Cornell Dean: 'Why Yes, ISIS Is Welcome To Train Jihadis On Campus!'

James O'Keefe strikes again.Somewhere in heaven, Andrew Breitbart is smiling.

O'Keefe sent an operative with the alias 'Ali' to visit Cornell’s assistant dean for students, Joseph Scaffido, who agreed to inviting an ISIS “freedom fighter’’ to conduct a “training camp” for students which Scaffido compared to 'running a sports camp.

“You would be allowed to do something like that. It’s just like bringing in a coach, to do a training, a sports trainer or something,”

He also endorsed Cornell sponsoring a pro-“Islamic State Iraq and Syria” group on campus, which would provide material support for terrorists (a felony)in the form of “care packages, whether it be food, water, electronics.”

How about supporting Hamas?

No problem at all, Scaffido said. Apparently he's fine with genocide against Jews as well.

“The university is not going to look at different groups and say, ‘You’re not allowed to support that group because we don’t believe them’ or something like that. I think it’s just the opposite. I think the university wants the entire community to understand what’s going on in all parts of the world,” Scaffido said.

I actually would love to see Mr. Scaffido meet up with some of those 'sports coaches' from Islamic State. He obviously doesn't need his head anyway.

Cornell was shocked and embarrassed by this, said that in no way does the university support these views and that Joseph Scaffido was going to be fired for potentially involving the university in a felony violation of federal law.

Oh, wait...none of the above! In response to inquiries from the New York Post, here's what Cornell had to say:


“Cornell fully supports the free exchange of ideas and does not review or control the political ideology of our students. We do not, of course, tolerate unlawful advocacy of violence, and the comment about training by ISIS freedom fighters does not reflect university policy,” said Joel Malina, Cornell’s vice president for university relations.

It would be quite interesting to see what other groups Mr. Scaffido has been assisting to get funds from the university and use it's facilities, now wouldn't it? And even more fascinating to see which ones he's deliberately impeded and discouraged. 'Free exchange of ideas' obviously includes Hamas, the Taliban, Islamic State, and Hezbollah on the menu...can I get fries with that?

These are the people who are mind raping your sons and daughters.

A fish rots from the head. So does a nation.

'Car Jihad' Against Jews Spreads To Europe

 


The latest fad in terrorism is the car jihad, an innovation of Hamas/Fatah. The technique's pretty basic. You simply take a car, truck or van, look for a crowd of people waiting for a bus or a train and drive right into them and commit vehicular homicide.

It's particularly effective because the assault is camouflaged by all the other cars on the street and the victims are never aware until it's too late. Hamas/Fatah are in love with this technique and promote it by making heroes out of the perpetrators it via social media and kicky little graphics like these:






It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before it spread to Europe.



Today the chief Rabbi of Holland, 65-year-old Binyamin Jacobs, was nearly murdered by a couple of car jihadis in broad daylight:

The incident occurred when Rabbi Jacobs exited his vehicle at a gas station to fill up.

The Rabbi said that he was being watched by two youths “of Mediterranean extraction,” with one returning to his own vehicle when Rabbi Jacobs began filling up his vehicle. Suddenly, the youth sped up, aiming directly for the rabbi – and fortunately, he was able to jump back into his vehicle to avoid being hit. The two youths burst out laughing and drove away, he said.

“I don't know if their intention was to scare me or G-d forbid worse. But thank G-d I was saved,” he said.

Rabbi Jacobs immediately contacted police, who opened an investigation. Police said they hoped to be able to catch the culprits.

Even though they weren't able to hit him,I'm certain the jihadis found the spectacle of an elderly Jew running for his life highly amusing.

For Rabbi Jacobs, a man who has lived in Holland his entire life and who last year became the first Rabbi to receive the Order of Orange-Nassau from the Netherland's Queen Beatrix for his interfaith and charitable activities, this was unfortunately not a unique experience.This is the sixth time either he or his residence have been the target of attacks.

After attack #5, which involved bricks hurled through the windows of his home, the Rabbi shocked Dutch society when he told local media that if not for his obligations to the communities he serves, he would leave because of the anti-Semitism problem. The Chabad rabbi said he tries not to walk near schools in his middle-class neighborhood and elsewhere in Holland because he doesn’t want to be cursed at by the children.

“No one will tell us when to leave Holland,” Jacobs said. “I’m staying here because it’s my shlichut, or mission. But would we stay here if we were private people? I don’t think so.”

Six of the rabbi's eight children have already left the Netherlands.

Don't be surprised to see more of the car jihad in Europe. Or to see it occur in America.

It isn't about Israel or 'anti-Zionism.'

Never Trust A Weegie - Glasgow To Heart Hamas Tomorrow

 

The City of Glasgow, Scotland plans to show its support for Hamas by flying a Palestinian flag from city chambers tomorrow in 'solidarity.'

