04/15 Links Pt1: Glick: Obama’s political legacy; Who Respects Israeli Democracy? ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: We Will Not Accept a Jewish Israel

The obsession with settlements is certain to divert attention from core issues, such as Palestinian recognition of a Jewish Israel. Many Palestinians continue to regard Israel as one big settlement that needs to be removed from the Middle East.
Even those who say they have accepted the two-state solution are not prepared to recognize any Jewish link to or history in the land.
In the view of Al-Husseini, Palestinians refuse to acknowledge a Jewish state because they believe this would grant legitimacy to "Jews' rights to the land of Palestine" and undermine the Palestinian demand for the "right of return" for millions of refugees into Israel.
Israeli Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by privileging the perceived interests of Palestinian Arabs, while Palestinian Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by denying any link between Jews and the land. This stance makes peace a non-starter.

Caroline Glick: Obama’s political legacy

The US presidential race is President Barack Obama’s political legacy. Depending on who succeeds him, that legacy will either fade or become the new normal.
To understand what he has wrought, a good place to start is with the man running to Obama’s left: Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The socialist from Vermont knows how to play to the crowd. Sanders knows that the people captivated by his tales of avaricious bankers aren’t too keen on Jews either.
And as a Jew, he’s cool with that.
Sanders’s courtship of Jew-haters in a staple of his campaign. The depth of his efforts was made clear at the end of a campaign event at the Apollo Theater in Harlem last Saturday when an audience member got up and began spewing anti-Jewish slanders.
In the event, the questioner rose and said, “As you know, the Zionist Jews – and I don’t mean to offend anybody – they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign.”
Weathering a chorus of boos from his fellow audience members, the questioner then asked Sanders, “What is your affiliation to your Jewish community?” Sanders could have told the questioner to take a long walk off a short pier. He could have told him he’d rather win without the support of bigots.
He could have used it as a teaching moment and told his audience that millions of Jews have been murdered because of the lies the questioner just repeated.
Instead, he called him “Brother” and told he needed to hide his hatred better.

Melanie Phillips: Mussolini vs Lucrezia Borgia? There is an alternative

Traveling in the US last week I found Jews, like many others, in a state of extreme agitation.
The Trump phenomenon, they raged, was beyond belief. How could America be doing this to itself, possibly nominating as a presidential candidate a man who was a crude and unstable know-nothing, a bigoted authoritarian and potential despot, a threat to America’s future and the entire world? They might have no option, said Republican Jews in despair, but to vote for Hillary.
No! cried others who were equally despairing.
How could you even think of voting for Hillary, what with the email scandal, with her past support for the PLO and the bullying way she treated Israel while she was secretary of state, with the Muslim Brotherhood types and other Israel-bashers in her close circle? Yes, granted, said the first group, but at least she’s an experienced politician, at least she’s kinda done the job already, at least she knows how to behave in government. What, came the response, after Benghazi? After the murder there of the ambassador and three others on her watch, the attempt to sanitize the atrocity and then the cover-up of that attempt, after her “What difference does it make” outburst at the congressional hearing? So it went on back and forth with voices raised: Trump vs Hillary, the unspeakable versus the uneatable, Mussolini versus Lucrezia Borgia. There was, it seemed, no alternative. None.
Um, what about, I asked in a very small voice, Ted Cruz? Wouldn’t he be an acceptable alternative? Both sides looked at me in horror. On this they were agreed. Ted Cruz was totally, but totally, unacceptable. Why? Because he was an ultra-conservative, evangelical Christian.
They’d all rather have even Hillary than Cruz as president. Really? So Hillary was not such a threat to America, the Jews and the world after all? I hold no particular brief for Cruz. I observe him from afar, and my information is necessarily inadequate as a result. But if you really believe that both Trump and Hillary pose such a threat to all we hold dear, what on earth does Ted Cruz stand for that makes him even worse than those two priceless specimens? I understand that many American Jews are socially liberal. I understand that, for them, social liberalism is in fact their religion. But in the context of today’s terrifying world, to consider a socially conservative viewpoint to be the biggest threat of all takes some explaining.

Why it is a mitzva for every Jew to vote for Cruz

America is at a crossroads. Like in 1980, when Americans rejected the failed foreign and domestic policies of Jimmy Carter and elected Ronald Reagan, we have an opportunity in this election to restore America’s leadership in the world, grow our economy and create jobs, and return our country to constitutional principles, including religious liberty.
For the first time in many years, New York is a battleground in the Republican primary. The Jewish community can play a significant role in electing Ted as the next president of the United States.
I am not a rabbinic authority and am still working on my ordination, but I believe with all my heart that it is a great and important mitzva for each and every Jew who can vote in the Republican primary to get to the polls on Tuesday and vote for the next president of the United States and my friend, Ted Cruz.

