Jordan releases Naharayim massacre perpetrator
I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted, but it's all been for a good cause. I have taken another trip to the US for work since I last posted, returning this past Thursday afternoon.
Oh yes, and a Freilichen (Happy) Purim to those of you who celebrate the holiday today, which is just about everyone outside Jerusalem and a couple of other cities.
On March 13, 1997, Jordanian Army Cpl. Ahmed Daqamseh opened fire on a
group of 7th and 8th grade girls from Beit Shemesh’s Feurst School. The girls were on a
class trip to Naharayim in the Jordan Valley, visiting the “Island of
Peace,” a joint Israeli-Jordanian tourist resort under Jordanian rule.
Seven of the girls were murdered. The massacre would have been worse if Daqamseh's weapons had not jammed. Daqamseh complained that the girls who died were
disturbing his prayers.
Daqamseh was sentenced to life in prison, which is a de facto 25-year
sentence in Jordan.
Israel had signed a peace treaty with Jordan's King Hussein in 1994. At the time of the massacre, Hussein actually came to Beit Shemesh to visit the mourning families.
But since Hussein's death in 1999, Jordanians have become increasingly uncomfortable holding Daqamseh - who many Jordanians regard as a hero - in prison.
His lawyer, Hussein Mjali,
praised Daqamseh in a video released in 2009. In 2011, Mjali became Jordan's
Justice Minister, and the next week joined a demonstration calling for
Daqamseh's release, sparking
outrage in Israel.
In 2013, 110 of the 120 members of Jordan's parliament
signed a petition calling for Daqamseh's release.
Today, they got their wish.
Daqamseh has been released.
Relatives said Ahmad Daqamseh was back at his home in the village of Idivir in northern Jordan.
A Jordanian military spokesman, Amer Sartawi, said Daqamseh was released early Sunday, after serving 20 years in prison.
...
Daqamseh said a month ago he was very happy and thankful to all his supporters who urged his release. He had been moved to a prison wing with better conditions after spending most of his term in isolation.
Jordanian military sources said Daqamseh was released shortly after midnight, on Sunday. Several people gathered at his home to celebrate his freedom.
Family members said Daqamseh was supposed to have been freed on Monday, the 13th, but the authorities decided to release him during the night to try and minimize the celebrations.
In 2004, Daqamseh told a Jordanian weekly that he had
no regret for his actions.
In an interview Daqamseh gave in 2004 to
Jordanian weekly a-Shahed, he expressed pride in his actions and said
that "if I could return to that moment, I'd behave exactly the same way.
Every day that passes, I grow stronger in the belief that what I did
was my duty."
Disgraceful.
Labels: Arab terrorism, Arab terrorist worship, Jordan, Naharayim
#CHANGE Moderate Arab states ignore Obama-Kerry initiative
If the moderate Arab states were supposed to latch onto Secretary of State Kerry's 'peace proposal' and use it, along with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to pressure Israel, someone forgot to tell them that. Or, as is more likely, they have
read the handwriting on the walls, and have realized that they will have to work with Donald Trump for the next 4-8 years.
But the official responses in Cairo, Riyadh and Amman seemed
calculated to make an impression on the incoming Trump administration
rather than to impel any immediate or urgent follow up on the Kerry
proposals. That was not expected, given that Kerry and President Barack
Obama have only three weeks left in office and Donald Trump has signaled
there will be a friendlier approach towards the policies of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Now, with the imminent change in the White House, Kerry's noble
views may very well remain a small footnote in the history books," the Jordan Times wrote in an editorial Thursday.
Jordan,
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are, to some extent, groping in the dark,
uncertain about what Trump policies that will strongly impact their
futures will look like. By giving essentially positive responses to
Kerry's proposals, "they are trying to show they are pro-peace, useful
and very relevant as mediators and mainstays of the process and trying
also to anticipate what the new administration in Washington wishes to
do," said Gabriel Ben-Dor, a Middle East specialist at Haifa University.
The countries also have their sights set on being relevant in advance
of the January 15 conference bringing together some 70 foreign ministers
in Paris whose goal is to reaffirm the necessity of a two-state
solution.
...
As Tel Aviv University Middle East scholar Bruce Maddy-Weitzman has
noted, close scrutiny of Cairo and Riyadh's reactions to Kerry indicate
that neither Arab country has the sense of urgency that Kerry conveyed
in his speech. Egypt's Foreign Ministry said that Kerry's principles
were "mostly consistent with the international consensus and Egypt's
vision but in the end what is important is the will to implement those
principles eventually."
Saudi Arabia welcomed the proposals,
according to an official at the Saudi foreign ministry, who said Riyadh
views them as being in accord with the majority of the resolutions of
international legality. Riyadh said that Kerry's proposals have elements
of the Arab Peace Initiative proposed by Saudi Arabia and adopted by an
Arab summit at Beirut in 2002. It added that the proposals represent an
"appropriate basis" for achieving a final settlement of the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
But, Maddy-Weitzman noted "there is no operative clause in the Saudi response to move forward fast and do this or that."