 

Glasgow's Lord Provost, Councilor Sadie Docherty wrote a treacly condolence letter to Mousa Baboun,the mayor of Bethlehem. " “Glasgow is home to many friends of Palestine and this is a deeply distressing time for them…We hope that peace can be found to ensure the human rights for the people of Palestine.”

This is the height of irony to anyone who knows anything about what Yasser Arafat and the PLO did to Bethlehem's Christians. 

Need I mention that Bethlehem is in Area A,  the part of Judea and Samaria under the control of the Palestinian Authority? And that any complaints about human rights or the lack of same ought to be addressed there, rather than Israel?

Ah,but never mind. The need to heart Hamas and slander Jews has a history in Scotland. It's downright fashionable.

Of course, not everyone is going along with the program,

On the city council’s Facebook page, the comments run to phrases like “disgusting decision,” or a “step backwards” for the city.

One commenter, David MacIntyre, wrote, “By allowing the Palestinian flag to be flown from the City Chambers [it] looks like a show of support to the Hamas terrorists. All our hearts go out to the innocent people killed and injured in this latest fighting… Glasgow is a very diverse city and also has a large Jewish community. How will they feel to see this."

As if Lord Provost Docherty and the rest of the Hamas groupies care!

 

And you know what the real joke is? The Weegies are likely to find out exactly what Bethlehem's Christians found out sooner rather than later. The yardstick for a population to replicate itself is a fertility rate of at least 2.1 per woman. The current rate (as of 2010, the last census) of non-Muslim Scots? About 1.2 kids per woman, while the Muslim rate in Scotland is 2.8 to 3.0..and that doesn't account for the ongoing immigration that's still incoming.Or polygamy.

Jimmy may not be pumping out the bairns anymore, but Abdullah is. And even more, because the native Scot population is aging while the Muslim immigrants tend to be younger, you'll see at some point in the not too distant future a disproportionally Muslim electorate.Sharia, anybody? It already has a decent start in the UK anyway

That cross on that town hall will go, and so will the cross of Saint Andrew for a more 'culturally enriched' banner.

 

Then we'll see how much they heart the likes of Hamas and Islamists when they have to live under them.

Head Of Human Rights Watch OKs Terrorist Attacks On Israel

Good ol' Human Rights Watch..you can always depend on them to exhibit Jew hatred and try to disguise it with their selective faux morality.

According to the head of the organization Ken Roth, abductions and killings by Hamas are not human rights violations as long as the target is soldiers:

Kenneth Roth        ✔ @KenRoth Follow

Tunnels used to attack or capture civilians is a rights violation. Tunnels used to attack or capture soldiers isn't. http://trib.al/v8CCCj6 

2:06 PM - 29 Jul 2014

313 Retweets 105 favorites     

Of course, Arab terrorists, like anti-Zionists and terrorism groupies everywhere always jump to that next step...that since the majority of Israelis serve in the IDF at some point there are no Israeli civilians! I'm sure you've all heard that one before and so has Ken Roth. What he's done in so many words ids to legitimize terrorist attacks on Israel.

Now, Ken Roth has pretty much an impeccable anti-Israel record, to the point where the founder and former chairman of Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein, publicly disowned the organization in 2009 because of it. Roth  is described as an 'international lawyer' who graduated from Yale Law School. He's been working at HWR since 1987, when he was hired by a fellow Left wing apostate Jew, Areyeh Neier, one of George Soros' creatures who now heads Soros Open Society. Roth has headed HRW since 1993. Shouldn't he actually know something about human rights as they apply to the laws of war?

For instance, the Geneva Convention distinguishes between 'lawful' and 'unlawful' combatants. Hamas perfectly fits the definition of unlawful because they  do not wear uniforms, openly target civilians and are not fighting on behalf of a sovereign state.

Not only that, but Article 34 of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically prohibits taking hostages even among soldiers, the very thing this cretin just endorsed. So again, by definition, unlawful combatants taking hostages is a human rights violation.

Oh, I know, its Jews and Israel, and there are always special rules for them, aren't there Mr. Roth?

You know what? The thing that bothers me most about people like Kenneth Roth is not their 'anti-Zionism'  but their basic dishonesty. Hamas says flat out that their goal is genocide of all Jews worldwide, and they cite the Muslim scriptures to endorse it. The Ken Roths of the world grow up as Left wing apparatchniks who find Israel and the idea of a Jewish country abhorrent, because it embarrasses them with their Leftist counterparts. So they feel the need to prove their bonifides with stupidity like the above tweet.

And most of the time, they can't even be honest about that much. While they pretend to endorse the idea of Israel's survival, they want it ghetto-ized to indefensible borders while the West invests in 'Palestine' to the point where terrorist strikes against Israel make living there untenable, the Jews leave and it becomes just another Arab squat. 

