The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
Trump policy on Israel is evolving
in somewhat surprising ways
by Anne Gearan
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Democrats' Muslim Delusion
There's bias and then there's outright delusion; file this one under the latter. A recent CBS poll revealed that a majority of Democrats believe Christianity to be just as violent as Islam and that Muslims living in America are mistreated worse than are Christians living in Islamic countries. Clearly, a lot of Democrats have been drinking the leftist Kool-Aid for far too long. According to the survey, 62% of American voters believe Christians living in the Islamic world are treated unfairly due to their religion. However, while 56% of Democrats surveyed believe Muslims living in America are mistreated, only 47% of Democrats believe that Christians living in Muslim majority countries are persecuted due to their religion.
Time for a sobering dose of reality. A recently released study from the Center for Studies on New Religions found Christians to be the most persecuted religious group across the globe last year. It estimated that in 2016 some 90,000 Christians were killed for their beliefs and over 600 million were prevented from practicing their beliefs. Nine of the top 10 countries where the persecution of Christians is most extreme are Islamic — the worst offender is communist North Korea. Last summer, the Pew Research Center found that while there has been a world-wide decrease in restrictions against religion, the greatest offenders of religious freedom were either communist or Muslim majority countries.
Contrast that to Muslims living in the U.S.. They enjoy the same constitutional rights as do any other religious group. It could be argued that Muslims have even enjoyed rather favorable treatment, due to both the American culture of acceptance in general and concerns of avoiding any perceived discrimination. There are prayer rooms, prayer breaks at work, burkas, and recognition of religious holidays to name but a few accommodations. Obviously, there are those who have acted unkindly toward Muslims, but those incidents have been the exception not the norm. And certainly the government has not discriminated against Muslims, in spite of what the Left claims regarding Donald Trump's lawful temporary travel ban.
Unfortunately, it appears that many Democrats are suffering from a bad case of partisan bias resulting in an ideologically induced blindness to reality. If the data doesn't fit the narrative of the Left's accepted paradigm, then it is rejected.
~The Patriot Post
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As Bombs Descend on Israel, Hamas
Fighters Defecting to ISIS in Sinai
by Tiffany Gabbay
{truthrevolt.org} ~ On Wednesday, a rocket fired from Syria landed in Golan, and shortly thereafter, roughly 7 to 10 additional rockets were fired from Sinai into Eilat in Southern Israel... At least three of those missiles were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system but several others exploded in the area. There is even footage of mortar shells falling into a local resident's swimming pool. ISIS took credit for the Sinai-based attack and vowed Israel's destruction. Disturbingly, ISIS now also has the aid of Hamas militants, many of whom have defected to the Islamic State in Sinai in recent years. The Times of Israel reports: A member of Hamas’s naval commando unit defected from the Gaza-based terror organization nearly a year ago to join the Sinai Province — the Islamic State group’s branch in the Sinai Peninsula, Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel... http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/bombs-descend-israel-hamas-fighters-defecting-isis-sinai
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Media miss major policy shift in
Trump's immigration order
by Art Moore
{wnd.com} ~ Amid the controversy over President Trump’s executive order on immigration, a major philosophical change in counter-terrorism strategy articulated in the order has been largely missed... In contrast to the frequent reassurances of previous presidents that it is a “religion of peace,” Islam – the historic, fundamentalist interpretation that is mainstream across the Middle East – will be regarded by the Trump administration as a hostile political ideology that threatens the U.S. Constitution. Brian Thomas, a contributor to Jihad Watch, wrote that the important development has been lost in the focus on Trump’s order to temporarily block entry to visitors and migrants from seven terror-producing countries. “Islamic values always lead to intolerance. Islam’s guiding texts are all fundamentally devoted to separating the world between believers and non-believers,” he said. “All of our liberal freedoms and our equality stem from a Judeo-Christian belief that all men are created in the image of God and are equal before equitable laws. That is not at the heart of Islam.”... http://www.wnd.com/2017/02/media-miss-major-policy-shift-in-trumps-immigration-order/
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Judicial Terrorists – 9th Circuit Court Of
Fools Should Listen To This Marine
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ As the libtards in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals play president and work with their equally deranged cohorts in Seattle to keep the open flow of terrorists into America running unabated... it’s good to reflect upon a video of a couple days ago that addressed just the issue that was ruled upon so blindly by the three mice of the 9th Circuit Appeals panel. The video, featuring Steven Gern, a former marine who is presently working as a contractor in Iraq, gets into the attitudes and the beliefs of the Iraqis that he’s interacting with. They’re not organized terrorists or groups of terrorists, just regular Iraqis. He describes asking a simple question of whether or not he’d be welcomed by the local population if he were to venture out into town. They told him he would absolutely not be welcomed and that they would immediately abduct him, torture him and then have his head separated from his body within an hour. He points out it’s the local people who he’s talking to and that they are talking about, not ISIS, al-Qaeda or another terrorist group. In essence, what he’s telling us is they’re all terrorists... http://rickwells.us/judicial-terrorists-9th-circuit-court-fools-listen-marine/