Who Respects Israeli Democracy?

But there’s a more important conclusion to be drawn from the willingness of so many on the left — even someone who works for a candidate who claims to be very “pro-Israel” as Sanders does — is that their main complaint isn’t so much with Netanyahu as it is with the people of Israel.
Let’s remember that Netanyahu has been elected three times consecutively by the votes of the Israeli people. Moreover, though he is not personally popular, his policies on the conflict with the Palestinian aren’t so much right wing as they are representative of a broad consensus within the country.
Let’s remember, even if Sanders and Zimmerman don’t, that all major parties including the left-wing opposition opposed the Iran nuclear deal as a dangerous empowerment of a genocidal Islamist regime in Tehran.
As for peace with the Palestinians, even the head of the opposition Zionist Union/Labor party agrees with Netanyahu that a two-state solution is not possible. Virtually no one outside of marginal far-left parties there are in favor of the sort of measures that “anti-occupation” activists like Zimmerman favor. The Israeli people have already seen what happened when their government evacuated every soldier, settler and settlement from Gaza in 2005 and have no interest in replicating that experiment in the West Bank. Gaza is, for all intents and purposes, an independent Palestinian state in all but name. Its Hamas rulers operate it as a terror base. The odds are the same thing would happen if the “occupation” were to be ended in the West Bank. That’s why the overwhelming majority of Israelis regard any such proposal as not merely wrong but insane.

Sanders Condemns ‘Disproportionate’ Israeli Gaza Attacks, Clinton Blames Hamas, Iran ‘Constant Incitement’

Hillary and Bernie locked horns, clashed, yelled and smashed into each other almost literally last night in Brooklyn, NY. There were cheap shots and there were deep cuts. It can be safely said that the behavioral gap between the Democratic and Republican debates have narrowed significantly, so neither side can claim the high ground any longer. As to the portion of the debate in which we were most interested, US-Israeli relations, we must agree Hillary made us feel a little safer. Sanders started off from the point of view of B’Tselem and J Street, while Hillary at this point is a little to the right of J Street. After last night’s debate, if you’re a Democrat who cares about Israel, we advise you to buy an industrial size laundry clip, put it on your nose and vote for Bill’s wife. Not because we endorse her, we really really don’t, but she scares us a little less than Bernie does.
And now, to what they actually said last night about how they’d like to finally bring peace to the region…

Clinton in NY: Palestinians could’ve had state 15 years ago

While reiterating her support for the two-state solution and arguing that “there have to be precautions taken” in war, Clinton appeared to back up Israel’s argument that the devastation during the 2014 operation was caused by Hamas’s intentional deployment of military targets in civilian areas. “Even the most independent analysts will say that the way that Hamas places its weapons is terrible,” she said.
Israelis, the former secretary of state argued, “do not seek these kind of attacks.” Clinton referenced what she described as “a constant incitement by Hamas, aided and abetted by Iran, against Israel.”
Gaza, she said, had become “a terrorist haven that is getting more and more rockets shipped in… I don’t know how you run a country when you are under constant threat. Terrorist attack, rockets… you have a right to defend yourself.”
She also said pointedly that “if [late Palestinian leader] Yasser Arafat had agreed with my husband at Camp David in the late 1990s to the offer that [then Israeli] prime minister [Ehud] Barak put on the table, we would have had a Palestinian state for 15 years already.”

In meeting with Orthodox, Donald Trump reveals Israel advisers: His Jewish lawyers

There were a few things Donald Trump made clear when he met Thursday with a select group of Jewish reporters, almost all of them Orthodox, at his corporate offices in Manhattan.
Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was the one who initiated Wednesday’s one-on-one powwow with Trump to mend fences, not him. He’s a great friend of Israel. He has many Orthodox Jewish friends, including his chief lawyer, Jason D. Greenblatt. And he considers himself a very loyal boss.
But in a 20-minute question-and-answer session that touched on religious liberty in the workplace, US foreign policy in the Middle East and federal education tax credits, Trump offered scant details.
On some substantive policy questions, the Republican front-runner for president didn’t answer at all, instead delegating the question to Greenblatt, a real estate attorney from Teaneck, New Jersey — one of two people he said he’d appoint as his White House Israel policy advisers.
On other questions, Trump’s non-answers made him sound like a high school student trying to fudge his way through an oral exam.