"This
suggests the Saudis understand there won't be significant movement any
time soon as a result of the speech," he said. "They recognize there is a
new administration coming in that is expressing itself differently on
Middle East issues. Saudi strategic priorities are elsewhere. There are
more acute issues occupying their thinking. The Palestinian-Israeli
issue is lower down. That doesn't mean they don't care and would go
along with anything the Israeli government would do."
"At this
point, the Saudis won't take the lead on Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy
unless the Trump administration takes the initiative or something forces
them to, like a new intifada." But Riyadh will try to persuade the US
not to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem, Maddy-Weitzman predicted.
In its reaction to Kerry, Egypt was mindful of Trump's intervention a
week earlier against its sponsorship of the security council resolution
specifying that settlements have "no legal validity." Egypt withdrew its
sponsorship in deference to Trump and it formulated its response to
Kerry with Trump in mind, not wanting to appear to be confrontational
towards Israel.
Cairo, which viewed the Obama administration as
selling out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during the Arab spring
revolt in 2011 and of subsequently backing the Muslim Brotherhood, has
high hopes for closer ties with Trump. Egypt is relieved to have an
administration coming in that will not make an issue out of its human
rights abuses in crushing the brotherhood and other opposition. "The
leaders of this 'terrorist' organization and those regional and Arab
powers that lend them support should realize that the election of Donald
Trump will usher in new directions for US foreign policy, which will
discontinue the 'interventionist' policies of the two previous US
administrations," wrote Hussein Haridy, a former foreign ministry
official, in al-Ahram weekly. "If this happens, there will be
much more effective cooperation between the American and Egyptian
governments in dealing constructively and successfully with existing
challenges and threats across the Middle East."
I haven't felt this optimistic since 2008, despite Obama-Kerry's attempts to incinerate Israel over the past two weeks. They're called 'lame ducks' for a reason.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Egypt, John Kerry, Jordan, Middle East peace process, our friends the Saudis, Saudi Arabia, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334
Israel expels Jordanian intelligence agent
For those who don't know him, Mudar Zahran is a member of the Jordanian opposition who lives in Israel.
Hmmm.
Labels: Jordan, Mudar Zahran, spying
Tit for tat: Iran accuses Abu Bluff of collaborating with the CIA, 'Palestinians' accuse Iran of 'serving the Zionist project'
Pass the popcorn!
The 'Palestinians' and Iran are nearly in
open war.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Maryam
Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI), an Iranian diaspora opposition group, met in Paris on Saturday,
renewing tensions between the Palestinian leadership and Iran.
Abbas
hosted Rajavi at his hotel in Paris and updated her on the latest
developments in the Palestinian territories and the Middle East,
according to Wafa, the official Palestinian Authority news site.
The following day, Tehran learned of the meeting and
accused President Abbas of working as a secret agent on behalf of the
United States government.
A top advisor to the Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Shiekh
al-Islam said, “That man [Abbas] is known to us and documents from the
US Embassy in Tehran revealed that he has been a collaborator with the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for a long time and his actions in
the past decades have proved that.”
Later in the evening, Wafa
published a press release from the Fatah Media and Culture
Commissariat, saying Iran, without mentioning its name, is carrying out
a campaign to undermine President Abbas and the Palestinian cause. “A
careful reading of advisor to the Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein
Sheikh al-Islam’s statements…have made clear to us of the horror that
many people are carrying out to serve the Zionist project through
organized campaigns against the president of the Palestinian people and
the Palestinian issue.”
The statement stated further that Iran
hopes to entrench division between Palestinians. “They have vied and
are still vying to destroy and ruin the Palestinian people, entrench
the division, and encourage internal conflict to gain political points,
nothing else. Their goals have nothing to do with Jerusalem or
justice,” it said.
The 'Palestinians' are trying to show they stand with the 'moderate' Sunni countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan). Coincidentally, those are the same countries who have been ramping up ties with Israel. Hmmm.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Shiites v. Sunnis
Hillary Clinton: Jordan's future 'uncertain'
Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told a group of college students this week that the future of the Jordanian monarchy is '
uncertain.'
Any lasting peace deal is probably out of reach until Israel and the
Palestinians "know what happens in Syria and will Jordan remain stable,"
Clinton said in an exchange with college students and others in Mount
Vernon, Iowa.
It is very rare for American leaders to acknolwedge
that the Western-oriented monarchy in Jordan, a key U.S. partner in the
Middle East and powerful peace broker, may fall. The monarchy escaped
the tumult of the Arab Spring and is atempting reforms, but its future
is an open question, as Clinton intimated.
Jordan was the second Arab
state to make peace with Israel, after Egypt, and is an important
go-between with Palestinians and other Sunni Arab states.
