Saddam's Death, 87 (febr 2017 - part 2)
attempt to destroy political holism in the middle east

See also: Page 86: febr 2017 (part 1) and Page 88: march 2017
Israel & The Temple Revolution & Unesco & the Temple

Regime Change in Iraq - Overview 2002/2003
Trump & the Two Messiah's
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was born April 28, 1937 and died December 30, 2006. He was the fifth President of Iraq, holding that position from July 16, 1979 until 9 April 2003. He was one of the leading members of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, and afterward, the Baghdad-based Ba’ath Party and its regional organization Ba’ath Party, Iraq Region, which advocated ba’athism, an ideological marriage of Arab nationalism with Arab socialism. (Patricia Ramos, july 2013)

"The national security of America and the security of the world could be attained if the American leaders [..] become rational, if America disengages itself from its evil alliance with Zionism, which has been scheming to exploit the world and plunge it in blood and darkness, by using America and some Western countries.
What the American peoples need mostly is someone who tells them the truth, courageously and honestly as it is.
They don’t need fanfares and cheerleaders, if they want to take a lesson from the (sept. 11) event so as to reach a real awakening, in spite of the enormity of the event that hit America.
But the world, including the rulers of America, should say all this to the American peoples, so as to have the courage to tell the truth and act according to what is right and not what to is wrong and unjust, to undertake their responsibilities in fairness and justice, and by recourse to reason..."

Saddam Hussein, INA 15-9-2002

"The despot thinks he is just as God... What a nadir and mean fate!
The despot, as represented in this age, in our day, imagines he can enslave the people..
But they were born free. They were freed by God’s will through prophets and messengers, to be slaves only to Him and not to anyone of the people." Saddam Hussein, Iraq Daily 4-3-2003

A person with a God Complex may refuse to admit the possibility of their error or failure, even in the face of irrefutable evidence, intractable problems or difficult or impossible tasks.
The person is also highly dogmatic in their views, meaning the person speaks of their personal opinions as though they are unquestionably correct.
Someone with a god complex may exhibit no regard for the conventions and demands of society, and may request special consideration or privileges.

"That is the issue that will continue in this country... It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle.
The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." Abraham Lincoln (October 15, 1858 Debate at Alton, Illinois)

"Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail fall of Fury! Reign of Reason, all hail!" Abraham Lincoln (February 22, 1842 Temperance Address)

"...To be a human being among human beings, and remain one forever, no matter what misfortunes befall, not to become depressed, and not to falter - this is what life is, herein lies its task." Fyodor Dostoevsky (to his brother Mikhail, Dec. 22, 1849)

All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.
Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly.
“Do not therefore do injustice to yourselves. Remember one day you will meet Allah and answer your deeds. So beware, do not astray from the path of righteousness after I am gone." Prophet Muhammad, Last Sermon

“Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you can not retain.”

Saadi Shirazi
(Persian poet & humanist, born in Shiraz, Iran, c. 1210)






"Holism is the most fundamental discovery of 20th century science. It is a discovery of every science from astrophysics to quantum physics to environmental science to psychology to anthropology.
It is the discovery that the entire universe is an integral whole, and that the basic organizational principle of the universe is the field principle: the universe consists of fields within fields, levels of wholeness and integration that mirror in fundamental ways, and integrate with, the ultimate, cosmic whole...."
"For many thinkers and religious teachers throughout this history, holism was the dominant thought, and the harmony that it implies has most often been understood to encompass cosmic, civilizational, and personal dimensions. Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Lord Krishna, Lao Tzu, and Confucius all give us visions of transformative harmony, a transformative harmony that derives from a deep relation to the holism of the cosmos."

About political holism

Political holism is based on the recognition that "we" are all members of a single whole. There's no "they," even though "we" are not all alike. Because "we" are all part of the whole, and therefore interdependent, we benefit from cooperating with each other. Political holism is a way of thinking about human cultures and nations as interdependent.
Political holists search for solutions other than war to settle international disagreements. Their model of the world is one in which cooperation and negotiation, even with the enemy, even with the weak, promotes political stability more than warfare.
In an overpopulated world with planet-wide environmental problems, the development of weapons of mass destruction has rendered war obsolete as an effective means to resolve disputes.

Political dualists consider political holists unpatriotic for questioning the necessity to defeat "them." In times of impending war, political dualists tend to measure patriotism by the intensity of one's hostility to the country's immediate enemy.
Naturally, they would view as disloyalty any suggestion that the enemy is not evil, any call for cooperation with the enemy, any criticism of one's own country.
To political dualists, cooperation with the enemy means capitulation, relinquishment of the nation's position of dominance.

At its extreme, political dualism is essentially tribalism. (Betty Craige, 16-8-1997)

"The West creates enemies; in the past it was the communism then it became Islam, and then it became Saddam Hussein for a different reason. Now, they want to create a new enemy represented by Bashar. That's why they say that the problem is the president so he has to leave. That is why we have to focus of the real problem, not to waste our time listening to what they say." (Bashar al-Assad, 9-11-2012)

The policy should be to help peace in the region, to fight terrorism, to promote secularism, to support this area economically, to help upgrade the mind and society like you did in your country. That is the supposed mission of the United States, not to launch wars. Launching war doesn’t make you a great power." (Bashar Al-Assad, 26-1-2015)

Theresa May: We have to defend our values
UK and US cannot return to 'failed' interventions
BBC News, 26 January 2017

Theresa May (UK Prime Minister) has told US Republicans the UK and America cannot return to "failed" military interventions "to remake the world in our own image". Suggesting a UK foreign policy shift, she said those days were over but added that the US and UK should not "stand idly by when the threat is real".
In her speech, Mrs May said: "It is in our interests - those of Britain and America together - to stand strong together to defend our values, our interests and the very ideas in which we believe.
"This cannot mean a return to the failed policies of the past. The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over.
"But nor can we afford to stand idly by when the threat is real and when it is in our own interests to intervene. We must be strong, smart and hard-headed. And we must demonstrate the resolve necessary to stand up for our interests.
Mrs May's US speech comes ahead of talks with President Donald Trump. She will be the first world leader to meet the new president. Theresa May will present Donald Trump, whose mother was born in the Outer Hebrides, with an engraved quaich, a Scottish artefact symbolising friendship.
Opposition leader, Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, said: "Theresa May must stand up for our country's values when she meets Donald Trump...

US blocks appointment of former Palestinian PM as UN envoy to Libya
Ahram online|AFP, Saturday 11 Feb 2017

The United States on Friday blocked the appointment of former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad to be the new UN envoy to Libya.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley said in a statement that she did not "support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nations," where the state of Palestine does not have full membership.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had informed the Security Council this week of his intention to name Fayyad to lead the UN support mission in Libya and help broker talks on a faltering political deal.
Haley said the United States was "disappointed" to see the letter from Guterres, his first appointment of an envoy to a major conflict area. "For too long, the UN has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," said the US ambassador. "Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies."

Fayyad, 64, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, and also served as finance minister twice. He had been tapped to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been the Libya envoy since November 2015.
Guterres's spokesman declined to comment on the US rejection of the UN chief's nominee.
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon (Likud) applauded the US decision, describing it as "the beginning of new era where the US stands firmly behind Israel against any and all attempts to harm the Jewish state.

Hanan Ashrawi: "A blanket license for the exclusion of Palestinians everywhere"
Ma'an News (Palestine) Feb. 11, 2017

Diseases are bad, and when they are sacred they are worse of course. When a disease looks as though it is sacred, people think it is the ultimate in health. This is the sacred disease. Because they think it is sacred, they don't search for a cure any more...
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) slammed the United States for objecting to a proposal by the United Nations to appoint former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to head a UN mission...
Palestine is a non-member observer state at the UN and its independence has been recognized by 137 of the 193 UN member nations.
The United Nations Security Council released a statement on their website on Saturday defending the proposal to appoint Fayyad, saying it was “solely based on Mr. Fayyad’s recognized personal qualities and his competence for that position.”
“United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity. They do not represent any government or country,” the statement explained.

PLO Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi denounced the US attempt to block Fayyad’s appointment, calling it “unconscionable” and “a case of blatant discrimination on the basis of national identity.”
It defies logic that the appointment of the most qualified candidate is blocked because it is perceived as detrimental to Israel. It constitutes a blanket license for the exclusion of Palestinians everywhere," Ashrawi said in the written statement.
She went on to express hope that “saner voices will prevail and that the US will take back this irrational and discriminatory decision immediately and not deprive the UN of such a highly qualified individual. Rather, they should block petty acts of bigotry and vindictiveness and the further victimization of the Palestinian people for the mere fact of their existence.”


Israeli minister: Make Palestinians pay for refusing to make peace
By Gil Hoffman , Jerusalem Post, February 13, 2017

The Palestinians should be made to pay a price for failing to reach an agreement with Israel, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) said at Monday's Jerusalem Conference.
Erdan said that in the past, the Palestinians had a mantra that time was on their side and waiting to reach an agreement with Israel would pay off for them. He said that now with a pro-Israel president in Donald Trump, time worked against the Palestinians.
"The Trump presidency is a historic opportunity to say the land of Israel is ours," Erdan said.
"With a friend who realizes settlements aren't an impediment to peace, the Palestinians can be made to realize that time no longer works in their favor and that they will pay a price for their refusal. There should be building everywhere in Judea and Samaria, not just in Jerusalem and settlement blocs, because that would set a de facto border."
Erdan said now was the time for Israel to apply sovereignty to Ariel and Greater Jerusalem, including Gush Etzion.
He said the policies of Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama's policies were "180 degrees the opposite of what we believe in."
Earlier, in an interview with Army Radio, Erdan said that all the members of the security cabinet oppose a Palestinian state, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told the security cabinet ministers when they met Sunday that he would not renounce his support for a two-state solution.

Rivlin's One State Solution
Yoni Kempinski, Arutz Sheva, 13/02/2017

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said on Monday he supports applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria...
At the 14th Besheva Jerusalem Conference, Rivlin said, "Political Zionism believes that the return of the Jewish People to Israel is dependent on the nation's ability to settle the land."
"The political Zionism we have today understands that without settling valley and mountain, Negev and Galilee, we will not be able to create a national infrastructure upon which to base our existence as an independent nation.
Slowly, step by step, we have built a sovereignty which is not just theoretical but also practical. "In Jerusalem's eastern neighborhoods, sovereignty has already been legally applied..."
"The people [in the Westbank] were sent by the government to build their homes and settle the land, and the government built them roads and connected them to the electric grid. The government must deal with the consequences of their decisions...
All of the settlement blocs are Israel..." "I want to emphasize that I believe all of Zion is Israel, from the ocean to the river.

Arabs in Judea & Samaria (Area C) will be citizens. The Arabs living in area's B & A will be 'Israeli residents' with limited rights. Full citizenship is a possibility, but only as an (imaginary) event in the far future...

Reuven “Ruby” Rivlin (Likud) usually describes himself in two ways: A man of Jerusalem and a student of Likud ideological forebear Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
Rivlin opposes the formation of a Palestinian state. What he wants is: combining Israel and occupied territories into a single state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean...
Generally, his one-state solution would look like this: gradually and unilaterally, Israel would annex the West Bank (different time frames were given for this process – from five to 25 years); beginning with Area C - and (in the far future - after 5 to 25 years...) moving to B and A.
Barring security clearances (and according to some – loyalty oaths), all Palestinians in the annexed territories will end up having blue Israeli identity cards with full rights. The army will return to dealing mostly with national defense, and the police will take over civilian policing duties in the annexed territory.
Constitutional measures that will define Israel as a Jewish State would take place in advance. Palestinian refugees will not be allowed back.
Gaza will not be annexed, and will turn to a fully independent region, separated from the State of Israel. The Palestinians in areas B and A will be 'residents with limited rights', until their territory will be fully annexed by 'the Jewish State'.


