the Palestinians are a protected class of people who must not be made to appear barbaric or overtly violent in any way as to relate their actual actions would turn Israeli actions from highly suspect to completely understandable. There has been coverage of stonings across the Middle East where people have been stoned to death for heresy, converting to Christianity from Islam, adultery or various other crimes according to Sharia. The attempted stoning by Palestinian Arabs of vehicles with Israeli license plates assuming they are driven and occupied by Jews are derived from similar motivations, the killing of those from outside Islam viewed to be threats to the supremacy of Islam and not bowed to its rule. Some of these ‘stones’ are the size of cinderblocks capable of smashing through windshields and causing the cars to be crashed and too often resulting in death or severe injuries requiring prolonged hospitalization. In a story we looked back at some of the stoning assaults including the pictures of Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan who were victims of just such an assault as they drove by one of these ambushes as well as a picture of United States Representative Eliot Engel and Representative Jerrold Nadler with Representative Nadler holding the rock which was hurled onto them from an overarching cliff overlooking the Mount of Olives Cemetery as they were ascending to view certain graves and pay respects honoring them which can be read in an article titled “Boko Haram Erases Nigerian City of Baga from the Map.” I ask now, exactly what is the difference between the actions and violence committed by ISIS and committed by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the other Arab terror groups operating in Gaza, Judea and Samaria and why Israel must stand down while much of the world is bombing their terror enemies.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Swiss Conference on Israel and Ignores Syria et al

 

The Swiss are holding their “Conference on Humanitarian Law in Palestinian Authority Assigned Territories” as if Israeli actions are the worst acts and the Israeli forces are thugs with criminal intent using force and slaughtering Arabs in lands belonging to them for autonomous rule being denied their ancient homelands. The truth is well known to anybody who reads our posts here at BTC. The San Remo Conference deeded these lands the Swiss are questioning for the formation of the Jewish State of Israel and they cannot be used by any other entity unless the Zionists surrender their autonomy over the lands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, just to use phraseology familiar to the misguided Swiss. Perhaps they should take a few moments away from their frenetic haste and read the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference conclusions, the United States Congress affirmation of their approval as an observing nations of San Remo and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and maybe they will realize that the Jews were deeded all of the lands including those where Jordan sits today thanks to the generosity of the World Zionist Congress which willingly surrendered the lands east of the Jordan River for a sacred promise that the remaining lands east of the Jordan River would remain dedicated and reserved for the Jewish state and was inviolate. Apparently the world sees no problem demanding that the Jews once again surrender lands promised them to forge yet another Arab state and this one promises to be a failed state dedicated to a single purpose, to destroy and supplant the Jewish state. The European leaders clamoring for a state for the poor and downtrodden Palestinians whose homeland that was a piece of imagination conceived in KGB Moscow Headquarters with Yasser Arafat chosen as their operative to lead the struggle with Mahmoud Abbas as the terror organizer, financier and second in command all with the single purpose of supplanting Israel and slaughtering the Jews within.

 

Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas are apparatchiks (аппара́тчик if one prefers the original Soviet Russian spelling) and dedicated pawns of the initial Soviet designs to eradicate the Jewish state of Israel as part of their Cold War against the imperial powers of the United States and its allies. When the Soviet Union fell the Arab liberation movement had reached heights never imagined by the Soviets and had become self-sustaining and actually very profitable as Yasser Arafat had made hundreds of millions of dollars which he had stashed away in a Swiss bank account and also bought some prime properties where his wife would live luxuriously. Mahmoud Abbas and his sons had fared quite well all becoming multi-millionaires and then there is the competing terror group Hamas whose leader Khaled Mashaal has reportedly become a billionaire with Ismail Haniyeh merely a multi-millionaire. Who says terrorism doesn’t pay, if you are fighting to destroy Israel the world apparently rewards one rather well. One needs look no further than the “The Cairo International Conference on Palestine Reconstructing Gaza” where it was reported that over five-billion dollars were pledged for reconstruction with the stated provision that Hamas not be permitted access to monies or supplies, particularly building supplies which were needed to rebuild their infiltration tunnel system purposed for terror raids to slaughter Jewish Israelis living in Sderot and numerous kibbutzim located near the Gaza Strip. The only problem was that there was no enforcement placed on the supplies beyond promises from Abbas who has little if any power over Gaza. Needless to point out, Hamas is moving ahead full bore rebuilding their tunnels under the border and into Israel while those rebuilding the residences and other areas destroyed or damaged have already gone through every dollar of the monies donated and are demanding another round where at least twice the amount be raised as they have been unable to apply all the material for its intended use building homes for the people. This was exactly the result the donors claimed they would guard against and then took the word of a Holocaust denying criminal named Mahmoud Abbas, the financier and purchasing agent for the Black September raid on the Munich Olympics where the Israeli Olympic Team was slaughtered in cold blood as the entire world witnessed the events on the twenty-four hour news channels. The world leaders watched and permitted the mishandling of the situation leading to the slaughter of the remaining Israelis at the airport where the attempt to free the hostages went so very poorly resulting in their deaths and not even approaching successfully freeing them and guarding their lives. Assistance from Israel was refused and they were told their plane would not receive clearance to land should they attempt to take over the rescue despite the Israelis having decades of experience in such rescue missions and the Germans facing their first mission of this sort. No body mourned and the games continued unabated as if nothing untoward or tragic had occurred, just a simple terror attack against the Israeli team while the rest went about their competitions. One wonders what the train of events might have been had the terrorists been Irish revolutionaries and the hostages been the British team, would the games had continued or come to a screeching halt and be terminated if the British team were slaughtered. I know that would be different as the British contingent was significant and there were but a little over a dozen Israelis murdered, insignificant when compared to the European national team components, after all, the Israeli team could hardly be considered an actual component, they were not even entering most of the events. Thus was probably the thinking as after all, when has Europe ever wept or shown concern for Jewish lives?

