New York has obtained a
confidential document from the Malaysian police investigation into the
disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that shows that the
plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, conducted a simulated flight deep
into the remote southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane
vanished under uncannily similar circumstances. The revelation, which
Malaysia withheld from a lengthy public report on the investigation, is
the strongest evidence yet that Zaharie made off with the plane in a
premeditated act of mass murder-suicide.
The document presents the findings of the Malaysian police’s
investigation into Zaharie. It reveals that after the plane disappeared
in March of 2014, Malaysia turned over to the FBI hard drives that
Zaharie used to record sessions on an elaborate home-built flight
simulator. The FBI was able to recover six deleted data points that had
been stored by the Microsoft Flight Simulator X program in the weeks
before MH370 disappeared, according to the document. Each point records
the airplane’s altitude, speed, direction of flight, and other key
parameters at a given moment. The document reads, in part:
Based on the Forensics Analysis conducted on the 5 HDDs
obtained from the Flight Simulator from MH370 Pilot’s house, we found a
flight path, that lead to the Southern Indian Ocean, among the numerous
other flight paths charted on the Flight Simulator, that could be of
interest, as contained in Table 2.
Taken together, these points show a flight that departs Kuala Lumpur,
heads northwest over the Malacca Strait, then turns left and heads
south over the Indian Ocean, continuing until fuel exhaustion over an
empty stretch of sea.
And the comparison I made with EgyptAir 990 a few days after the disappearance (see first link above) was apt for another reason.
The newly unveiled documents, however,
suggest Malaysian officials have suppressed at least one key piece of
incriminating information. This is not entirely surprising: There is a
history in aircraft investigations of national safety boards refusing to
believe that their pilots could have intentionally crashed an aircraft
full of passengers. After EgyptAir 990 went down near Martha’s Vineyard
in 1999, for example, Egyptian officials angrily rejected the U.S.
National Transport Safety Board finding that the pilot had deliberately
steered the plane into the sea. Indonesian officials likewise rejected
the NTSB finding that the 1997 crash of SilkAir 185 was an act of pilot
suicide.
Left unsaid, there's something every one of those airlines has in common: They're from countries that aren't Amish.
Of course, the better question is why the FBI kept this quiet for so long.
I wonder if you can file a lawsuit in Malaysia....
Well, now he's become an international player, with the Washington Post reporting that he claims that President Hussein Obama is a Shiite Muslim and that Israel (Israel!?!) was behind Obama's election.
أوباما الذي يعود لأصول شيعية انتخب لتقريب وجهات النظر بين إيران وأمريكا لإيقاف برنامج إيران النووي العسكري.نجحت الخطة .
This week, as the Obama administration announced that it was lifting
sanctions on Iran as a result of a U.S.-led nuclear deal with Tehran
reached in July, Dhahi Khalfan
Tamim, the head of general security for the emirate of Dubai, suggested
that Obama's "Shiite roots" had helped him get elected in a bid to bring
the United States and Iran closer.
"Mission accomplished," he added.
In follow-up tweets, Tamim suggested that Israel was actually behind
the election of Obama and that the U.S. president would probably visit a
number of Shiite religious sites in Iran soon.
It's worth noting
that Tamim isn't an obscure figure. He is a former police chief of
Dubai. His Twitter account has more than 1.2 million followers, and his
tweets about Obama were retweeted hundreds of times. And neither is
this the first time that this rumor has found voice.
No, I don't believe Obama is a Muslim. But I do believe that he's an Islamophile with a disproportionate love for and trust of Islam. And yes, I believe he's an anti-semite.
I've been meaning to post this for a couple of days already (Hat Tip: Dani K).
HERE is an explanation of the difference between the terms ISIS and ISIL. I have been suspicious of the term ISIL to which the administration stubbornly clings.
ISIS = Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Iraq is to the east of Jordan (shaped like the hatchet) and Syria is to the north.
ISIL = Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Iraq is still to the east of Jordan, and “the Levant” is a term that comes from “the rising (of the sun, i.e., to the east)” - and is basically the land along the Mediterranean - that includes Lebanon, Israel, and those countries along that region.
By saying ISIL, you “negate” Israel as its own country and lump it in with the rest of the countries along the Mediterranean - and Israel sort of disappears (loses its sovereignty) and becomes part of “the Levant” - which is therefore part of ISIL.