Unfortunately for them, the Jews aren't going to permit themselves to be marginalized like that, and they're staying.

The Ken Roths of the world can piss and moan about that all they like, but it isn't going to change.

 You do know exactly what you can do, don't you Mr. Roth? You and the horse you rode in on?

A Third Hamas Rocket Arsenal Found In An UNRWA School

 

Today, UNRWA announced today that a third stash of Hamas rockets had been found 'hidden' in one of its schools. My information is that the Israelis were tipped off by one of the Hamas fighters who surrendered to them last week.

UNWRA, of course, did exactly what they've done with the other two stashes of Hamas rockets found stored in their schools - they turned them over to 'local authorities' AKA Hamas so that they could be fired against Israel's civilians.

Asa I mentioned before, UNRWA has something of a history of allowing its facilities and its personnel to assist Hamas in terrorist attacks against Israel. In this latest conflict, UNRWA supplies and building materials have been found in Hamas’s terrorist tunnel infrastructure, which has been used to smuggle weapons and carry out attacks on Israel.

 


This is all supposedly against the UN's rules, of course, but UNRWA, unlike the UN High Commission on Refugees doesn't screen any of its local hires for ties to terrorism.Given that UNRWA's sole purpose in life is to perpetuate permanent Palestinian 'refugee' status, their being in bed with terrorism is hardly unexpected.

Israel should not only defeat Hamas and annex Gaza, they should throw UNRWA out of Gaza and make them build their camps outside Israeli territory. Then the $47 million President Obama and the $48 million Qatar want to give to Hamas for 'rebuilding' can go to UNRWA instead, a significant part of the local population will have someplace outside Israeli territory  to go, and Israel can get on with the business of repopulating Gaza with Jews and watching it become a prosperous agricultural and tourist center instead of a terrorist squat.

 

Georgia Democrat Senate Nominee Nunn is A Hamas Donor!!

Michelle Nunn is the Democrat's hope to try and make a senate pickup in a Red state. She's very much a doctrinaire Lefty from Bethesda, Maryland who has little connection with Georgia or Georgians aside from being the daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn, but that's a big deal because of the name recognition, so the democrats are putting serious money behind her. She's pro gun confiscation, pro Obama and pro amnesty, all stances that would ordinarily sink her in a Red state.

Today, her campaign plan leaked, essentially a confidential memo on how she's going to go about conning the electorate to win.

Parts of it are actually funny, like the part where Ms. Nunn, who lives in an upscale Atlanta neighborhood is advised to have pictures taken of herself and her family “in rural settings with rural-oriented imagery” to try to appeal more to rural Georgians..as if this leftist elite actually knows or cares which part of a cow milk comes out of or where fried chicken comes from.

Essentially, the idea is to fool 30% of the white working class to pull the lever for her (something no Democrat since Max Cleland back in 2002 has managed to pull off) and roust out a coalition of blacks Latinos (legal or otherwise) gays, clueless youngsters befuddled by slogans and choom and of course...Jews.

Fooling Jews into voting for her and of course donating is a ket part of the scam:

 

“Michelle’s position on Israel will largely determine the level of support here.” Hmmmm.

Now, Michelle Nunn hasn't had much to say about Israel so far. In fact, during the primary she didn't have all that much to say about anything.

But apparently, like a lot of Lefties (Barack Obama, for instance)she has some baggage she'd rather the Jews didn't find out about when she's putting the make on them.

Nun's job since she returned to Georgia in 2007 has been to serve as the CEO on the Points of Light Foundation, and in the document her strategists express enormous concern about attacks that might arise from her work there.

Like a lot of Left-bent foundations, the Points of Light Foundation has some interesting donations that occurred while Ms. Nunn was running the place. According to the document, it has made grants to terrorists and “inmates” during her tenure, and the document also makes reference to a 2010 audit that concluded Points of Light’s accounting system was “not adequate to account for federal funds.”

The accounting problems just make her a typical Democrat not to be trusted near other people's money.  But let's look at the terrorists it funded:

 According to the IRS Form 990s that Points of Light filed in 2008 and 2011, the organization gave a grant of over $33,000 to Islamic Relief USA, a charity that says it strives to alleviate “hunger, illiteracy, and diseases worldwide.” Islamic Relief USA is part of a global network of charities that operate under the umbrella of Islamic Relief Worldwide. Islamic Relief USA says on its website that it is a legally separate entity from its parent organization, but that they share “a common vision, mission, and family identity.”

Islamic Relief Worldwide has ties to Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization. In June, Israel banned the charity from operating in the country because, according to Israeli officials, it was funneling cash to Hamas. In 2006, Israelis arrested Islamic Relief Worldwide’s Gaza coordinator, Ayaz Ali. They said he was working to “transfer funds and assistance to various Hamas institutions and organizations.” Ali admitted to cooperating with local Hamas operatives while working in Jordan and, on his computer, Israeli officials found photographs of “swastikas superimposed on IDF symbols,” and of Nazi officials, Osama bin Laden, and al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Islamic Relief USA highlighted the work of Islamic Relief Worldwide in Palestine in its 2012 annual report, in which it talks generally about the work of Islamic Relief charities in the region without drawing a distinction between the branches.