 

Meanwhile, the Swiss conference attempting to prove the perfidy and criminal intents of the Israeli treatment and actions concerning the Arabs who refer to themselves as Palestinians simply to grant themselves a reference which presumably will supercede the Jewish claims to the lands, as they ignore the latest milestones in the Syrian machine of misery and death which had claimed over two-hundred-thousand civilian lives and injured or maimed over a million civilian victims. This civil war which has been anything but civil has raged unabated and unresolved for over three years and has gutted the nation of Syria which may never recover from the widespread destructions which have been a direct result of the fighting. Sure, President Obama laid down an adjustable red line which appeared to jump back whenever it had been broken by Bashir al-Assad such that it took Russian President Putin to intercede and marginally enforce the ever shifting Obama red line to release the American President further embarrassment. But this slaughter is of no interest; why?

 

The drone campaign used by the United States military in conjunction with the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) targeting presumable terrorist leaders and others in the leadership of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and in ISIS wherever they can be located and there is presumably solid evidence of their presence in a location and there will be minimal collateral damage, a term for unfortunate victims of the bomb, missile or other ordinance which will be utilized to liquidate their intended targets has had unintended consequences. The stated goal can be presented with such noble words that it sounds like the perfect policy. The results are messaged such that the civilian casualties are minimized and made to appear acceptable. The real results are frightening as they show that these directed precision munitions are more often than not targeting locations well after the target has left or on faulty intelligence information. The answer you hear is that such are the misfortunes of war; there will be some miniscule amount of unintended consequences but that the majority of those killed in these strikes are really terrible terror masters. Well, not so much. It has been revealed that the numbers of civilian deaths from these targeted strikes using very refined and accurate munitions have, more often than not, missed their intended target and have resulted in over ninety-five percent civilian casualties. Perhaps Senator Feinstein would like to investigate this usage of American military might instead of the three water-boarded individuals almost immediately after the carnage on September 11, 2001 and the couple of dozen other terrorists who resisted normal methods and were subjected to other manner of enhanced interrogations methods (some of which more resemble the abuse college young men are subjected to during pledge week at various fraternities when I was attending college) in efforts to save lives of both civilians as well as American and allied service men and women.

 

Then there are the abductions by Boko Haram in and around Nigeria which the world has dedicated token forces to assist in the capture or elimination of these terrorists and the liberation of their victims. There is the terrible and ongoing violence in Yemen which has previously served as a refueling port for United States warships. There is tribal violence in the nascent state of South Sudan which has been further fueled by terrorist forces authorized by the Sudan from which the South Sudan has ceded and been recognized as a new nation. Perhaps those European nations and the United States who so gloriously and with great fanfare recognized the new nation might assist in getting the nation on its feet and establish order, but there is no interest as there are no favorite people to save or blame as there are in the Arab-Israeli conflict. There are the several attacks perpetrated by Russian armed and supported rebels in the Ukraine, in Georgia, and starting in Latvia, Estonia and perhaps Lithuania and other former nations which were part of the Soviet Empire with both Georgia and the Ukraine having had large portions of their countries absorbed by Russian troops and gifted to those more inclined to be subservient to Putin and Russian interests and less likely to view the Western world favorably.