If you've wondered, as I have, why all government agencies and especially Obama calls it ISIL and even spells it out every time it’s used, instead of ISIS as the rest of the world, here's the answer.
Decoding Obama’s speech reveals some startling revelations. In one press conference after another, when referring to the Muslim terror super-group ISIS, United States President Barack Obama will use the term ISIL, instead of their former name ISIS, or current name Islamic State.
Have you ever wondered about that? Here is the difference: What makes up the near exact center of the Muslim Levant? Israel. ISIL stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. Now, to us Westerners we don't really make much of a distinction, do we? No, honestly from our perspective it’s all about the same. But how would a Muslim living in the Middle East view it? Just what is the Levant anyway? Let’s take a look.
The geographical term LEVANT refers to a multi-nation region in the Middle East. It’s a land bridge between Turkey to the north and Egypt to the south. If you look on a map, however, in the near exact middle of the nations that comprise the Levant, guess what you see? It’s Israel.
When Barack Obama refers over and over to the Islamic State as ISIL, he is sending a message to Muslims all over the Middle East that he personally does not recognize Israel as a sovereign nation, but as territory belonging to the Islamic State.
Now you know why Obama says that he has no plan, no goal, and no stated aim for dealing with ISIS. But he does have a plan, and it’s a really nasty, diabolical one.
Obama’s plan is to drag his feet for as long as he can, doing only the bare minimum that Congress forces him to do. His plan is to buy ISIL as much time as possible to make as many gains as they can.
Listen as Obama, his press secretary, the spokesperson for the State Department, and his Joint Chiefs of Staff painstakingly spell out the letters
I-S-I-L so there is no doubt in your mind. And it’s working.
The Islamic State has garnered millions of dollars, a vast cache of weapons, and in their latest foray have captured Syrian fighter jets and now 12 commercial passenger planes.
With each passing day that Obama fulfills his stated aim of doing nothing, the Islamic State grows by leaps and bounds.
The ultimate goal, of course, has not changed and will never change. The ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel.
Now, you know a little bit more about why Obama chooses his words so carefully!!
Islam is a sick religion: When Muslims make war it's all about torturing and castrating their enemies
My friend Professor Jacobson cites a New York Times report that purports to reveal to the world that the eleven Israeli athletes and coaches who were murdered at the Munich Olympics in 1972 were tortured, and in at least one case, castrated.
In September 1992, two Israeli widows went to the home of
their lawyer. When the women arrived, the lawyer told them that he had
received some photographs during his recent trip to Munich but that he
did not think they should view them. When they insisted, he urged them
to let him call a doctor who could be present when they did.
Ilana Romano and Ankie Spitzer, whose husbands were among the Israeli
athletes held hostage and killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972
Olympics in Munich, rejected that request, too. They looked at the
pictures that for decades they had been told did not exist, and then
agreed never to discuss them publicly….
For the first time, Ms. Romano, Ms. Spitzer and other victims’ family
members are choosing to speak openly about documentation previously
unknown to the public in an effort to get their loved ones the
recognition they believe is deserved.
Among the most jarring details are these: The Israeli Olympic team members were beaten and, in at least one case, castrated.
“What they did is that they cut off his genitals through his
underwear and abused him,” Ms. Romano said of her husband, Yossef. Her
voice rose.
“Can you imagine the nine others sitting around tied up?” she
continued, speaking in Hebrew through a translator. “They watched this.”
In fact, readers of this blog might recall that Ilana Romano has revealed even more gruesome details on a previous occasion.
In
1996, I, along with other Munich orphans and three of the widows, were
invited for the first time to the Olympic Games in Atlanta. Before the
Opening Ceremony, we met with Alex Gilady. Gilady has been a member of
the IOC's Radio and Television Commission since 1984 and has been the
senior vice president of NBC Sports since 1996.
I have known Mr.
Gilady since I was a kid; in fact, I grew up with his daughter. He had
been supportive in the past regarding our plea for a moment of silence
during the Opening Ceremonies, so we arrived with high hopes. Gilady
informed us that a moment of silence was not possible because if the IOC
had a moment of silence for the Israeli athletes, they would also have
to do the same for the Palestinians who died at the Olympics in 1972.
My mother said, "But no Palestinian athletes died."
Gilady responded, "Well, there were Palestinians who died at the 1972 Olympics."
I heard one of the widows say to Gilady, "Are you equating the murder of my husband to the terrorists that killed him?"