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Left-wing group's attack
on Alabama judge backfires
by Bob Unruh
{wnd.com} ~ It looks like the attempt by the Southern Poverty Law Center – which has been linked in a federal court case to domestic terror and at one point put Dr. Ben Carson, one of the most admired leaders in America, on its “haters” list... to silence comments by an Alabama Supreme Court justice has backfired. The left-wing activists had complained about Justice Tom Parker when he was interviewed on American Family Radio about the Obergefell same-sex “marriage” case before the U.S. Supreme Court. But the judge responded with a lawsuit of his own contending such restrictions on speech violate his rights. And now, while the SPLC complaint has been dismissed, an appeals court has affirmed that the trial needs to look into Parker’s claims and constitutional rights... http://www.wnd.com/2017/02/left-wing-groups-attack-on-alabama-judge-backfires/
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Gorsuch Should Withdraw His Name
After Insulting President Trump
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Lou Dobbs offers a few quick thoughts on Judge Neil Gorsuch, the man that President Trump nominated to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left due to the passing of Justice Scalia... Dobbs notes that Gorsuch “was back on the hill today, just one day after the Supreme Court nominee made disparaging comments about the President who nominated him.” He notes that Kelly Ayotte, a Senator who lost her seat because she was in large measure a Never Trumper, “defended the comments of the judge saying this, ‘While he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judge’s integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing.” Dobbs responded to those comments directly, saying, “Well Judge, I think you’re full of it. I believe Judge Gorsuch is speaking as if the judiciary were sacrosanct and pure, even though it’s awash with political bias, much like the rest of government, and it is certainly not holier than the rest of us.”... http://rickwells.us/dobbs-gorsuch-withdraw-name-insulting-president-trump/
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Trump policy on Israel is evolving
in somewhat surprising ways
by Anne Gearan
{jewishworldreview.com} ~ President Donald Trump's administration is shaping its policy toward Israel and a potential peace settlement with the Palestinians in ways that may seem surprising for a president who had appeared to offer the government in Jerusalem a blank check on the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and other issues.
The outlines of the policy emerged Friday after a conflicting series of statements attributed to the administration.
On Thursday evening, the White House issued an unusual statement discouraging new Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That was prompted by a Jerusalem Post story that appeared to be based on the leak of parts of a harsher, draft statement criticizing settlements as an obstacle to peace. The subsequent official statement was an attempt to soften any blanket condemnation of settlements and any perceived criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, people familiar with the episode said Friday.
The official statement, rushed as it was, is nonetheless expected to be the foundation for Trump administration policy on Israeli homebuilding on land that Palestinians claim for a future state. It puts the United States on record agreeing with Israeli leaders that current settlements are not necessarily an obstacle to peace, but it also says that new construction "may not be helpful."
There was no mention of the long-stated U.S. goal of a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The settlement policy - more lenient toward Israel than former President Barack liar-nObama's administration, but not as lenient as sought by many of Israel's strongest backers - is expected to be formalized when Netanyahu visits President Trump at the White House on Feb. 15.
"The president's committed to peace. That's his goal," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday, adding that settlements would "obviously be a topic" for the two leaders. "We don't believe that the existence of current settlements is an impediment to peace, but I think the construction or expansion of existing settlements beyond the current borders is not going to be helpful moving forward."
That's not what the original, leaked version of a U.S. statement about settlement expansion had said. Drafted in response to Israel's surprise announcement of 5,500 new homes for Jews in the West Bank over the last week, the remarks originally charged that settlements could hamper peace efforts, according to people who saw its contents or were briefed on them.
The Jerusalem Post quoted an unidentified administration official Thursday as saying settlements could "undermine" U.S. chances to foster peace. The official was also quoted as saying that Trump is committed to two states.
The article set off a scramble to issue revised language that softened the rebuke and removed the reference to two states, while making clear that the United States will not countenance everything Israel does.
The result may be helpful to Netanyahu in two ways, U.S. and Israeli officials and analysts said. It lifts U.S. pressure against current settlements, which previous administrations have called illegitimate and a hindrance to peace, while giving him political cover against critics on his right who want to greatly expand building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
It also suggests more continuity with past policy than many foreign policy analysts had expected, given Trump's fierce condemnation of the liar-nObama administration for being "unfair" to Israel, and the strong views of close advisers shaping his Israel policy.
"This statement is important in that it seeks to eliminate tension created by the last administration over growth within existing Israeli communities in the West Bank, and it signals a return to the status quo ante" of U.S. opposition to settlement expansion, said Joshua Block, president of the Israel Project in Washington.
