Bosnia's modern exportation of muhajideen

The country that really started the Balkan war with Serbia is now a place where muhjideen are bred (Hat tip: Jihad Watch):

A magnet for foreign jihadists during its 1990s war, Bosnia is now grappling with the threat from home-grown extremists wooed by the conflicts in Iraq and Syria.

While most Bosnian Muslims are moderates, a few thousand have adopted the ultraconservative Salafist brand of Sunni Islam introduced by the fighters who flocked to Bosnia from North Africa, the Middle East and Asia during the 1992-1995 conflict between Serbs, Muslims and Croats.

Most of those foreign fighters, or “mujahedeen”, left Bosnia when the war ended.

But the seed had already been sown. Twenty years on, the radical preachers giving fiery sermons in “mesdzids”, or improvised prayer halls, are no longer foreigners.

Those taking up arms are also local men.

On Monday, a gunman shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest” in Arabic) opened fire on a police station in the eastern town of Zvornik, killing one officer and wounding two others before being killed in a shootout.

The assailant, identified as 24-year-old Nerdin Ibric from a village near the northeastern town of Zvornik, was suspected of links to radical Islamist groups. Another man, said to have travelled to Syria, was arrested Tuesday over the attack.

Suspected Islamist extremists had made their presence felt before in the Balkan country.

In October 2011, a gunman opened fire on the US embassy in Sarajevo, wounding a policeman before being injured himself and arrested.

In June of the previous year, a man set off an explosive device at a police station in the central town of Bugojno, killing one officer and wounding six others in what the government called a “terrorist act”.

And this is the country Bill Clinton's administration thought we should all side with. Don't take the "moderate" part at face value, because Bosnia was the one who fueled the fire back in the day.

Ethiopian soldier assaulted by racist police in Holon

Two days ago, another demonstration of how immoral some of the police in this country are took place in Holon:

Two policemen have been suspended after video footage emerged on Monday showing them pummeling an Ethiopian-born IDF soldier, Damas Pakada, who alleged he was the target of a racist attack.

[...] Pakada told Channel 10 that he was riding his bicycle when he noticed the two officers.

He said that he asked them what they were up to and one of them confronted him and pushed him off his bike, saying, “I can do whatever I want.”

He said that the officer threatened to shoot him in the head, and that they only let up only after he backed away and lifted a rock.

“The cop told me, ‘I’m doing my job and if I need to put a bullet in your head, I would do it. I am proud of my job,'” he told Ynet.

Several police then detained the soldier for alleged assault, although the footage showed that Pakada did not attack them with the rock in his hand.

I don't think the officer was proud of his job so much as he was proud of having a job he thinks would give him immunity to do whatever he pleases. This is the result of so many years of having a leftist mentality of the most horrific kind running the asylum. The officers who committed the offense should be fired indefinitely. More about the terrible incident here.

How Israel contributes to a better world at 67

Joseph Puder wrote on Front Page Magazine about how Israel's withstanding modern enemies and how it's contributing to bettering the world today with medical technology, for example.

Haredis in Mea Shearim attack IDF officer and vandalized his car

This particular IDF official was not Haredi, from what I've learned, but what took place is still very offensive:

Unidentified assailants assaulted an IDF officer who came to visit soldiers in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim on Friday.

The officer, who serves in the Givati infantry brigade and even took part in last summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, drove in to Mea Shearim to visit two of his charges who are beset by economic woes.

After local residents noticed the officer in his army uniform, he was accosted by a group of would-be assailants, though he managed to evade harm by fleeing the area.

Some vandals then proceeded to smash the windshields and windows of the car belonging to the officer.

The incident was reported by Channel 2. Shortly afterward, the officer filed a complaint with police.

The officer’s mother, a woman identified as “Yael,” told Channel 2 that her son “was hit a few times.”

“He told me that it’s not his body that hurts, but his heart,” she said. “He came away traumatized a bit. He said they tried to lynch him. They threw stones, eggs, used diapers. Some of them even tried to overturn his car. Nobody intervened to try and stop it.”

"He paid a visit to two soldiers who live in Mea Shearim,” she said. “These soldiers are of limited financial means. He went there to see how he could help them with more benefits.”

“At the entrance to the apartment building where they live, two women stood there,” she said. “They were unhappy that he was entering the building while wearing a uniform and the purple beret of Givati.”

“When he came out of the building, he was met by a raging mob,” she said. “He stepped toward his car, closed the door, and locked it. They tried to get at him and pull him outside. They had the look of terrorists in their eyes. They wanted to lynch him.”

It's sickening to think that one day, something awful like that could happen, unless serious measures are taken now. The prime minister condemned the violent attack too. Dr. Haim Shine had something to say about this incident, including the following from the Bible:

At synagogues on Saturday, the Haftarah (a series of selections from the Bible read in synagogue on Shabbat, holidays and fast days) was recited from the book of Amos: "And I will turn the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be uprooted" (Amos 9:14-15).

When will extremist haredim realize that the prophet is talking about our time? And in order to fulfill Amos' prophecy, we also need a strong army.

Yes, how is it they reject the clear arguments and other views like the above? All culprits discovered, including some children involved, must be arrested immediately and jailed for their horrific behavior.

The sexism in Obamacare

Here's an interesting article in The Federalist (via Accuracy in Media) arguing why Obamacare is only hurting women's health status and not helping at all.

Israel commemorates 100th year to the Armenian Genocide

In Israel, despite the cowardice still taking place in official government recognition, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 1915:

Hundreds of Armenians and Israelis alike took part in events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Israel Friday, despite Israel's failure to recognize the mass killings as genocide.

Armenian Jerusalemites gathered in their quarter of the old city on April 24th for a commemorative ceremony during which the head of the Armenian church of Jerusalem rang the bells at the Church of St. James 100 times, symbolic of the centenary of the massacre.

Israel does not formally recognize the genocide diplomatically, nor is the historical event taught in Israeli schools.

Turkey, one of Israel's few peaceful friends in the region, vehemently denies that the deaths were part of a “genocide.” Although it does acknowledge that many Christians were killed by Turkish Ottomans during World War I, it insists that the deaths were part of warfare, and not systematic in nature.

Well here's where this article turns stupefyingly propagandistic. After several years of Recep Erdogan's anti-Israelism unmasked, Turkey cannot be called one of its few "peaceful" friends. And the Post has the gall to claim otherwise? That's very low. Also worth noting here is how this weakness has played into the hands of an anti-religious left-wing party:

“As Jewish people, who went through the Holocaust and know what Holocaust denial means and fight it to this day, we have the moral imperative to show sensitivity to the tragedies of other nations and not deny that genocide took place in the past and continues to happen today.” Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Gal-On said while speaking at the commemoration ceremony in the Armenian quarter. "We must understand the implications of ignoring [other genocides] and recognize the suffering... just as the pope and European Parliament did by recognizing the Armenian Genocide.”

What's ludicrous is that she's one of the same people who've been adamant about endangering Israel to the PLO/Hamas, which obviously makes her own alleged support for Armenia hypocritical. Yet it's amazing a party like Gal-On's would still care, because some liberal politicians quietly dropped support for recognition of Armenia's tragedy when they realized it would only anger Turkey's Islamists, whom they see as allies, and you can be sure Meretz would too.

And Reuven Rivlin didn't make things any better after he upset an archbishop with a weak description:

A quarter of a century ago, as an MK, Reuven Rivlin broke the taboo on acknowledging the Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

Later, as speaker of Knesset, he defied government attempts to have the same subject removed from the Knesset’s agenda and gave the podium to MKs from across the political spectrum to air their views. The Armenian Genocide was a subject of consensus for all legislators.

On Sunday, Rivlin invited some of those former MKs to the President’s Residence, along with Armenian religious and lay leaders, writers Haim Gouri and Haim Be’er, plus IDC President Uriel Reichman, and noted historian Yehuda Bauer, who had also identified strongly with Armenian suffering.

In his address, Rivlin noted that in 1915 members of the Armenian nation were being massacred and some of them found shelter in Jerusalem, including among members of his own family. No one in Jerusalem denied the massacre, he said. “We are morally obligated to point out the facts as horrible as they are and not to ignore them.”

This year, for the first time, the Knesset sent a delegation to Yerevan to mark the 100th anniversary of the tragedy.

Rivlin said in his opening remarks that the Armenian people were among the first victims of modern mass killing.

Archbishop Aris Shirvanian took Rivlin to task, reminding him that he was in the Knesset when Rivlin spoke of the Armenian Genocide. To now refer to it as a “mass killing” was a regressive move, he said.