 The organization has raised eyebrows before. According to a 2012 report, its bank account was closed by UBS and it was “under constant scrutiny by other banks due to nervousness about counterterrorist regulations.” The group’s terror ties extend beyond Hamas, according to a former Israeli intelligence official. He says that Islamic Relief Worldwide’s country director in Palestine, Muneed Abugazaleh, met in April 2012 with Dr. Omar Shalah, a leader of the terror group Islamic Jihad and of the Riyad al-Saleheen Charitable Society, which is affiliated with the group. He is also the brother of Ramadan Shalah, the leader of Islamic Jihad.

This woman oversaw funds going to a Hamas front!!

And even scarier, the feds let Points of Light keep their 501c status.

I guess that tells us what we want to know about her Israel position, convenient boilerplate platitudes about 'Israel's right to exist' that I'm sure she'll come up with to the contrary.While I previously might have said the clueless Jews will take out their wallets and pull the lever for her  anyway, I sense something of a change here.The Obama Administration's behavior towards Israel and what's going on in Europe and even here in America with attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions since Israel decided to hit back at Hamas has changed a more than a few minds. Yes there are some lefty, secular Jews who will drink the Kool-ade, but not as many as before.

Ms. Nunn might not have the easy time of it with Jews she might have a few years ago.

There actually quite a bit on the web  about  Points of Light and the HandsOn Network, which operates as part of Points of Light.that is pretty troublesome, and a search will give you plenty of material.

Believe it or not, Points of Light was actually started by President George HW Bush, but like a lot of foundations originally started by non-radicals, it, shall we say, is now under new management with a very different orientation than its founders.

IDF: Deaths AT UNRWA School Were Caused By Hamas

 

The press about an attack on an UNRWA school in Beit Hanoun that resulted in the death of 15 children was one of those naturals just made for Hamas groupies in the media. Especially after UNRWA head Chris Guinness accused the IDF of preventing civilians from leaving:

  Chris Gunness @ChrisGunness Follow

Over the course of the day UNRWA tried 2 coodinate with the Israeli Army a window for civilians 2 leave & it was never granted RT

6:24 AM - 24 Jul 2014

  1,117 Retweets 155 favorites

In previous times, the IDF would have simply expressed sorrow for the loss of human life and apologized as if it were at fault. A month or so later, after the propaganda had been published world wide, the results of an IDF forensic investigation would come out showing definitively that Israel was not at fault and that it was yet another Pallywood propaganda coup...but by then it was too late.

Things have changed. Rather than admitting any blame, the IDF said right from the first that their troops were under fire from the school, that they had made every effort to evacuate the school that there was a good possibility that it was Hamas who had fired on the school, and that they would investigate.

Today, that inquiry was concluded and the IDF released a statement.


“The inquiry concluded that during the intense fighting between IDF forces and Hamas militants, the militants operated adjacent to the UNRWA school. The militants fired anti-tank missiles at IDF soldiers, who then responded by firing several mortars in their direction,” the army statement said.

“The inquiry… concluded that a single errant mortar landed in the courtyard of the UNRWA school, when it was completely empty.”

“The IDF stresses it does not operate or target international organizations in the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing coordination conducted via the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) is continuous without change, even during times of combat.”

“In light of the inquiry’s findings, the IDF rejects the claims that were made by various officials immediately following the incident, that people were killed in the school premises as a result of IDF operational activity,” the statement concluded.

An Israeli drone view of the explosion backing this up can be seen here.

It gets better. The IDF also accused UNRWA head Chris Guinness of outright lying when he claimed that the IDF wouldn't allow civilians to evacuate:

Multiple IDF sources rejected UNRWA’s claims and characterized them as outright falsehoods when reached by the Washington Free Beacon.

“For two days we were trying to move people out of that school in particular and the Beit Hanoun area in general,” said an IDF official who was involved in the interactions between the IDF, UNRWA, and International Red Cross (ICRC) leading up to the incident.

The official continued, “This morning we sought a ceasefire in the area and a humanitarian evacuation of civilians, but Hamas refused—because they wanted to keep civilians in the area to protect their fighters who were firing on the IDF.”

The claim by Gunness and UNRWA that the IDF did not respond to their request to evacuate civilians, the source said, is “a flat-out complete and total lie,” the official told the Free Beacon. [...]