Trump names Arutz Sheva columnist as Israel advisor

In a meeting with Orthodox Jews Thursday, Donald Trump named his two advisors on Israel - and the names bespeak good news for nationalists who believe in Israel's right to the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.
The two are Trump's chief lawyer, Jason D. Greenblatt, a real estate attorney from Teaneck, New Jersey, and another real estate lawyer, bankruptcy expert David M. Friedman of the Kasowitz law firm.
“I don’t think I can find better,” Trump said. “Jason’s very much a consultant to me on Israel, on everything. He’s a tremendously talented lawyer, one of the great real estate lawyers of the City of New York, and he has tremendous passion for Israel. When he goes on vacation, he goes to Israel.”

John Kasich links Jesus’ blood to Passover at matzah bakery

If Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s visit to Hasidic Brooklyn this week had yielded only one amusing moment, Dayenu – it would have been enough.
But, thank God, there were many in the Republican presidential candidate’s visit to a Jewish bookstore, shmura matzah bakery and Hasidic school in Borough Park on Tuesday.
“It’s a wonderful, wonderful holiday for our friends in the Jewish community – the Passover,” Kasich told reporters after emerging from the matzah bakery, a box of the fresh-baked stuff in hand.
Yes, Jews are known to love The Passover, almost as much they love The Pre-Election Drop-By from vote-seeking politicians.
Flanked by Hasidic publicist Ezra Friedlander, Kasich then launched into a brief appraisal of the links between Passover and, um, the blood of Jesus Christ.
“The great link between the blood that was put above the lampposts” – er, you mean doorposts, governor — “the blood of the lamb, because Jesus Christ is known as the lamb of God. It’s his blood, we believe …”

Sanders suspends Jewish outreach director who blasted Israel, Netanyahu

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders suspended his new Jewish outreach coordinator Simone Zimmerman, his campaign said Thursday night, after reports surfaced of her harsh and foul-mouthed criticism of Israeli policies and of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“She has been suspended while we investigate the matter,” spokesman Michael Briggs told The New York Times.
Zimmerman’s appointment caused some outrage after it was revealed that she was an outspoken critic of Israel and had last year called Netanyahu a “manipulative asshole” who sanctioned mass murder of Palestinians.
Ronald S. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, and former Anti-Defamation League chief Abe Foxman had both called on Sanders to fire Zimmerman.

Students Host Former Colonel in Discussion on War Crimes and Terrorism

The NYU pro-Israel advocacy group, Realize Israel, and the College Republicans hosted former Col. Richard Kemp to discuss the increasingly unclear distinction between military practices and war crimes on Monday evening.
Kemp is currently a commentator on the political and militaristic nature of terrorism in the Middle East. He focused his speech on the recent events surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It specifically addresses Operation Protective Edge, a military operation launched by Israel in 2014 in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
He initially began to distinguish the terms war crime and terrorism by explaining the three considerations a commander has to come to when deciding if an attack is a war crime: necessity, proportionality and distinction.
“In order for [the commander] to accomplish [his] mission and defend [his] country, it is necessary to attack that target,” Kemp said. “If you are attacking a position in which there are innocent civilians, then you have to decide if it’s really necessary to carry out this attack.”
Kemp also said when there is a possibility of civilians dying, the military gain from this mission must be proportionate to the number of civilians who are at risk.

Time to Honor Our April 14, 2004 Commitments to Israel

Twelve years ago President George W. Bush delivered a two-page letter to the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The exchange took place at a White House press conference on April 14, 2004.
Later, Congress would add its support to the letter’s terms by lopsided margins—95 to 3 in the Senate on June 23 and 407 to 9 in the House of Representatives on June 24.
The Bush Letter to Sharon
A recent op-ed published by Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) notes the significance of the document:
- The letter backed Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and promised to support Israel’s following positions in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over the previous 11 years:
- Israel would not cede its claims to all of the territory captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War
- Millions of Palestinian Arabs would not be resettled in Israel and
- Israel must be recognized as the state of the Jewish people.”