Block likened the statement to the much more detailed written understandings between former president George W. Bush and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in which the United States gave quiet assurance that it would recognize existing settlement blocks as part of Israel in a future peace accord. The Bush policy allowed for growth within settlements but not for expanding their perimeters or the building of new communities.
Settlements are usually considered one of the primary obstacles to a peace settlement, because Palestinians consider them an illegal expropriation and their existence complicates the drawing of viable borders for a Palestinian state.
As a candidate, Trump said Israel should "go ahead" with settlements, and as president-elect, he railed against the liar-nObama administration for allowing a U.N. condemnation of Israel over settlements.
As president, Trump has mentioned the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Trump has said that he plans to deploy his son-in-law, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, to the role of Middle East peacemaker.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu looks forward to his meeting with President Trump on February 15 in which they will speak about a wide range of issues, including this one," Netanyahu's office said of the White House statement.
"If you dissect the wording it seems a slight departure," said Alon Pinkas, a former senior Israeli diplomat and top government aide. "At the same time, the right wing in Israel didn't expect this and was blindsided."
The administration statement followed extensive conversations here this week between visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan and the White House. Abdullah, who spoke briefly to Trump at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast, met with Vice President Mike Pence, national security adviser Michael Flynn and other White House officials, along with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and senior lawmakers with whom he maintains a close relationship.
Jordan is among the few Arab countries considered stable and trustworthy by the administration. Its geography, bordering Israel, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, also makes it a key player on a range of issues, from the anti-Islamic State campaign to the migrant crisis that has brought more than 650,000 Syrian refugees to Jordan and an additional 85,000 on the Syrian side of the border waiting to get in.
A White House statement on the meeting with Trump said that the president "underscored that the United States is committed to strengthening the security and economic partnership with Jordan" and that they discussed an official visit in the "near future."
Anxious to get a reading on where the new administration stood on a number of issues, Abdullah cautioned in particular that the promised movement of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would have cascading, negative consequences. In addition to serving as a recruiting tool for terrorist groups, more than 2 million Palestinians live in Jordan, about one-third of the population. Any upheaval in the West Bank would have immediate spillover effects.
Despite his campaign statements that it would take place immediately after his inauguration, Trump appears to have dialed back his commitment to moving the embassy. While the Jerusalem Embassy Act passed in 1995 calls for relocating the mission to Jerusalem, the law included a national security waiver that every administration since has exercised. The current waiver, signed by President liar-nObama in December, expires in June. Regional partners who have spoken to Trump administration officials about it believe the White House intends to delay a final decision until forced to do so when Trump would need to sign another waiver or take steps to implement the law.
In Israel, there was head-scratching and instant punditry about what exactly the Trump administration may be saying with its statement.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told Israel Radio, "It's still too early to tell. I would not categorize this as a U-turn by the U.S. administration, but the issue is clearly on their agenda."
Danon added, "We don't always agree on everything."
The White House statement came just a few hours after Israeli police forcibly evicted 40 families from the Jewish settlement of Amona, a community of battered mobile homes on a windy hilltop built on land privately owned by Palestinians that the Israeli Supreme Court branded as "illegal."
The eviction of the 600 settlers and hundreds of supporters on Wednesday and Thursday required more than 3,000 police officers. Dozens were injured.
As the Amona evictions began, Netanyahu and his defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who resides in a settlement, had announced the plans to build the 5,500 houses for Jews in the West Bank.
A week ago, Netanyahu assured his Likud party and his security cabinet that when he travels to Washington, he will not yield to pressure to give the Palestinians a full state, but something he called a "state-minus."
The outlines of the policy emerged Friday after a conflicting series of statements attributed to the administration.
On Thursday evening, the White House issued an unusual statement discouraging new Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That was prompted by a Jerusalem Post story that appeared to be based on the leak of parts of a harsher, draft statement criticizing settlements as an obstacle to peace. The subsequent official statement was an attempt to soften any blanket condemnation of settlements and any perceived criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, people familiar with the episode said Friday.
The official statement, rushed as it was, is nonetheless expected to be the foundation for Trump administration policy on Israeli homebuilding on land that Palestinians claim for a future state. It puts the United States on record agreeing with Israeli leaders that current settlements are not necessarily an obstacle to peace, but it also says that new construction "may not be helpful."
There was no mention of the long-stated U.S. goal of a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The settlement policy - more lenient toward Israel than former President Barack liar-nObama's administration, but not as lenient as sought by many of Israel's strongest backers - is expected to be formalized when Netanyahu visits President Trump at the White House on Feb. 15.
"The president's committed to peace. That's his goal," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday, adding that settlements would "obviously be a topic" for the two leaders. "We don't believe that the existence of current settlements is an impediment to peace, but I think the construction or expansion of existing settlements beyond the current borders is not going to be helpful moving forward."