“I am disappointed,” said Shirvanian, chiding the president.

“This was a backward step on your part. You should have been more courageous as president.”

And I agree with the priest. Maybe it was just a gaffe Rivlin made. But if he chose his wording deliberately, that was incredibly stupid, and it won't do anything to change the thinking of a country that supported the Mavi Marmara jihadists a few years ago.

Anti-semitism is rising again 70 years after Bergen-Belsen

Following the Holocaust Memorial at Bergen-Belsen, Ronald Lauder said:

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder warned Sunday at the ceremony marking 70 years since the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany that history is in danger of repeating itself.

"Seventy years ago, the world was silent and now we are standing on one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world,” Lauder said. “We appear to be descending into the same hell today. Anti-Semitism is rising in Europe, neo-Nazi groups are sitting in Parliament in Hungary and Greece, and Iranian leaders repeatedly promise to wipe Israel from the pages of time. To shout against the past while remaining silent about the present is not just wrong; it is outrageous and immoral."

That's just the situation now when Islamofascism is on the rise: world governments vehemently refuse to touch upon the subject, and that's why we're headed for World War 4000.

Maine's politicians protect child rapists

A woman who lived in Maine tells about the horrific cover up and protection of child molestors and sex traffickers on the upper east coast:

Maine is rated third worst in the country for sex trafficking. The Bangor Daily News says Maine is an East Coast source to procure children. Those who know Maine’s history are not surprised.

Only a few years ago, when students at Baxter School for the Deaf refused sexual abuse by their director, Dr. Robert Kelly, he tied them naked to a tree and left them, all night, in the Maine woods; to break them.

Dr. Robert Kelly was not prosecuted. The State of Maine protected Kelly and not Maine’s children. The Attorney General (AG) refused to prosecute any of the Baxter School rapists. Instead, Maine used tax-payer funds to pay Kelly’s pension through-out his retirement in Florida until he finally died, as reported by Rick Wormwood, in 2004.

As you'll see at the primary link, it gets far worse. One of the culprits never prosecuted and never jailed was a policeman. It brings to mind something semi-related, an encounter I had online nearly 15 years ago with a crackpot from Maine who defended the Columbine shooters in Colorado, by claiming they were "being bullied", as though that literally makes their actions justified. All because he apparently wanted to violence in entertainment. It later turned out the man I speak of was anti-Israel, and he also strongly hinted he was hostile to the victims of 9-11. I've got a feeling most sensible citizens of Maine would tell me that finding such monsters in that area is no surprise either.

Maine is clearly is terrible need of political/educational reform, but how to enact it is bound to be a very uphill battle.

Congress takes action against EU boycotts

Capitol Hill's marked Israel's 67th Independence Day with special steps to oppose boycotts:

Both chambers of Congress marked Israel’s 67th Independence Day with action against efforts to boycott the state.

One day before the anniversary, the Senate Finance Committee unanimously agreed to attach an amendment to a bill that would “fast track” US President Barack Obama’s trade negotiations with Europe, which suggests any trade deal should discourage the EU from promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Fast-track authority allows the US president to negotiate trade agreements that still require the approval of Congress, but that Congress cannot amend.

Another Senate amendment passed a week ago would require the executive to report the participation of foreign companies in BDS activities.

“We may not agree with every Israeli policy, but we cannot allow our potential trading partners in the EU to fall prey to efforts that threaten Israel’s existence,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), a member of the finance committee and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Economic tools and trade agreements have been used throughout world history to move governments and change policy, but when these actions seek to delegitimize a country’s right to exist, we need to draw a line.”

They also cannot allow them to turn their own countries into jihad zones, which is now the case in many parts of Europe. Should that happen, it would one day endanger America by having caliphates rise up in Europe, who could even build nuclear technology and be much closer to America, endangering it even more. All Americans who care should protest how European governments are turning their countries into war zones, and how they're failing to improve their own legal systems.

Former Haredis sue over bad education system

Some ex-Haredis are suing over the poor job the state did in overseeing education in the Haredi school systems:

They were already in their 20s the first time they ever heard about dinosaurs or even tried their hands at maths and English.

Now a group of young Israelis who left the closed world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism are demanding answers from the state which funded their strictly religious education in Jewish seminaries, known as yeshivas.

Despite years of studying, all they were exposed to was religious texts and their interpretation, leaving them clueless about the basics of the national curriculum.

[...] In the yeshiva world, he says, everything is designed “to ensure that no doubt, however small, can sneak in” that could challenge blind faith.

Yet nagging doubts did crop up for this young seminarian — and they never went away.

“It happened that one Saturday night after the end of Shabbat I simply couldn’t bring myself to go back to the yeshiva — and I never did understand why,” he told AFP.

Although leaving the ultra-Orthodox world was hard, there was worse to come as Fink struggled to integrate into the secular — and elitist — university system with extremely limited skills.

In maths, he had the ability of a 10-year-old, his English went no further than the alphabet and he had absolutely no idea about history, geography or science.

What helped him was getting involved with a group called “Out for Change,” which counts around 300 members — all of them former ultra-Orthodox.

Formed with the express aim of taking legal action against the state, the organisation also runs courses for people who want to integrate into modern society.

But its members are mainly engaged in a lawsuit seeking damages from the state, which provides 75 percent of the funds for ultra-Orthodox education without demanding any supervision over what its 400,000 students learn.

“What did we study in the yeshiva? The Torah and its commentaries and that’s about all,” Fink said, referring to the first five books of the Bible.

Ultra-Orthodox girls have their own single-sex schools, and do learn lay subjects such as maths, history, sciences and languages, but not to a sufficiently high level to qualify for universities — coeducational institutions which contravene the ultra-Orthodox requirement for female modesty.

Keeping young women out of such an environment is a deliberate policy of the pious, say those who have left.

It's dismaying news, made only worse when you consider that the state never gave any oversight to these yeshivas. I wish them well with their lawsuit, and hope they can get some changes made for the better.

Once again, Obama refuses to use term "Armenian genocide"

For the 100th memorial to the year when the Ottoman Turkish jihadists slaughtered 1.5 Armenians during WW1, Obama has once again refused to use honest wording, all because he doesn't want to alienate the phony allies the Turks make:

President Obama will again avoid describing the 1915 massacre of Armenians as "genocide," drawing more criticism from those who note he pledged to do so during his 2008 campaign.

Turkey, a key NATO ally, objects to use of the term genocide.

"President Obama's surrender to Turkey represents a national disgrace — it is, very simply, a betrayal of truth, a betrayal of trust," said Ken Hachikian, chairman of Armenian National Committee of America.

[...] Hachikian said the White House appears to be outsourcing policy to Turkey.

"With the world's attention drawn this April 24th to worldwide Armenian Genocide Centennial commemorations, President Obama will, tragically, use the moral standing of our nation not to defend the truth, but rather to enforce of a foreign power's gag-rule," he said.

That's just it. He's kowtowed yet again to a country that's plunging into the darkness of Islam, and a country that's likely to become as bad as Iran in the future.

120 soldiers honored on Independence Day

For Independence Day, 120 soldiers were honored by president Reuven Rivlin:

120 outstanding soldiers were honored on Thursday at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem at an event marking the 67th anniversary of the creation of the state.

For the first time as chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot saluted the men and women in uniform, when each stepped forward to receive a citation plus a scholarship for higher education.

"Today we celebrate all voices of society," President Reuven Rivlin said to a cheering crowd. "We are celebrating our freedom to honor all voices together – regardless of our differences."

The annual Independence Day ceremony is the first for the president, who shook hands with each of the recipients.

More at the link.

Haredi extremists call Haredi soldier "nazi" on Holocaust Memorial Day

This happened in Beit Shemesh, where there's already these kind of moonbats running amok:

An ultra-Orthodox soldier was threatened and called a Nazi by Haredi men Thursday in Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, Army Radio reported on Friday.

Army Radio obtained footage documenting the attack, which occurred on Israel’s Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah.

The footage shows a group of several ultra-Orthodox men confronting the soldier on the street. The targeted soldier serves in the Netzach Yehuda program, which facilitates the integration of Haredi troops into the IDF’s ranks.

“These actions of a radical fringe within the Haredi public cannot be tolerated,” Yonatan Barensky, a reserves colonel who used to command the Netzach Yehuda program, told Army Radio after the incident.

Barensky said “strong action” was needed against the perpetrators. He did not say whether a police complaint had been filed.