US: 'All options' on the table for solving Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including UN action

The United States will consider taking its concerns over Israel's settlement activity, or over a general stall in negotiations toward a final-status solution with the Palestinians, to the United Nations Security Council, the State Department said on Thursday.
The Obama administration outlined its stance after several days of confusion over whether the US might or might not consider such a move.
"We understand that there is an early draft that the Palestinians have shared informally in New York," State Department spokesperson John Kirby said, asked by The Jerusalem Post to clarify whether the US would consider voting for or declining to veto a resolution addressing Israel's settlement activity in the West Bank.
"We are very concerned about trends on the ground and we do have a sense of urgency about the two-state solution. We will consider all of our options for advancing our shared objective of lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but I’m not going to comment on a draft Security Council resolution."

IsraellyCool: WATCH: Assistant Secretary To John Kerry Delivers Pathetic Answer To Veto Question

I confess.
I have been a fan of southern Florida US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for years. I love following her on Twitter. This tweeted video clip is too good not to share.
Listen as Ros-Lehtinen tries to get an Assistant Secretary to John Kerry to answer a simple question on whether the US administration will veto a UN resolution that seeks to impose a two-state solution on Israel.
“Ah…” as a response to a direct question not only shows a lack of clarity, but a scary sign of things ahead. A UN draft exists and she has not seen it yet?
Nice to hear a clear voice calling the administration to be fair to Israel and not give
Wind beneath the wings of the Palestinians to continue this unilateral statehood scheme.

A time for truth: Israel, "Palestine" and the US elections

On the contrary, from the very start, the only Israeli "compromise" that could ever have satisfied Fatah, Hamas, and a substantial variety of other variously intersecting Palestinian factions, would have been a conspicuous willingness to commit national suicide. To wit, as late as last month, on March 11, 2016, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas again told PA Television: "All of Israel is an occupation."
He made this revealing statement, as he had made on many earlier occasions, standing directly before a map from which Israel had been carefully erased.
International law is not a suicide pact. Israel has no obligation to accept even a cartographic disappearance. Always, every state maintains an absolutely fundamental or "peremptory" right to physically endure. Further, as was made jurisprudentially clear in 1996, by the U.N.'s International Court of Justice, this right can sometimes include even the residually defensive or retaliatory use of nuclear weapons.
Above all, our surviving American presidential aspirants must understand, truth is exculpatory. In this matter of justice and national security, the Palestinian side, and its supporters, as if sworn to some sort of visceral incantation, remain endlessly fond of citing to an "occupation." Yet, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964, three years before there were any "occupied territories." Therein lies an unavoidably primary question, one that should be prominently raised during the American presidential election.
Just what, precisely, was the PLO actually trying to "liberate" between 1964 and June 1967? It's not a difficult question to answer, because - during that time - West Bank (Judea/Samaria) and Gaza were being held (illegally, of course) by Jordan and Egypt, respectively. And PLO was assuredly not launching any terror attacks against Jordan or Egypt.

Don’t Back U.N. Council on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Lawmakers Urge Obama

Several hundred Democratic and Republican lawmakers are urging the White House not to back any resolution at the United Nations that sets parameters for Israeli-Palestinian talks, a move President Barack Obama has been considering.
In a letter to Mr. Obama, 388 members of the House, including Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, said U.S. support for a U.N. Security Council resolution would “dangerously hinder” the prospects of resuming direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.
“We are deeply troubled by reports that one-sided initiatives may arise at the U.N. in the coming months concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the letter says.
“Such efforts dangerously hinder the prospects for resuming direct negotiations,” the lawmakers write. “We therefore urge you to continue to insist that it is only at the negotiating table – and not at the U.N. – that the parties can resolve their complicated differences. Your continued commitment to longstanding U.S. policy to veto one-sided U.N. Security Council resolutions remains fundamentally critical.”

EU ‘deeply concerned’ by new phase of West Bank barrier

The European Union said Friday that it was “deeply concerned” by Israel’s construction of a new part of its West Bank security barrier.
Cranes last week began erecting the fence south of Jerusalem in the Cremisan Valley, adjacent to the West Bank town of Beit Jala, after a nine-year legal battle.
The EU said in a statement it was “deeply concerned at the relaunch of works for the construction of the separation barrier in the Cremisan Valley.”
It added: “Once built, the barrier will severely restrict access of almost 60 Palestinian families to their agricultural land and profoundly affect their livelihoods.”
Residents of the Christian village of Beit Jala fear the construction may lead to the expansion of the nearby Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo and the settlement of Har Gilo.