Silence.
Then
Ilana Romano burst out with a cry that has haunted me to this day. She
screamed at Gilady, "How DARE you! You KNOW what they did to my husband!
They let him lay there for hours, dying slowly, and then finished him
off by castrating him and shoving it in his mouth, ALEX!"
This sort of behavior is unfortunately routine in the Muslim world, whether or not Jews are involved. This is from a description of the terror attack at a mall in Nairobi, Kenya in 2013:
The images of the Westgate mall terror attack in Nairobi, Kenya, are simply horrific.
Soldiers told of the horrific torture meted out by terrorists in the
Nairobi mall massacre yesterday with claims hostages were dismembered,
had their eyes gouged out and were left hanging from hooks in the
ceiling.
Men were said to have been castrated and had fingers removed with pliers before being blinded and hanged.
Children were found dead in the food court fridges with knives still embedded in their bodies, it was claimed.
...
Yesterday, soldiers and doctors who were among the first people into the
mall after it was reclaimed on Tuesday, spoke of the horrifying scenes
inside.
‘You find people with hooks hanging from the roof,’ said one Kenyan doctor, who asked not to be named.
‘They removed eyes, ears, nose. They get your hand and sharpen it like a
pencil then they tell you to write your name with the blood.
‘They drive knives inside a child’s body.
'Actually if you look at all the bodies, unless those ones that were
escaping, fingers are cut by pliers, the noses are ripped by pliers.
Here it was pain.’
A soldier, who took pictures at a bread counter and at the ArtCaffe,
said he was so traumatised by what he saw he has had to seek
counselling.
Bomb disposal experts with sniffer dogs were yesterday painstakingly
combing the part of the building still standing for explosives before
clearing forensic officers, police and troops to search for bodies.
Just last week, Palestinian Media Watch showed a terrorist from the 'moderate' Fatah terror group eating a live snake on television.
Islam is a sick religion. It teaches its adherents extreme cruelty to all who are not a part of it. The world would be a better place without it.
Remember Ahmed Mohamed, the boy who was suspended for bringing a clocksuspected bomb to school, and who was invited to meet with President Hussein Obama?
Over the weekend, young Ahmed met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is under indictment for genocide by the International Criminal Court. Now, President Obama will not risk his political future by meeting with Ahmad.
Josh Earnest: Obama likely won’t meet with Ahmed Mohamed at White House Astronomy Night. He won’t be bringing the clock.
More proof that Obama doesn't get - or willfully ignores - the cause of Islamic terrorism
Some of you might recall that back in February, President Hussein Obama visited the State Department and gave them a lecture about the causes of terrorism.
But Obama doesn't get that [terrorism] is a threat to the West. He thinks it's
only a threat to Muslims. He's totally unwilling to act against it. And
ignoring the fact that it has been shown time and time again that
terrorists come from all economic classes, he's trying to convince us
that if only they could take constant luxury vacations like he and Mooch
do, these Muslims wouldn't be terrorists anymore.
Third, we must address the grievances that terrorists exploit,
including economic grievances. As I said yesterday, poverty alone does
not cause a person to become a terrorist, any more than poverty alone
causes someone to become a criminal. There are millions, billions of
people who are poor and are law-abiding and peaceful and tolerant, and
are trying to advance their lives and the opportunities for their
families.
But when people -- especially young people -- feel entirely trapped
in impoverished communities, where there is no order and no path for
advancement, where there are no educational opportunities, where there
are no ways to support families, and no escape from injustice and the
humiliations of corruption -- that feeds instability and disorder, and
makes those communities ripe for extremist recruitment. And we have
seen that across the Middle East and we've seen it across North Africa.
So if we’re serious about countering violent extremism, we have to get
serious about confronting these economic grievances.
As I am sure most of you have heard, a 24-year old named Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez (hint: not a Methodist, an Amish or a Jew) murdered four Marines and wounded three others at two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Thursday. Yes, Mohammad was a Muslim, and no, he was not poor (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). (Headline: Chattanooga gunman came from a middle-class Muslim family)
The gunman who targeted U.S. military service members in a
late-morning shooting Thursday in Tennessee was a 24-year-old electrical
engineer who had grown up in Chattanooga as part of a conservative
Muslim family.
Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait but
moved with his family to the United States as an infant after the start
of the Persian Gulf War and became a U.S. citizen, according to
accounts given by friends and one of his sisters.