According to Jordanian opposition leader Mudar Zahran, Clinton's statement was based on a report circulating in Washington, and did not come from nowhere.
Hmmm.
Labels: Hillary Clinton, Jordan, Jordanian King Abdullah, Mudar Zahran
Small world syndrome
One of my neighbors just came by for something and invited us to a Kiddush (celebration) at his synagogue tomorrow morning. The Kiddush is to celebrate 45 years (on the Jewish calendar) since he was released from being a hostage at
Dawson's field in Jordan.
More
here.
Labels: hijacking, Jordan, terrorists for Gilad trade
Shalom and Erekat meet in Jordan, Europeans sponsor, US not informed
Interior Minister Sylvan Shalom and 'Palestinian' chief
negotiator bottle washer Saeb Erekat had a get-acquainted meeting in Amman on Thursday. Jordan knew of and sponsored the meeting alongside the European Union. In a reflection of just how important Obama and Kerry are to the 'process,'
the United States was not even told.
A private individual who holds no official position in the Israeli
government acted as a middleman in preparing for last Thursday’s meeting
between Interior Minister Silvan Shalom and chief Palestinian
negotiator Saeb Erekat, Haaretz has learned.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas were aware of the talks about holding the
meeting and approved it. Senior officials in the Jordanian government
and the European Union were also involved. The United States, however,
was kept in the dark and Israel did not update the Americans before or
after the meeting took place.
...
At a certain stage European Union envoy Fernando
Gentilini tried to coordinate between the sides and even suggested the
meeting be held in Brussels, however Erekat asked that it be held in
Amman, Jordan, which brought the Jordanian government into the secret.
Erekat did not present preconditions for the meeting, beyond that it be
held at a neutral venue.
The two-hour meeting was mainly intended for the two
to get acquainted. Both Erekat and Shalom presented initial suggestions
on how to restart the peace process, but did not enter into a detailed
discussion. They agreed to report back to Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and to meet
again in the near future.
The Amman meeting began in the presence of Jordanian
Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, and later Erekat and Shalom continued in
private.
I don't really expect this to go anywhere. The 'Palestinians' are hoping the United Nations will do their dirty work by passing a resolution in September mandating a 'Palestinian state.' But the big story here is the non-existent American influence. #ThanksObama.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, European Union, Jordan, Middle East peace process, Saeb Erekat, Sylvan Shalom
Change: Israel gives helicopters to Jordan
With US approval, Israel has given a squadron of approximately
16 Cobra helicopters to Jordan for use on border patrol.
Israel has given retired U.S.-supplied
Cobra combat helicopters to Jordan to help the Hashemite kingdom
fend off insurgent threats on the Syrian and Iraqi borders, a
U.S. official with knowledge of the deal said.
The handover, initiated last year, was approved by
Washington, which provided mechanical overhauls for
the aircraft before they were incorporated free of charge in
Jordan's existing Cobra fleet, the official said.
"These choppers are for border security," the official, who
requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, told
Reuters.
Asked how many Cobras were transferred, the official said:
"Around 16, though some may have been used by the Jordanians for
spare parts" rather than kept intact.
Jordanian and Israeli officials declined comment, as did the
Pentagon.
Countries don't have friends - they have interests. It is clear why in the Middle East in 2015, it might be in Israel's interest to give helicopters to Jordan.
In case you're worried about what Israel will use, the IDF prefers Apaches.
Labels: Israel, Jordan, SuperCobra helicopters
Obama: 'No Jews to see here'
President Obama may have sent his spokespeople to
walk back his (
and their) earlier comments about the murders of four Jews in a Paris Kosher supermarket being '
random,' but Mark Steyn
isn't buying the walkback and neither should you.
For over a decade, I have been writing about the metastasizing
Jew-hate in Europe, and I have noted, aside from the physical attacks,
the casual acceptance of anti-Jewish slurs at the highest levels in
Continental society. But I find, say, the Holocaust gags favored by
Gretta Duiseberg, the wife of the then head of the European Central
Bank, far less disturbing than the absurd pretzel-twist logic deployed
by the Obama Administration to deny reality. It is creepy and profoundly
unsettling. Like Simon Peter denying the condemned King of the Jews,
the most powerful government in the western world thrice denied those
four dead Jews in that Paris supermarket.
Here is a typical day in 21st-century Europe:
German court rules firebombing of synagogue is a "protest".
Belgian teacher tells Jewish student: 'we should put you all on freight wagons'.
European Jewish population continues to plummet.
British Vicar blames JOOOOOOOS for 9/11...
Anti-Jewish attacks in UK at highest levels ever recorded...
Teacher quits French school citing antisemitism.
Jewish social life in Europe now takes place behind razor-wire and
security guards, and newspapers placidly report polls showing that 58
per cent of British Jews believe Jews have no future in Europe. It is
utterly disgraceful that the government of one of the few western
nations relatively untouched by the new mass Jew-hate should devote so
much energy to insisting that there's nothing to see here.