'Our intelligence on Hamas has improved significantly,' senior security source says

The IDF’s intelligence on Hamas’s military wing in Gaza has increased greatly over the past two years, and the Southern Command’s war preparations have been enhanced as a result, a senior military source said on Thursday.
The Southern Command is carefully monitoring Hamas’s 25 regional battalions and has prepared detailed files on each one as part of preparations for ground forces that could, in the event of a future escalation, be sent in to Gaza to land “painful strikes” on Hamas, according to the source.
“We did not have this level of knowledge in Operation Protective Edge [in 2014],” the source said. “Our brigade, battalion, and company commanders are assigned regions, and will know many things that will assist them in destroying their targets,” the high-ranking officer added.
Their orders will be to kill or capture as many Hamas operatives as they encounter and destroy infrastructure. “In every location, missions will be very clear. The brigade commanders will need to reach areas marked by blue arrows on a map... They will destroy weapons production centers as well,” he said.
The Southern Command has spent the past year and a half making intensive preparations for potential future conflicts.

Report: Hamas official claims group not interested in escalation of violence

A Hamas official claimed that Hamas was not interested in an escalation of violence and was committed to a truce with Israel, despite recent reports that it was strengthening its military wing and upped its deployment along the Gaza border, Israel Radio reported on Friday.
According to Israel Radio, the official said that Israel had audio messages from Hamas claiming the group has no interest in an escalation of violence, although the source added that Hamas continues to deploy fighters and build its military wing. Any decision to go to war will come from the political branch of Hamas and not its military wing, the source concluded.
Israel Radio also reported that Hamas was stepping up its deployment along the border between Gaza and Egypt, and had established new outposts.

Hamas leader pledges to stick by ‘the rifle and the tunnel’

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Friday the group remained committed to armed struggle against Israel, in a speech he made ahead of Prisoners’ Day, observed by the terror organization next week.
Speaking at a rally in the Gaza Strip, Haniyeh said, “Our message to the prisoners is a message inked in blood. The rifle and the tunnel are our commitment.
“The issue of prisoners is at the top of our priority list. As time passes, we stick to our principles, and the people who walk in the path of martyrs and prisoners also stick with us.”
On Thursday, an IDF officer said both sides were preparing for a future conflict, and while neither side was interested in renewing violence, a miscalculation on either side could bring about another round of fighting.

Netanyahu: Probe Israeli Arab MK's call to keep Jews off Temple Mount for incitement

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday called for an examination into whether comments made this week by Israeli Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (Joint List) about keeping Jews off the Temple Mount constitute incitement.
The premier requested that Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit oversee the probe.
Following Netanyahu's call, Zahalka shot back at the prime minister saying his call was "baseless."
"Netanyahu is attempting to garner cheap popularity through incitement against the Arab sector and its leaders," Zahalka charged.
"I have the right to express my opinion," the Joint List MK said, adding that "Jews and Arabs have said the same thing. One can disagree with them, but Netanyahu has just turned to shutting the mouths of Arabs. I have one reply: We won't we silenced."

Israel detains 11 Palestinians in West Bank sweep

Israeli security forces arrested 11 wanted Palestinians in the West Bank overnight Thursday-Friday, for suspected terrorist activity and violence.
Police and Border Police officers and IDF troops carried out the raids, and took the suspects for investigation, Channel 2 reported.
The arrests come a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that “extremist elements” were attempting to sow unrest in Jerusalem and other areas in efforts to renew violence between Israelis and Palestinians ahead of the Passover holiday, which starts next week.
The prime minister said security forces would increase their readiness to counter these attempts amid a wave of terror attacks that began more than six months ago and has lately been ebbing.

Why Does The PA Still Participate In Security Coordination With Israel?

The reason why Abbas allowed his security forces to track down and arrest this terror trio is because he is not yet ready to launch a full-scale intifada. Abbas has a strategy and, at the moment, major terror attacks are not part of it. Right now, the steady stream of daily, seemingly random attacks that leave more Palestinians dead than Jews is exactly what he needs in order to keep Palestinians in the news and maintain their status as victims in need of saving by the international community. He sees the fruits of his lawfare campaign against Israel at the UN, in the EU and even now in the US presidential campaign. He also knows that the one time the world wakes up and starts to sympathize with Israel even a little bit, is when Jew play their traditional historical role and die in large numbers.
This is not to say that Abbas believes that terrorism is wrong. He merely views it as one of the many tools in his arsenal. He knows that the world is willing to overlook and explain away his terror payments and incitement but they will not be as willing to look the other way if he is allowing Jews to be blown up or shot to death on a regular basis. One Jew getting stabbed to death every other week isn’t such a big deal. But a massacre of over a dozen by terrorists arms with a sub-machine gun and hand grenades? That would be too much.