In many cases like this, police complaints may not be filed because the victims are afraid it'll make things worse. One of the commentors said:

How dare these ungrateful pieces of dung, to criticize the men and women of the IDF, the very force that protects them and that even allow them the Right of Free Speech? The fact is they should be shining their boots and thanking them for the protection that they provide to allow them to worship as they please. No wonder there is anti-Semitism around the World when Jews disrespect Jews.

That's a pretty interesting way of putting it. Another said:

This is a sad thing. I remember growing up and seeing our young men coming home from Vietnam and hippies spitting on them and calling them baby killers. The true message of the hippies was not love and peace but divisiveness and socialism and progressivism(communism)- not to forget drug abuse! The soldiers follow the orders of the government that the people elect. People always need to support their military, they are out there putting their lives on the line.

Sometimes even Haredis can succumb to drug abuse, I'm sure, and what's clear is that Haredis like the ones seen attacking the soldier long embraced socialism. Another's said:

I am beyond livid. If we have their pictures they must be arrested and given serious prison time. Preferably in cells with people that share their thoughts like Hamas. Something must be done. Enough of this crap.

Some of them do indeed belong in a cell with Hamas. Here's another comment:

My 2 sons did not leave their lives in U.S. behind to join the IDF and defend these religious radicals; they cut off their own children who dare follow their ideals to defend Israel...as much danger as the Palestinian radicals.

And one more:

Disgusting.
We shouldn't pretend that it's the majority of Charedim who do this kind of thing; neither should we ignore that the Charedi leadership do not condemn it.

And the worst part of all is how this took place on Holocaust Memorial Day, which I'm sure the thuggish cultists don't teach much about. That's a problem coming when no proper oversight is taken on their education system.

Paris jihadist discovered and arrested after injuring himself

A jihadist who was planning to attack a church reading defeated himself through injury, and was arrested by police:

An Islamist extremist was arrested in France on Wednesday charged with murdering a fitness instructor and planning to carry out a terror attack on at least one Paris church later the same day.

The 24-year-old French-Algerian’s plans were exposed purely by chance on Sunday morning after he called an ambulance over a bullet injury to his leg.

The man, named by French press as Sid Ahmed Ghlam, said he had been involved in “a settling of scores”. But when police traced the blood back to his car, they found a large arsenal of loaded guns detailed plans to attack a Sunday morning congregation.

What a pure piece of filth. He should be put in complete isolation now.

Enemies of Israel will not break our spirit

Here's a prime ministerial statement for War Memorial Day:

Grief over fallen soldiers can’t prevent the government from sending its troops off to war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he warned Israel’s enemies that the IDF stands ready to defend the country.

“If we have no choice, we must be ready to charge into battle in order to defend ourselves and our land,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday morning at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem.

“When I need to decide whether or not to send soldiers into battle, I think of each soldier and their family as if they were my son, my family,” Netanyahu said.

He spoke at a Remembrance Day Ceremony to honor the 23,320 soldiers and civilians who have been killed since the state was created in 1948.

“Anyone who has experienced the torments of bereavement and the terror of war, the dead and injured, the amputation of limbs, does not seek out war,” Netanyahu said.

He spoke as the threat to Israel grows both from Iran and the flow of Russian made weapons to the region. Israel is also concerned by the possibly of renewed violence along its southern and northern borders.

“The continuum of threats to the existence of Israel requires a continuum of fights and our resilience in this fight depends on our determination, our strength, our unity,” Netanyahu said.

“Our enemies need to know that they will not break us, that despite the pain we will continue to defend our country, that we are staying right here,” Netanyahu said.

Israel’s strength and the unity of its Jewish, Druze, Muslim, Beduin, Christian and Circassian citizens, is what will help the state meet the security challenges it faces in the coming years, Netanyahu said.

“We are one family. … We are partners through bad times and good, in grief and in joy,” he said.

Netanyahu referenced the transition Israel would go later that night when Remembrance Day ended and festivities marking Independence Day began.

“Tonight, as the lights of the Independence torches shine forth, when the lights of the Independence torches shine on this mountain, we will feel profound gratitude for our loved ones, the heroes of the people, Israel's fallen soldiers,” Netanyahu said.

On the Iranian issues, we're going to have to work very hard to deal with what's now becoming worse than communist Russia.

Haredis who cause a ruckus over women with Torah scroll at Western Wall are not blameless

The Women of the Wall may have been pulling a provocation by getting a Torah scroll passed over to the women's section of the Western Wall, but that's still no excuse for any violence the Haredi worshipers might've caused:

Members of the radical Women of the Wall group created a provocation at the Western Wall Monday, when they brought a Torah scroll into the women's section of the Kotel Plaza, read from it and held it high, in contravention of custom.

The provocation caused men to cross over from the men's section into the women's section in order to try and retrieve the Torah scroll. Police intervened in the ensuing scuffle.

I wonder why INN doesn't identify the perpetrators? Something tells me non-Haredis would just implore them to put the scroll back in the men's section.

As for provocation? Sure, but what's atrocious is that the Haredis fell for it. For the thousandth time, they really do want to draw the attention they'd be better off without.

Kotel Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich said Monday that the Women of the Wall group “has made another tear in the delicate fabric of the Kotel.”

"The Torah scroll was handed over the partition in a way that demeaned it, he said. “This is a provocative act whose sole purpose is to 'set the Kotel on fire' – and indeed they succeeded in arousing the anger of the worshipers. It was only thanks to the hard work of the police and Kotel attendants that blood was not actually spilled.”

Once more, this muddled man vehemently refuses to condemn anyone, Haredi or otherwise, who'd commit violence over otherwise petty issues. Nor does he advise them to just ignore it and get the scroll back later. And to let God have the last word in passing judgement upon them. But no, they just have to play "moralist". One of the commentors said:

So just to get this clear- the people who actually threatened the violence are blameless? We don't expect anything more of them, is that it? I had no idea Rabinovich had such a low opinion of charedim.

Neither did I. That's why sooner or later, Rabinovitch must be held accountable.

Parents of abu Khder don't want him recognized as an Israeli terror victim

The parents of the Arab teenager who was murdered by some crazy Haredi yeshiva students last year don't want him recognized as an Israeli terror victim:

The family of Mohammed Abu Khder, the Arab youth who was cruelly murdered and burned by Jews last summer in a nationalist revenge attack, is reportedly angry that his name has been added to the list of terror victims recognized by the National Insurance Institute (NII), and that it appears at the Har Herzl memorial for terror victims.

"We do not want Mohammed added to this list,” unnamed family members reportedly told NRG. “We do not see ourselves as Israelis, but as Palestinians. We do not want recognition from the state of Israel or the National Insurance money. We want the three defendants who burned Mohammed to receive the proper punishment. The most serious punishment – only that will calm us down.”

[...] Terror victims' group Almagor is also angry at the news and demands that his name be removed from the memorial plaque at Har Hezrl and from the NII website. Almagor said that Abu Khder was not murdered as part of the struggle for Israel's existence but as a result of "the insanity of criminals."

"A random killing carried out by people whose sanity is in doubt cannot be compared to organized actions by states and enemy countries,” said Almagor.

So the parents of the boy are using the tragedy as an excuse for anti-Israelism. Very low, and very sad. The state did them a favor, and how do they thank? By declaring themselves denizens, and doing a further disservice to his memory.

Update: the boy's name was removed from the memorial.

Israel's president won't meet with awful Jimmy Carter

Reuven Rivlin's doing the right thing by not meeting with one of the worst former US presidents:

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has refused to meet former US President Jimmy Carter in an upcoming visit to Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Gaza due to his anti-Israeli views, Channel 10 reports Monday.

A senior diplomatic source told the news agency that Carter, who has a long history of antagonism towards Israel, is "permanently damaging" to Israel and that Israel's leaders should refrain from meeting with him, on principle. Rivlin's advisors have said the same.

In May 2014, the former President supported the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) unilateral push to join international organizations in breach of the ongoing peace talks with Israel and the 1993 Oslo Accords.

The year before, he called on the European Union (EU) to label products coming from "illegal Israeli settlements" - despite the fact that Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria is legal under international law.

In 2006, Carter wrote a book entitled "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." His claims in the book, which he continued to espouse even after factual errors were revealed, led the reporting accuracy group CAMERA to say that the ex-president “clearly has an Israel, and even a Jewish problem.”

Even in his old age, Carter's been very active in anti-Israel activities, and that's very bad. Of course no sane politician should spend time around him.

Republicans supposedly won, but in reality, caved to Obama

Ben Shapiro says the GOP, despite most of what's been said so far, has not actually ensured Obama cannot make faustian pacts with Iran:

On Wednesday, Republicans declared victory over President Obama after passing a bipartisan bill designed to stifle Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. There’s only one problem: the bill doesn’t stop Obama in any way. In fact, it does the opposite, by granting congressional Democrats an easy excuse for voting to allow Obama to end the sanctions against Iran without political consequence.