But lies beget lies. The Obama Administration insists that the
Islamic State is not Islamic, Islamic terrorism is nothing to do with
Islam, there's no Islam to see here, no way, no how. You can't hold the
line at one lie, and tell the truth on everything else. The lie on Islam
infects everything else. If they're just "violent extremists" in
general, they have to be violent and extremist in general - or
"randomly", as the President would say.
I'm a free-speech absolutist and therefore have a high tolerance for "hate". But that's why free speech is important
- so one can address these subjects honestly. Islam is an incubator of
Jew-hate. It's unfortunate, but it is a fact. For example, Jordan is a
"moderate" Muslim country. What does "moderate" actually mean in this
context? Well, it means the Hashemites send their princes to Sandhurst
and marry them off to hotties. But other than that? Ninety-seven per
cent of Jordanians have an "unfavorable" opinion of Jews.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, European anti-Semitism, France, Islamic anti-Semitism, Islamic State, Jordan, Mark Steyn, Paris
Ain't this the truth?
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Tell me this one isn't the truth.
Indeed.
Labels: disproportionate response, double standards, Islamic State, Jordan
Proof the West doesn't get Islam
Still need proof that the West doesn't get Islam? Consider this from elitist Ken Roth:
Now recall what I wrote about Jordan
executing its ISIS prisoners earlier today.
But unlike the West, the Jordanians are fellow Muslims and they know how
to deal with ISIS. You can bet that they will - very publicly - execute
every ISIS prisoner they are holding.
Jordan gets it. The only way to answer Islamist violence that has a chance of making an impression on them is to outdo them. Not to make nice.
Roth wants to make nice. How well has that gone? Consider President Obama's
experience with Iran.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, ignored the
president’s invitation. Five months later, in June 2009, when the Green
Movement was born, his autocratic fist was still clenched. As the
streets of Tehran exploded in the largest anti-government demonstrations
the country had seen since the revolution of 1979, he used that fist to
beat down the protesters. For their part, the protesters, hungry for
democratic reform and enraged by government rigging of the recent
presidential election, appealed to Obama for help. He responded meekly,
issuing tepid statements of support while maintaining a steady posture
of neutrality. To alienate Khamenei, after all, might kill the dream of a
new era in U.S.-Iranian relations.
If this show of deference was calculated to warm the dictator’s
heart, it failed. “What we intended as caution,” one of Obama’s aides
would later tell a reporter, “the Iranians saw as weakness.” Indeed, the
president’s studied “caution” may even have emboldened Tehran to push
forward, in yet another in the long series of blatant violations of its
obligations under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), with its
construction of a secret uranium enrichment facility in an underground
bunker at Fordow, near Qom.
This time, Obama reacted. Revealing the bunker’s existence, he placed
Khamenei in a tough spot. The Russians, who had been habitually more
lenient toward the Iranian nuclear program than the Americans, were
irritated by the disclosure of this clandestine activity; the French
were moved to demand a strong Western response.
But when Khamenei finessed the situation by adopting a seemingly more
flexible attitude toward negotiations, Obama quickly obliged. Delighted
to find a receptive Iranian across the table, he dismissed the French
call for toughness, instead volunteering a plan that would meet Iran’s
desire to keep most of its nuclear infrastructure intact while proving
to the world that it was not stockpiling fissile material for a bomb. In
keeping with his larger aspirations, the president also placed Moscow
at the center of the action, proposing that the Iranians transfer their
enriched uranium to Russia in exchange for fuel rods capable of powering
a nuclear reactor but not of being used in a bomb. The Iranian
negotiators, displaying their new spirit of compromise, accepted the
terms. Even President Ahmadinejad, the notorious hardliner, pronounced
himself on board.
Obama, it seemed to some, had pulled off a major coup. Less than a
year after taking office, he was turning his vision of a new Middle East
order into a reality. Or was he? Once the heat was off, Khamenei
reneged on the deal, throwing the president back to square one and in
the process weakening him politically at home, where congressional
skeptics of his engagement policy now began lobbying for more stringent
economic sanctions on Tehran. To protect his flank, Obama tacked
rightward, appropriating, if with visible reluctance, some of his
opponents’ rhetoric and bits of their playbook as well. In 2010, he
signed into law the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and
Divestment Act (CISADA), which eventually would prove more painful to
Iran than any previous measure of its kind.
In later years, whenever Obama would stand accused of being soft on
Iran, he would invariably point to CISADA as evidence to the contrary.
“[O]ver the course of several years,” he stated in March 2014, “we were
able to enforce an unprecedented sanctions regime that so crippled the
Iranian economy that they were willing to come to the table.” The
“table” in question was the negotiation resulting in the November 2013
agreement, known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), which we shall come
to in due course. But masked in the president’s boast was the fact that
he had actually opposed CISADA, which was rammed down his throat by a Senate vote of 99 to zero.