That's not what the original, leaked version of a U.S. statement about settlement expansion had said. Drafted in response to Israel's surprise announcement of 5,500 new homes for Jews in the West Bank over the last week, the remarks originally charged that settlements could hamper peace efforts, according to people who saw its contents or were briefed on them.
The Jerusalem Post quoted an unidentified administration official Thursday as saying settlements could "undermine" U.S. chances to foster peace. The official was also quoted as saying that Trump is committed to two states.
The article set off a scramble to issue revised language that softened the rebuke and removed the reference to two states, while making clear that the United States will not countenance everything Israel does.
The result may be helpful to Netanyahu in two ways, U.S. and Israeli officials and analysts said. It lifts U.S. pressure against current settlements, which previous administrations have called illegitimate and a hindrance to peace, while giving him political cover against critics on his right who want to greatly expand building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
It also suggests more continuity with past policy than many foreign policy analysts had expected, given Trump's fierce condemnation of the liar-nObama administration for being "unfair" to Israel, and the strong views of close advisers shaping his Israel policy.
"This statement is important in that it seeks to eliminate tension created by the last administration over growth within existing Israeli communities in the West Bank, and it signals a return to the status quo ante" of U.S. opposition to settlement expansion, said Joshua Block, president of the Israel Project in Washington.
Block likened the statement to the much more detailed written understandings between former president George W. Bush and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in which the United States gave quiet assurance that it would recognize existing settlement blocks as part of Israel in a future peace accord. The Bush policy allowed for growth within settlements but not for expanding their perimeters or the building of new communities.
Settlements are usually considered one of the primary obstacles to a peace settlement, because Palestinians consider them an illegal expropriation and their existence complicates the drawing of viable borders for a Palestinian state.
As a candidate, Trump said Israel should "go ahead" with settlements, and as president-elect, he railed against the liar-nObama administration for allowing a U.N. condemnation of Israel over settlements.
As president, Trump has mentioned the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Trump has said that he plans to deploy his son-in-law, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, to the role of Middle East peacemaker.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu looks forward to his meeting with President Trump on February 15 in which they will speak about a wide range of issues, including this one," Netanyahu's office said of the White House statement.
"If you dissect the wording it seems a slight departure," said Alon Pinkas, a former senior Israeli diplomat and top government aide. "At the same time, the right wing in Israel didn't expect this and was blindsided."
The administration statement followed extensive conversations here this week between visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan and the White House. Abdullah, who spoke briefly to Trump at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast, met with Vice President Mike Pence, national security adviser Michael Flynn and other White House officials, along with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and senior lawmakers with whom he maintains a close relationship.
Jordan is among the few Arab countries considered stable and trustworthy by the administration. Its geography, bordering Israel, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, also makes it a key player on a range of issues, from the anti-Islamic State campaign to the migrant crisis that has brought more than 650,000 Syrian refugees to Jordan and an additional 85,000 on the Syrian side of the border waiting to get in.
A White House statement on the meeting with Trump said that the president "underscored that the United States is committed to strengthening the security and economic partnership with Jordan" and that they discussed an official visit in the "near future."
Anxious to get a reading on where the new administration stood on a number of issues, Abdullah cautioned in particular that the promised movement of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would have cascading, negative consequences. In addition to serving as a recruiting tool for terrorist groups, more than 2 million Palestinians live in Jordan, about one-third of the population. Any upheaval in the West Bank would have immediate spillover effects.
Despite his campaign statements that it would take place immediately after his inauguration, Trump appears to have dialed back his commitment to moving the embassy. While the Jerusalem Embassy Act passed in 1995 calls for relocating the mission to Jerusalem, the law included a national security waiver that every administration since has exercised. The current waiver, signed by President liar-nObama in December, expires in June. Regional partners who have spoken to Trump administration officials about it believe the White House intends to delay a final decision until forced to do so when Trump would need to sign another waiver or take steps to implement the law.
In Israel, there was head-scratching and instant punditry about what exactly the Trump administration may be saying with its statement.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told Israel Radio, "It's still too early to tell. I would not categorize this as a U-turn by the U.S. administration, but the issue is clearly on their agenda."
Danon added, "We don't always agree on everything."
The White House statement came just a few hours after Israeli police forcibly evicted 40 families from the Jewish settlement of Amona, a community of battered mobile homes on a windy hilltop built on land privately owned by Palestinians that the Israeli Supreme Court branded as "illegal."
The eviction of the 600 settlers and hundreds of supporters on Wednesday and Thursday required more than 3,000 police officers. Dozens were injured.
As the Amona evictions began, Netanyahu and his defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who resides in a settlement, had announced the plans to build the 5,500 houses for Jews in the West Bank.
A week ago, Netanyahu assured his Likud party and his security cabinet that when he travels to Washington, he will not yield to pressure to give the Palestinians a full state, but something he called a "state-minus."
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