Friday, March 13, 2015

Will Israel Vote For Their Own Destruction?

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http://israel-commentary.org/?p=10947
The Israelis prove they are no different from the rest of the world – indulge in their own “entitlements” (freebies), while they enable their own self-destruction, refusing to acknowledge that their only hope of survival is their military strength.
The freebies they get from ISIS or Iran or Saudi Arabia when its own crisis is over, will not quite approach what they get in their own country and … may G-d have mercy on their souls. Over two thousand years of exile has taught them nothing. 
Jerome S. Kaufman
Netanyahu Slips in Polls Days Before Israeli Elections
Labor Party Leader Herzog Benefits from Perception That Prime Minister is Not Focused on Economy
By Joshua Mitnick
The Wall Street Journal
March 11, 2015
TEL AVIV—Less than a week before Israel’s general elections, the party of incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu has begun to fall behind an opponent who promises to restart talks with Palestinians and smooth the prime minister’s notoriously rocky relations with the White House.
Two polls on Wednesday put Isaac Herzog, leader of the dovish Labor Party, slightly ahead and suggest that support for Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud party among working-class Jews has eroded because of their widespread perception that he has focused on nuclear threats from Iran and extremist Muslims at the expense of economic problems.
“He’s talking about something that isn’t relevant—Iran and ISIS,’’ (Not relevant! How stupid can you get?)  said Avi Biton, owner of a snack bar and a Likud voter in previous elections. “Today my kids don’t have the ability to settle down and buy a house. If they can’t do that, this country has no reason to exist.”
Polls by Israel Army Radio and the daily Haaretz released on Wednesday showed Mr. Herzog’s Zionist Union, a new, center-left alliance of the Labor Party with another political faction, winning 24 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, or parliament, to 21 for Likud party. A survey on Tuesday by Channel 2 television showed Zionist Union picking up 25 seats to Likud’s 21.
The polls show Mr. Netanyahu, who is seeking a fourth term as prime minister, lost support after his speech to Congress last week warning against the terms of a nuclear deal being negotiated between six world powers and Iran. The speech, cheered by Republicans in Congress, angered President Barack Obama. At home, former supporters of the prime minister said they were concerned more about the threat of rising housing prices than the threat of a nuclear Iran. Some retired generals  criticized Mr. Netanyahu for alienating Israel’s most important ally.
On March 3, the day of the congressional speech, Labor had a narrower lead over Likud. In early February, polls showed Likud slightly ahead in a race that has always been close. The trend appears to have raised alarm bells within Likud.
“If in the coming days we don’t close the gap between Likud and Labor, there is a genuine risk that Tzipi Livni and Herzog will be the next prime ministers of Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu told a gathering of supporters according to the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon. Ms. Livni heads the Ha’tnuah party that joined forces with Labor in the alliance. Mr. Herzog agreed to rotate the prime ministry with her after two years if they win.
If Labor does come out ahead, it would almost certainly offer Mr. Herzog the major advantage of being given the presidential mandate to form a governing coalition supported by a parliamentary majority. Mr. Netanyahu may still be in a better position to form a coalition, while Mr. Herzog would be faced with the difficult task of putting together a majority coalition among many parties that normally clash. At the very least, a result mirroring the current polls could weaken Mr. Netanyahu politically and he would be forced to wait to see if his opponent fails to cobble together a majority.
According to a Channel 2 poll on Tuesday night, Likud and hard-line allies would still control the largest bloc of seats in the parliament, with 44 seats. Labor and one other leftist party would have 30, centrist parties would control 20, and ultra-orthodox and Arab parties each control 13 seats.
A scion of one of Israel’s most prominent political families, Mr. Herzog is promising to reset Israeli-U.S. ties and deal more discreetly with their differences over the Iran nuclear deal. He also pledges to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and make housing prices more affordable. The latter point speaks to what Israelis say is the most important election issue this time around—the high cost of living and other socioeconomic problems.
If Mr. Herzog succeeds in forming a coalition, it would make him the first Israeli leader in 16 years to hail from the Labor Party, which dominated for the first three decades of Israel’s existence and spearheaded peace talks with the Palestinians in the 1990s.
The 54-year-old partner at one of Israel’s leading law firms is the grandson of Israel’s first chief Ashkenazi rabbi. His father Chaim Herzog was a general in Israel’s military and served as Israel’s president and its ambassador to the U.N. His uncle, Abba Eban, was Israel’s foreign minister.
Still, to most Israelis he lacks Mr. Netanyahu’s stage presence, combat history and experience handling national-security issues. Mr. Herzog still faces the daunting challenge of persuading undecided Israeli voters he should be the beneficiary of their dissatisfaction with Mr. Netanyahu. Even for longtime Labor Party supporters such as 63-year-old Nava Rosenberg, this election remains a referendum on Mr. Netanyahu.
Herzog hasn’t inspired the enthusiasm enjoyed by previous leaders of his party such as Yitzhak Rabin or the country’s revered founder, David Ben-Gurion, even among his supporters. He is battling an image as stiff and timid. But he has been aided considerably by joining forces in December with Ms. Livni, a former peace negotiator. Their alliance has helped unite centrist and left-wing Israelis and invigorated Labor’s platform for the first time in years.
“Herzog isn’t strong, he’s not decisive, he doesn’t have the personality to lead the Israeli people to big decisions,’’ she said. “But I hate Bibi, so I’m voting for Herzog. It isn’t because I love Herzog. There is nobody else.  (Huh?)
- See more at: http://israel-commentary.org/?p=10947#sthash.W6wExnuN.dpuf
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Shariah Law Promoted By State Department.