An official IDF statement released to the Free Beacon said that “the IDF authorized a humanitarian time window for evacuation between 10:00-14:00 IDT earlier today. Hamas prevented the civilians from leaving it and once again used their infrastructure and international symbols as human shields. In the course of the afternoon, several rockets launched by Hamas from within the Gaza Strip landed in the Beit Hanoun area.”

Again, here's another possibility that could easily account for the carnage. Two UNRWA schools have already been outed as doubling as Hamas missile depots, with large amounts of explosives stored within. In each case, UNRWA, instead of destroying the rockets happily turned them over to their Hamas frends to fire against Israeli civilians. If the Beit Hanoun school was also being used to store rockets, one of the misdirected Hamas rockets aimed at Israeli forces that fell short could easily have hit the school and exploded the ordnance stored there.

 

As for Guinness and UNRWA...well, let's just say that being caught lying and actively aiding and abetting Hamas is not exactly unprecedented.

Gallup:Israel's Critics Are Younger, Less Educated And Informed, And Mostly Democrat

 

 Americans’ pro-Israel sentiments remain near an all-time high, according to Pew’s  numbers, and CNN measures public support for Israel’s recent actions against Hamas at a robust (57/43)..which since it's CNN, probably means the real numbers are a lot closer to Pew's.

But Gallup has an interesting new poll out that puts thing in a different light..



While America is still overwhelmingly pro-Israel, the part that skews anti-Israel has a very  interesting demographic. Hamas has very little support, but as Gallup itself revealed in their internals, what brings the pro-Israel numbers up so high is self-identifying Republicans and GOP leaners. They back Israel by a huge 44% margin over those who do not, whereas Democrats backing Israel lose out by 16 points to those who don't.

The profile of those who don't consider  Israel’s  war against  Hamas as “justified” are young people (-26), non-whites (-24), women (-11), and people with a high school education or less (-11) . This is also known as the Democratic coalition.



Another breakdown comes when you look at people following the events occurring closely as opposed to your typical low information voters whom don't and rely on soundbites from the likes of MSNBC:



None of this is exactly a surprise to me. I've written before that one important goal that President Obama,our first truly anti-Israel president worked hard on was to make support for Israel a partisan issue. He's succeeded.

Anyone who's been paying attention over the last 5 years understands that, and 2012 underlined it. That year saw President Obama, running unopposed for re-election strip out nearly all of the pro-Israel language of 2008 from the 2012 Democrat party platform.

When prominent Jews and others in the party objected and the White House realized it didn't poll well, we saw one of the most amazing moments in American politics. The Obama campaign tried to amend changes in the platform by voice vote on the floor of the national convention in Charlotte,NC, and the nation watched as at least half (and probably more) of the delegates on the floor at the Democratic national convention tried to vote down the amendment including references to G-d and Jerusalem as Israel's capital in the party platform. There was a near riot when those changes were shoved through over the obvious wishes of the assembled delegates in spite of the proposed amendment clearly not getting the required two thirds majority after three futile tries.



Will Jews and other pro-Israel Democrats get a clue from this and realize where the Democrats are moving? That remains to be seen.To my mind, the party is split right now, with much of its older, more establishment members still pro Israel. But the party’s present and future base? They're moving in a very different direction, and those Democrats who consider themselves pro-Israel had better realize it and think about what they're supporting.

UN HRC Accuses Israel Of 'War Crimes' In Gaza

The UN Human Rights Council isn't sitting idly by while war in being waged in Gaza. Today, Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights and head of the Council accused - wait for it - Israel of committing war crimes, and the Council adopted a Palestinian resolution calling for condemnation of Israel and a full investigation into 'violations' Israel allegedly committed.

For cover purposes, a brief pro forma condemnation of Hamas was included for their "indiscriminate attacks" on Israel. Not for their using civilians as human shields, not for using hospitals as military command posts, not for storing armaments in UNRWA schools, not for targeting Israeli civilians or a civilian airport, all of which are war crimes under the Geneva Convention Hamas/Fatah just signed on to and all of which Israel has documented.

None of that is going to be investigated by the UNHRC. Just a brief mention of "indiscriminate attacks" which implies that attacks on Israel in general are just fine with the UNHRC, if they're targeted.

Navi Pillay, a South African, has a long history of anti-Israel activism and border line Jew hatred, including her helping to organize the notorious Durban II and Durban III conferences that were so rife with Jew hatred that a number of western delegates walked out on them.

She is a real piece of work, and it's not at all unexpected that she would spearhead this. In th eend, the vote was 22 in favor of the resolution (almost all Muslim and Arab countries) and one against (the United States) while 17 other countries, mostly EU nations cowardly abstained.

 

The Palestinian delegate from Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction,  Riyad al-Maliki who brought the resolution forward and was last seen accusing Israel of fabricating the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens Hamas murdered  said "Israel is in the process of committing hideous crimes."