He attended Red Bank High School, just outside Chattanooga, north of the
Tennessee River. His senior yearbook entry featured two photographs of
him — cleanshaven with close-cropped hair — alongside a prophetic
quotation: “My name causes national security alerts. What does yours
do?”
His parents were apparently quite conservativeMuslim. One sister apparently ran away to avoid an 'arranged' marriage. Read the whole thing.
Yes, I know - it's just one incident. But we have seen throughout the world over the last 25 years that the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks have one thing in common: Muslim perpetrators. There is only one cause of terrorism and it's not economic status: It's Islam. The trick is figuring out why some of them - somehow - manage to avoid it. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all (or nearly all) terrorists are Muslims. That's reality.
But President Hussein Obama doesn't want you to know that. He is an Islamophile and he does not want you to think badly of, or defend yourself against, his friends.
"The anti-Zionist game displays Iran's missile power and the Zelzal,
Zolfaqar and Sejjil missiles (all built in Iran) are used by the players
in the game's first stage," game production project manager Mehdi Atash
Jaam told FNA on Saturday.
"In this game, users break into the Zionist regime's air defense and target Israel," he added.
Elaborating on the reason for developing a game in which the Iranian
missiles destroy targets in Israel, Atash Jaam said that it was a move
in retaliation for the console game, 'Battlefield', that includes scenes
simulating attacks on Tehran and its Milad Tower.
'Missile Strike' was unveiled on Friday on the occasion of the International Quds Day.
No, the game was not privately produced. It was released by the Iranian army. Read the whole thing.
But it's okay. Once they sign this 'agreement' in Vienna, they will agree not to attack Israel for at least ten years. What could go wrong? Consider this:
On its editorial page this morning, the New York Times permits Ahmed Yousef, "a senior adviser to the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya," to use its soapbox to call for a hudna between Israel and Hamas.
A
truce is referred to in Arabic as a “hudna.” Typically covering 10
years, a hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate
and binding contract. A hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a
cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a
permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences. The Koran finds
great merit in such efforts at promoting understanding among different
people. Whereas war dehumanizes the enemy and makes it easier to kill, a
hudna affords the opportunity to humanize one’s opponents and
understand their position with the goal of resolving the intertribal or
international dispute.
Such a concept — a period of nonwar but
only partial resolution of a conflict — is foreign to the West and has
been greeted with much suspicion. Many Westerners I speak to wonder how
one can stop the violence without ending the conflict.
Actually what Yousef is describing is what's called a 'cease fire' or a
'truce' in western parlance. The problem is that he has mischaracterized
the true nature of hudna. In a
blog post in August, I cited an article by Tashbih Sayyed, the Editor
in Chief of Pakistan Today and The Muslim World Today, President of
Council for Democracy and Tolerance, an adjunct fellow of Hudson
Institute, and a regular columnist for newspapers across the world (in
other words - the elusive 'moderate Muslim') (which I can no longer find
at the original site) which described how Islam uses a hudna:
Political
Islam finds a number of examples in the life of Prophet Muhammad that
sanction the use of treaties as a tactical necessity. In explaining why
he signed the Oslo Accord, Yasser Arafat cited a truce signed by Prophet
Muhammad with the Meccan tribe Quraish at Hudaybiyah in 628 C.E.
According to the PLO leader, Prophet
Muhammad had signed the truce when he was not strong enough to win a war
and it was to last for ten years. But when, within two years of the
signing, the Muslims felt that they have gained enough strength to
defeat the Quraish, they broke the truce, attacked the Quraish and
captured Mecca.
A prominent Saudi sheikh, 'Abd Al-Muhsin
Al-'Obikan, also referred to the same treaty while condemning
Hezbollah's actions in Lebanon. He issued the edict against Hezbollah's
actions not because he considered them wrong but because in his view
Muslims, at the moment, are not strong enough to defeat Israel. He said
that since the Muslims have no chance of winning this campaign against
the Jews, a temporary solution is necessary - a truce similar to the
temporary truce of Hudaybiyya.
According to the Saudi Sheikh, Islamic
laws (Shari'a) also "place preconditions and constraints on the
declaring of jihad, which must be considered in order to ensure the
greatest gain for the nation and spare it loss - [that is,] in order to ensure the minimum possible damage and avoid greater damage.