Israel is above international law
Rami Hamdallah (Prime Minister State of Palestine), Al-Jazeera 13-2-2017

Israel is above international law, or so it seems. On December 23, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 2334, re-affirming the illegality of Israeli settlements.
The vote was significant for two reasons: Unlike previous UNSC resolutions targeting Israel, it was not vetoed by the Obama administration, who decided to abstain. Secondly, it demonstrated an international consensus on the illegality and illegitimacy of Israel's settlement enterprise, and showed that these settlements constitute an obstacle to peace.
The fact that the Obama administration affirmed the illegality of settlements, did nothing to change the course of the Benjamin Netanyahu government.
On the contrary, since the UN Security Council passed the resolution, Israel hurried to approve the construction of even more houses in illegal settlements on Palestinian land. Within one month, the government gave the green light for the construction of more than 6,000 housing units - a higher number than the total number of settlement housing units approved in all of 2016.
In parallel, the Israeli parliament passed a legislation - dubbed the "regularisation bill", but essentially a land theft - enabling settlers to "legally" steal Palestinian land, thereby accelerating construction of settlements.
The continued Israeli policy of building settlements makes the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state increasingly impossible

The international community cannot afford to ignore Israel's settlement frenzy. Countries that flaunt international law (and are allowed to get away with it) invalidate basic human rights, pushing humanity back towards darker ages, when colonialism and ethnic cleansing were the norm.

Syrian opposition picks delegation to Geneva talks
Arab News (Saudi Arabia), 13-2-2017

Syria’s opposition on Sunday announced its 21-member delegation, including 10 rebel representatives, for a new round of UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva scheduled for Feb. 20.
The delegation will be headed by Nasr Al-Hariri, a member of the National Coalition, replacing Assad Al-Zoabi, who led the opposition at several previous rounds of talks in Geneva last year.
The delegation’s chief negotiator was named as Mohamed Sabra, a lawyer who was part of the opposition’s technical team during negotiations in Geneva in 2014. He replaces Mohamad Alloush, a fighter from the powerful Jaish Al-Islam faction. No reason was given for the decision to replace either Al-Zoabi or Alloush.
The delegation includes representatives from several opposition groups, including Faylaq Al-Sham, a militant faction active around Damascus, and Liwa Sultan Murad, a battalion close to Turkey.
The umbrella High Negotiations Committee (HNC) opposition group said the delegation to the talks would for the first time include representatives from two additional opposition groupings, known informally as the Moscow group and the Cairo group. But representatives from both groups denied they were included in the delegation.
The Moscow grouping includes former minister Qadri Jamil, and is close to the Russian leadership, while the Cairo grouping includes former Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi.

Dr. Nasr al-Hariri expressed solidarity with the Iranian Resistance on June 29, 2016.
In an interview with Simay-e Azadi (Iran opposition satellite television, INTV) he said: “The regime of Velayat-e faqih (absolute clerical rule) has paid billions of dollars to the Bashar al-Assad regime over six years... In my opinion, today the coordination between the Syrian Resistance and the Iranian Resistance is necessary in order to put an end to these criminal acts of the Velayat-e faqih regime.
My message to the gathering of the Iranian Resistance, which is scheduled to be held on July 9th in Paris, is that this opportunity is a golden opportunity for a national uprising against the regime.
Now that the regime has entered into a war of attrition in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and a number of other countries, it is a good time to activate coordinated efforts among the resistances of all of these countries to cooperate with the Iranian Resistance. (National Council of Resistance of Iran)

Al Zamil: Turkey, Saudi Arabia will reconstruct Syria
Seyma Eraz, Daily Sabah (Turkey) 13-2-2017

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will be holding official meetings today in Saudi Arabia on his second stop of a four-day visit to the Gulf States. The agenda of the president will involve both political and economic issues...
In a special interview with Daily Sabah, Abdulrahman Abdullah Al Zamil, chairman of the Council of Saudi Chambers and Head of Zamil Group, explained his expectations of the visit with Erdoğan.
The leader of the Saudi business community believes that the war in Syria will not last more than a year, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia will be the re-constructors of Syria.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are the pillars of the region and must act together, according to Zamil. "If peace comes to the region, trade will increase. Do not forget that a lot of construction will take place," he said.
"The only helpers for Syria will be Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Believe me, it is not for business reasons, but for humanitarian reasons," Zamil added. We are both considering the interests of the people...
Zamil also explained the reconstruction process. "This time, the construction will not be given to the governments. That is what I think. It will be directed to specific projects financed by Saudi Arabia or Turkey." Saudi and Turkish companies should only work with partners they trust.


Syrian Government to Probe Atrocities Committed by Militants in Aleppo
Sputnik Russian News Agency, 14-2-2017



eastern aleppo 2014 - al-qaeda rebels, supported by turkey and saudi-arabia

Syrian Justice Minister Najm Hamad Ahmad announced the establishment of the commission to investigate into crimes conducted by militants in the country's northern province of Aleppo, local media reported.
The commission is expected to establish authenticity of some 10,000 pages of documents that could include evidence of support of terrorists and their activities by several foreign states, the Al-Watan newspaper reported Monday.
The news outlet added that the minister stressed that the investigation aimed at search of all available evidence and documents that could shed the light on crimes conducted by militants in Aleppo.
The Syrian city of Aleppo, which was the so-called economic capital of the Middle Eastern country before the beginning of the civil war in 2011 had been under militants' control for several years and had been significantly damaged during the conflict.
The city was liberated by government forces from militant groups in December 2016, however several militant and extremist group are still fighting in the province.



eastern aleppo 2016 - iran is the enemy

Palestine is the Pivotal Issue of the Islamic World
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Jul 6, 2016

Speech delivered on July 6, 2016 by Ayatollah Khamenei, in a meeting with government officials and the ambassadors of Islamic countries in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The world of Islam is unfortunately deprived of unity in the present time. It is suffering from grave problems and from conflicts. When there is tumult and when there is conflict among Muslims, spirituality is undermined.
According to the logic of the Quran, spirituality and faith need tranquility to a great extent: “It is He Who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the believers, that they may add faith to their faith” [Quran, 48: 4]. When tranquility, peace and security exist, then people will have the chance to add faith to their faith with good deeds, with attention to God and with dhikr.
However, when the people in an Islamic country or in an Islamic group are afraid for their lives, their belongings and their security and when they do not benefit from security, there will not be any tranquility in that place either. And when tranquility does not exist, there will be no adding faith to faith either. Today, Muslims are in such a situation.

Many Islamic countries are mourning because of wars and bloodshed as well. Syria, Yemen, Libya and Bahrain are mourning. The Islamic Ummah does not deserve to suffer from all these problems.
Where do these problems come from? From which evil and sinister source do these problems originate? Who promotes this unclean embryo in the world of Islam?
Everyone expresses their hatred of terrorism in words and sometimes, they pretend that they are taking action against terrorism. As our honorable President said, they form a false, fake and bogus coalition against terrorism. But this is not the case in reality. In reality, they promote terrorism.

Robert Stephen Ford (born 1958) served as the United States Ambassador to Syria from 2010 to 2014.
Ford played a central role in developing the “extremism threat” scenario including the channeling of military aid to the Al Qaeda affiliated rebels. Ford was from the outset in the months leading up to the March 2011 insurrection among the key architects involved in the formulation of a US “Terrorist Option” for Syria including the recruitment and training of death squads in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. (Global Research 6-6-2014)
We have not forgotten the days when – this happened in the early days of the Syrian events – the U.S. ambassador went to the Syrian opponents to encourage them and to urge them to turn a political dispute into a civil war.
Is this a small matter? Well, political disputes exist in many countries. Why should they turn political disputes into a war? And that is a war among people in a country. It is a war of fratricide! And then with haraam money from oil revenues, they employ some youth from different corners and send them there!
This is happening in Syria and in Iraq in different ways. In the present time, it has been extended to other countries as well. It has been extended to Bangladesh, Turkey and other countries. It is these events which are creating such disasters for the world of Islam and which is causing this insecurity. Why should we not know our enemy?

Some people think that our insistence on America’s enmity towards us originates from our prejudice and bias. No, it originates from knowledge and experience!
It is 37 years now that we have been experiencing these enmities. From the beginning of the Revolution, they have showed enmity towards our great movement. From the beginning of the Revolution, they began hatching plots. And they are continuing to do so in the present time. They tried to pit Iranian tribes against the Islamic Republic.. They tried to pit dependent elements against the people. They succeeded in doing so to some extent, but the people defeated them in the end. They have continued these efforts until today..

Global arrogance wants to busy this region with itself so that the Zionist regime can breathe easily. They want to consign the issue of Palestine to oblivion. They want to deny the existence of a geographical entity and a nation.
Palestine is not a fake country that has come into being today. Palestine has a thousand-year history. The people of Palestine are a nation. They own a land and they own a geographical area. However, arrogance wants to deny all these things. It wants to deny the people of Palestine.
The issue of Palestine is the pivotal issue for the world of Islam. The issue of Palestine is an issue that no country should forget. No Islamic country and no country that has a human conscience should forget that this is a pivotal and fundamental issue.

Gilad Atzmon: "Be A Mensch", February 09, 2017

We learned a few days ago that 19 rabbis were arrested in NYC during a protest at Trump International Hotel. The Rabbi operates within the T’ruah organisation, a rabbinical human rights group that was formed (in 2002) to convey an image of Judaic ethical and universal awareness. But T’ruah do not just oppose Trump’s policy as ordinary human beings or American patriots. They actually operate as ‘Jews.’
But if they are actually talking as American Patriots who care for American universal values, why are they protesting ‘as Jews’? They should really protest as proud Americans.
"As Jews, who know what it means to be targeted by discriminatory laws, we stand firmly with refugees fleeing war, persecution, and economic strife," T’ruah Rabbis said in a statement.

Along the years I have developed an allergy to “as a” statements in general and “as a Jew” proclamations in particular. For one reason or another, rather often ‘as a Jew’ constructions happen to be grossly duplicitous.
If Jews know so much about persecution how come their Jewish State is institutionally racist and discriminatory towards minorities and gentiles?
If Jews are pro immigration, how come their Jewish State is vile in its attitude towards illegal immigration. If the Jews ‘stand firmly with refugees’ isn’t it about time their Jewish State invites millions of Palestinian refugees to return to the land that belongs to them and them alone? Do T’ruah rabbis openly support the Palestinian right of return? If they do, they manage to keep quiet about it.

But let’s take it further, can the T’ruah rabbis report to us how many Syrians have found a refuge in Jewish homes? Considering the wars were part of a Zio-Con project, can the Rabbis tell us when is the last time they sat down in the street in front of Paul Wolfowitz’ or Bernard Henri Levy’s homes? After all, Henri Levy claimed that ‘as a Jew’ he ‘liberated’ Libya.
Shouldn’t the T’ruah rabbis at least occupy the streets in front of the Israeli Embassy and AIPAC offices? After all, it was Israel and its lobby that pushed for war in Syria. It was Israel and its lobby that are directly involved in the creation of the refugee crisis in Syria.
I kindly advise T’ruah and other Jewish human rights groups to be slightly more economical with their duplicity...