"Israel is destroying residential areas completely. Israel is targeting journalists. Israel has destroyed 2,500 houses. Infrastructure has been destroyed. Israeli forces are targeting Gaza's medical centers. What Israel is doing is a crime against humanity.  How many martyrs must die before Israel puts an end to its aggression?"

Martyrs.

As you can imagine, that screed got huge applause from the usual suspects.

Israel's envoy to the UNHRC, Eviatar Manor, responded to Pillay's comments by accusing Hamas of committing war crimes and insisted that Israel was acting as any other state would in seeking to defend its citizens. "There can be no moral symmetry between a terrorist aggressor and a democracy defending itself," he argued.

Even Israel's Justice Minister Tzipi Livni expressed her outrage insisting her country was acting according to international law.

"It is regrettable civilians are killed, but when we call on them to vacate and Hamas calls on them to stay, then that is what happens," she told Israel radio,describing the UN Human Rights Council accurately as an "anti-Israel" body.

The upshot of this is easy to see. The UNHRC will do its 'investigation' and condemn Israel, no matter the reality. They will rely on hearsay, they will slant 'evidence' they will simply make things up if they have to. That's what they're there for.

Israel will issue a rebuttal, which will be ignored. And the entire exercise will have no real effect but to deepen Israel's distrust of the UN and make them less and less willing to cooperate with it.

 

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman met today with the UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon to protest UNRWA allowing Hamas to store rockets and other weaponry in UNRWA schools..and the fact that UNRWA, once it was caught doing it 'resolved' the situation by turning the rockets over to Hamas, a terrorist group so that they could be fired against Israeli civilians.

Lieberman told Ban that it was inexcusable for a UN organization to allow a terrorist group to endanger Palestinian children by using a school for a weapons depot and then to turn the rockets over to Hamas so they could endanger Israeli children.

Ban had no official response.

This is what the UN has degenerated into...a shill for terrorist groups and a haven for anti-semitism.

The War Against Hamas, Day 15

 

The IDF continues to strike back at Hamas.

There were several reports of a 'humanitarian ceasefire' in the making that was scheduled to begin at 10 AM local time, but Hamas made so many ridiculous demands that if never came off.

There was also some apprehension that Hamas may have captured an Israeli soldier, but Sergeant Oron Shaul, a combat soldier of the Golani brigade, 21 years old from Poria has now been accounted for as a KIA (HY"D). Apparently Hamas merely recovered some of his documents.

The UN's pro Hamas/Fatah Secretary General Ban ki-Moon met with PM Netanyahu today to whine about Hamas civiian casualties while saying nothing about his Hamas friends violating the Geneva Accord they just joined with Ban's help by using civilians as human shields, storing armaments in UNRWA facilities, and targeting civilians in Israel. PM Netanyahu had a few things to say to him, after showing Ban the steps the IDF ( unlike Hamas) is taking to avoid civilian casualties (emphasis mine):

 

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate the fact that you came here and that you took time to see what we’ve just shown you. I think it’s clear that Israel is doing what any country would do if terrorists rained down rockets on its cities and towns – hundreds of rockets, day after day, week after week. In addition, as I’ve shown you, Hamas has dug terrorist tunnels under hospitals, mosques, schools, homes, to penetrate our territory, to kidnap and kill Israelis.

Now, in the face of such wanton terrorism, no country could sit idly by. It would exercise its right, inherent and legitimate right of self-defense as we are doing, and act decisively to end the threat to its citizens. This is what Israel is doing. We did not seek this escalation, Mr. Secretary. We accepted the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. I don’t need to remind you it was a proposal that was supported by the UN, by the Arab League, by the United States, by Europe. Hamas rejected it. We accepted the humanitarian ceasefire proposal that the UN proposed afterward. Hamas rejected that. We accepted the ceasefire proposal of the Red Cross in Shejaia. Hamas rejected that, twice. I think the international community must take a clear stand; it must hold Hamas accountable for consistently rejecting the ceasefire proposals and for starting and prolonging this conflict. The international community must hold Hamas accountable for its increasing and indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. And the international community must hold Hamas accountable for using Palestinian civilians as human shields deliberately putting them in harm’s way, deliberately keeping them in harm’s way.

Mr. Secretary, we have made every effort and will continue to make every effort to avoid civilian casualties. We are targeting Hamas terrorist targets. We’ve just shown you these targets, embedded in civilian areas, embedded in mosques, embedded in hospitals, embedded in agricultural schools. Hamas is embedded in there in order to sustain civilian casualties, because they know that we will have to protect our citizens; that we have to act against their targets. So they are committing a double war crime: both targeting our civilians and hiding behind their civilians. And they want, I repeat: They want more civilian casualties, whereas we want no civilian casualties at all, and we’re taking the utmost pain to minimize that. I think the people of Gaza, and that’s become absolutely clear to the world, are the victims of the brutal Hamas regime. They are holding them hostage and they are hiding behind them.