One
of the preconditions regarding jihad [states] that the [the jihad
fighters] must have [sufficient] capability to inflict harm on the enemy
and to repulse its evil, so as to ensure the lives, the property, and
the honor of the Muslims and to safeguard them from aggression or harm,
that is, [from] destruction of property, from violation of honor, and
from bloodshed."
Those who understand the Islamist ethos know that for political Islam, disengagement, a cease-fire, or a pull back on the part of the "enemy" is a sign of its weakness. No one has more experience with this treacherous mindset than the Israelis.
So that's why the nuclear deal is ten years. Hmmm.
It's come to this: Belfast pastor faces prison for 'defaming Islam'
A 78-year old Belfast pastor is facing prison time for 'defaming Islam.'
James McConnell, 78, is facing up to six months in prison for
delivering a sermon in which he described Islam as "heathen" and
"satanic." The message was streamed live on the Internet, and a Muslim
group called the police to complain.
According to Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service (PPS), McConnell violated
the 2003 Communications Act by "sending, or causing to be sent, by
means of a public electronic communications network, a message or other
matter that was grossly offensive."
Observers say that McConnell's prosecution is one of a growing number of examples in which British authorities — who routinely ignore incendiary speech by Muslim extremists — are using hate speech laws to silence Christians.
McConnell, who turned down an offer to avoid a trial, says the issue
of Christians being singled out for persecution in Britain must be
confronted, and that he intends to turn his case into a milestone trial
"in defense of freedom of speech and freedom of religion."
...
"The God who we worship and serve this evening is not
Allah. The Muslim God, Allah, is a heathen deity. Allah is a cruel
deity. Allah is a demon deity. A deity that this foolish government of
ours ... pays homage to, and subscribes financial inducements to curry
their favor to keep them happy....
"While in Muslim lands Christians are persecuted for their faith;
their homes burned, their churches destroyed, and hundreds of them
literally have given their lives for Christ in martyrdom. A lovely young
[Sudanese] woman by the name of Miriam, 27 years-of-age, because she
has accepted Christ as her Savior, will be flogged publicly and hanged
publicly. These fanatical worshippers are worshippers of the god called
Allah. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a fact and it cannot be denied and
it cannot be refuted.
"I know the time will come in this land ... and in this nation to say
such things will be an offense to the law. It would be reckoned
erroneous, unpatriotic. But I am in good company, the company of
[Protestant Reformers] Luther and Knox and Calvin and Tyndale and
Latimer and Cranmer and Wesley and Spurgeon and such like him.
"The Muslim religion was created many hundreds of years after Christ.
Mohammed, was born in 570. But Muslims believe that Islam is the true
religion, dating back to Adam, and that the biblical Patriarchs were all
Muslims, including Noah and Abraham and Moses, and even our Lord Jesus
Christ.
"To judge by some of what I have heard in the past few months, you
would think that Islam was little more than a variation of Christianity
and Judaism. Not so. Islam's ideas about God, about humanity, about
salvation are vastly different from the teachings of the Holy
Scriptures. Islam is heathen. Islam is satanic. Islam is a doctrine
spawned in Hell."
McConnell's comments about Islam comprised less than ten minutes of a 35-minute sermon that focused on Christian theology.
Some day, historians will marvel at the way Western society destroyed itself. Or maybe they won't. By then, the Caliphate may not look kindly on such 'nostalgia' and history will have become too politically correct to discuss it.
Terror attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait kill dozens, no attackers were Amish
Three terror attacks - on a chemical plant in Lyon, France (one dead), on a beachfront hotel in Sousse, Tunisia (at least 27 dead - later reports say 37 dead and 36 wounded) and on a mosque in Kuwait City, Kuwait (at least 24 dead) - have left dozens of people dead on Friday. In each case, the attackers were Muslims (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). None of the attacks seemed to have anything to do with the US Supreme Court rulings upholding gay marriage and Obamacare.
In France,
attackers stormed an American-owned industrial chemical plant near
Lyon, decapitated one person and tried unsuccessfully to blow up the
factory.
In Tunisia,
gunmen opened fire at a beach resort, killing at least 27 people,
officials said. At least one of the attackers was killed by security
forces.
And
the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in one
of the largest Shiite mosques in Kuwait City during Friday prayers. The
bomb filled the hall with smoke and left dead and wounded scattered on
the carpet, according to witnesses and videos posted online.