Once the bill became law, a cadre of talented and dedicated
professionals in the Treasury Department set to work implementing it.
But the moment of presumed “convergence” between Obama and his
congressional skeptics proved temporary and tactical; their fundamental
difference in outlook would become much more apparent in the president’s
second term. For the skeptics, the way to change Khamenei’s behavior
was to place him before a stark choice: dismantle Iran’s nuclear
program—period—or face catastrophic consequences. For Obama, to force a
confrontation with Khamenei would destroy any chance of reaching an
accommodation on the nuclear front and put paid to his grand vision of a
new Middle East order.
Iran is on the verge of a nuclear weapon. Who was right?
The only way to deal with Islamists is to hit them harder than they hit you.
More at
Twitchy.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iranian nuclear threat, Islamic State, Islamist, Jordan, Kenneth Roth
Breaking: ISIS releases video claiming to show Jordanian pilot burnt alive in a cage
ISIS has released a video which purports to show captured Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh being
burnt alive in a cage (Hat Tip:
Sunlight).
The footage, which is titled 'Healing the Believers Chests' appears to show the captured airman wearing an orange jumpsuit as a trail of petrol leading up to the cage is seen being set alight.
Flames are seen quickly spreading to the cage where they completely engulf the helpless pilot in images that are far too distressing to publish.
...
Yesterday Jordan government spokesman Mohammed al-Momeni said the kingdom was doing 'everything' it could to secure the release of Kassasbeh, who was captured by ISIS after his F-16 fighter jet crashed in territory controlled by the militants in Syria in December.
However the statement came with an explicit threat that if 'hero' Kassasbeh came to any harm, Jordan would 'quickly judge and sentence' all those it holds on suspicion of being members of ISIS.
Last week Jordan vowed to fast-track the execution of Sajida al-Rishawi if ISIS kills Kaseasbeh.
It apparently warned ISIS that she and other jailed ISIS commanders would be 'quickly judged and sentenced' in revenge for the execution of the pilot.
Intelligence sources said ISIS's refusal to prove that Kaseasbeh was alive meant any deal with the militants was doomed.
Jordan subsequently stepped up its rhetoric by warning of its intent to retaliate if the negotiations end in bloodshed.
But unlike the West, the Jordanians are fellow Muslims and they know how to deal with ISIS. You can bet that they will - very publicly - execute every ISIS prisoner they are holding.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Jordan, murder
What 'peace' with an Arab country means: Jordanian parliament prays for Har Nof murderers
Israel has a 'peace treaty' with Jordan. But that treaty isn't worth the paper on which it is printed. On Wednesday,
Jordan's parliament prayed for the souls of the two terrorists who on Tuesday murdered four Jews and a Druze police office and wounded eight other Jews, four of them seriously.
On Wednesday, Jordan's parliament offered a prayer in honor of the spirit of Ghassan Abu Jamal and Uday Abu Jamal - the terrorists who slaughtered five people.
The prayer was held as the House of representatives session opened.
MP Khalil Attieh requested his fellow representatives to recite the Fatiha for the "spirit of the heroes."
The Fatiha is the first chapter of the Koran, recited on important occasions.
There's more.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Arab anti-Semitism, Jerusalem, Jordan, Palestinian terrorism, Palestinian terrorists, terror victims
Israel to US: 'If ISIS reaches Jordan, we will act'
President Hussein Obama may not know what to do with ISIS, but Channel 2 reports that Israel has told him in no uncertain terms that
if ISIS reaches Jordan, Israel will act.
The TV report did not specify what actions
Israel might take if Islamic State started impacting upon Jordan, but
Israel is wary of its eastern neighbor being challenged by the brutal
terror group, and would seek to guard against further inroads that would
directly threaten Israel.
Waiting for Obama to try to stop us in 4... 3... 2... 1....
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, ISIS, Jordan
What a surprise! ISIS outflanks Obama
Jennifer Dyer has an important and lengthy post on how
President Obama's 'strategy' for stopping ISIS crumbled between his White House speech on Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. Some excerpts....
ISIS is busy neutralizing the Syrian factions that might make common
cause with the United States. On Thursday, Breitbart London reported
that several dozen leaders of Syrian rebel factions opposed to ISIS,
who were gathered at a meeting in northwestern Syria, were killed in a
massive explosion on Wednesday.
Huffington Post on Friday evening summarized reports
that ISIS has signed a non-aggression deal with a separate group of
rebel factions in Syria, nominally so that all of the factions can
continue to fight the Assad regime.
According to the Dubai-based Arabic news site Orient News, one of the signatories to the agreement is the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF), a group that has received U.S. support and has been touted as a likely partner for a U.S. strategy to oppose ISIS in Syria.