[...] There were three major options to stop Obama. Republicans pursued none of them. Instead, the bill merely states that Obama cannot remove sanctions until after submitting the text of an Iran deal to Congress; Congress then has 30 days to review the deal; Congress must then vote with a veto-proof majority to prevent Obama from ending the sanctions. The onus is now on Republicans to come up with 67 votes to stop Obama, rather than Obama to come up with 67 votes to have a treaty ratified; Republicans would need 67 votes for new sanctions, rather than pressuring Democrats to put in place conditional sanctions prior to the Obama full-scale public relations blitz; Republicans will not be able to cite Iranian terrorism as a reason to sink the deal, given that they removed precisely that language from the bill.

If this is correct, then the GOP has proven itself a major disappointment, when they had a chance to make people proud of them. They would do well to revise their demands, otherwise, they only deserve condemnation for stupefying weakness.

Spring Valley yeshiva caused outrage with blackface doll on Purim

A yeshiva's students caused a needless row with the NAACP by hanging up a blackface doll last Purim, and passing that off as Haman:

A Purim display by yeshiva students turned into a lesson in cultural sensitivity after it was interpreted as the depiction of a lynching by members of this diverse village's African-American community.

The controversy was touched off by a Facebook video posted last month showing a black-faced doll dressed in colorful clothing hung out a window at Yeshiva Degel Hatorah on Maple Avenue.

The doll, which was displayed during Purim, was meant to depict the hanging of Haman. According to the biblical Book of Esther, Haman was an advisor to the king in ancient Persia who plotted to kill the Jewish people. His defeat is commemorated during Purim.

This is peculiar. As far as I know, Haman, like many of the Persians, was of Aryan background, and white. So why did these students, who may be Haredi, want to make it look like a "golliwog" doll? The doll was removed soon after the discovery, but it's a shame they had to draw the ire of an otherwise unreliable source like the NAACP.

Iran introduces its own variation on Russian-made missiles

Iran's just revealed their new arsenal for warmongering:

The Iranian army displayed on Saturday a self-developed version of the advanced Russian S-300 missile system during a military parade south of the Tehran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Tehran decided to design its own version of the S-300 missile, the Bavar 373, following a postponement by Russia of the sale of the anti-aircraft weaponry to Iran five years ago. Earlier this week, Russia announced it would finally lift the ban and deliver S-300 systems to Iran, in a move that would give the Islamic Republic’s military a strong deterrent against any air attack. [...]

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has furiously protested the planned Russian supply and phoned President Vladimir Putin to try to persuade him to reconsider, but was rebuffed. Israel fears the S-300s would complicate any military intervention as a last resort to thwart Iran’s nuclear drive. It also fears Iran could supply the missile defense systems to Syria or Hezbollah, diluting Israel’s air supremacy over the region.

And Russia's making it worse by providing them with more of their own foul missiles. This is very grave.

Court upholds anti-boycott law

The supreme court's upheld some of a law that can help deal with anti-Israeli boycotts:

Five fingers.

With a simple wave of a hand, the High Court of Justice on Wednesday propped up a law with one of the most powerful weapons yet produced to fight boycotts against Israel (at least from within the country) while also narrowly rejecting exempting boycotters who target only the West Bank or “post-1967 Israel” from the law.

The implications of the ruling for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign and counter-campaign globally could be massive.

What’s it all about? The law at stake empowered the finance minister to fine or remove tax breaks from Israeli NGOs that called for boycotts of parts of Israel, as well as empowering individuals to sue those NGOs for civil damages they claimed were caused by such boycotts.

The court did strike a provision that would have allowed punitive damages against those NGOs, somewhat reducing the biggest threat they faced for calling for boycotts, but leaving the overall threat in place.

The five fingers and the hand signify the five justices who voted 5-4 to view boycotts targeted only at the West Bank settlements as no different under the law than boycotts of all of Israel or “post-1948 Israel.”

All traitors who operate to delegitmize Israel would do us all a service by leaving the country, since they clearly don't want to live here. This is a very good law to send a message that if anti-Israelists keep up their badness, they should pay for it out of their own pocket and not abuse our tax shekels.

Newsweek's not entirely clear about Orthodoxy

Newsweek wrote about Orthodox's Judaism's problems with men holding the cards in "gets" the Hebraic word for divorces:

In Orthodox Judaism, only husbands can give gets, and while most do, those who refuse wield enormous power over their wives. Even with a civil divorce decree in hand, a woman is not divorced in the Orthodox Jewish world until her husband gives her a get. Until then, she is an agunah, a “chained” woman. If she falls in love and decides to remarry without the get, she would be considered an adulteress, and her children from that union would be shunned.

As a matter of fact, even women can hold the cards in divorces, but because of certain loopholes, that's why it's more common for husbands. So that's one part where they're definitely misleading. Another is how it's mostly among Haredis where the problem runs deep today, and not necessarily Orthodox in itself.

There's also a query raised here about why remain in Orthodox Judaism if it's not helping:

Those outside Orthodox Judaism often wonder why agunot don’t simply leave their community and move on. “People say, ‘Why doesn’t she just forget this backwards patriarchal system? She has her civil divorce!’” says Stern. “Our response to that is, what fundamentally underlies get refusal is power and control. Get refusal is a form of domestic abuse.

“Asking her to give up her religion is asking her to accept her abuse and have it extend through all aspects of her life and her sense of self,” Stern continues. “It’s pointing the finger in the direction of the victim rather than the aggressor.”

With all due respect, if they don't modify the rules, then why must they be surprised anyone would quit? Sure, Orthodox Judaism has been victimized, but by modern nutcases who won't do what authorities in ancient times did - find alternate ways to arrange a divorce. The way they're handling it now, that's what amounts to extending through all aspects of a woman's life.

But don't expect Newsweek to ever discuss seriously how Islam is where husbands really hold all the cards. The sad problem here is that, while the topic in discussion above is valid, Newsweek just chose it as an easy one, never trying the hard ones.

A book about Operation Nemesis

The Armenian Mirror-Spectator reviewed Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide, by Eric Bogosian, which is going to press on April 24, the official date of the memorial.

Another car ramming attack and murder in Jerusalem

Another car jihadist struck in Jerusalem:

An Israeli man died and a woman was seriously injured after being hit by a car at a bus stop where they were standing on Wednesday night at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem.

The man who died was identified as Shalom Yohai Sharki. He and the woman were evacuated to Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center, where Sharki died on Thursday morning.

The car was driven by an Arab man, who was lightly injured. He was taken into custody for questioning.

Police are investigating the possibility of the incident being a terrorist attack, following a series of recent ramming attacks in Jerusalem.

I think it's already apparent it was, and they don't need to hesitate to say so.

Has the west learned any lessons from the Holocaust?

I think this speech from last night's Holocaust Memorial service at Yad Vashem makes clear enough the west hasn't:

In a speech at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem on Wednesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the West has not learned the lesson of the Holocaust.

Comparing Nazi Germany with Iran, Netanyahu said, "Just as the Nazis aspired to crush civilization and to establish a 'master race' to replace it in controlling the world while annihilating the Jewish people, so too does Iran strive to gain control over the region, from which it would spread further, with the explicit intent of obliterating the Jewish state."

The prime minister went on to say, "The determination and lessons that were acquired in blood seventy years ago are now dissipating, and the darkness and fog of denying reality are taking their place. The bad deal that is being made with Iran demonstrates that the historic lesson has not been internalized. The West is yielding in the face of Iran's aggressive actions. Instead of demanding a significant dismantling of the nuclear program in Iran -- a country that clearly states its plans to exterminate 6 million Jews here and elsewhere, to eradicate many countries and many regimes -- the superpowers back down. They are leaving Iran with its nuclear capabilities, and even allowing it to expand them later on, regardless of Iran's actions in the Middle East and around the world.

"As the civilized world is lulled into slumber on a bed of illusions, the rulers of Iran continue to encourage subversion and terrorism, and disseminate destruction and death. The superpowers turn a deaf ear to the crowds in Iran shouting: 'Death to America; Death to Israel.' They turn a blind eye to the scenes of execution of those who oppose the regime and the members of minority populations. And they hold their peace in the face of the massive arming of terrorist organizations. At the most, they make a halfhearted statement for the record.