Local news reports said at least 24 people had been killed and wounded
in the assault, which was extraordinary for Kuwait and appeared to be a
deliberate attempt to incite strife between Shiites and Sunnis.
In a message circulating on social media, the Islamic State called the suicide bomber “one of the knights of the Sunni people.”
There was no immediate indication that the attacks had been coordinated.
But the three strikes came at roughly the same time, and just days
after the Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS or ISIL, called for such operations during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The Kuwait terror attack is the first carried out by ISIS in a Gulf State and is sure to concern other Gulf States.
The Tunisia attack seems like another attack on the 'infidels' with sources confirming that most of the guests at the Imperial Marhaba Hotel were from the UK or Central Europe (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). Many of those killed were lounging in beach chairs.
The French prosecutor has given a press conference, providing details of the incident:
Four suspected accomplices are being held in the attack on the
factory in France. They have been arrested and are in interrogation.
The suspect, his wife and sister are part of those arrested
The victim was the suspect’s employer
Part of the factory hangar was blown apart
43 people were in the factory at the time of the attack. 13 employees are still in a state of shock
There were no more injuries so far
The body of the victim was found near the suspect’s vehicle, where a knife was also found
The severed head of the victim, was found hooked onto a railing with two flags with arabic inscription
More details provided on the victim:
The victim was a 54-year-old man
He was the head of a transport company, from the Lyon area and had been a salaried employee of the company since March 2015
More details on the suspect:
Yassin Salhi was named as the main suspect
He was born on 25 March 1980
He had been working at that same company as the victim
He’s the father of three children and has been married for about 10 years
He had not been found guilty of any previous crimes
He has been under surveillance for “radical islamic activities” since 2006.
Between 2011 and 2014, French security services had been investigating him for connections to salafist groups in the Lyon area
The inquiry has been given to the central direction of the judicial
police and to the anti-terrorist unit, and the internal security
services, the French prosecutor said.
But let's keep fooling ourselves that Islam is a 'religion of peace.' Let's keep kissing up to the Islamists, treating their cult as a quaint religion with exotic things like iftar dinners (oops - let's not mention that the President of the United States hosted anti-Israel 'activists' at his). And eventually, they'll stop trying to murder us, right?
Europe is willing to sacrifice its future and its civilization for the chance to take World Jewry down with it. It is no coincidence that the Holocaust happened on Europe's blood-drenched soil. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Given that this is Turkey and that we're talking about President Hussein Obama's Best Friend Forever, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, I suppose that we have to consider the possibility that today's election results will not be honored. Nevertheless, it is significant that in a special election in Turkey that was marred by violence and fraud - both of which may have been perpetrated by Erdogan's AKP - the AKP has lost its parliamentary majority.
The election results represented a significant setback to Mr. Erdogan,
an Islamist who has steadily increased his power as president, a partly
but not solely ceremonial post, after more than a decade as prime
minister, and indicated that Mr. Erdogan’s efforts to accumulate power
had run aground. And it was a significant victory to the cadre of Kurds,
liberals and secular Turks who found their voice of opposition to Mr.
Erdogan during sweeping antigovernment protests two years ago.
Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., still won by far
the most seats in Parliament, but not a majority, according to
preliminary results released Sunday night. The outcome suggested
contentious days of jockeying ahead as the party moves to form a
coalition government. Already, analysts were raising the possibility
Sunday of new elections if a government cannot be formed swiftly. Many
Turks were happy to see Mr. Erdogan’s powers curtailed, even though the
prospect of a coalition government evokes dark memories of political
instability and economic malaise during the 1990s.
With
99 percent of the votes counted, the A.K.P. had won 41 percent of the
vote, according to TRT, a state-run broadcaster, down from nearly 50
percent during the last national election in 2011. The percentage gave
it an estimated 259 seats in Turkey’s Parliament, compared with the 327 seats it has now.
“The
outcome is an end to Erdogan’s presidential ambitions,” said Soner
Cagaptay, an expert on Turkey and a fellow at the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy.
Almost
immediately, the results raised questions about the political future of
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who moved to that position from that of
foreign minister last year and was seen as a loyal subordinate of Mr.
Erdogan. Mr. Davutoglu, who during the campaign vowed to resign if the
A.K.P. did not win a majority, told reporters on Sunday evening in brief
comments, “whatever the people decide is for the best.” Mr. Davutoglu
was due to speak later in the evening in Ankara.
Mr.