 

There has been one force in the world fighting the good fight and I never thought I would be announcing my support for Saudi Arabia, but they are the modern day heroes in fighting the good fight. The Saudi Arabian rulers have ignored their own immediate interest and profits by flooding the world with crude oil at lower than average price per barrels. This has had an astoundingly successful set of results. This tactic by the Saudi royals is aimed at the United States fracking and sideways drilling oil shale industry which has boosted American crude oil production such as to place an additional output equal to that of Kuwait. The Saudis would love to put those interests out of business. Further, Iranian crude oil is not as high grade sweet crude like Saudi oil and thus they require a greater price to profit from their oil wells. The price that Iranian crude must sell for to maintain a profit has been surmised to be between eighty-five dollars per barrel to over one-hundred dollars per barrel, not the paltry near or under seventy dollars a barrel oil is currently selling at. Another victim of the low price per barrel is Russia who the Saudi may not have directly targeted but whom they would not be upset at hurting their interests as Russia has chosen to support Iran, the greatest menace and threat to Saudi Arabia and their leadership. Russia also requires a higher price for their oil as most of their economy is balanced on their oil sales. We have noticed the panic in Russia as the Ruble, or should we say Rubble, has drastically faltered against other currencies on the world market and many have seen the collapse of the Russian economy in recent days. There are calls for Putin’s head to be placed on a pike at the entrance to Red Square, or at least his resignation. The Saudi insistence at the last OPEC meeting, which they took the unusual step of disallowing media presence or coverage and chose whom to include in the invite, and more importantly who not to allow, and they must have made a grand presentation for their hopes and plans or laid out a threat which none wished to contend against, but they agreed to keep the spigots open and let the price of oil drop and drop drastically into ranges not seen for quite some time. When all is done, I would not be surprised to find out that the Saudi Royals used their own vast wealth to promise to subsidize the other OPEC nations allied with Saudi Arabia in these actions in order to prevent unrest within their borders in order to sink their chosen targets. Thus far their actions have not deterred the American oil interest, especially the new finds in North Dakota, who have a secondary advantage of much lower shipping costs to the refineries, and time will tell if they have blunted Iran at all, but their effects on Russia are already quite evident for all to see. The people in the west in particular are the main beneficiaries of the Saudi oil war as their petroleum costs to keep their vehicles gassed up and ready to go have dropped precipitously and this means more cash for Christmas presents. Children of the west rejoice.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Formation of Palestinian State no Solution to Middle East Violence

For the entire twenty years since the fiasco named Oslo was perpetrated on Israel and the entire world we have heard the constant drumbeat droning out the mantra that the founding of a Palestinian State living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel will result in peace and calm over all of the Middle East ending all strife and violence. Even after experiencing over two years of unrest and turmoil of the Arab Spring, more aptly called the Arab Winter, we saw uprisings, violence, protests and revolution replacing longstanding dictators in the hope of founding something better all without even the mention of Israel or the Palestinians. How could it be that we had a popular uprising that replaced the government of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen with further unrest ongoing or soon to come in Syria, Jordan, Mali, and possibly Lebanon and others. Again, none of these will be about Israel or the Palestinians with the possible exception of Jordan whose population largely consists of Palestinians. Yet still we hear the drumbeat droning out the mantra that the Palestinian Statehood being established and carved out of Israel will end all Middle East problems and the world will enter a period of blissful peace.

 

How can anybody expect a thinking person to believe such foolery after witnessing the Middle East of the recent past? The Palestinian leadership itself has demanded that one of the conditions which must be granted when forming a Palestinian State in any form other than having it completely replace the State of Israel that they retain the right to resist and fight against the Zionist existence in the rest of their homeland until all of Palestine from the River to the Sea is liberated from the Zionist influences. So, by granting the Palestinians statehood a country established in all of the lands beyond the Green Line that includes every inch of land lost by Jordan in the West Bank, all of Gaza that Egypt lost, and half of Jerusalem including all of the Old City and the Temple Mount, there still will not be peace because as long as the Jews retain any land which was once under Muslim control there can be no peace. This is not my opinion but is the opinion of the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Arab League, Hezballah, al-Qaeda, and countless rulers, Imams, and Islamic leaders worldwide. So, it is obvious by their own words of intent that the two state solution as a final agreement is unacceptable to the vast majority of the followers of Islam and that they will only accept the entire eradication of Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian Islamic governance where the Jews will initially be allowed to remain as long as they accept the status of Dhimmi. But, even if this result were to be implemented, would that then lead to complete calm and peace throughout the Middle Easy? I think not and here is why.