"The bubble of this illusion is going to burst. Democratic governments made a critical mistake before World War II, and we are convinced -- and I must say that many of our neighbors are too -- that they are making a grave mistake now too. It is possible that this partnership with many of our neighbors, the partnership in identifying threats, is the foundation for the partnership in forging a better, safer and more peaceful future in our region. Meanwhile, we will not flinch. We will continue to insist on the truth, and we will do everything we can to open the eyes that have closed. I do not want to mislead anyone. We have tests ahead of us. We are in the midst of a great battle against the languor, the weakness, the denial of reality -- we will stand in full force."

Even the arrangement the GOP made in Congress may not suffice to oppose a faustian pact with Iran. A lot more must be done to make clear only dismantling Iran's nuclear arsenal and the dictatorship will suffice.

Haredis refusing to sit next to women on planes make pages of NYT

The New York Times wrote about the recent cases of Haredi men who won't sit next to women on public flights:

Francesca Hogi, 40, had settled into her aisle seat for the flight from New York to London when the man assigned to the adjoining window seat arrived and refused to sit down. He said his religion prevented him from sitting beside a woman who was not his wife. Irritated but eager to get underway, she eventually agreed to move.

"His religion"? No, it's his interpretation of Judaism, and in Hebrew, that's sometimes known as "kava me'or hadat", translating roughly as how one views the religion and their interpretation of it. And the Haredi did a huge disfavor for Judaism by claiming it's his religion, since you could get the vibe he means the whole religion proper, which is not so at all.

Laura Heywood, 42, had a similar experience while traveling from San Diego to London via New York. She was in a middle seat — her husband had the aisle — when the man with the window seat in the same row asked if the couple would switch positions. Ms. Heywood, offended by the notion that her sex made her an unacceptable seatmate, refused.

“I wasn’t rude, but I found the reason to be sexist, so I was direct,” she said.

She did the right thing to refuse. Maybe if he'd paid her, it'd be worth it, since somebody who may not be working in steady jobs and just lives on welfare doesn't exactly deserve much money, but for now, she was right to tell him off for adhering to such an insultingly sexist custom, which is no better than anti-semitism.

Some passengers say they have found the seat-change requests simply surprising or confusing. But in many cases, the issue has exposed and amplified tensions between different strains of Judaism.

Jeremy Newberger, 41, a documentary filmmaker who witnessed such an episode on a Delta flight from New York to Israel, was among several Jewish passengers who were offended.

“I grew up Conservative, and I’m sympathetic to Orthodox Jews,” he said. “But this Hasid came on, looking very uncomfortable, and wouldn’t even talk to the woman, and there was five to eight minutes of ‘What’s going to happen?’ before the woman acquiesced and said, ‘I’ll move.’ It felt like he was being a yutz,” Mr. Newberger added, using a Yiddish word for fool.

That's another serious error the Haredi jerk on Delta committed - he wouldn't talk directly to the woman on the specific flight mentioned, making him all the more a gender bigot who dehumanized the passenger.

Surprisingly, this article also mentions something that's become a serious problem involving a really bad religion in Europe:

“It’s very common,” said Rabbi Yehudah Mirsky, an associate professor of Judaic studies at Brandeis University. “Multiculturalism creates a moral language where a group can say, ‘You have to respect my values.’”

Now isn't that surprising a pro-Islam paper is willing to cite multiculturalism as a problem. But no doubt this is just because this involves Judaism, and the paper's not entirely clear on Orthodoxy, when it's ultra-Orthodox that's the problem here.

And Rabbi Ysoscher Katz, a Modern Orthodox Talmud scholar who grew up in the ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect, said, “When I was still part of that community, and on the more conservative side, I would make every effort I could not to sit next to a woman on the plane, because of a fear that you might touch a woman by accident.”

I see they also cite a cult that's been a major factor in spreading around this isolationist nonsense, the Satmar. But conservative? Sorry, but again, I don't buy the notion they're conservative in every way, when they've long been anti-Israel.

“The ultra-Orthodox have increasingly seen gender separation as a kind of litmus test of Orthodoxy — it wasn’t always that way, but it has become that way,” said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College. “There is an ongoing culture war between these people and the rest of the modern world, and because the modern world has increasingly sought to become gender neutral, that has added to the desire to say, ‘We’re not like that.’”

Well they're making a terrible mistake, even outside Israel, to take these customs to the extreme, because of the mental damage it's causing. And just wait'll you see this stupefying part at the end:

Other passengers, like Andrew Roffe, 31, a writer based in Los Angeles, said he and a friend wound up debating the ethics of the situation after Mr. Roffe described his experience on a United Airlines flight to Chicago. When passengers started to board, he said, an ultra-Orthodox man stood in the aisle, refusing to move and delaying the departure for 15 to 20 minutes until another passenger volunteered to switch seats.

“My buddy who is Orthodox was saying this is a traditional thing — he doesn’t want to be tempted when his wife wasn’t there. And I said, ‘Are you kidding?’ This was just some woman flying to work or home and minding her own business.”

If you think that's jaw-dropping, it is. The nutcase was implying he's unfaithful to his wife, or incapable of fidelity. It's the kind of bizarre blabber that makes one wonder: is the Haredi education system really that poor, a man raised under that tommyrot cannot sit next to an unrelated woman without feeling like he'd want to violate the 10th Commandment? Pure head-shaker indeed.

Some readers sent in their thoughts on this. One asked:

Can someone explain why a woman should be asked to move her seat because an ultra-Orthodox man refuses to sit next to her? Why is it not up to the man to find himself another seat on the plane? Or to alert the airline at the gate or before that so accommodation can be made in advance?

Perhaps the man should have to leave the flight if there is no passenger willing to accommodate him.

The burden should not be placed on women but rather on the man making the demand.

Yes, that's something I can fully agree on. Another said:

My suggestion for a man refusing to sit next to a woman who is not his wife is that he should be asked by a flight attendant to sit down, and if he won’t, he should be removed from the airplane.

Giving in to such a ridiculous demand opens the gates for other such situations, such as people saying they won’t sit next to a black person, a white person, a child, a person obviously of another religion or whatever.

This is a valid concern too. The Satmar have given strong suggestions they're hostile to other races, one more reason why they're such an embarrassment. One more said:

There is a very simple solution for ultra-Orthodox men who don’t want to sit next to women on a plane: Buy two seats.

Yeah, make them pay heavily. That's also an interesting idea.

Haredi site censored Kim Kardashian from picture

The Haredi anti-women censorship has struck again:

She was in the Holy Land for less than 24-hours Monday, but it was still enough time for mega-celeb Kim Kardashian to cause a mini-scandal and, perhaps for the first time ever, have her photogenic face cropped out of a photo.

As Kardashian; her husband, rapper Kanye West; sister Khloe; and daughter, North West, headed back to their private jet at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday morning, Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, found himself in hot water with the ultra-Orthodox Jewish constituents in his city.

“Barkat hosts famous couple in non-kosher restaurant,” read the headline of an article on the ultra-Orthodox news Web site, Hakikar. The article, which slammed the mayor as insensitive for dining in a non-kosher eatery, also ran photos of the mayor chatting with Kanye -- Kim, however, who was sitting next to her husband, appeared to have been blurred out in one image, and in another covered up by a copy of a $600 dinner bill.

The article only referred to her as ‘the wife’ of singer Kanye West.

Geez, I can't say I've ever thought much of Kardashian, but this is just as stupid as some of their other, similar acts of anti-women censorship. And spending time at a non-kosher restaurant also makes a very petty complaint. What if it turns out Barkat at least refrained from eating anything knowingly unkosher on the menu? They can't at least thank him for that? All the Haredi site must want is to gather more negative attention from sources that're hostile to Israel, and cause more embarrassment.

Update: the response the site's editor gave to questions about the censoring is even more disgusting:

Nissim Ben Haim, an editor at the Kikar Hashabat website, said Wednesday they removed Kardashian because she's a "pornographic symbol" who contradicts ultra-Orthodox values.

How dehumanizing can they get? That's an extremely offensive, wicked thing to say about women. The editor should be ashamed of himself.

Russia lifting sales ban on nuclear arms to Iran

The Cold War is still here, in a different way, and it's endangering Israel more than ever:

Russia announced Monday that it will sell Iran advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles. The decision, which ends an embargo dating back to 2010, shows that President Barack Obama is rapidly losing control of the international consensus on Iran.

It also sets Israel a deadline to attack Iran–since Israel has treated the S-300 system as a “red line,” and has attacked Syria several times recently to prevent advanced Russian air defense and anti-ship missile systems from becoming operational.