Libya is looking like "failed state"
six years after NATO-backed uprising
We got rid of one dictator only to see 10,000 others take his place
Middle East Online, 15-2- 2017

Mohammed Gaddafi - Escape to Hell
Libyan Free Press, 3-4-2012

How cruel people can be when they flare up together! What a crushing flood that has no mercy for anyone in its way!
It does not heed one’s cry or lend one a hand when one is in dire need of help. On the contrary, it flings one about heedlessly.

The individual’s tyranny is the easiest kind of tyranny. He is only one among many, who can get rid of him when they wish. He could even be liquidated somehow by somebody unimportant. But the tyranny of the masses is the cruellest kind of tyranny.
Who can stand against the crushing current and the blind engulfing power?! How I love the liberated masses on the march! They are unfettered, with no master, singing and merry after their terrible ordeals! On the other hand how I fear and apprehend them!
I love the masses as much as I love my father. Similarly, I fear them no less than I fear him.

Read also: US Ambassador killed

TRIPOLI - Libya's transition has been bogged down by insecurity and chaos, leaving the country looking like a "failed state" six years after the NATO-backed uprising that ended Moamer Gathafi's rule.
"We got rid of one dictator only to see 10,000 others take his place," said Fatma al-Zawi, a Tripoli housewife, bemoaning the multitude of warlords and militias which have run the North African country since the armed revolt which erupted in mid-February 2011.
Ordinary Libyans are showing little enthusiasm for the anniversary, which the authorities plan to mark on Thursday with cultural and sporting events in Martyrs' Square in the capital. Living conditions have deteriorated badly through a combination of insecurity, power cuts, water shortages, a cash crunch and the plunging value of the Libyan dinar.
Libya's executive and legislative branches have been paralysed by fierce rivalries between political movements, ideologies and tribes.

"The protagonists have not understood that no single ideological branch or political or tribal clan can govern the country on its own" in the post-Kadhafi era, said Rachid Khechana, director of the Mediterranean Centre for Libyan Studies in Tunis. "This is why the country is not ready for 'classic' democratic competition" through elections, he said.
In the absence of a strong regular army, the oil-rich country with long, porous borders has turned into rich terrain for smugglers of arms and people from sub-Saharan Africa desperate to reach Europe via perilous Mediterranean crossings.

Hopes for a recovery and return to an era of security raised by a Government of National Accord (GNA), set up under a December 2015 agreement brokered by the United Nations and signed in Morocco, proved short-lived. It set up shop in Tripoli in March 2016 but has failed to extend its authority, even in the capital which is controlled by dozens of militias of shifting allegiances.
The authority of the GNA headed by Fayez al-Sarraj is challenged by a rival administration in east Libya, much of which is under the control of armed forces commanded by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, a sworn foe of Islamist militants, is accused by detractors of aiming to establish a new military dictatorship and has so far failed to woo Western support. But a rapprochement with Russia and the backing he enjoys from regional states such as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are prompting the international community to review its position.

"It's now been six years that the international community is trying to impose a democratic, united government when there is nothing on which they can build it," said Federica Saini Fasanotti, an analyst with the Washington-based Brookings Institution. Fasanotti stressed that "not a single remotely unifying political leader has emerged for the country".

Read also: America's Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East


Trump: Two-state solution not only way to achieve peace
Al-Jazeera, 15-2-2017

President Donald Trump has dropped Washington's commitment for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, backing away from a long-held position of the US and the international community in the Middle East.
In a joint press conference on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said he would back a single-state solution if the two sides agreed to it.
"Looking at two-state or one-state, I like the one that both parties like. I'm very happy with the one both parties like. I can live with either one," Trump told reporters after meeting Netanyahu in Washington.
"The United States will encourage a peace and really a great peace deal ... We will be working on it very, very diligently. But it is the parties themselves who must directly negotiate such an agreement," Trump said.
A two-state solution - the idea of Israel and Palestine living side-by-side and at peace - has been the bedrock of US and international diplomacy for the past two decades.
Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from the White House, said Trump's comments marked "a very dramatic development" in the search for peace in the Middle East. "Now, for the first time upending long-standing US policy, Trump says he is not wedded to a two-state solution, and that's a fundamental change - basically ripping up the longstanding roadmap. "It's going against UN Security Council resolutions; it's going against the agreed position of the international community."

Earlier on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had warned that there was "no alternative" to a two-state solution to the conflict: "There is no alternative solution for the situation between the Palestinians and Israelis, other than the solution of establishing two states and we should do all that can be done to maintain this," Guterres said during a visit to Cairo on Wednesday.
Palestinian officials also issued their warnings to the US against abandoning a two-state solution.
"If the Trump administration rejects this policy it would be destroying the chances for peace and undermining American interests, standing and credibility abroad," Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), said in response to the US official's remarks.
The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, with the capital in East Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war.


On Trump's comments about accepting a One-State solution:

-- The problem is Netanyahu doesn't agree to two states and does not agree to one state. The one state thing means that Jews, Christians and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis will live together in one democratic state (with equal rights for all). But Netanyahu and his coalition do not agree to one (democratic) state and they reject the two-state solution.
-- The Palestinians agree to one (democratic) state and they are happy with two states. What they disagree to is an apartheid (Master-Slave) system where there is two systems in one land: one superior for Jews (Israel is the State of the Chosen People) and one inferior for the Palestinians (residents with limited rights who are allowed to live in the State of the Chosen People).


The One State Solution was in fact the PLO's official stance until 1988
Jonathan Spyer, 29 september 2008

Muamar Gaddafi, White Book 2003
"Let's call it Isratine"
The one-state idea is not new. Rather, variants of it have formed the preferred outcome of the conflict for the Palestinian national movement throughout the greater period of its history.
The "democratic state" idea became the official stance of the PLO after the eighth Palestinian National Council (PNC) in 1971. It replaced earlier formulations that had hardly related to the issue of statehood at all but that had instead concentrated on the claim of the injustice of the creation of Israel and the proclaimed Palestinian or Arab right to reverse its creation.
From the early 1970s the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) proclaimed itself in support of the idea of a "non-sectarian", democratic state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
From the 1980s, the idea of the "non-sectarian state" appeared to be in a process of decline in the mainstream Fatah organization and among some other groupings within the PLO. It was replaced with the idea of two states. This idea first appeared in the form of the Palestinian desire to create a state in any area of "liberated" territory.
After the Algiers PNC of 1988, it was promoted in terms of a peaceful two-state outcome. This position made possible the rapid emergence of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the 1990s.
Since the abrupt demise of the Oslo process in 2000, however, the idea of the "non sectarian state" has been undergoing a process of revival.
Due to the contemporary familiarity of the term "two-state solution" in discussion of the conflict, it has been renamed the "one-state solution," but in all particulars it resembles the earlier stance of the movement.
The advocates of the one-state solution maintain that since Israel has chosen to sabotage the possibility of partition, there is no longer any possibility for the realization of this, and since Israeli settlement activity has de facto created a single entity west of the Jordan River, the appropriate --or perhaps sole possible-- response of the Palestinian national movement is to accept this fait accompli and to begin a campaign for integration of the entire population of this area into a single state framework.

Democratic, Secular State Only Real Alternative
Peter Beaumont in Jericho, The Guardian, 15 February 2017

“Only democracy in the Middle East”?
Don’t make me laugh. Israel became a military theocracy long ago.
B. Michael, Haaretz, 14-2-2017

Calling on the wider international community to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with Palestinians to protect the two-state solution, Saeb Erekat, senior Palestinian negotiator, warned that undermining the long-standing strategy was no joke.
“We want to tell those who want to bury and destroy the two-state solution that the only real alternative to a Palestinian state living alongside an Israeli one on the 1967 lines is a democratic, secular state where Jews, Christians and Muslims can live together,” he said.
Emerging from a meeting with the speaker of the UK parliament, John Bercow, in Jericho, he added: “Those who believe they can leave the two-state solution and replace it with one state and two systems, I don’t believe they can get away with it. It is impossible. I believe undermining the two-state solution is not a joke and that would be a disaster and tragedy for Israelis and Palestinians.”
Referring to far-right Israeli ministers who have called for an end to the two-state solution and an annexation, Erekat added: “People can hallucinate and believe they can create one state with two systems but this this is not sustainable.”

Husam Zomlot, strategic affairs adviser to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, also noted that Palestinian statehood had long been at the heart of international peace efforts.
The two-state solution is not something we just came up with. It is an international consensus and decision after decades of Israel’s rejection of the one-state democratic formula,” Zomlot told Reuters...
“If the Trump administration rejects this policy it would be destroying the chances for peace and undermining American interests, standing and credibility abroad,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Accommodating the most extreme and irresponsible elements in Israel and in the White House is no way to make responsible foreign policy,” she added in a statement.

Albert Einstein, Manhattan Opera House 22-4-1935:
Revisionists are an obstacle to peace

Declaring that the Revisionists are “inner enemies,” Prof. Albert Einstein urged the establishment of friendly relations with the Arabs and warned against viewing Palestine merely as a place of refuge.
“Under the guise of nationalist propaganda,” Prof. Einstein said, “Revisionism seeks to support the destructive speculation in land; it seeks to exploit the people and deprive them of their rights.
The state of mind fed by Revisionism is the most serious obstacle in the way of our peaceable and friendly cooperation with the Arab, people who are racially our kin.”

“The Jews,” he continued, “must beware of viewing Palestine merely as a place of refuge.
The young men and women who went there before and after the World War made immense sacrifices and envisaged the creation of a Jewish commonwealth which would approximate the traditional ideals of justice and selfless love of man-kind more closely than did the European countries from which they came, and it is in that spirit Jews should regard Palestine for the future.” (JTA website)

Ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority
Open Letter to the New York Times (Dec. 2, 1948)

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.
It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.
The current visit of Menachen Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States...
It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world [..] could add their names and support to the movement he represents.
Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority...

Read more: Saddam's Death, Page 47

The idea of the minority Israelis in the occupied territories ruling the majority Palestinians is called apartheid and is considered a war crime according to international humanitarian law.
Palestinian legislator Mustafa Barghouti responded to this idea by stating in a press release, following the Feb. 15 White House meetings, “Palestinians are unwilling to live as slaves to the occupiers in an apartheid racist system.” (Al-Monitor, 16-2-2017)


Clashes Between Syrian Gov't and Moderate Opposition Forces Ended
Sputnik News, 16-2-2017

Clashes between the Syrian government and moderate opposition forces have fully stopped, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated during his meeting with UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. He also stated that the fights were fully eliminated with the help of the conflict sides and the mediators.
"We hope to further build a constructive dialogue with the opposition. All in all, progress we made after December 29 [nationwide ceasefire], progress we have now — this scenario is much better than it used to be. The amount of shellings has significantly fallen, direct clashes have stopped completely," he stated.
Russia hopes for a roadmap on separating terrorists from the moderate opposition in Syria at ongoing ceasefire talks in Astana, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also said.
He underscored the importance of locating the positions of the Daesh jihadist group and the ex-Nusra Front, and stressed that Russia will continue anti-terrorist efforts in alliance with the moderate Syrian opposition, Turkey, and Iran.
Last week, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Syrian government forces and Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army have agreed on a demarcation line in the city of al-Bab, where both Damascus and the rebels are currently conducting an operation to free the area from Daesh.

Muslim Brotherhood Marks Banna Assassination Anniversary
IkhwanWeb , Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Today (Sunday), is the 68th anniversary of the assassination, and martyrdom, of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al-Banna established the largest group that has been standing firm for 90 years, spread geographically in more than 80 countries...
Al-Banna was very clear from the first moment: "We know what we want, and we know the way to achieve it. We want the Muslim individual, the Muslim household, the Muslim people, the Muslim government, and the Muslim state, which leads Islamic countries, unifies all Muslims, regains their glory, gives them back their lost territories and usurped homelands, and flies the flag of jihad and the call to God until the whole world is truly happy, through the teachings of Islam".
Hence, the forces of evil gathered from every corner of the world to fight this group which seeks to liberate all humans from all authority except that of God, seeks to end the exploitation and enslavement of man by man, and strives to build a strong united Islamic nation...