The SRF has been losing ground in recent weeks, suffering a major blow when one of its top commanders was killed
at the end of August. At the same time, the SRF was reported to be
fighting alongside al-Qaeda-affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra in southern Syria,
including the battle for the crossing point with Israel in the Golan over which the rebel factions claimed control on 27 August.
Now it appears that the non-aggression pact with ISIS was brokered by
Jabhat al-Nusra. None of this comes as a surprise to those who’ve been
following along with Patrick Poole at PJ Media. On 3 September, Poole
outlined the continuing cooperation of factions in the Free Syrian Army
with ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra – cooperation that has resulted in a flow
of U.S.-supplied weaponry to the latter two armies. On 9 September, he
expounded on a report from the Los Angeles Times that one of the “vetted moderate” groups, Harakat Hazm, is quite open about fighting alongside Jabhat al-Nusra.
The U.S. has already given this group anti-tank missiles. Appended
to Poole’s analysis is the tweeted text of an alliance agreement
concluded by “vetted moderate” faction Harakat Hazm and other similar
groups with Jabhat al-Nusra. The text was tweeted on 8 July.
It’s not just credible, it’s highly bloody likely that some of the
rebel factions – including U.S. client SRF – have indeed made a pact
with ISIS. The fact that it won’t be worth a bucket of warm spit ought
to serve not as an encouragement to U.S. delusions of a meaningful
alliance in Syria, but as a warning.
...
In fact, ISIS hasn’t sat still. Once Obama made his speech
on Wednesday, the option of mounting coordinated attacks on ISIS’s
strategic rear in Syria immediately became a major threat posed by the
U.S. If we could do it effectively, we could force ISIS to defend its
rear: shift resources away from the campaign in Iraq, and perhaps even
rework its overall strategy.
So ISIS promptly took out nearly 50 opposition rebel leaders and
signed its non-aggression agreement with America’s potential partners in
Syria.
Remember that ISIS doesn’t have to show good faith over time with any
of those Syrian factions. It just has to preempt their cooperation
with the United States. The mechanism for that is straightforward.
We’re an easy read – ponderous making decisions, easily spooked,
committed to at least perfunctory public transparency – and our
president is a slow learner.
If ISIS can prevent anyone in Syria from cooperating with the U.S.,
ISIS can concentrate its effort in Iraq, where our forces on the ground
will be: small, scattered, un-concentrated, embedded with local
groups which may not all be fighting for the same objectives. Remember
this also: Obama is determined not to overlay an obtrusively coherent
U.S. framework on this operation. Kurds fighting in northern Iraq and
Sunnis fighting along the Euphrates in Anbar – each with a separate
ill-defined connection to the struggling Shia-majority government in
Baghdad – will have the lead.
Even in Vietnam and Somalia, I don’t think we’ve ever backed into
anything with our hindquarters flapping quite so egregiously in the
breeze. Military success doesn’t just happen. It’s as much a matter of
political will, and a coherent strategy and operational plan, as it is
of training, expertise, and weapons superiority at the tactical level.
Assuming we do go ahead with the plan-deficient, few-boots non-war the
Obama administration has been proclaiming for the last 72 hours, I am very concerned that American troops could find themselves vulnerable under fire and fighting for their lives within weeks.
I would actually feel better at this point if we weren’t enlarging
our footprint in Irbil at all, but instead planned to just keeping
flying strike-fighters from Kuwait and Qatar. There are sound
operational reasons to be gravely concerned about Obama’s decision to dismiss the advice of his military leaders and go with a toxic brew of half-measure objectives and exposed deployment situations.
The rapid, cynical, homicidal initiative shown by ISIS in seeking to
neutralize Obama’s Syria option is a pretty good indicator of what we’ll
be up against. Pundits and officials who are vocally criticizing the
president are not just showing partisan sour grapes. This is real, and
it’s bad.
Read the whole thing.
That last link is particularly important. Obama is
playing electoral politics again.
In his war speech last night, President Obama was at strikingly adamant about what the US mission to "degrade and destroy" ISIS would not entail:
American ground troops in a combat role. The 475 additional personnel
being deployed to the region are only authorized assist with "training,
intelligence and equipment." Direct American intervention will be
limited to a protracted campaign of airstrikes, in Iraq and -- for the
first time -- Syria. The Washington Post reports today
that when the president tasked military leaders with devising the best
strategy to defeat ISIS, the Pentagon presented a plan that involved a
limited number of combat "boots on the ground." They were rebuffed, in
favor of a more politically-palatable light footprint approach:
Such a mission was not the U.S. military’s preferred option.