Sooner or later, no matter what the costs, Israel is going to have to attack Iran to stop their nuclear development, because it will doom Israel and the rest of the world. Putin's just proven Russia is still a serious menace to Israel and the rest of the globe by selling deadly weapons to such an evil country as Iran.

Haredi family disrespects 9-11 Memorial monument in Haverstraw Bay Park

A politician named Edwin Day brought attention to an alarming picture taken last week on Passover of a Haredi family who allowed their children to sit atop a 9-11 Memorial monument in Haverstraw Bay:

A photo of a family standing around and their child sitting on our 9/11 Memorial in Haverstraw Bay Park has been brought to my attention (the child in the striped shirt at the back of this photo).

The ethnic or religious makeup of the family in question is not what matters here. What matters, and what I would ask everyone to focus on, is the desecration of this sacred site. I have reached out to Sheriff Falco and our Environmental Resources/Parks Coordinator to discuss ways to prevent this sort of behavior in the future through signage and patrols, and urge all parents to discuss with their children the importance of respecting site such as this one.

I think there's two monument sections, and another child in black outfit is sitting on the other one. This is an absolute embarrassment, and it's not the first time an atrocity like this has happened. Two years ago, some Haredis swam around in an Israeli memorial fountain dedicated to the memory of a group of soldiers who'd died in a helicopter accident en route to Lebanon, upsetting the mother of one of the deceased.

The worst part is, these insular Haredis are the kind of people who refuse to help build the country or serve in the army, let alone anything else that might help prevent innocent lives from being lost. Now, even in America, as we see, there's Haredi kooks out there who probably don't even understand English text who're acting disrespectful of memorials to people who lost their lives in violent crimes by violent men whose ideology targets mainly Jews. They're also drawing attention away from the more pressing issues with their degrading acts. Even the Haredi-run Yeshiva World site slammed this staggeringly brainless show of contempt. If the Haredis who'd been at the park are smart, they'll apologize and make sure they teach their children why it's wrong to sit around on memorial structures dedicated to innocent people who were attacked by monsters whose Koran condones anti-semitism.

I want to thank Mr. Day for bringing this topic to everybody's attention.

UN allows Iran on their women's council

The UN's allowed Iran to get a seat on their women's agency council:

Iran’s deplorable record on women’s rights did not stop the Islamic Republic from winning a seat on UN Women, a United Nations body that was formed in 2010 to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality.

“In Iran, women are legally barred from holding some government positions, there are no laws against domestic violence, and adultery is punishable by stoning, making it wholly inappropriate that Iran assume a leadership role on women’s rights and welfare at the U.N,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, in criticizing the decision to make Iran a member of the women’s rights body.

Power added that she was “extremely disappointed” in the UN group’s decision. Iran’s three-year term as a UN Women Governing Board member begins January 1, 2016.

If she's really let down, why does she even continue to be a UN member? There's already a few other Islamic countries on that board already, so like much of the rest of the UN, it's nothing more than a joke. Nobody who really believes in human rights should be associating themselves with such an awful movement.

Mother of Boston jihadist vindictive after verdict

It's not just Dzokhar Tsarnaev who's unrepentant for his repulsive crime. Even his mother shows no regrets:

Boston Marathon bombers Tameralan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, erupted into an angry all-caps tirade on social media after her surviving son Dzhokhar was found guilty on all 30 counts related to the bombing and the Tsarnaevs’ violent rampage across Boston as they sought to escape from police.

She also blames Israel - predictably viewing them as an easy scapegoat too - for all the troubles Islamofascism causes. I think a foreign arrest warrant should be put out for her. This is a woman who's not just guilty on her part of encouraging her sick sons to commit jihad, she's also what in some parts of society would be called a "witch".

Afghan rape victims forced to marry their rapists

Islamisogyny in Afghanistan is one of the worst of its sort (Hat tip: Pamela Geller):

It is an unimaginably hideous outcome.

To be raped by your cousin's husband; be jailed for adultery as your attacker was married; to suffer the ignominy of global uproar about your jailing and assault, but be pardoned by presidential decree; and then to endure the shame and rejection from a conservative society that somehow held you to blame.

The solution in this society? Marry your attacker.

That's what happened to Gulnaz, who was barely 16 when she was raped. She's now carrying the third child of her attacker, Asadullah, who was convicted and jailed -- though this was then reduced.

Gulnaz's plight -- like so much in beleaguered Afghanistan -- disappeared from the world's gaze once she was pardoned and released courtesy of a presidential pardon. Instead of a new start, what followed for Gulnaz was a quiet, Afghan solution to the "problem" -- a telling sign of where women's rights stand in Afghanistan despite the billions that have poured into this country from the U.S. government and its NATO allies during more than a decade of war.

It's those billions that practically allow them to get away with it. But isn't that interesting how CNN is willing to call Afghanistan, of all places, "conservative". This, a news channel whose staffers have long hated America's, and otherwise ignore the real "conservative" villains found elsewhere.

Marine Le Pen is finally severing ties with her awful father

The younger Le Pen is now taking steps to distance herself from Jean-Dhimmi after he fell back on some of his most disgusting babble from years before:

Marine Le Pen has taken steps to oust her father Jean-Marie from the party he founded, as the head of France’s far-right National Front attempts to sanitise the party ahead of the next election.

In a deepening of the family drama, Ms Le Pen said that she would oppose her father’s candidature at regional elections this year following a string of controversial comments made by the 86-year-old.

Jean-Marie Le Pen last week defended a past comment that Nazi gas chambers were “a detail” of history and was quoted on Tuesday as calling France’s Spanish-born prime minister Manuel Valls “the immigrant”.

Speaking to the rightwing publication Rivarol, he also this week defended Philippe Petain, leader of the wartime government that co-operated with Nazi Germany, saying the postwar French government was “too harsh” with him.

In a statement on Wednesday Ms Le Pen, who has run the party since 2011, said: “Jean-Marie Le Pen seems to have descended into a strategy somewhere between scorched earth and political suicide.

“His status as honorary president does not give him the right to hijack the National Front with vulgar provocations seemingly designed to damage me but which unfortunately hit the whole movement.”

She said she had informed her father that he would not have the party’s support in France’s regional elections in December, where he was to stand for leadership of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region.

Florian Philippot, the National Front’s vice-president, said in a tweet: “The political split with Jean-Marie Le Pen is now complete and definite. Under Marine Le Pen’s guidance, decisions will be taken swiftly.”

It's about time. The man has practically made clear he hates his own country, and he may have singlehandedly undermined Europe's ability to fight jihadism effectively. Closing the door on him now will be the best example they can set for such a perverted loose cannon.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev declared guilty

The savage who, along with his now dead brother, planted bombs that murdered and injured people at Boston's marathon, has been found guilty:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted on all charges Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing by a jury that will now decide whether the 21-year-old should be executed or shown mercy for what his lawyer says was a crime masterminded by his big brother.

The former college student stood with his hands folded, fidgeted and looked down at the defense table in federal court as he listened to the word “guilty” recited on all 30 counts against him, including conspiracy and deadly use of a weapon of mass destruction. Seventeen of those counts are punishable by death.

And let's hope he goes to the chair or the lethal injection chamber. How interesting that only now, he could only hang his head in shame yet not realize why his barbaric actions were wrong long before he carried them out. How interesting he couldn't even realize why the distasteful religion he stuck with is wrong long before either.

The verdict, reached after a day and a half of deliberations, was practically a foregone conclusion, given his lawyer’s startling admission at the trial’s outset that Tsarnaev carried out the terror attack with his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan.

The defense strategy is to try to save Tsarnaev’s life in the upcoming penalty phase — which could begin as early as Monday — by arguing he fell under Tamerlan’s evil influence.

If his lawyer's trying to get him off the death sentence hook, that too is wrong. Tsarnaev should be sent to pits of hell for his savagery. I'd even recommend putting a bullet in his filthy head, or disintegrating it with a shotgun blast, and not worry about having to clean up a mess afterwards.

“It’s not a happy occasion, but it’s something,” said Karen Brassard, who suffered shrapnel wounds on her legs and attended the trial. “One more step behind us.”

She said Tsarnaev appeared “arrogant” and uninterested during the trial, and she wasn’t surprised when she saw no remorse on his face as the verdicts were read. She refused to say whether she believes he deserves the death penalty, but she rejected the defense argument that he was simply following his brother’s lead.

“He was in college. He was a grown man who knew what the consequences would be,” Brassard said. “I believe he was ‘all in’ with the brother.”

See, that's just it. He knew what he did was wrong, but went ahead with his barbarism anyway. He shared the same twisted evil standings as his brother, and it's not a matter of one influencing the other, because both had one and the same sadistic viewpoint. He should be sent to death, and the body cremated without a tomb or an urn to store it in.