ALERT: Obama’s State Dept Openly PROMOTES Shariah Law on Twitter [PHOTO]

We would all admit that even those who advocate for Shariah law have the right of free speech in the United States. The idea that the First Amendment applies to unpopular ideas is pretty much sacrosanct.
But would most of us go out of our way to celebrate the right to protest for a brutal, violently misogynist, repressive form of theocratic government?
No, of course not. That should be an easy decision, right?
Well, it wasn’t for someone in Obama’s State Department.
The image below cropped up recently on a Department of State-linked Twitter account, which was set up specifically as part of a campaign to combat Islamic extremism.

Evidently, “Islamic extremism” means different things to different people:
thinkagain
Um … okay …
Firstly, I guess nobody sent over the memo from the White House that it’s still “ISIL” to them, not “ISIS.”
Of course, whoever maintains the account at the “Think Again, Turn Away” campaign probably hasn’t been receiving any memos since before the Iranian hostage crisis, since they apparently don’t know that Shariah lawis a form of Islamic extremism.
For the people at Think Again, Turn Away, let me list some of the highlights of Shariah law as a public service, since they apparently don’t know what it entails:
  • Death penalty (via hanging, crucifixion or stoning, among other fun methods) for apostasy, adultery, fornication or homosexuality!
  • Cutting off of a hand for theft!
  • Testimony from four male witnesses to prove a rape actually happened!
As for whether this is going to cause anyone who might support the Islamic State group to think again and turn away, ask yourself this:
Would a potential terrorist checking out a side Twitter account of the U.S. Department of State think to themselves, “Oh wow. I was going to travel to Syria to fight and live under the rule of a brutal caliphate where all of my sick religious delusions are enforced under penalty of death.
“Now, though, I can move to the Great Satan, where I’ll protest for my generally-despised beliefs with a bunch of women in burqas at a card table outside of a pharmacy and a Chinese restaurant that looks to be in violation of at least 17 health codes?”
Yeah, I don’t think so either.
Good work, State Department. You’ve proven yet again that, even as we fight Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group, our most dangerous enemy may be within.
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Who Is Going To Stop The Dictator? When Will This Insanity Stop?