Al-Banna was aware that the road was long and winding and difficult, with many troubles and tribulations. Seventy years ago he said:
"Dear Brothers… the people's ignorance of real pure Islam will stand an obstacle in your way. You will find people of faith and official scholars bewildered by your perspective of Islam." "They will blame you for your struggle or jihad for your faith. Presidents, leaders, the wealthy and the powerful will begrudge you. All governments alike will stand in your path..." "Are you prepared to be Allah's supporters?!"

Hasan al-Banna & The Islamic One-Party State
by zhyntativ (zhyntativ.blogspot.com)

While studying in Cairo, Hassan al-Banna immersed himself in the writings of the founders of Islamic reformism (the Salafi movement), including the Egyptian Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), under whom his father had studied while at Al-Azhar.
But it was Abduh's disciple, the Syrian Rashid Rida (1865-1935), who most influenced Al-Banna.
Al-Banna was a dedicated reader of Al-Manar, the magazine that Rida published in Cairo from 1898 until his death in 1935. He shared Rida"s central concern with the decline of Islamic civilization relative to the West. He too believed that this trend could be reversed only by returning to an unadulterated form of Islam, free from all the accretions that had diluted the strength of its original message.

Muhammad Rashid Rida was a key supporter of the Caliphate, the Islamic state led by the Caliph, modelled on the earliest form of Islamic government in the Arabian peninsula.
Rida's ideas have been crucial to the development of political Islam to the modern day. Through al-Manar ("the lighthouse"), the journal that he published with Muhammad Abduh from 1898, he sought to champion political Islam against European colonialism.
After the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924, Rida resisted the idea that the Caliphate should be a purely spiritual authority, and promoted sharia, or Islamic law, as an integrated, coherent social and political programme for Muslims.
His insistence that all-encompassing sharia is a fundamental part of a Muslim state continues to inform one strand of contemporary political Islam.
At the domestic level, he railed against the Christian missionaries who appeared in the colonies, accusing them of "attacking Muslim beliefs" and pointing to their "ambiguous verses" to undermine Islam. He also argued that Europe's claim to Christian identity was contradicted by the continent's materialistic culture.
In the early centuries of Islam, the term Caliph was referred to the highest leader of the Muslim community. He had two roles; firstly as a ruler practicing the roles of the Prophet and secondly as a religious leader leading the communal prayers. The Caliphate has appeared for fourteen centuries and was abolished by Mustafa Kemal in 1924.
In June 2014, the leaders of the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) proclaimed that the Caliphate had been re-established and declared Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is the Caliph of Muslims

Banna stated: "Islam does not recognize geographical boundaries, not does if acknowledge racial and blood differences, considering all Muslims as one Umma.
The Muslim Brethren do not oppose every one’s working for one’s own fatherland. They believe that the caliphate is a symbol of Islamic Union and an indication of the bonds between the nations of Islam. They see the caliphate and its re-establishment as a top priority, subsequently; an association of Muslims people should be set up, which would elect the imam".

Created in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood became the first mass-based, overtly political movement to oppose the ascendancy of secular and Western ideas in the Middle East.
The brotherhood saw in these ideas the root of the decay of Islamic societies in the modern world, and advocated a return to Islam as a solution to the ills that had befallen Muslim societies.
Al-Banna tried to stop the flood of the Western cultural invasion... Islamism meant the reform of the society. This goal has been expanded to include the full establishment of shari’ah law.
While the idea of political Pan-Islam was less central to his thinking than that of religious Pan-Islam, Banna recommend the union of Islamic nations around the precept of Qur’an and he held in high esteem political organization, propaganda and active involvement.
Al-Banna, the chief ideologue of the Ikhwan, declared that the mission of his organization was to accomplish two objectives: the independence of the Muslim land from foreign domination, and the establishment of an Islamic sociopolitical system (unitiy of ummah).
There was no room in his thinking for compromise with other manners or customs, Islam presented to him a unified and perfect system and the introduction of foreign elements on a large scale into Muslim society should be avoided.


yusuf qaradawi, qatari-turkey backed muslim brotherhood cleric, 2012

To achieve the Ikhwan’s goals, al-Banna called for a gradualistic approach in which the desired reform could be attained through three stages.
First is the stage of communication and propagation. Second is the stage of mobilization and organization in which the movement would select and train its active members. Finally comes the stage of executing and implementing the Islamic rules and principles in which a society is completely transformed into an Islamic one
His approach aimed at neutralizing any form of local nationalism. Al-Banna did not see his organization as a political party, but as a prototype of an Islamic society. Nor did he consider the Ikhwan’s political participation within the context of sharing power with other parties. Rather, he believed that it was imperative that the Ikhwan movement grew until it encompassed the entire Egyptian society (the One-Party State).

Generally speaking, although the Ikhwan’s approach appeared to be for the most part peaceful and gradualistic, it was potentially violent. Al-Banna, for example, clearly asserted that he would not hesitate to use violence if he were forced to do so, or when the Ikhwan were ready to seize power: "The Brethren will use practical force whenever there is no other way and whenever they are sure the implement of faith and unity is ready."


The parallel universe of Human Rights Watch
Hany Ghoraba, Ahram Weekly Opinion, 16-22 febr 2017

Alternative worlds or parallel universes are well known theories by scientists depicted in countless works of art, literature as well as movies and TV series. In most of these depictions, the world we know has a parallel alternate, whereby similar human beings exist except in different conditions, professions and alternative ways of life.
On 8 February 2017, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued one of the most bizarre statements attempting to condemn US President Trump forecasted plans to ban the Muslim Brotherhood organisation as a terrorist group...
The bizarre HRW report preposterously concludes that banning the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organisation will stifle democracy abroad and will limit the work of other civic Muslim organisations in US.
The report, titled “Don’t Target the Muslim Brotherhood”, seemed for most who read it as if was written in one of those aforementioned parallel universes and not issued from this earthly realm.
The report depicts the Muslim Brotherhood as some sort of United Nations charitable organisation for Muslims and not a terrorist group with offices and cells in over 80 countries around the world.
Moreover, the delusional report goes on to describe Muslim Brotherhood activities in Egypt as “peaceful” and that these peaceful activities are met for some reason by a crackdown from Egyptian authorities...
Since the ignition of the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011, the researchers and administrators of HRW seem to have been trapped in one of these alternate universes. From that alternate universe they are issuing one report after another whereby they are turning terrorists into heroic victims while turning victims into aggressors.

The deluded report fail to mention that Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the group in 1928, denounced any democracy based on multiple political parties in his Rasael “Letters” to group members and even falsely claimed that it is prohibited to have political parties in Islam.
The reports shows clear ignorance of the literature of the Brotherhood and their leaders, starting from Al-Banna and the writings of the Brotherhood Godfather of modern terrorism Sayed Qutb, who inspired the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
Democracy is an abhorred word in Muslim Brotherhood discourse as they would only utilise a free election to rise to power and then change the constitution to end any democratic practices.
Striking examples of this took place in Egypt, Gaza, Turkey and Iran with Egypt being the only country that managed to topple Islamists through the 30 June 2013 Revolution.

Since the 1940s, the Muslim Brotherhood has wreaked havoc all across Egypt and has caused dozens of killings, bombings and assassinations. These assassinations included Egyptian Prime Minister Al-Noqrashi Pasha in 1948, through the assassination of President Sadat in 1981, and lately the assassination of the General Attorney Hicham Barakat in June 2015.
Furthermore, the Muslim Brotherhood organisation and other Islamists are the main obstacle facing Muslims immigrants trying to integrate within Western societies. They have kept Muslim immigrants from integrating into Western societies by forming ghetto-like secluded communities... Consequently, the above seclusion leads to further discrimination and stereotyping by the natives of these Western societies towards new Muslim immigrants. I

Should US President Trump list the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, it will deal a massive blow to efforts to legalise and whitewash international terrorism under the pretext of integrating political Islam (Islamism) as a mainstream ideology.
As to Human Rights Watch, it would certainly help if those who never studied Muslim Brotherhood history or their catastrophic effect on Middle East politics, revise Brotherhood literature and review their documented long history of violence, extremist discourse and terrorism in the region.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s imperialist master plan for the resurrection of the Caliphate is still in effect. This master plan is featured in all their literature in Arabic and even other languages as it is the ultimate goal of the group.

Hany Farouk Ghoraba is an Egyptian political writer, businessman and freelance Journalist. He obtained a BA in Mass Communication from the American University Cairo in 1997; with a specialisation in Journalism and a Minor in Political Science.
His book "Egypt’s Arab Spring: The long and winding road to democracy" is a culmination of several years’ work, starting from the beginnings of the Egyptian revolution. This analysis of the revolution is a seminal piece that provides insight into recent events in Egypt and the Middle East.

"The silver lining around the mess that burst forth in Egypt and the rest of the region is that the majority of citizens of the region are now completely convinced that the “caliphate” and religious systems of governance only belong to the history books and the Arabian Nights fairy tales.
Moreover, now more than ever, they are convinced that only a secular system of governance can extract Egypt and the rest of the region from the abyss that it fell in." Hany Ghoraba, 19-1-2017

Netanyahu: 'Iran seeks global domination'
Gary Willig, Arutz Sheva, 17/02/2017


netanyahu, lindsey graham, the magical bomb & the forces of evil

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu discussed the threat of the Iranian regime in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity Thursday, sayd US as much a target of Ayatollahs as Israel.
Netanyahu said that Iran represents the biggest threat "because it would couple a radical Islamic regime with nuclear weapons.
There could be evil that is not threatening because it doesn't have the powers of mass murder. But when you couple a radical Islamic regime that says 'Death to America' with the weapons of mass death, then you have a much, much bigger problem."

He accused the Iranian regime of seeking to bring down the US as part of of its goal of global domination.
"They believe that they’re destined to govern the world. Anybody that doesn’t agree with them, they’ll be able to subjugate or kill, and they’re working on the means to achieve that."

Liberman: Iran part of 'the Axis of Evil'
Times of Israel staff, February 17, 2017

2006: George W. Bush meets
Sayyed Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim

Al-Hakim played a leading role in the 'Safar Intifada' in Iraq in 1977 and was imprisoned by the Iraqi government in 1972, 1977 and 1979. He went into exile in Iran in 1980, where he was a founding member in 1982 of Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a group set up under Iran's auspices to bring Islamic revolution to Iraq.
Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said he was relishing sharing a session, unprecedentedly, with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the high-level Munich Security Conference on Sunday, and that he hoped Zarif would stay in the room to hear him denounce Iran for its efforts “to blow up every state” in the Middle East.
The two men are set to take part in a discussion entitled “Old Crises, New Middle East.” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu are the other two participants.
“I hope Foreign Minister Zarif will be in the hall when I speak, and that he hears exactly what I think about the ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran.”
The defense minister said he intended to tell the session exactly what he had been telling the series of defense ministers he had already been meeting at the conference: that Iran is the greatest threat to Middle East stability.
Liberman said he discussed the threat posed by Iran with the defense ministers of the US, Canada, Britain and Singapore, as well as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“I told them all the same thing: The biggest danger to the stability of the entire Middle East is Iran. Iran with all its nuclear plans, and its attempts to blow up every state, and to harm the stability of every country – it doesn’t matter if it is Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, or Israel.
Liberman said Iran and North Korea, which has its own nuclear program, are part of the same “axis of evil” that also includes “Hezbollah and the [Bashar] Assad regime in Syria.”
Meanwhile, Iran on Thursday said Israel’s reported nuclear arsenal was the biggest threat to world peace. Israel is the “biggest threat to the peace and security in the region and the world,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said, quoted by state news agency IRNA.