You know, Mr. Secretary, the international community has pressed us to give cement to Gaza to build schools, hospitals, homes. And now we see what has happened to those deliveries of cement. They have been used to dig tunnels next to a kindergarten, not to build a kindergarten but to build a tunnel that penetrates our territory so that Hamas can blow up our kindergartens and murder our children. They’ve used for a long time our willingness to try to keep civilians at a minimum. They’ve been using them to keep on firing at us. We have even opened up a field hospital, Mr. Secretary, to help Hamas civilians, and Hamas is preventing civilians of Gaza from going to our hospital. I believe that you understand this. I believe that you understand that it is the right of every state to defend itself. And Israel will continue to do what it needs to do to defend its people.

Mr. Secretary, this is not only our right; this is our duty.

So far, Bibi Netanyahu is standing up to cretins like Ban. Let's hope it continues.

Here's the IDF's own summary of today's events:

Since the beginning of the ground phase of the operation, the IDF has targeted over 1,800 terror sites. Over the course of the day the IDF has targeted approximately 260 terror activity sites in Gaza. Among the targets were military posts, concealed rocket launchers, weapon manufacturing facilities and military command centers. IDF soldiers uncovered thus far approximately 30 offensive tunnels and 66 access points.

2,160 rockets have been fired at Israel since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, 420 of them were intercepted and some 1,700 hit Israel. Today, 87 rockets were fired at Israel, 18 of them intercepted and 67 hit Israel.

This morning, militants fired anti-tank missiles from within a mosque at IDF soldiers in Khan-Yunis. In response, IAF aircraft targeted the mosque, identifying a hit. Staff Sergeant Avitar Moshe Torjamin was killed and several soldiers were wounded in this incident.

In a separate incident, terrorists fired anti-tank missiles at IDF soldiers in Khan-Yunis. The soldiers responded with fire and killed 4 terrorists.

Around noon, IDF soldiers uncovered 3 tunnel access points in the northern Gaza Strip.

Later today, elite unit soldiers uncovered a cache of ammunition in the central Gaza Strip. The ammunition included anti-tank missiles, heavy machine guns and AK- 47 assault rifles.

Recently, 2 terrorists opened fire at IDF soldiers who responded to the threat and killed them.

The IDF thus far has lost 29 of its soldiers in the war against Hamas. The Hamas toll is well over 600,and contrary to what you're hearing the majority of those deaths are combatants.

Today was also the day the U.S. and a number of EU carriers suspended service to Israel after a Hamas rocket damaged a house a mile from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport. As I wrote earlier this is sheer nonsense that gives Hamas a prize for attacking Israel, just like the $47 million President Obama and Secretary John Kerry have pledged to gift them with. They're not pledging any finds for rebuilding anything in Israel hit by Hamas rockets, of course.

One can only wonder what the reaction of Hamas/Fatah would be if President Obama said flat out that if they launched any more rockets at Israeli civilians, U.S. financial support would rend immediately. Of course, we don't have that kind of president in the White House, although the Canadians certainly have that kind of PM in Ottawa.

Of all people, former NY mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg slammed the FAA ban on U.S carriers flying to Israel and is on his way there via El Al. You have to give him credit.

And speaking of real heroes...The commander of the IDF’s Golani Brigade, Raslan Alian, was wounded on Saturday night. He's the highest ranking Druze in the IDF. He insisted on returning to his men in Gaza on Tuesday to finish the mission, with the scars of battle still evident on his face:



The motto of the Tzahal commanders? 'Follow me.'

In other tidbits, more Hamas rockets were found stored in UNRWA facilities, which of course UNRWA claims to know nothing about. Just like the last batch that was found, UNRWA will hand the latest batch to Hamas to fire against Israeli civilians.

Such people do not even merit contempt. They're simply cockroaches in human form.

Here's hoping that when this is all over, Israel expels UNRWA, never to return.

Obama And The EU Give Huge Prize To Hamas

 

The FAA has banned U.S. carriers from flying to Israel until further notice due to a Hamas rocket hitting a house a mile away from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport.

The FAA advisory reads:

The notice was issued in response to a rocket strike which landed approximately one mile from Ben Gurion International Airport on the morning ... [and] applies only to U.S. operators, and has no authority over foreign airlines operating to or from the airport

The EU was quick to follow along with The European Aviation Safety Agency telling France's AFP it would issue a "strong recommendation to avoid until further notice Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport."

This not only affects Israel economically (this is the height of the tourist season in Israel), but increases Israel's sense of isolation during wartime, and that is deliberate.

Both the Obama Administration and the EU want to stop Israel's offensive in Gaza and preserve Hamas' Islamist reichlet. This is their way of increasing pressure on Israel to leave Hamas in place.