 

Does anybody actually hold that should Palestine be formed and meet even the wildest of demands of the most radical of Palestinian leaders that this would result in the end of the violence and uprising in Syria? Of course not. That alone should be sufficient to disprove the claim that all of the violence in the Middle East has as its root cause the Palestinian/Israelii conflict. Would founding Palestine end the violence against Christians and other non-Muslims in Mali or Nigeria? No chance that would end simply because Israel and the Palestinians reached an agreement. Would all the terror induced violence in the West immediately terminate once the State of Palestine was founded and borders were established between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Nope. What about the eternal standoff which flares up with consistent levels of animosity and violence between Pakistan and India over the lands which were formerly Kashmir, would that come to a conclusion after the peace was signed between Israel and the Palestinians? That would rank as highly unlikely. Would stable governance and an end to the conflicts suddenly fall over all of Somalia, especially in its capital city of Mogadishu? Not a chance. Would Iran cease their drive to attain nuclear weapons and establish a Shiite crescent and hegemony over the entirety of Muslim lands and then spread this new caliphate to encompass the entire world? Never happen as their goals would remain unfulfilled. The simple fact is that most of the violence and terrorism which exists or is rooted in the Middle East has nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinians and whatever should come to pass between Israel and the Palestinians would have absolutely no effect on the rest of the Islamic world and those places where they have extended their influence or interests.

 

Solving the impasse between the Palestinians and the Israelis with the intent of solving all the violence and situations currently existing in the Middle East is a fool’s errand which only the most misguided would believe or expect such a result. That begs the question as to why in the world is it taken as fact that solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict would be the cure-all of all the problems in the Middle East? The reason is the most obvious of reasons. An often used excuse for not addressing a difficult problem or not tackling a pervasive threat is to blame it on some unsolvable problem that is only loosely tied to the situation. The Middle East violence is a pervasive problem which would be extremely difficult to address, let alone solving. Much of the violence in the Middle East is of ancient origins with no resolution as long as the two sides of each conflict exist. The conflict between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims will not reach any conclusion in the foreseeable future. So, blame it on Palestinian/Israeli conflict and its lack of resolution. It does not matter if transferring the responsibility for tackling near impossible conflicts is a total ruse which anybody who takes even a moment to inspect would find the complete insanity of the claim as nobody wishes to see the truth. Seeing the realities as they truly are would require actions that nobody is prepared to undertake. Blaming the Palestinian/Israeli conflict for the entire bundle of turmoil, violence, and conflicts throughout the Middle East and related problems traceable to the Middle East is simply a way of kicking the can down the road, just somewhat more insidious.

 

This begs another question, what would happen if the Palestinian/Israelii conflict were to be resolved? Obviously, those blaming every ill or at least the majority of them, on the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are counting on that problem never ending which is why there is never any pressure placed on actually forcing a solution. The pressures for solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict are almost universally placed upon Israel while the Palestinian side rarely has any pressures applied to make concessions towards solving the conflict. The reasons for this is that Israel is actively seeking to meet and solve the problem while the Palestinians do not wish a solution as they are only being paid great amounts of money for as long as their “difficulties” continue. The Palestinian society is setup as being dependent on large infusions of money and on not taking the responsibility for governing themselves and simply blaming Israel. This fits perfectly with the desired situation of an insolvable situation which will continue without end allowing for a plethora of other problems to also be avoided and left unsolved. Making the finding of a solution acceptable to both sides of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as the prerequisite for tackling the other myriad of problems which is the Middle East is exactly the same as promising to weed your garden after the last rainfall had passed. There will never be a last rainfall within reason thus the garden never needs to be weeded. The Palestine/Israel conflict also will never be resolved as long as the actual only result the Palestinians will accept is the instillation of a Palestinian State over all of Israel replacing the Jewish State and subjugating the Jewish population of Israel at best and an unspeakable alternative at worst. Since the Israelis are never going to submit to Palestinian rule over their entire homeland, the problem will never be resolved. Even if a Palestinian State is formed with recognized borders, the conflict will continue if this recognition includes a Jewish State of Israel existing beside the Palestinian State. That insures that the rest of the world can simply kick the can down the road rather than making the difficult decisions to address the rest of the problems in the Middle East. Simply stated, it is much easier to blame Israel for not completely surrendering to the Palestinians while never expecting them to do so. That is the path of least resistance when one considers that all the other paths are just as insolvable and much more dangerous to become involved. That is why the claim exists that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is the root of all evil in the Middle East and why there will be no truthful attempts to address any of the plethora of problems involving Islam.  

 

Beyond the Cusp