Liberman: ‘Cool down’ on talk of West Bank annexation, sovereignty
'We need Israel as a Jewish state, and not a binational state'
By Times of Israel staff February 17, 2017

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Friday called on Israeli officials to “cool down” on plans for imposing sovereignty in the West Bank and building in the settlements, in comments that seemed to be directed at his colleagues in the government.
We cannot progress without understandings with the US, regarding construction as well as regarding imposing sovereignty, and therefore I suggest that everyone cool down...”
“Regarding annexation and building in Judea and Samaria, we’d better understand well that this is not something achieved by declarations or attempts to make short-term electoral gains,” the minister said, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name.
His comments were apparently mainly directed at Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, who has been championing demands for Israel to annex settlement blocs and large parts of the West Bank...

The defense minister said “we need Israel as a Jewish state, and not a binational state.”
In my opinion we need to separate from the Palestinians, also those who live in Wadi Ara (a largely Arab populated area in the Haifa district of northern Israel). There is no reason for us to agree to a Palestinian state with not one Jew, 'Judenrein', while we become a country with a more than 20 percent Arab population,” he said.
In the past, the defense minister has often proposed a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict in which the two sides would carry out “population exchanges.”
The defense minister has been often criticized by the opposition for his suspicious attitude toward Israel’s Arab citizenry.


cool down: likud election video

Flashback: September 2016 Avigdor Liberman called for the transfer of some of Israel’s Arab population to a future Palestinian state as part of any peace plan, in an apparent split with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who last week claimed “no one would seriously” consider such a move.
“I don’t see a reason why the ‘Triangle’ [a predominantly Arab region of northern Israel] and Umm al-Fahm need to be a part of Israel,” Liberman said, during a question and answer session at Ariel University in the West Bank.
This “lands and populations” transfer is not a new position for Liberman. It has been a central aspect of his peace plan since 2004. (Times of Israel, 12-9-2016)

A December 2010 survey by the Brookings Institution found that 58 per cent of Israeli Arabs oppose the sorts of swaps proposed by Lieberman and Livni. The Jewish-Arab Relations Index, an annual publication from the University of Haifa, consistently finds majority support for that view (57 per cent in the most recent survey, in 2008). Similarly, a 2000 poll of Umm al-Fahm residents found that 83 per cent want their city to remain Israeli. (Al-Jazeera, 25-1-2017)

freddie king - play it cool

West Side Story: Play it cool boy


Erdogan supporters increasingly demonising 'no' voters
Middle East Online, 18-2-2017

ANKARA - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his supporters are increasingly demonising voters thinking of rejecting a plan to grant him greater powers in an April referendum, raising fears of a further polarisation of society.
Turkey will on April 16 vote in a referendum on constitutional changes to create a presidential system which Erdogan argues is needed for better governance but critics fear will lead to one man rule.
Polls are indicating a tight race with approval for the plan by no means a foregone conclusion, opening the way for the kind of no-holds-barred campaign in which Erdogan revels.
Erdogan has already accused those who plan to vote 'no' of siding with the failed July 15 coup plot blamed by the authorities on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen. "To be honest those who say 'no' are on the side of July 15," he said in a speech this week. "Who are the ones saying 'no'? Those who want to break up the country. Those who are opposed to our flag."
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim meanwhile has said a 'no' vote is what is wanted by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the group of Gulen, which Ankara terms the Fethullah Terror Group (FETO).
"The terrorist groups are campaigning in chorus for the 'no' vote," he said. "My citizens are not going to stand alongside terrorist groups."

Analysts say the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is falling back on a tried and tested strategy of stigmatising those who vote against its domination.
The referendum is coming with tens of thousands awaiting trial on charges of assisting the putsch, in an unprecedented crackdown. The authorities however insist citizens are free to vote as they wish.
"If a single person is detained or arrested for saying vote 'no' in the referendum then I will resign today," said Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag. "There is nothing of the sort."
Prominent Turkish novelist Asli Erdogan -- no relation of the president -- said the referendum was not about the constitution but being for or against Erdogan: "If you say 'no' you are a demon. This is the essence of their strategy and it is clever," Asli Erdogan, who was this month released after four months in prison, said.


Israel and Saudi Arabia close ranks against Iran
Itamar Eichner, YNet News|Reuters, 19-2-2017

Israel and Saudi Arabia presented a united front on Sunday, issuing almost identical warnings of caution against Iranian aggression...
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir closed ranks, despite their respective countries having no official diplomatic relations, as they rebuffed statements made by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif calling on Sunni Muslim Gulf states to help reduce violence in the area.

Among the accusations levelled against Iran by Israel and Saudi Arabia, who were subsequently joined by Turkey, were its involvement in the Syrian civil war on behalf of the country’s President Bashar al-Assad, its development of ballistic missiles, its funding of Shi'ite rebels in Yemen and its efforts to undermine various regimes in the region.
Al-Jubeir called Tehran the main sponsor of global terrorism and a destabilising force in the Middle East. The international community needed to set clear "red lines" to halt Iran's actions, he said, calling for banking, travel and trade restrictions aimed at changing Tehran's behaviour.
He sidestepped a question about Israel's call for concerted action with Sunni Arab states amid growing speculation that the two countries could normalize relations and join forces to oppose Tehran, much as Turkey has done.

Lieberman said Iran's ultimate objective was to undermine Riyadh, and called for a dialogue with Sunni Arab countries to defeat "radical" elements in the region.
"The real division is not Jews, Muslims ... but moderate people versus radical people," Lieberman told delegates.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also criticized what he called an Iranian "sectarian policy" aimed at undermining Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. "It's good that we are now normalizing our relations with Israel."
Zarif opened Sunday's session with the call for dialogue to address "anxieties" in the region. This followed a visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Oman and Kuwait last week to try to improve ties, his first visit to the Gulf states since taking power in 2013.
Asked if Iran's envisioned regional dialogue could include Israel, Zarif said Tehran was looking at a more "modest" approach. "I'm focusing on the Persian Gulf. We have enough problems in this region so we want to start a dialogue with countries we call brothers in Islam," he said.


Qatar shares Russia’s position on right of Syrians
to choose their president: ambassador
TASS Russian News Agency, 20/02/2017

Doha shares Moscow’s stance that it is only up to the people in Syria to decide on the country’s future president, Russian Ambassador to Qatar Nurmakhmad Kholov told TASS on Monday.
“As we have repeatedly told our partners, the issue of Bashar Asad’s presidency in Syria is not in the competence of Russia or Qatar or any other country,” Kholov said in an interview with TASS.
“This issue must be decided by the Syrian people only by means of transparent and legitimate elections,” the Russian ambassador said.
“Our colleagues in Qatar completely share this stance with us and believe that Moscow’s approaches in this regard are very constructive,” Kholov added.

According to the Russian diplomat, Qatar did not receive an official invitation to join the talks on the inter-Syrian settlement, which were held in the capital of Kazakhstan on January 23-24.
"However, the authorities of Qatar expressed their interest in joining this format, since the country, as one of the key players in the region, exercises major influence on the situation in Syria," Kholov said.
The Russian diplomat said that despite different approaches and disagreements on other issues, both Moscow and Doha pursue the final aim of achieving ceasefire in Syria with the preserved integrity of the country and restoration of all state and municipal authority institutions.
"In political sense, Qatar has a certain influence on the moderate opposition in Syria," Kholov said. "For instance, former president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib is currently residing in Doha and he is an ideologist for certain groups of the moderate opposition, including Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham," he said.
"Last year, Russian president’s special envoy on Syrian reconciliation Alexander Lavrentyev paid three visits to Doha, where he held a number of meetings with senior officials of the emirate," Kholov said.

The ambassador told TASS that there were no anti-Russian sentiments in Doha despite different approaches of Russia and Qatar on the issue of the Syrian conflict settlement.
"As for media criticism against Moscow regarding the Syrian issue, I should say that no attention should be paid to ‘ordered analytics’ of certain western political circles, which seeks benefit from the protracted conflict in Syria," the ambassador added.

Flashback - Ex-Opposition Leader Admits Mistake
about Syrian Gov't, Says Assad Fighting Terrorists
FARS News, 20-11-2014

TEHRAN (FNA)- Former President of the National Coalition for Syrian Opposition Forces Moaz Al-Khatib confessed that his opposition to the Damascus government has been a grave mistake, saying that President Bashar Al-Assad has been fighting against the terrorists.
"I acknowledge that I have made a mistake in the past as I imagined that the western and Arab countries as well as Turkey wanted to help Syria and its people," Turkish news website Ulusal quoted Khatib as saying on his account on a social network.
He wrote that the so-called Friends of Syria are actually the enemies of Syria and terrorists are cooperating with them to destroy Syria.
"I have come to the conclusion that the Syrian government is fighting against the terrorists; it is paying salary to its employees in different parts, supplies electricity and do things that show it is thinking of the people," Khatib said.

Read more on Page 47

‘Secret wars’ and nation-building:
Bolton all wrong for national security post, Rand Paul warns
The Washington Times - Sunday, February 19, 2017

Senator Rand Paul on Sunday urged President Trump against choosing former U.N. ambassador John R. Bolton as his national security adviser.
Mr. Paul, whose anti-interventionist stance aligns closely with what the president has espoused, said he fears that Mr. Bolton’s go-it-alone mindset would lead to “secret wars” around the globe.
“The problem with John Bolton is he disagrees with President Trump’s foreign policy,” the Kentucky Republican said on ABC’s “This Week.”
John Bolton still believes the Iraq War was a good idea. He still believes that regime change is a good idea. He still believes that nation-building is a good idea,” said the senator.
“I think that his history of sort of acting on his own, my fear is that secret wars would be developing around the globe. And so, no, I think he would be a bad choice.”
Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and frequent commentator on Fox News, has bucked the neoconservative label but has been associated with many groups advocating those views. His foreign policy stance, however, is undoubtedly more hawkish than Mr. Paul’s.

Flashback - Project for the New American Century
sent letter to President Bill Clinton, January 26, 1998
Dear Mr. President,

"We urge you to (..) turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts.
Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf.
In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.
We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.
Sincerely,

Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, JOHN BOLTON, Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Robert B. Zoellick

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that focused on United States foreign policy. It was established as a non-profit educational organization in 1997, and founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. PNAC's stated goal was "to promote American global leadership."


Iranian capital to host international conference on Palestine
Press TV, Mon Feb 20, 2017

The Iranian capital, Tehran, is set to host a two-day international conference on Palestine in a show of solidarity with the oppressed nation in the face of Israel occupation and atrocities.
The 6th International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) will open in Tehran on Monday, with 80 delegations from around the world expected to be in attendance. Around 700 foreign guests and representatives of the pro-Palestinian organizations are slated to take part in the event.
Among other participants are senior Iranian officials, including President Hassan Rouhani, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, according to Lawmaker Kazem Jalali, the spokesman of the conference.
Jalali said the conference will be held at a time when 'the Zionist regime' [Israel] is waging proxy wars in the region in an attempt to distract the Muslim world from the Palestinian cause.
In an interview with Al Mayadeen news channel, Abbas Zaki, a senior member of the Palestinian Fatah movement, praised the upcoming forum in Tehran as a “real victory for the Palestinian nation.” The official also criticized the Arab governments for their failure in dealing the Israeli regime’s occupation of Palestinian lands.
The conference will be held in Tehran amid ongoing tensions between Palestinians and the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank. The tensions are viewed as the third intifada against Israel. The first intifada took place between 1987 and 1993, and the second one in the 2000s.