Possible betrayer of Anne Frank revealed in new book

A Dutch author's said that he had a nazi-worshiping aunt who may have been the betrayer of Anne Frank's family:

One of the enduring mysteries of the second World War, the identity of the person who betrayed 15-year-old diarist Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis, has apparently been solved – by a Dutch author who has named his own aunt as the most likely traitor.

In a book published on Wednesday about Dutch resistance heroine Elizabeth “Bep” Voskuijl, her son, Joop van Wijk, reveals new evidence that his aunt, Nelly Voskuijl, was a Nazi collaborator from the age of 19 until she was 23 – and is now the prime suspect for having divulged the Franks’s hiding place.

If he's right and his aunt was the traitor, she should burn to a crisp in hell.

Obama shuns Netanyahu's insistence that Iran recognize Israel

Obama's taken things from bad to worse by dismissing Netanyahu's call for Iranian recognition of Israel:

President Obama grinned in an NPR interview when asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request that Iran recognize the state of Israel in a final nuclear deal.

“Well, let me say this. It’s not that the idea of Iran recognizing Israel is unreasonable. It’s completely reasonable and that’s U.S. policy. And I’ve been very forceful in saying that our differences with Iran don’t change if we make sure that they don’t have a nuclear weapon. They’re still going to be financing Hezbollah. They’re still supporting Assad dropping barrel bombs on children. They are still sending arms to the Houthis in Yemen that have helped destabilize the country,” Obama said.

“There are obvious differences in how we are approaching fighting ISIL in Iraq, despite the fact that there’s a common enemy there. So there’s still going to be a whole host of differences between us and Iran, and one of the most profound ones is the vile, anti- Semitic statements that have often come out of the highest levels of the Iranian regime,” he continued.

“But the notion that we would condition Iran not getting nuclear weapons in a verifiable deal on Iran recognizing Israel is really akin to saying that we won’t sign a deal unless the nature of the Iranian regime completely transforms. And that is, I think, a fundamental misjudgment.”

I wonder if he'd say it's a misjudgement if other USA politicians demanded Iran recognize America? His dismissive attitude is galling in the extreme, and does nothing to improve the situation at all. Nor will it ever change Iran's current mentalities.

Victims of Nidal Hasan will get Purple Hearts on Friday

Finally, after a long battle against a government that didn't want to acknowledge Hasan's bloodbath was an act of jihad, the victims will be getting the Purple Hearts they deserve this weekend:

Victims of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting will receive the Purple Heart in a ceremony Friday morning in the culmination of a years long battle to designate the shooting spree as an act of terrorism.

Forty-seven medals — either the Purple Heart for military or Defense Medal of Freedom for civilians — will be presented during the ceremony to victims who were injured or the families of those who were killed in the attack, according to a release from the Texas military base.

Last year’s annual defense policy bill opened the door for victims of Army Maj. Nidal Hasan’s shooting spree to finally receive the award by saying the attack was part of the broader war on terrorism, overriding the administration’s classifying it as a matter of workplace violence.

The battle the victims went through to find justice was hard, but thankfully, their efforts prevailed. The victims also include some western Pennsylvania residents. As for Hasan, it's regrettable the army is still stalling on wiping him out for his repulsive crimes. The legal system they're using now is very poor.

Former Haredis sue state for lack of basic education

A group of ex-Haredis are suing over the lack of proper education they got in their younger years:

Former members of the haredi community who have abandoned their way of life, mostly becoming secular, have announced that they will be submitting a lawsuit against the state because they received no basic education.

Their organization, Leaving for Change (LFC), is seeking to sue the state for what it calls its failure to implement the law for compulsory education. The NGO has published an online form, disseminated through social media, asking people to submit details of the education they received in the haredi school system, as well as any subsequent education outside of the haredi system, and how much these studies cost them.

The large majority of haredi boys in Israel are taught extremely basic math and English in elementary school, and virtually none at all in high school. Other core curriculum subjects, such as sciences and literature, are totally ignored.

More than 90 percent do not obtain a high school diploma.

[...] “What we want to do is force the state to ensure that there is available financial assistance for people who have left the haredi community and need to bridge the gaps in their education that resulted from the state failing to ensure they received the requisite tools for employment and higher education at the usual primary and secondary school age,” Shenvald said.

A lot must be done to ensure Haredi schools provide education for subjects like math and science just as much as Torah itself.

Survivors of jihadist attack on kosher French market sue media outlets

Some survivors of the jihadist assault on Hyper Cacher have filed a lawsuit against the media sources covering the incident, since it appears the press representatives violated special laws:

According to attorney Patrick Klugman, who is representing the six plaintiffs, the reports on January 9 from the scene of the hostage crisis and shooting "lacked the most basic cautions," thus endangering the hostages being held inside the supermarket.

Klugman was referring mainly to the coverage by the BFMTV news channel, which revealed on a live broadcast that a group of customers, including a 3-year-old boy and a month-old infant, were hiding in the market's walk-in refrigerator. The group had been led to and hidden in the fridge by Lassana Bathily, a Muslim store employee.

The lawsuit accuses the broadcasters of putting the hostages' lives in danger by intentionally ignoring safety protocols. French law stipulates that anyone convicted of this type of legal contravention be given the maximum sentence of a year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros ($16,000).

"The working methods of media in real time in this type of situation were tantamount to goading someone to commit a crime," Klugman said on Thursday, adding that other media outlets had also behaved irresponsibly. According to the lawyer, if shooter Amedy Coulibaly had learned what the channel was reporting, the hostages' lives could have been in danger.

While the station named in the suit may have apologized, a verbal apology alone cannot be accepted. They have to take more official responsibility by resigning and appointing people who can show the guts not to take irresponsible steps, and to be more honest in their coverage of Israel too. I hope some of the reps named in the suit get jail time, because they deserve it.

Haredi screwballs compare Rockland County to Nazi regime

A group of possible Satmars not only resent the idea of working for a living, they even reacted to a legitimate argument by making offensive comparisons:

A five-minute YouTube video has caused a great deal of controversy this week, after a haredi Jewish group in Rockland County, NY, compared Rockland County officials to Nazis.

The video - produced by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council (OJPAC) - primarily attacks a campaign entitled "Block the Block Vote" - a campaign calling to lessen the influence of haredi Jewish voters in Rockland and blaming them for the county's financial crisis.

As the campaign's advertising says, it's not intended to be anti-semitic, but to make clear that abusing people's tax dollars through socialist welfaring is wrong:

"Block The Block" is a political effort, an effort to end the current financial abuse of the Rockland county Community at large by the Orthodox and Hasidic Communities.

Fairness is not anti Semitic. This writer is not attempting to offend and persons, but the current superficial "civility" in Rockland Politics has been masking a barbarity in financial abuse.

...If people do not respect you, and feel you and your money exist only for their benefit, I have little patience for their superficial, and false , good manners. In other words, to fix the issue of the community at large being financially abused, some feelings may end up being hurt.

This effort is in no way anti Semitic, and in fact, the Orthodox and Hasidic Communities collective behaviors are creating an increase in anti Semitic views, and creating a many misunderstandings among the less informed, as to what is , and what is not , the behavior of "Jewish" persons.

I would only take issue with the part about "Orthodox" in itself - it's not the simpler Orthodox who're committing this abuse, it's the ULTRA-Orthodox - the Haredis - who are. The campaigners have a point that socialist abuse like what Satmar's become notorious for abusing can lead to anti-semitism among the less rational. And OJPAC made a disgusting video that refuses to address any legitimate arguments? All they've done is make things worse:

Several local leaders, including Rockland County executive Ed Day and local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) representative Wilbur Aldridge, stated that the video is unhelpful and further divides relations between the Jewish community and its non-Jewish neighbors.

Correct. One of the commentors says:

Sorry, but Foley's 100% right. Sponging off of society is denounced by the Torah and is a disgrace to the name of G-d in the world. Get jobs or get out.

Those Haredi residents of Rockland and/or Kiryas Joel who're living on welfare dole should be told to get jobs and pay for their families themselves. Especially Aaron Teitelbaum. He's one isolationist who definitely has to go out there and get himself a job just like many rabbis in ancient times had.

J-Street speaker calls for Israel's destruction

And the audience at their conference accepts it:

Here is Marcia Freedman, in a J-Street panel discussion on Liberal Zionism and sitting next to Peter Beinart, describing how she believes that the Jewish people should not have a state, and that instead they should live as a minority in an Arab Palestine as a “protected minority” – in other words, as dhimmis. [...]