BREAKING: Texas Governor Drops Criminal Bombshell About Obama

Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Remember him? He was instrumental in prodding a federal judge to stop President Barack Obama from using an executive command to grant amnesty to illegal aliens.
But Abbott didn’t stop after that. As the chief executive of the state that has the longest border with Mexico, Abbott continues to pay close attention to the immigration crisis.
And now he believes Obama is in contempt of court.
As the governor initially tweeted earlier this month, the Obama administration deliberately misled the federal court and “issued thousands of amnesty documents illegally.”
As more specifically explained by Byron York of the Washington Examiner, the federal judge decreed that Obama’s executive actions could not go into effect immediately.

For example, illegals were to be protected from deportation over three years, rather than for two. But that was not to go into effect until Feb. 18, 2015. Additionally, a deferred action program for illegals with children who, by virtue of being born in the U.S., are lawful Americans was to start in late May 2015.
The Department of Justice lawyers led the judge to believe that no requests for deferred actions had been implemented, and they appeared to go along with the court-ordered effective dates.
However, Abbott, despite also managing the largest of America’s lower 48 states, has seen through the Obama administration’s sleight of hand.
He is now demanding that charges be filed against Obama for misleading the judge and implementing deferred actions before they became legally effective (H/T The Right Scoop).
“Contempt” is an accurate characterization of the Obama administration’s law-breaking actions.
If you want Obama to start abiding by the law, grassroots pressure is needed. Such pressure cannot occur, however, until voters become aware of the problem. Therefore, share this article on Facebook to help spread the word.
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Iran Causing Previous Enemies To Join Together.