"Then if they should be inclined to make peace, do thou incline towards it also,
and put thy trust in Allah." Quran, 8:62, cited by Yasser Arafat in his Nobel Lecture, 1994

Flashback - Ariel Sharon 2002

- If an agreement on ending the conflict with the Palestinians is not possible and if a peace agreement with the Syrians is dangerous, what alternative are you proposing? What hope?
- "From the strategic point of view, I think that it's possible that in another 10 or 15 years the Arab world will have less ability to strike at Israel than it has today. That is because Israel will be a country with a flourishing economy, whereas the Arab world may be on the decline.
True, there is no guarantee of this, but it is definitely possible that because of technological and environmental developments, the price of oil will fall and the Arab states will find themselves in a crisis situation, while Israel will be strengthened
The conclusion is that time is not working against us and therefore it is important to achieve solutions that will take place across a lengthy period.
"But if you ask me what hope I am offering to the Israeli public, I propose setting a series of national goals: bringing a million Jews within 12 years, so that by 2020 the majority of the Jewish people will be living in Israel; and renewing education according to Zionist principles, which will restore the sense of the justice of the struggle and the feeling that we have a full right to this land, ideas which have been very much eroded in recent years." (Interview met Ariel Sharon, Ha'aretz - Ari Shavit)

Raqqa needs to be retaken
Hakkı Öcal, Daily Sabah, 20-2-2017

Did you read about the deadliest attack in more than two years in Pakistan? A suicide bomber struck a crowded Sufi shrine, killing at least 75 people, including women and children. Hundreds of others were wounded in the attack as they performed a ritual at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in the southern Sindh province.
It is believed that the shrine, built in 1356, is by the tomb of Muhammad Osman Marwandi, the Sufi philosopher poet, better known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, one of Pakistan's most respected scholars....
In Turkey we too have a Sufi philosopher poet. In the Western world he is known as Rumi; we call him Mawlana Jalaluddin.... You might know that Rumi's book of poems, "Mathnawi al-Ma'nawi" is the second top selling book in the U.S. after the King James Bible.
The non-mainstream, Wahhabi exegesis of Islamic thought says that the veneration of a mortal human being in the form of erecting shrines for him, visiting his tomb, et cetera, is not acceptable...

So, a group of men gathered in Raqqa in northern Syria and said that if you accept such behavior they would have the right to kill you.
They called themselves the Islam State in Iraq and Levant (East) and Sham (Damascus) (ISIL, ISIS or Daesh). They thought the terror they resorted to would scare Muslims into accepting their interpretation of Islam...
In fact they are a bunch of terrorists, using religion as a facade to camouflage their true intentions... That's why Raqqa must be retaken.

"Qalandar’s belief in all humans as equals still stands the test of time, where all sects, religions and genders are present at Sehwan. Everyone is considered a devotee there, regardless of where the religious and political affiliation otherwise lies. It is a public space in Pakistan that defies our ordinary understanding of restricted public spaces for women. Women, clad in rich colours, are seen everywhere, inside and outside of the shrine." Benazir Jatoi, Express Tribume, 18-2-2017

Damascene Sufism: The Antidote to ISIS
By Sami Moubayed, Huffington Post, 24-11-2015

When the Islamic State stormed the city of al-Mayadeen in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zour along the Euphrates River, they struck with particular vengeance at the homes of Syrian Sufis. Members of the Sufi order were arrested; their clerics were flogged, their spiritual corners torn down.
Sufism, after all, is the exact opposite of ISIS and its distorted interpretation of Sunni Islam.
Both are Muslims of course, just like Hitler and Churchill were Christians. If allowed to run society, Syrian and Iraqi Sufis can probably rally millions, crafting a wide power base for themselves that exposes the religious flaws and deficiencies of ISIS.
Only Sufis have the religious tools, intellectual skills, and political cunning to dismantle ISIS. That is precisely why they are excommunicated by ISIS.

Sufism is an order of peaceful mystics that once reigned in both Damascus and Baghdad during Ottoman times. It discards ISIS Salafism as un-Islamic.
Throughout history Damascus and Baghdad were the breeding ground for Sufism. Because of their Sufi past, neither city produced fanatic clerics and nor did they absorb Salafi Islam or its offspring, Wahabism.
During Ottoman times, the Sufi clerics of Damascus mentored Sultan Abdulhamid II. So influenced were the Ottomans by Sufism that they toyed with the idea of elevating it into an official sect of Islam and making it the official hallmark of the Ottoman State.

Damascus was once home to two extremes — the spiritual founder of Salafism Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) and the “Great Teacher” of Sufism, Ibn Arabi (1165-124).
Both figures are iconic to their religious following and both were buried in Damascus.
ISIS holds Ibn Taymiyya in high esteem; the Damascenes speak very little of him. No street is named in his honor, certainly no neighborhood. Ibn Arabi was seemingly tailor-fit for the Damascenes, peaceful, spiritual, practical, and non-violent.
Unable to find a wide audience in Damascus, Ibn Taymiyya’s influence traveled to the desert, where it survived the harsh winds of Arabia and laid foundations of the modern Saudi Kingdom.
His words were rough and rigid, just like the desert. The Sufis were soft and flexible, just like Damascus.

There are 15 million Sufis worldwide, with Damascus and its Grand Umayyad Mosque as their capital. They need to be promoted at schools and mosque pulpits, given prime access to television networks worldwide.


Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving"


Reuven Rivlin & the 'liberation of Judea and Samaria'

Hebron, Palestine – a City Divided
Palestinians vs Israeli Settlers.

Hebron is a Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank, 30 km (19 mi) south of Jerusalem. It is the largest city in the West Bank, and the second largest in the Palestinian territories after Gaza, and home to 215,452 Palestinians (2016) and between 500 and 850 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter. The city is divided into two sectors: H1, controlled by the Palestinian Authority and H2, roughly 20% of the city, administered by Israel.. The settlers are governed by their own municipal body, the Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron. (Wikipedia)

"What makes this city unique is the presence of five hundred Israeli settlers, protected by four thousand Israeli soldiers in the heart of Hebron’s old town. These are not your ordinary Israelis but ultraorthodox Jews who have decided to live in such a hostile environment in order to fulfill prophecy.
For them, they are doing their religious duty by establishing a Jewish presence in Hebron." (Ches Kanno Blog, 4-3-2015)

Opening his heart for Settlers
Eliran Aharon, Arutz Sheva, 22/02/2017

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and his wife Nechama on Tuesday hosted Har Hevron artists, whose artwork is exhibited in the President's House.
"It is a pleasure to host artists, especially those who create art in a place with such historical significance for our nation throughout the generations," Rivlin told the artists. "The President's House is the house of the entire Israeli nation; we accept your artwork gladly and with love, for the benefit of all Israeli citizens.
The artists, who are from the Metarim Artist Center in Har Hevron, are exhibiting their work in the President's House in the Paamei Ruah exhibit.

Har Hevron Regional Council Head Yochai Damari, said, "Two years ago an exhibit by our artists was censured by Tel Aviv University. Today the president spoke about the importance of expression and free speech for anyone anywhere in Israel...
"We arrive here at the President's House for the Paamei Ruah exhibit for Har Hevron artists.

The exhibit marks 35 years of settlement in Hevron, and 50 years since the liberation of Judea and Samaria.
The exhibition expresses the spirit of Har Hevron, and the drive behind the building and creation in Har Hevron. I thank the president and his wife for opening their hearts and home to us."


Power Religion and Humanistic Religion
Matthew Bain, Politics of Soul

In his book "Free to Be Human" David Edwards expands Fromm’s description of authoritarian religion (which he renames power religion). He writes:

Power religion, unlike true religious endeavour [for which Fromm used the term ‘humanistic religion’], has nothing at all do with the search for fundamental, adequate answers to human life, but is purely a means of justifying, enforcing and facilitating the exercise of power.
Power religion does not consist in a particular set of beliefs, but in a set of functions supporting power.
Because these functions remain essentially constant, we discover close similarities between versions of power religion widely separated by historical time, geography and superficial appearance...

In contrast, Erich Fromm’s description of humanistic religion is as follows:
Humanistic religion, on the contrary, is centered around man and his strength. Man must develop his power of reason in order to understand himself, his relationship to his fellow men and his position in the universe.
He must recognize the truth, both with regard to his limitations and his potentialities. He must develop his powers of love for others as well as for himself and experience the solidarity of all living beings. He must have principles and norms to guide him in this aim.
Religious experience in this kind of religion is the experience of oneness with the All, based on one’s relatedness to the world as it is grasped with thought and with love.
Man’s aim in humanistic religion is to achieve the greatest strength, not the greatest powerlessness; virtue is self-realization, not obedience.
Faith is certainty of conviction based on one’s experience of thought and feeling, not assent to propositions on credit of the proposer. The prevailing mood is that of joy, while the prevailing mood in authoritarian religion is that of sorrow and of guilt.”


The War Hawks Rolled Donald Trump
Moon of Alabama, 22-2-2017

President Donald Trump's first National Security Advisor Mike Flynn got kicked out of office for talking with Russian officials. Such talks were completely inline with Trump's declared policies of détente with Russia.
Allegedly Flynn did not fully inform Vice-President Pence about his talk with the Russian ambassador. But that can not be a serious reason. The talks were rather informal, they were not transcribed. Why would a Vice-President need to know each and every word of it?
With Flynn out, the War hawks had the second most important person out of the way that would probably hinder their plans. They replaced him with a militaristic anti-Russian hawk: Herbert R. McMaster.

In a 2016 speech to the Virginia Military Institute, McMaster stressed the need for the US to have "strategic vision" in its fight against "hostile revisionist powers" — such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran — that "annex territory, intimidate our allies, develop nuclear weapons, and use proxies under the cover of modernized conventional militaries."

"Confronting these revisionist powers [powers who don't accept the 'Status Quo'] is challenging because they employ sophisticated strategies, they combine military efforts with propaganda, disinformation, espionage and political subversion.
Thus turbulent and dangerous time requires strategic vision... We have to protect our nation, not only from terrorists organisations..., but also from antagonistic states, such as Russia, China, Iran and North-Korea. These hostile actors don't operate in isolation from one another... As threats to US International Security are increasing I believe our strategic competency is diminished...

Because war is a competition, a competition involving life and death, and in which the nation's security or vital interests are at stake, establishing an objective other than winning is not only counterproductive, but also irresponsible and wasteful.
Winning does not require a commitment to unconditional surrender or the lifting of all restrictions on force applied or resources committed. What we need is a political outcome consistent with our vital interests...

General McMaster, the new National Security Advisor, gets sold as a somewhat rebellious, scholar-warrior wunderkind.
McMaster was peddled to the White House by Senator Tom Cotton, one of the most outlandish (anti-Iranian) Republican neocon war hawks.
Trump has now been boxed in by hawkish, anti-Russian military in his cabinet and by a hawkish Vice-President. The only ally he still may have in the White House is his consigliere Steve Bannon.
The next onslaught of the "serious people" around Trump is against Bennon and especially against his role in the NSC. It will only recede when he is fired.