Erdogan, who as president was not on the ballot Sunday, will probably
remain Turkey’s dominant political figure even if his powers have been
rolled back, given his outsized personality and his still-deep well of
support among Turkey’s religious conservatives, who form the backbone of
his constituency. But even among those supporters, including ones in
Kasimpasa, the Istanbul neighborhood where Mr. Erdogan spent part of his
youth, there are signs that his popularity is flagging, partly because
of his push for more powers over the judiciary and his crackdown on any
form of criticism, including prosecutions of those who insult him on
social media.
...
The election turned on the historic performance at the ballot box of
Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which aligned with liberals and secular Turks
opposed to Mr. Erdogan’s leadership to win almost 13 percent of the
vote, passing a 10 percent legal threshold and earning representation in
Parliament. The People’s Democratic Party, a largely Kurdish bloc known
as H.D.P., was able to broaden its base by fielding a slate of
candidates that included women, gays and other minorities and appealed
to voters whose goal was to curtail Mr. Erdogan’s powers.
...
The performance positioned the Kurds as kingmakers in the next
Parliament, and highlighted the evolution of the Kurdish movement, from
the battlefields of the southeast, where a bloody insurgency raged for
nearly 30 years, to the halls of power in Ankara, the capital.
...
“Erdogan’s salvos over the past week show how nervous he is about the
outcome of this election,” said Ugur Kaplan, 24, a student who voted in
Istanbul. “The A.K.P. has lost votes, and it’s because of him. People
are tired of having their lives dictated by one nutty man. It’s time for
change.”
'Nutty'? Despotic is more like it. Here's hoping he goes and soon.
But the counterposing of those two data points won't stop the gay community worldwide from attacking Israel and supporting the 'Palestinians' and the Muslim world in general.
US branch of Muslim Brotherhood, Obama confidantes: 'Honor Islamic terrorists, not US troops'
The Council on American-Islamic Relations - the US branch of the Muslim Brotherhood - urges Americans to honor Islamic terrorists this Memorial Day, and not US troops. Yes, you read that correctly....
You read that right. As nearly all Americans come together on
Memorial Day to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the
country’s freedom and safety, two CAIR officials spent the holiday
weekend differently: questioning whether U.S. troops deserve to be
honored and tweeting that the country was “established upon white
supremacy.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group labeled by the Justice Department as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood
entity and “un-indicted co-conspirator” in a terrorism-financing trial,
disingenuously claims that it is a moderate organization.
Yet, on May 23, Zahra Billoo, the radical executive-director of CAIR’sSan Francisco Bay Area chapter, tweeted that she “struggles with Memorial Day each year” about whether to honor American soldiers who died in wars:
She also quoted another CAIR official, Dawud Walid, the executive-director of CAIR’s Michigan chapter, as questioning whether they should honor American soldiers that died in “unjust” wars and occupations.
That’s a direct insult to American soldiers currently serving in
Afghanistan and those that have returned from Iraq, as CAIR officials
consistently describe those wars with that terminology. Billoo quoted
Walid as saying:
Billoo did, however, find one “soldier” she felt comfortably honoring.
On May 26, she promoted an article from the anti-Semitic and
anti-American Nation of Islam that asked for help for a “black liberation soldier” named Imam Jamil al-Amin:
Al-Amin was a member of the Black Panthers terrorist group and was convicted of murdering a police officer in 2000. He is also anti-American, stating “if America doesn’t come around, we’re gonna burn it down,” and “I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.”
Al-Amin also said the U.S. Constitution is “diametrically opposed to what Allah has commanded.”
THIS is who CAIR wants to honor on Memorial Day? A racist, anti-American cop-killer?
Yes, I know, I've been away for a while. Meetings in Washington, weekend break in Chicago (where I am now), and tonight I head for Boston to work (actually, I am working on the way as well).
Garland, Texas: No, it wasn't an 'anti-Islam' event
As I'm sure those of you in the US (at least) have heard already, over the weekend, two Islamic terrorists were killed while attempting to attack a Draw Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas. It goes without saying that the multi-culti Islam-loving media is blaming the organizers for organizing such an 'offensive' event. (Funny, I don't recall anyone complaining or anyone trying to kill the organizers or participants in Iran's Holocaust cartoon contest).
One of the organizers, Pamela Geller, went on CNN Monday morning and destroyed the mediabot (Alisyn Camerota) who was questioning her.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