The moderator didn’t challenge her, and as far as I could tell neither did any other panelists.

Isn’t it interesting that at a conference that claims to be “pro-Israel, pro-peace” and that hammers away at how it wants a two state solution, there is no objection to this one-state solution where Jews are “protected” by people who want to kill them?

J-Street refuses to let Alan Dershowitz, an advocate of a two-state solution since the 1970s, speak. But this crazy lady who thinks that Israel treats Arab citizens worse than Arabs would treat Jews is given a platform, without a single dissenting voice that I could find, either at the session or on Twitter afterwards, from J-Street members or attendees.

Nobody sane should associate themselves with this dark alleyway division. It's clear J-Street is a terrorist organization, plain and simple. Who knows, they may even support underaged child marriage just as Islam does.

The growing defections from Haredi communities

The UK Guardian wrote about former Haredis making exoduses from their communities like the Satmar, and the troubles they face, like losing contact with their children. Here's something worth highlighting:

Many Hasidim, in the face of pressure from the rise of communism in the Soviet Union and the tragedies of the Holocaust, were intent on preserving their original way of life in the US. Yiddish is the common language in schools and at home, while the dress, modest and simple for both men and women, is strict. Women wear wigs, unless they are of the highly insular Satmar congregation, in which women shave their heads and cover them with scarves. Men wear beards, broad-brimmed felt or round fur hats, and long side curls called payos that are sometimes gelled with a popular wax called Dippity-Do.

Interesting they cite communism, because despite everything, there's something they took along with them that both communists and nazis supported: socialism. Specifically, living on welfare at the expense of taxpayers, doing little or no work in legitimate employment, and not serving in the army if they live in Israel. Nor do they help to build Israel genuinely, and clans like Satmar have many of their subjects living outside the country because they don't want to recognize it.

There's also another part here that's mind-boggling, and not just because of the paper's unfortunate, but unsurprising, swerve into attacks on "right-wing":

The rabbis made it clear there was no room for 32-year-old Leah, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. “At first it was just this thing that didn’t have a name, ‘I don’t like my husband’. Then I learned the name of it: I was a lesbian,” she tells me.

In the hopes of a sympathetic ear, she met a rabbi “who seemed cool and liberal”, believing he would be more accepting than someone from the right wing of Orthodoxy – but it made no difference. “He told me I can identify as a lesbian but not actually act on it. He wanted me to be celibate for the rest of my life,” she said. Leah now has trouble trusting people after experiencing what she described as “rape by the community” after her husband forced himself on her because his rabbis told him “that was the right thing to do”.

The Torah does not forbid homosexuality, but it bans any homosexual acts. Although the role of sex is emphasized to strengthen marital bonds and growing families, many young Hasidic Jews are not well educated when it comes to sexuality.

Oh good grief! This is just so muddled. When the Torah speaks against homosexuality, it means those very homosexual acts they speak of. Of course, in ancient days, it's not like you had as good a psychology industry as we have today (except in Haredi communities like Satmar, of course), so I have no idea how they could help gays and lesbians then to mend their mindset. But today we have that, and where these dummies screwed up big time was when they wouldn't ask the woman to try psychological therapy, and worse, they approved of raping her. That's marital rape, and it's sickening. Thanks to that, it should be no wonder the woman's view of homosexuality could be solidified for an epoch.

All that aside, why do they think, say, that an isolationist clan like Satmar would be "right-wing"? Religion doesn't have to ascribe to just one side of a political spectrum. Let's also remember their socialist leanings, which are anything but conservative, and only hurt rightists.

At least they got it right some Haredis aren't well educated on issues of sexuality. If they had been, it could help to understand everything a lot better, and manage themselves far better than they are now.

Saddam's minions behind IS

The Wash. Post says that followers of the executed Iraqi dictator are brains behind Islamic State:

Abu Hamza, who became the group’s ruler in a small community in Syria, never discovered the Iraqis’ real identities, which were cloaked by code names or simply not revealed. All of the men, however, were former Iraqi officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man, who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to the Islamic State’s own shadowy security service, he said.

His account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role played by members of Iraq’s former Baathist army in an organization more typically associated with flamboyant foreign jihadists and the gruesome videos in which they star.

Even with the influx of thousands of foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes, according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group.

So long after Saddam was put to death by his own subjects, his ghost continues to haunt the region.

Thank goodness Pam Grier recognized what's wrong with Islam

Breitbart wrote about actress Pam Grier's experience with basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's conversion to Islam, and how he embraced the notion a woman should not be educated, sexualized her by saying she should cover her body, and, to make matters worse, there's the way some other converts he knew treated her:

One Saturday, Jabbar invited a group of fellow Islamic converts over. Grier expected to spend the day enjoying everyone’s company. These were her friends too, but this was the first time she had seen them since their conversion.

They refused to hug her. They pulled away from her touch as though she were diseased. Then came the real humiliation.

“I wasn’t supposed to speak to them at all, unless I was answering a specific question. I stood there awkwardly, when Kareem said in a quiet voice, ‘You’re supposed to leave the room now, Pam.'”

“For how long?” She asked.

“Until I ask you come back or my friends leave,” was his reply.

Humiliated, she sat alone in the bedroom until Jabbar came in and asked her to make the group sandwiches. She obliged, and after serving the men, Jabbar said, “You have to go now. You can take a sandwich with you.”

Little by little, Jabbar’s oppressive view of women drove Grier away. He demanded she cover herself, even at the beach and “read me the riot act about disgracing him” when she didn’t. “This is how it is written in the Koran,” was his only justification.

After reading this, I'm wondering ever more if some Haredi sects like Satmar got their views of women from this religion. Certainly today, they may have been influenced by it.

I'm glad Grier saw the light, and sad Jabbar didn't. If he still adheres to Islam, this news makes me discouraged from watching his past NBA game sessions. He responded defensively to Breitbart's report, claiming he no longer holds the views he did in the early 70s, but I think it may just be a lot of taqqiyya he's spouting.

Harvey Weinstein accused of sexually assaulting model

I've got a feeling Weinstein's already questionable statements about Muslim anti-semitism were just made for the sake of "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." In this recent news, it turns out he may be a pervert:

A woman who accused Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of groping her breasts has been identified as a 22-year-old model who witnessed an orgy involving disgraced former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Weinstein, 63, was questioned by the NYPD this weekend over the alleged fondling of former beauty queen Ambra Battilana, who was identified by Page Six on Monday. The movie producer allegedly put his hand up the model's skirt and asked for a kiss at a business meeting on Friday, said the Post.

There's more about this case here. If Weinstein is guilty, then his recent condemnation of anti-semitism cannot be accepted, because he probably just did it to divert attention from a serious offense. Weinstein's also had a terrible track record in the past, like attacking the Catholic Church while ignoring Islamofascism, and refusing to mention Islam in an op-ed written after the Charlie Hebdo bloodbath. What a phony he is. Just another Hollywood charlatan who didn't deserve his riches.

Update: and he didn't deny the accusations either, so he could face a charge. His defense now is that it was a "one-time mistake" and say it "won't happen again". Right, and we should just take that at face value. Weinstein, as I said before, is nothing but a fraud.

Update 2: and as of October 2017, he's been fully exposed for serial sexual offenses, and his legacy's finished. Finally, justice has been found.

The bad deal with Iran

Obama and his administration have been so determined to push through a deal with Iran no matter the cost, and it's leading to a very bad situation:

Republicans on Thursday ripped the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) demanded that lawmakers be able to review details of the framework before any international sanctions are lifted.

“After visiting with our partners on the ground in the Middle East this week, my concerns about Iran’s efforts to foment unrest, brutal violence and terror have only grown,” Boehner said in a statement after leading a GOP delegation through Israel, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

“It would be naïve to suggest the Iranian regime will not continue to use its nuclear program, and any economic relief, to further destabilize the region,” the Speaker said.

Meanwhile, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) vowed to press forward with legislation allowing Congress to put its fingerprints on the Iran deal, saying “the administration first should seek the input of the American people.”

Defense hawks on Capitol Hill blasted the deal as too weak and warned that it would essentially put nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranian regime.

“Iran remains the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. Iranian aggression is destabilizing the Middle East. And Iran continues to hold multiple Americans hostage,” said freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who earlier had penned a controversial letter to Iranian leaders in a bid to derail the nuclear talks.

The deal coming out is also incredibly devoid of responsibility. Congress is going to have to prove it can oppose this effectively to retain its credibility.

Update: The Washington Post (via Hot Air) has actually admitted Obama caved - by his own standards.