Ali Gharib (The Nation, 10-3-2015): "When Tom Cotton ran for a Senate seat last year, Kristol’s far-right pressure group, the Emergency Committee For Israel, threw almost a million dollars into his race.
Cotton won, and Kristol and company immediately started getting their money’s worth. In December, at a forum hosted by Kristol’s Foreign Policy Initiative (another pressure group modeled on the Project For a New American Century that pushed the Iraq War), Cotton said that the United States should allow the sale to Israel of the bombers and advanced bombs it would need to make an attack on Iran more feasible.
In February, at the CPAC summit, he reportedly called for not just regime change in Tehran, but "replacement with a pro-Western regime..."

John McCain, 20-2-2017: "Lt. General H.R. McMaster is an outstanding choice for national security advisor... He knows how to succeed... I could not imagine a better, more capable national security team than the one we have right now.”


Where are the moderate voices?
By Patrick J Buchanan, February 20, 2017

Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that he read the nation and the world better than his rivals.
While Bush II and President Obama plunged us into Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Trump saw that his countrymen wanted to be rid of the endless wars, and start putting America first.
He offered a new foreign policy. Mitt Romney notwithstanding, said Trump, Putin’s Russia is not “our number one geopolitical foe.”




Michael Jackson, born 29-8-1958. Astrological signs: Sun in Virgo, Moon in Pisces


This was the agenda Americans voted for. But what raises doubt about whether Trump can follow through on his commitments is the size and virulence of the anti-Trump forces in this city.
Consider his plan to pursue a rapprochement with Russia such as Ike, JFK at American University, Nixon and Reagan all pursued in a Cold War with a far more menacing Soviet Empire...
Trump is not to be allowed to achieve a partnership with Putin, whose great crime was a bloodless retrieval of a Crimea that had belonged to Russia since the 18th century. The anti-Putin paranoia here is astonishing.
That he is a killer, a KGB thug, a murderer, is part of the daily rant of John McCain. At the Munich Security Conference this last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham promised, “2017 is going to be a year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress.”
As for the mainstream media, they appear bent upon the ruin of Trump, and the stick with which they mean to beat him to death is this narrative: Trump is the Siberian Candidate, the creature of Putin and the Kremlin. His ties to the Russians are old and deep. It was to help Trump that Russia hacked the DNC and the computer of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta... Trump’s people secretly collaborated with Russian agents...
The epidemic of Russophobia makes it almost impossible to pursue normal relations. Indeed, in reaction to the constant attacks on them as poodles of Putin, the White House seems to be toughening up toward Russia.
Where are the voices among Trump’s advisers who will tell him to hold firm against the Russophobic tide and work out a deal with the Russian president?

Read also: Trump's Remarkable Anti-War-Statement

"People are looked at as commodities"
Steve Bannon’s worldview is much more complicated than you think
Jim Edwards, Business Insider, 16-11-2016

In the summer of 2014, Steve Bannon – US president-elect Donald Trump’s chief strategist – gave a speech to the Human Dignity Institute, a conservative religious group that was holding a conference at the Vatican.
It’s fascinating. It shows Bannon’s view of the world is much more complicated than most people have thus far assumed. He finds aspects of capitalism “very disturbing,” for instance, and cites Marx in his analysis of the free market’s faults.

In the Vatican talk, Bannon described in length and detail how he views the biggest issues of the day:
He wants to tear down “crony capitalism”: “a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people. And it doesn’t spread the tremendous value creation throughout broader distribution patterns that were seen really in the 20th century...: when you have this kind of crony capitalism, you have a different set of rules for the people that make the rules.” He is against Ayn Rand’s version of libertarianism:
“The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing, is what I call the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism. And, look, I’m a big believer in a lot of libertarianism.... However, that form of capitalism is quite different when you really look at it to what I call the “enlightened capitalism” of the Judeo-Christian West. It is a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people, and to use them almost...
He believes the capitalism of the “Judeo Christian West” is in crisis: “If you look at the leaders of capitalism at that time, when capitalism was I believe at its highest flower and spreading its benefits to most of mankind, almost all of those capitalists were strong believers in the Judeo-Christian West. They were either active participants in the Jewish faith, they were active participants in the Christians’ faith, and they took their beliefs, and the underpinnings of their beliefs was manifested in the work they did.
And I think that’s incredibly important and something that would really become unmoored. I can see this on Wall Street today..
People are looked at as commodities. I don’t believe that our forefathers had that same belief.”

The Christians Will Fight Islam
Donald Trump & the Final War of Messiah
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Breaking Israel News, 20-2-2017

In a startling lecture, a noted rabbi labelled the anti-Israel movement prevalent in global politics today as the first stage in a two-part End of Days prophecy...
Rabbi Zamir Cohen, head of the Beitar Illit Yeshiva, stated that in the End of Days, Christianity and Islam will separate into two distinct groups working in unison against the Jewish People as part of a pre-Messianic two-stage political process “They will come together against Israel,” said Rabbi Zamir Cohen in a recent lecture.
[Beitar Illit is an Israeli settlement and city in Gush Etzion, 10 kilometres south of Jerusalem, in the Judaean Mountains of the West Bank. Beitar Illit is one of Israel's largest and most rapidly growing settlements, and in 2015 had a population of 49,343. The population of Beitar Illit is 100% Haredi. Like all settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, Beitar Illit is considered illegal under international law. Wikipedia info]

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf, a prominent Jewish educator, agreed, saying that the first stage has already happened: Islam and Christianity have aligned against Israel – and the union has manifested in a notoriously anti-Israel international body [the United Nations].
“The epicenter of this united effort against Israel is most apparent in the United Nations,” stated Rabbi Apisdorf to Breaking Israel News. "The UN joint effort against Israel was unrealistic and “absurd”, but it had been prophesied to be so. He quoted the Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, a French rabbi from the eleventh century known by the acronym ‘Rashi’.
“In his commentary on the first verse in Genesis, Rashi predicted that in the end of days, the non-Jews would all come together, uniting in order to dispute the Jews’ right to the land of Israel.
The UN did exactly this, claiming there is is no connection between Judaism and Jerusalem, a claim that would have been thought absurd just a few years ago.”

Rabbi Cohen believes the first stage, the unity of Arabs and Christians, is nearing its end, and that the second stage has already begun. In his lecture, Rabbi Cohen said the second stage would begin when a leader arose to unify the Christians against Islam.
“According to our prophecies, some revolutionary Christian leader will arise who will be disgusted by everything that is happening,” said Rabbi Cohen.
“He will unite the Christian world around him, that is to say Islam will turn into one group, and Christianity into one group.”
In a previous lecture given just after the US elections, Rabbi Cohen speculated that Donald Trump might indeed be this prophesied leader
He noted that President Trump’s unrestrained style of speech is precisely what will join Christians together against the alliance with Islam promoted by the previous president. “This is unprecedented, something we have yet to see in the world, a leader who stands up and says that he has had enough of the trespasses of Islam,” Rabbi Cohen said.
The Christians and Muslims will split, becoming two groups that strike each other,” explained Rabbi Cohen...


Shimon Apisdorf: "East Jerusalem is Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is where the heart and soul of the city lays. East Jerusalem is where King David and his son Solomon lived. East Jerusalem is where the ancient capital of Israel always was. East Jerusalem is where the two Temples stood. East Jerusalem is where the Western Wall of the Temple Mount is. East Jerusalem is the city that was conquered, destroyed and ravaged by the Babylonians, Romans, Christians, Muslims and Jordanians...."

Read also: Unesco & The Temple


Kushner Foundation Gives $342K to Chabad
By Judy Maltz (Haaretz), January 9, 2017

A Haaretz examination has revealed that the parents of Jared Kushner, Charles and Seryl Kushner, have been major benefactors of Chabad over the years. Between 2003 and 2013, their family foundation donated a total of $342,500 to various institutions and projects associated with the movement, their tax records show.
Chabad has benefited not only from Kushner’s side of the family. It turns out that Donald Trump has also contributed to the movement – even before his daughter, who converted to Judaism, was married. Altogether, the Donald J. Trump Foundation has donated $11,550 to three Chabad institutions.

"Israel has laid out its dark vision"
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian Chronicle, 22-2-2017

"Now we are entering into a new era in which Israel single-handedly dictates everything it needs to dictate. Not just on Palestinians but on the United States, thus the so-called international community. So I see this kind of as a celebration of the Israeli political triumph, over the American foreign policy, and the balancing act that they have been playing in the Middle East..." Ramzy Baroud

The President of the United States can hardly be taken seriously, saying much but doing little. His words, often offensive, carry no substance, and it is impossible to summarize his complex political outlook about important issues. This is precisely the type of American presidency that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prefers...
Israel expects blind support. It needs a US administration that is as loyal as the US Congress, always praising Israel, degrading Palestinians, dismissing international law, calling to stop funding the UN for daring to demand accountability from Israel, feeding Israeli “security” phobias with monetary and absolute political backing, demonising Iran, undermining the Arabs and repeating all Israeli talking points fed to them by Tel Aviv and by the fifth column lobbyists in Washington.
Trump is striving to be that person, the messiah that Israel’s army of right-wing, ultranationalists and religious zealots have been calling for..

What does Netanyahu want? We know he does not want a Palestinian state and plans to annex all Jewish colonies, while continuing to expand over stolen Palestinian land. He wants Palestinians to exist, but without political will of their own, without sovereignty, forced to accept that Israel is a Jewish state (thus signing off on their historic right to their own land); to remain subdued, passive, disarmed, dehumanized.
Netanyahu’s end game is Apartheid, racist segregation where one party, Israeli Jews, dominates and exploits the other – Palestinian Arabs: Muslims and Christians.
But human dignity is not open for negotiation... Palestinians have resisted Israel for nearly 70 years because they challenge their servitude. They will continue to resist.
Israel has the military means to punish Palestinians for their resistance, to push them behind military checkpoints and trap them behind walls. Having Trump by his side, Netanyahu will work diligently to perfect the Palestinian prison in the name of Israel’s security.
Israel has laid out its dark vision. Palestinians must present the antithesis to that destructive vision: a road map towards justice, equality and peace for all.

"An Israeli military medic who was filmed killing an incapacitated Palestinian attacker last year has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.
His sentence was handed down by a panel of three judges sitting in a military court in Tel Aviv. Prosecutors had demanded a sentence of between three and five years. Human rights groups argued that the sentence was too lenient, while his supporters, including some ministers, said he should not have been sentenced to prison at all." The Guardian, 21-2-2017

Religious leadership and brainwashed soldiers
Amnon Abramovich | YNet News Opinion, 22.02.2017

It’s not [one misbehaving soldier] who should have been put on trial, it’s all the leaders of the Jewish settlement in Hebron throughout the years. The trial should not have focused on morality in battle, but on the morality of their presence there.
Some 900 settlers and yeshiva students have placed themselves among 250,000 Palestinians. Most of them are not preaching good neighborly relations and peace, they are agitators calling for a transfer...
The late Rabbi Moshe Levinger, the founder of the Jewish settlement in Hebron, was prosecuted several times for unruly behavior against both Arabs and Jews. He curses, threatens and even physically attacks the soldiers who are watching over him—his own bodyguards—the court ruled.
[Moshe Levinger first came to Hebron in 1968 after the West Bank was occupied by Israel in the Six-Day 1967 War. He rented rooms in Al-Naher Al-Khaled Hotel at Ein-Sarah, on the main street of Hebron, in order to hold a Passover Seder, and then refused to leave. In a deal with the Israeli government, he moved with his family and followers to a former army base on a hill just northeast of Hebron, where, with the state’s cooperation, they established the settlement of Kiryat Arba. Wikipedia]

Rabin's Lack Of Courage
After the Baruch Goldstein massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs, then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin considered evacuating them. Legally, it would have been simple and easy: Canceling the expropriation orders for “military purposes,” under which the settlers are present there.
The government did not lack legal cause, just a bit of courage. Instead of evacuating them, a long curfew was imposed on the surrounding Arab neighborhoods.