Arab Gulf States Increasingly Align with Israel on Iranian Nuclear Threat

By JNS 
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)
image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/iran-eu-nuclear-talks.jpg
Officials from the EU and Iran in nuclear talks. (Photo: Irankonferenz/ Wiki Commons)
Officials from the EU and Iran in nuclear talks. (Photo: Irankonferenz/ Wiki Commons)
By: Sean Savage
With the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 powers (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, and Germany) approaching a March 24 deadline for a “political framework agreement,” Israel’s objections to the parameters of the emerging deal have been highly publicized. But lesser known is the growing unease about the negotiations among many leading Arab states.
For nations such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, which all have Sunni Muslim-majority populations, Iran—which is a Shi’a Muslim and ethnically Persian country—has long been viewed as a regional rival. Lying on the strategic crossroads between Central Asia and the Middle East, Iran is one of the world’s top oil producers and the main regional competitor for the oil-rich Arab Gulf states, which are vying for power in regional conflicts such as those inside Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
Recent media reports said that in closed talks with European lawmakers, Saudi diplomats expressed their willingness to lend Saudi Arabia’s airspace to Israel for a possible attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“Although those reports have been officially denied by both Riyadh (the Saudi capital) and Jerusalem, this kind of cooperation makes strategic sense,” Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council think tank, told JNS.org. “Saudi Arabia and Israel both feel betrayed by the current negotiations underway with Iran, and both feel they need to make alternative plans to cope with what both view as an existential threat to its existence.”
But Dalia Dassa Kaye, director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation think tank, cautioned against reading too much into reports of Saudi-Israeli cooperation.
“While it is absolutely true that the Saudis share Israel’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear capability, and in that sense they are tacitly aligned, I think the Saudis would be extremely wary of any support for military action that would implicate them in the attacks,” Dassa Kaye told JNS.org.
Nevertheless, the shared skepticism of Israel and the Arab Gulf states about the current nuclear talks has shifted regional priorities.
“Like Israel, the Gulf Arab states are deeply skeptical about the current negotiations,” Berman said. “They see them as a vehicle that will grant Iran both nuclear status and allow it to dominate the region. That’s why, more and more, the Gulf states have drifted into strategic alignment with Israel on the issue.”
The current Mideast alignment is a far different one than Israel experienced during the first few decades of its existence. In its early years, Israel had warm relationships with the non-Arab regional powers such as Turkey and Iran, which both recognized Israel soon after it declared independence in 1948. At the time, both countries were staunch U.S. allies in the Cold War and were deeply suspicious of Arab regional political power such as the pan-Arabism espoused by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was an ally of the Soviet Union.
Although their grievance of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains, many Arab states have come to realize that Israel is no longer their primary concern. The growing regional aspirations of Iran in conflicts in Iraq and Syria, as well as the rise of Islamic extremism through the Islamic State terror group and the Muslim Brotherhood, have become more pressing matters for Arab leaders.
Decades ago, Israel sought close relations with the Shah of Iran to counter the threat posed by the Arab states. But today, Israel is doing the opposite, making overtures to Arab leaders to support them against Iran.
In the lead-up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech to the U.S. Congress about the Iranian nuclear program, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer invited his Arab counterparts to attend the speech. While the Arab diplomats declined the invitation, many media outlets in the Arab world, including in Saudi Arabia, praised Netanyahu’s address, which called on American lawmakers to reject a “bad deal” with Iran that would allow it to retain significant portions of its nuclear program.
“Who could believe that Netanyahu today has taken a better stand than Obama with regard to the Iranian nuclear file?” columnist Ahmed al-Faraj wrote in the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Jazirah.
An editorial by Faisal Abbas, the editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned Dubai-based news outlet Al-Arabiya, stated that Netanyahu’s Congress speech “hit the nail right on the head” in his assessment of the Iranian threats in the Middle East.
Besides the alignment on the Iranian nuclear issue, Israel enjoys warm government-to-government relations with two Arab neighbors. As the only two Arab countries that have agreed to a peace treaties with Israel, Egypt and Jordan have recently increased security cooperation with the Jewish stare.
Under President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Egypt has quietly worked closely with Israel on combating Islamic terrorist groups in the Sinai Peninsula such as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (which recently declared its allegiance to Islamic State), in addition to cracking down on Hamas, which draws support from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and uses the Sinai for smuggling weapons and other goods. El-Sisi also launched attacks against Islamic State terrorists in Libya after their execution of 20 Coptic Christians there.
El-Sisi has also called for the formation of an Arab regional alliance to fight common threats like Islamic extremism and Iran.
“We want to defend our nations and this is the time when we join our hands together,” he told Al-Arabiya before a visit to Saudi Arabia on March 1. “There is a good opportunity now for us to start a discussion about it.”
image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/iran-nuclear-sign-1.jpg
iran nuclear sign 1The RAND Corporation’s Dassa Kaye told JNS.org, “The relationship right now between the Saudis and Egyptians is a strong one. The more conservative Arab gulf states are bolstering the El-Sisi government as part of a so-called counter revolution to support anti-Islamist governments.”
At the same time, the Wall Street Journal reported in late February that leading Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, have said that any nuclear deal that allows Iran to retain its capacity to enrich uranium—which can be used to produce a nuclear weapon—would likely force them to develop their own nuclear capabilities.
Arab leaders are increasingly expressing concern about the potential ramifications of the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, particularly the lifting of economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Following a March 5 meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, Secretary of State Kerry said the U.S. is not seeking a “grand bargain” with Iran and will not “take our eye off of Iran’s other destabilizing actions in places like Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Arabian peninsula, Yemen particularly.”
Yet Prince al-Faisal reiterated his concern about Iran’s regional power play, citing reports that Iran is involved in Iraq’s efforts to retake Tikrit as part of operations against Islamic State.
“The situation in Tikrit is a prime example of what we are worried about. Iran is taking over the country,” Prince al-Faisal said.
In his address to Congress, Netanyahu outlined Tehran’s efforts to spread its influence throughout the Middle East, saying that Iran is currently dominating four capitals in the region—Baghdad (Iraq), Damascus (Syria), Beirut (Lebanon), and Sana’a (Yemen). Both Israeli and Arab leaders fear that the lifting of international sanctions against Iran would allow the Islamic Republic’ economy to prosper again, thereby allowing Iran to increase its influence in conflict zones throughout the Middle East.
At the same time, RAND’s Dassa Kaye believes Saudi Arabia may be able to live with a less-than-ideal nuclear agreement.
“It is my understanding that the Saudis would not be enthusiastic about a nuclear deal, but if [a deal] really set the Iranian program back, I think ultimately they would adapt to an agreement and would find other ways to contain and compete with Iran in the region,” Dassa Kaye said.
Yet for Israel, as Netanyahu has stressed, the Iranian nuclear threat is a matter of survival. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly called for the annihilation of the Jewish state, most recently in a tweet last November.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that the alternative to a bad deal is a better deal. This is not a flippant line,” the American Foreign Policy Council’s Berman told JNS.org. “The West has tremendous economic and political leverage over the Islamic Republic. It can use this dominant position to pressure Iran into an agreement that better addresses concerns about its nuclear program, if only the United States and its allies have the political will to do so.”