Responding to a White House request for options to confront the Islamic
State, Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top commander of U.S. forces in the
Middle East, said that his best military advice was to send a
modest contingent of American troops, principally Special Operations
forces, to advise and assist Iraqi army units in fighting the militants,
according to two U.S. military officials. The recommendation, conveyed
to the White House by Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, was cast aside in favor of options that did not
involve U.S. ground forces in a front-line role, a step adamantly
opposed by the White House...Recommitting ground combat forces
to Iraq would have been highly controversial, and most likely would have
been opposed by a substantial majority of Americans. But Austin’s
predecessor, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, said the decision not to send ground troops poses serious risks to the mission. “The
American people will once again see us in a war that doesn’t seem to be
making progress,” Mattis said. “You’re giving the enemy the initiative
for a longer period.”
This turn of events was inevitable, given the instincts and priorities of the Oval Office's current occupant. According to the New York Times' bureau chief in Baghdad, the Obama administration has serially misled
the American people about on-the-ground realities in Iraq in order to
protect a politicized "receding tide of war" illusion. The president
shrunk from his own red line in Syria last year due, at least in part,
to heavy domestic pressures, ultimately resorting to a fake "solution" that has since collapsed.
Having ignored and dismissed ISIS for years, the president has finally been pressed to play catch-up with events. Public opinion has turned sharply
in favor of intervention, likely spurred by grisly images of beheaded
American journalists broadcast around the world, but most are still wary
of ground troops. Obama -- once again leading from behind with no discernible strategy
beyond 'win the current news cycle' -- is giving the public what it
wants at the moment. Nothing more, nothing less. Following that "best
military advice" would have required the president to forcefully make
the case that a limited American ground force was vital to victory. He
clearly had no appetite to do so, as it would have entailed further
eroding his anti-war cred and infuriating his core base ahead of an
election.
Read it all.
I've seen a lot of commentary on this, but the bottom line is that the military is horrified at Obama's 'strategy,' and the guy who is supposed to advocate for the military in the White House - Chuck Hagel - has been predictably silent.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Erbil, Iraq, Iraqi Kurds, ISIS, Jordan, Nusra Front, Syria, Syrian Kurds
Israel becoming Jordan's chief supplier of natural gas
Israel has signed an agreement to provide the Kingdom of Jordan with $15 billion worth of natural gas from its Leviathan well over the next 15 years. The Leviathan well is located some 81 miles west of Haifa. It's the largest natural gas deal Israel has ever signed and will make Israel the Kingdom's
chief natural gas supplier.
The new deal is the largest collaboration with
Jordan to date, and will make Israel its chief supplier, according to
the Globes business news website.
The final agreement will be subject to the
approval of Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom, who is expected to
confirm it. According to Globes, the US was involved in the
negotiations. US envoy Amos Hochstein was said to attend the signing of
the memorandum.
Representatives of the Delek Group Ltd. and Nobel Energy Inc. were in Jordan to sign the agreement.
Shalom hailed the agreement, and referred to
it as “a historic act that will strengthen the economic and diplomatic
ties between Israel and Jordan.”
“At this time, Israel is becoming an energy
superpower, which will supply the energy needs of its neighbors and
strengthen its standing as a central source of energy supply in the
region, and I welcome it,” he said in a statement.
In February, Israel signed a deal with Jordan
to supply $500 million worth of gas to the Hashemite kingdom from the
Tamar natural gas field in the Mediterranean.
The Jordanians turned to Israel because their
supply of natural gas from Egypt had been halted by repeated terrorist
attacks on the gas pipeline from Egypt, a Channel 2 report said.
I'm sure the Egyptians are thrilled.... Well, like we always say, business is business.
Labels: Jordan, Leviathon well, natural gas, oil and gas exploration
Idiocy: Lapid issues veiled threat to Meshaal, Marzouk
In 1997, during Prime Minister Netanyahu's first term in office, the Mossad attempted to poison Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' politburo chief. Unfortunately, because the operation was carried out in Jordan, with which Israel had a treaty, and because the agents who attempted to kill Meshaal were caught, Netanyahu was forced to send an antidote to Jordan and to release Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas' spiritual leader. Yassin was killed in an Israeli airstrike seven years later.
On Sunday, Finance Minister Yair Lapid issued a veiled threat against Meshaal's life. Meshaal is now in Qatar, a country with which Israel has no relations, so the situation is very different from 1997.
But....
Security Cabinet member and Finance Minister Yair Lapid has warned
that Hamas's political leadership - including those based abroad - are
not "immune" from bearing the consequences of continued rocket and
mortar fire against Israeli civilians.
Speaking just before a Security Cabinet meeting Sunday morning, Lapid
referred to the murder of four-year Daniel Turgeman in a mortar attack
on southern Israel, saying Israel "would not tolerate" the targeting of
its children by Islamist terrorists.
...
"Those responsible for his death will pay the price," Lapid vowed. "Hamas's
leaders need to know that we will pursue them, and we will cause them
to pay the price for what is happening in the south of the State of
Israel."
"No one is immune - not the political leadership, and not the leadership abroad," he said.