A soldier can be the victim of the education he receives at home and of his political views. It’s enough to take a look at the Facebook posts that he wrote: “Kahane was right,” “Kill them all,” “Hit them where it hurts.”
This soldier was a victim of the service in Hebron and a victim of his advisors...
When a soldier arrives in Hebron, the local leadership expropriates the IDF authority, throws out the organizational envelope and digs its hoofs into him. From this moment and as long as he serves in Hebron, extreme right-wing politician Baruch Marzel is his prime minister, Eliyahu Libman is his chief of staff and Ofer Ohana is his direct commander.

Baruch Marzel: "Every child in Israel knows that Kahane was right"
By Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel, 18-2-2015

During an interview in Yahad’s campaign headquarters in the capital’s Givat Shaul neighborhood, Baruch Marzel wholeheartedly endorsed the idea, which in Israel is known as “transfer.”
“We need to remove from here all our enemies,” he told The Times of Israel, adding that “enemies” does not necessarily refer to Arabs. Despite his militant anti-Arab agitation, Marzel rejects the accusation of racism. “I don’t hate Arabs; I love Jews,”
His vision for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hence simple to sum up:
Convince yourself that God gave the entire Land of Israel to the Jews, annex the West Bank and Gaza, and throw out everyone who thinks differently.
“All our diplomatic problems stem from the fact that we don’t believe that this land belongs to us. On the day we internalize and tell the world that this land belongs to the Jewish people, we start applying sovereignty everywhere and begin building everywhere. That’s it. That’s my diplomatic platform.”

Marzel was born 55 years ago in Boston, but arrived in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood when he was six weeks old. He gave up his American citizenship a few years ago ahead of a previous Knesset bid.
Baruch joined Kahane’s Jewish Defense League at age 13.
Kach, Kahane’s political movement in Israel, was outlawed because of incitement to racism and support for terrorism, but Marzel unabashedly worships the slain rabbi’s legacy.
“I think Kahane was right. Every child in Israel knows that Kahane was right — everything he said happens.”
After his wedding he moved to Hebron, where he helped established the Tel Rumeida settlement and tried to advance the ideology of Kahane, which sees an urgent need to “transfer” Arabs out of the Land of Israel.
Marzel himself does not use the word “transfer.”.. “I will encourage their emigration,” he said, adding that only a small number of Arabs would want to stay after his party came to power. “I am sure that it’s possible to arrange that a great part of our enemies will not be here. There are ways,” he said.


500 Iranian scientists return home
to promote creativity and innovation
IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency), 24-2-2017

Qazvin, Feb 24, IRNA – Some 500 Iranian scientists graduated from prestigeous universities across the world returned Iran after the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Secretary-General of Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council (INIC) Saeed Sarkar made the announcement during the inaugural ceremony of a development project for Parsa Polymer Sharif Production Unit in Abyek late on Tursday. He further noted that 100 of the scientists have graduated from the top 20 international universities.

Planning for attracting Iranian foreign-trained scientists is among the programs of the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology, he said, noting that efforts are underway to get the scientists back home to promote creativity and innovation in the country.
Sarkar further noted that 160 knowledge-based companies are operating in the country in the field of nanotechnology, which are currently supplying 360 confirmed products.
Products of the companies have so far been exported to 17 countries including Australia, Russia, China, Malaysia, South Korea and Turkey, Sarkar said.

Iran exporting nano products to 17 countries
Mehr News Agency - 8 September 2016

TEHRAN, Sep. 08 (MNA) – Saeed Sarkar, the Secretary of Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council, recounted the growing status of nano-industry in Iran.
Currently, 17 countries import Iran-made nano products,” said Saeed Sarkar, the Secretary of Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council, on Thursday, recounting that the last year (Iranian colander year of 1394) export of products reached the volume of $35 million worth.
He boasted that Iran not only in the scientific area of nano-technology but also in development and range of products of nano-technology is among the top countries of the world.
“Presently, products like laboratory equipment, industrial machinery, and nano materials manufactured in Iran are exported to the foreign countries and the volume of Iran’s exporting of nano-products is growing onn a yearly basis,” asserted the official.

Februar 2017: "A brainstorming meeting will be held"
Sorena Sattari, Iranian Vice-President for Science and Technology

According to the public relations and information center of the , a brainstorming meeting will be held with the aim of introducing new approaches and plans of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs to develop innovation ecosystem and receive the opinions of activists of this field, such as organizers of entrepreneurial events, accelerators of innovation, bold investors and media professionals related to the field of entrepreneurship.
With regard to the development of entrepreneurship ecosystem, based on innovation and modern requirements of new businesses, acceleration and innovation center, the brainstorming meeting will be held on February 22nd in the building of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, attended by the vice president for science and technology affairs and a number of activists in the field of innovation ecosystem.

All compassionate brainstorming is prayer
Jay McDaniel - 'Jesus, Jazz and Buddhism website'

Brainstorming is thinking with other people, in imaginative ways, without being hampered by predetermined ends or authoritarian rule.
It is a form of communion. It is playing jazz without a saxophone. The key is to trust in the availability of fresh possibilities. The future may be open or closed for God, but it is always open for the brainstormers. They don't like too much planning. They like to wait and see what happens. If God has a blueprint, they'd rather not know.

Brainstorm: "This Must Be Heaven"

The joy of brainstorming lies in its chaos, intensity, and improvisational quality. Structure emerges in the activity itself, but not before the activity. It is self-organizing. The joy of self-organizing does not have to have results in order to be worthwhile. Nor does it have to be permanent.
The storm within brainstorming is its unsettling novelty. In the very act of brainstorming we experience an open future, not yet filled with definition.
Our settled ideas are called into question, without new ideas immediately taking their place. This is why criticism and debate is important in brainstorming. It helps destabilize habitual forms of thinking so that new forms can emerge...
It is important that our human partners in brainstorming respect our own capacities for independent thinking and that we respect theirs, too. Brainstorming includes and requires critique and debate in respectful ways.

God brainstorms, too. The future is open for God, because human decisions are not made until they are made.
God doesn't know what we will do until we do it. After we do it, God must scan the divine imagination and offer us fresh possibilities for responding to the new situation.
God needs our ideas. Even as God offers novelty to us, so we offer novelty to God. If not in the content of our ideas, then at least in the very act of coming up with them, something new is added to God.
God needs something to respond to. God needs topics; we give them. So do the stars and planets, the hills and rivers, the molecules and atoms. It is true that God creates the universe by offering it fresh possibilities, and it is also true that the universe creates God by offering God such possibilities. God and the Universe co-imagine themselves in relation to one another.

Brainstorming can be healthy or unhealthy, constructive or destructive, holy or unholy, selfish or compassionate.
Unhealthy brainstorming is disrespectful of introverts, overly frenetic, aimed toward selfish ends, and overly preoccupied with ends. It has adventure without peace. It is novelty without love.
Healthy brainstorming is respectful of introverts, tinged with a contemplative dimension, enjoyable in its process, and aimed toward constructive ends. It combines adventure and peace. It is novelty with love.
Constructive ends are ends that serve the well-being of people, other living beings, and the planet... They include "how to build healthy community" and "how to organize the economy in ways that are beneficial to human beings and the earth" and "how to reform education so that it serves wisdom."

All compassionate brainstorming is prayer. It is a relinquishment of rigidified ideas that block the mind, a sharing in the imagination of others, and a shared journey into a realm of fresh possibilities whom some name "God."
Those who undertake the pilgrimage may not believe in God as a monarchical being separate from the world. Instead they may imagine God as a womb-like mind within whose life the universe lives and moves and has its being. Or they may not believe in God at all. Still, in compassionate brainstorming, they are praying.


The UNHRC's attitude towards Israel is insane.
The US should withdraw from the UNHRC.
Arutz Sheva Staff, 26/02/2017

YouTube, 22 sep. 2016: "Year after year, I've stood at this very podium and I slammed the U.N. for its obsessive bias against Israel.." "And what about the joke called the U.N. Human Rights Council, which each year condemns Israel more than all the other countries of the world combined." "And this circus continues at UNESCO. The UNESCO just denied the 4,000-year connection between the Jewish people and its holiest site, the Temple Mount."

Responding to the extensive anti-Israel campaign led by the United Nations Human Rights Council, Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid called on Democratic and Republican Congress and Senate members to support US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the UNHRC.
"The fight against the de-legitimization of Israel needs to cross all political boundaries," Lapid said. "And the UNHRC is at the very heart of this anti-Israel effort.
"One year ago, I stood outside the UN Human Rights Council with hundreds of people from all over Europe. We stood there in protest of the UN's continued bias against the Jewish state...
"At that time, I said, 'The UNHRC's attitude towards Israel is hypocritical. It's obsessive. It's insane.
We learned over the past 2,000 years that it doesn't matter what anti-Semites say - all that matters is what they do. And what they're doing here, in the UNHRC, is pure old-style anti-Semitism.'"
On Sunday morning, it was reported the US will be leaving the UN Human Rights Council after the Council slammed a convicted IDF soldier 18-month sentence as "too light" a punishment. In response, Lapid said the UN's criticism was motivated solely by their extraordinary anti-Israel bias.

What we do
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

As the principal United Nations office mandated to promote and protect human rights for all, OHCHR leads global human rights efforts speaks out objectively in the face of human rights violations worldwide.
We provide a forum for identifying, highlighting and developing responses to today's human rights challenges, and act as the principal focal point of human rights research, education, public information, and advocacy activities in the United Nations system.
Since Governments have the primary responsibility to protect human rights, the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) provides assistance to Governments, such as expertise and technical trainings in the areas of administration of justice, legislative reform, and electoral process, to help implement international human rights standards on the ground. We also assist other entities with responsibility to protect human rights to fulfil their obligations and individuals to realize their rights.

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.
Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary international law , general principles and other sources of international law. International human rights law lays down obligations of Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups.

The principle of universality of human rights is the cornerstone of international human rights law.
This principle, as first emphasized in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948, has been reiterated in numerous international human rights conventions, declarations, and resolutions. The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, for example, noted that it is the duty of States to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems.

Flashback - Jewish Identity Vs. Humanism
Rich Forer interviewed by Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon, March 27, 2016

"Gilad Atzmon realized that one cannot be a tribalist and a humanist simultaneously, so he chose humanism and universal values. He severed his ties with racism and supremacy, he departed from loyalty to the tribe, he refused to be a sayan at the expence and suffering of others. He offered his loyalty to the whole of humanity. The high values of equality, justice and humanism became his passion." (From tribalism to humanism, 2011)

-- Gilad Atzmon: Contemporary Jewish identity involves a certain element of binary qualities due to choseness. As we know, Jewish assimilation and secularization, starting in the 19th century, led to the evolution of a Jewish concept of biological exceptionalism that is racist in nature. The supremacy we detect in Jewish political discourse, both Zionist and so-called anti, points to an inclination towards a Jew/Goy ‘binarism.’

-- Rich Forer: I agree that the supremacy in Jewish political discourse, Zionist and non-Zionist, points to an inclination towards ‘binarism.’ I would also say that the idea that “Choseness” conveys supremacy, is (in my opinion) a perversion of original Jewish teachings. I agree that Jews who actively participate in or passively defend Israel’s inhumane treatment of the “other” are guilty of a belief in Jewish exceptionalism, whether that belief is conscious or not.