Jordan Shuts Down Local Muslim Brotherhood Office

Muslim Brotherhood offices in Jordan were shut down on Wednesday by state authorities.
No reason was given for the sudden crackdown on the Islamic movement, which recently cut ties with sister chapters in the Arab world and Egypt in particular, in a bid to redefine itself as a local grassroots movement.
The Jordanian police raided the movement’s offices in Amman and evicted its employees, including the chairman, Zaki Bni Ershed.
Badi Rafayaa, a spokesperson for the movement, said they were taken aback by the sudden move and are planning to wage a legal battle against it.
Rafayaa added that there has been a “regional interest” in undermining the movement over the last few years.
“We are not a political party, and our presence in the kingdom has lasted for 70 years,” he said. “We are an integral part of Jordanian society and everybody recognizes that. We have representatives in state institutions too.”

Dabiq: Islamic State Calls Muslim Brotherhood an Apostate ‘Cancer’

The Sunni Islamic State terrorist group, in the latest edition of its propaganda magazine Dabiq, criticizes the Muslim Brotherhood organization for its alleged support of Shiite-led nations and the “pagan democratic religion.”
In its 14th edition, Dabiq features a 25-page article denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been listed a terrorist organization by several countries, as an “apostate” organization.
Both the Brotherhood and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, are competing for Muslim followers. However, their approach to winning the hearts of other adherents of Islam differs.

Germany okays Turkey’s call to allow prosecution of comedian

The German government has granted a Turkish request to allow the possible prosecution of a German TV comedian who wrote a crude poem about Turkey’s president, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday.
Ankara demanded last week to have comedian Jan Boehmermann prosecuted for insulting a foreign head of state. German law required Merkel’s government to grant permission for prosecutors to press charges — if they choose to do so.
Merkel stressed that it “means neither a prejudgment of the person affected nor a decision about the limits of freedom of art, the press and opinion.” She underlined the independence of the judiciary and the presumption of innocence.
She also said the government intends to repeal the law on insulting a head of state, effective in 2018.

Counter-Terrorism: Belgium Admits It Was Screwed By The Saudis

One of the casualties of the recent ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) attacks in France and Belgium was the reputation of Saudi Arabia as an ally in the fight against ISIL. The media were all over the state of Islam in Belgium and many little-publicized facts were made very public. Chief among them was the role of Saudi Arabia played in building (at Saudi expense) mosques and religious schools in Belgium and then staffing them. These facilities were controlled by very-conservative (and anti-Western) clerics and religious teachers who were often trained in Saudi Arabia. This should not be surprising as since the 1980s Saudi Arabia has spent over $100 billion doing this promotion of the very conservative Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam that has predominated in Saudi Arabia since the 18th century.
This was all made possible after 1970 when the Arab oil states, mainly Saudi Arabia, found themselves with unexpected and unprecedented oil wealth. That was the result of the formation of the OPEC oil cartel. Because of OPEC the price of oil went from $3 a barrel in 1970 to $35 a barrel in 1980. Suddenly it became possible for Moslems to show how pious they were by funding Wahhabi missionaries who went to other Moslem (and many non-Moslem) nations to preach, establish Wahhabi religious schools and mosques and create the current Islamic terrorism problem. Billions were (and still are) spent on this and the policy of getting the young boys into these free religious schools and turning many of them into hateful (towards anyone not like them) Islamic religious fanatics led to a major outbreak of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th century. Saddam Hussein (as did many other Moslem dictators) kept this out of Iraq until 1991.

What Britain’s Muslims Really Think… Is That Nothing Is Ever Their Fault

In a Channel 4 documentary called What Britain’s Muslims Really Think, presenter Trevor Phillips presented survey evidence suggesting that large numbers of British Muslims don’t want to integrate and dislike Jews and that many thousands of them support extremist views including terrorism and suicide bombing.
The British Muslim community has responded in the usual way…
Smear the polling company
“Lets not forget ICM is one of the polling companies that wrongly predicted the 2015 general election. The stats just don’t hold enough weight.” (Nazia, 35, W. Yorkshire)
Cast doubt on the methodology
“Other issues include the fact that the study targeted areas that were at least 20% Muslim and a large chunk of the sample were born abroad. If the study was conducted where English is not widely spoken, how do we know the participants fully understood what they were being asked?”
Hint that even asking these questions is divisive and Islamophobic

What British Muslims Really Think

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