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/32600/arab-gulf-states-increasingly-align-with-israel-on-iranian-nuclear-threat-middle-east/#ycclAGdJhJ7PKaC8.99
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If Hillary Did Sign Exit Form, She May Be Guilty, However, We Doubt That She Did Sign It. Probably Part Of The Negotiations With The Dictator.

by J. Christian Adams

Hillary’s Crime: Section 1001

March 12th, 2015 - 4:50 pm
Shannen Coffin, former counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, told Fox’s Megyn Kelly on Wednesday night that there is “no doubt” that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed a felony when she didn’t turn over her email records as she left the State Department — if she signed the usual exit form given to all exiting employees.
The State Department’s “Separation Statement,” Form OF-109, can be seen here.
It requires the outgoing State Department employee to certify that all “classified or administratively controlled documents and material” have been “surrendered to responsible officials.” But it doesn’t just require the return of classified materials. It also requires the employee to certify that she has “surrendered to responsible officials all unclassified documents and papers relating to the official business of the Government acquired by me while in the employ of the Department.”
We don’t know if there were any classified or administratively controlled materials in the emails on Clinton’s home server. Perhaps she made sure no classified information reached her server homebrew. (If classified information was stored on her home server, then that would raise an entirely different set of concerns and potential legal problems for Clinton. Just ask David Petraeus.)
However, we do know positively that all emails “relating to the official business of the Government” were not returned to the government before the former secretary of state walked out the front door of the State Department in 2013.
She admitted at her press conference on Tuesday that she was just now turning over 50,000 pages of documents.
The final paragraph of OF-109 just before the signature lines warns that “Section 1001 of Title 18, United States Code, provides criminal penalties for knowingly and willfully falsifying or concealing material fact in a statement or document” submitted to the federal government.
Section 1001 is the catch-all provision that the Justice Department uses to go after individuals and witnesses who make false statements to government agencies and officials like FBI agents.
It prohibits making “any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” as well as making or using “any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry.”
Section 1001 is routinely used by the FBI to prosecute people who don’t tell the truth to the government. In fact, some managers at the Justice Department instructed employees to threaten people with 1001 actions who were not fully forthcoming in civil investigations.
If Hillary Clinton signed this form, she could be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. §1001. A knowing and willful violation is a felony, punishable by not more than five years in prison.
One of the most well-known recent cases of a prosecution under this statute was the conviction of Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff to the vice president, who was charged (among other charges) with making a false statement to an FBI agent in connection with the Valerie Plame case.
Celebrity and businesswoman Martha Stewart was also convicted under §1001 in 2004 for making false statements to FBI agents and investigators from the SEC who were investigating her for insider trading, a crime she was never charged with.
Of course, even if Hillary Clinton violated this statute, the probability that this administration and this Department of Justice would ever prosecute Hillary Clinton is probably slim to none. However, Shannen Coffin is certainly correct in his legal analysis. This virtually guarantees that the first question Hillary Clinton or the State Department will be asked by any congressional committee investigating this email fiasco is whether Secretary Clinton signed exit form OF-109.
If she did, then she is going to have a great deal of explaining to do to the American people as to why she believes she was above the usual rules and laws that apply to regular government employees and all the rest of us.


Read more: http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2015/03/12/hillarys-crime-1001/#ixzz3UHw94z4e
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