Until now Israel has largely avoided targeting Hamas's
"political" leadership, focusing on commanders and personnel from its
"military wing", the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. On Thursday, Israel succeeded in killing three of its "most wanted" Hamas terrorists in a strike targeting senior al-Qassam Brigades commanders.
A previous strike targeted the Brigades' commander, Mohammed Deif,
but Hamas claimed this elusive terrorist mastermind had survived -
though it gave no word on his precise condition.
Hamas's most senior political leader is Khaled Meshaal, currently
based in Doha, Qatar. Other senior Hamas leaders are also based abroad -
including one of the suspected masterminds of the kidnap and murder of
three Israeli teens in June, Salah al-Aruri.
Lapid is a moron. Everyone knows that Israel is
capable of striking Hamas terrorists
abroad. Keep your mouth shut and just do it.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Dubai, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Jordan, Khaled Meshaal, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Operation Protective Edge, Qatar, targeted killings
Human Rights Watch wakes up, blasts Jordan, world yawns
For once, 'human rights watch' has done the right thing. They have
blasted Jordan for its treatment of 'Palestinian refugees' from Syria. Khaled Abu Toameh reports.
According to the report, Jordan, in a clear breach of its
international obligations, refuses entry to, or forcibly deports,
Palestinian refugees escaping Syria. "Jordan has officially banned entry
to Palestinians from Syria since January 2013 and has forcibly deported
over 100 who managed to enter the country since mid-2012, including
women and children," the report revealed.
The report quotes Basma, a Palestinian woman from Yarmouk refugee
camp in Syria, who describes how the Jordanians turned her and others
back. "They told us, 'You are Palestinians, you aren't allowed to
enter,'" she recounted. "They took us in a bus and dropped us on the
Syrian side of the border at 2 a.m."
Another Palestinian refugee from Damascus, 47-year-old Abdullah, was
quoted as saying: "As we were crossing, the Jordanian army started
firing at us. We all laid down flat on the ground to avoid the gunfire.
After some moments two trucks with army officers came to us, before we
knew what was happening an army officer shot five of us in our legs. We
weren't trying to flee."
During the past three years, Jordan has received millions of Syrian
refugees. But when it comes to Palestinians, the story is different.
The Jordanians are not afraid of the Syrian refugees because they
know that once the crisis is over in their country, they will return to
their homes. Unlike the Palestinians, the Syrians are not seeking
Jordanian citizenship or new lives in the kingdom. The Syrians see their
presence in Jordan as a temporary situation.
There is also no talk about transforming Jordan into a "Syrian
state," as opposed to calls for creating a homeland for the Palestinians
in the kingdom. As such, the Jordanians' problem is with Palestinians,
not Syrians or other Arabs.
Fayez Tarawneh, head of the royal court and former prime minister,
defended the anti-Palestinian measures in a meeting with Human Rights
Watch last year. He said that a large influx of Palestinians from Syria
would alter the demographic balance of the kingdom and cause
instability.
The human rights group said that as a result of the Jordanian
government's policy, many Palestinians from Syria do not have proper
residency papers in Jordan, "making them vulnerable to exploitation,
arrest, and deportation."
It continued that, "undocumented Palestinians from Syria dare not
seek protection or redress from the Jordanian government against
exploitation or other abuses."
Really, the Jordanians aren't doing anything different than any other Arab country. If anything, Jordan is the only Arab country that grants any 'Palestinians' citizenship. And the world's reaction to this kind of treatment of 'Palestinians' by their fellow Arabs?
That's right. The world doesn't give a damn how Arabs treat other Arabs. It only cares how Jews treat Arabs. Double standard par excellence.
Labels: Jordan, Jordan is Palestine, Jordanian King Abdullah, Palestinian refugees, Syrian refugees
Mrs. Abu Bluff and grandchildren flee to Jordan
'
Moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen's wife and grandchildren have
fled to Jordan.
Members of the family of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
have secretly left Ramallah for Jordan, according to the online
newspaper Rai Al-Youm.
“For the first time and secretly, all the members of President Abbas’s
family have left to their residence in Amman,” the report said.
It said that Abbas’s wife and grandchildren were among the family members who left Ramallah recently.
The newspaper said that Mohamed Shehadeh, who is in charge of Abbas’s
security detail, has decided to beef up security around the PA
president’s office and residence in Ramallah.
The departure of Abbas’s family and the tight security measures came in
response to growing resentment among Palestinians with the PA
president and his policies in wake of the current war between Israel and Hamas.
Over the past two weeks, many Palestinians have accused Abbas of
failing to display strong leadership in light of the Israeli military
operation. Some have gone as far as accusing him of “collusion” with
Israel and Egypt.
Nice house you have there Abu Bluff. Wouldn't want to see anything happening to it....
Labels: Abu Mazen, Gaza, Jordan, Operation Protective Edge, Ramallah