Just imagine what would happen if President Obama made a clear statement  slamming Hamas for the war crime of targeting a civilian airport and threatened to cut off all funding for Hamas/Fatah  unless the rocket fire at Israel's civilians stopped immediately? But not this  president.

 

As Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz said, this was a ridiculous overreaction. "There is no reason for these companies to stop flights. They have given a prize to terror."

After all, Malaysia Airline Flight 17, was traveling through an area with no international restrictions
when it was shot down over the Ukraine, where an armed conflict was known to exist.

I advise anyone traveling to Israel to take El Al.

On the plus side,this provides an incentive for Israel to step up its offensive and take out Hamas once and for all. And it also shows why 'Palestine' in Judea and Samaria shouldn't be based on the pre '67 lines, if it exists at all.

As an aside, President Obama has already pledged $47 million of your tax dollars to Hamas/Fatah for 'rebuilding' in Gaza, plus an additional $15 million to UNRWA ...and not a dime to Israel for its own rebuilding. Since he has to be  aware that the money he gave Hamas for 'rebuilding Gaza' and 'humanitarian aid' went to building Hamas' terrorist infrastructure and the tunnels the Israelis are now fighting to destroy, there's no mistaking where his sympathies lie. 

UNRWA Caught Storing Hamas Rockets In School

 

Not only are the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinian the only 'refugees' ever accorded that status by the UN after 4 generations, they are also the only refugees ever given their very own organization to cater to their needs, the United Nations Works Relief Administration (UNRWA). All other refugees, no matter how dire their situation are lumped together and dealt with by the UN High Commission on Refugees, UNHCR.

And of course some refugees, like the almost 1 miilion Jews ethnically cleansed by the Arab world after 1948 and arrived in Israel with, perhaps, the clothes on their backs were never given refugee status at all, let alone any aid. Funny how that works.

UNRWA has been caught in a number of instances not adhering to its own rules of operation. Teachers hired from Fatah and even Hamas have been caught propagandizing children to hate Israel, and staff members have been caught using UN facilities and supplies in support of terrorist activities.



This is hardly surprising, since unlike UNHCR, UNRWA hires a large amount of locals and makes a point of not testing them for any terrorist ties to groups like, say, Hamas or Islamic Jihad. In fact one Gaza school headmaster employed by UNRWA was also an explosives experts for Islamic Jihad and remained on the payroll even after Israel exposed this to UNRWA.

 

UNRWA staff have been caught transporting weapons and explosives in UNRWA vehicles, fighting in jihadist organizations. During Operation Cast Lead in 2009, UNRWA rejected an IDF investigation without reviwing it that presented evidence that Hamas terrorists were firing mortars at Israeli troops from inside  the Jabalya school in Gaza, which caused the death of several civilians inside the school Hamas was using as human shields.

 


But this time, UNRWA got caught red handed, as IDF forensic intelligence left them no choice . The Tower reports:

Yesterday, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered approximately 20 rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA strongly condemns the group or groups responsible for placing the weapons in one of its installations. This is a flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law. This incident, which is the first of its kind in Gaza, endangered civilians including staff and put at risk UNRWA’s vital mission to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Gaza.

Immediately after discovery, the Agency informed the relevant parties and successfully took all necessary measures for the removal of the objects in order to preserve the safety and security of the school. UNRWA has launched a comprehensive investigation into the circumstances surrounding this incident.

The statement isn't clear if the "relevant parties" are the same as the "group responsible" violating UNRWA's property.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that though UNRWA didn't identify the guilty party, the discovery effectively confirms Israeli charges of Hamas involvement.

Israel regularly accuses Hamas and other Gaza militants of using civilian installations to store and launch rockets, including during the current conflict that began on July 8.

Patrick Martin, a reporter for the Globe and Mail, reported yesterday that as he left a UNRWA school that was housing refugees, rockets were fired nearby.

Heading toward the exit, we were overwhelmed by the jet-like sound of two rockets being launched from somewhere near the school. Hamas, or some or militant group, clearly is hoping the Israelis won’t strike at the launchers, which are kept underground until the moment of firing, because they’re close to the school and so many refugees.
As the Hamas-made missiles screamed off into the sky, leaving a white vapour trail, the kids all cheered. One older boy of maybe 12, shouted in Arabic “They’re R160s,” named for the late Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi who was assassinated by Israel in 2004. These are the big, long-range rockets usually reserved for Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or the airport in between.

Of course, the back story on something like this, the reality that's never mentioned is that UNWRA has to support Hamas,Fatah and Islamic Jihad, even if they actually were neutral, which of course they're not.  Aside from the fact that the Palestinians are capable of killing them outright if they get in the way, the people whom work for UNRWA are a group of highly paid UN bureaucrats with only one function, the perpetuation of Palestinian 'refugee' status. End that refugee status and they're unemployed.

This story was written with the assistance of The Tower staff writers.

Pro-Israel Supporters Attacked By Palestinians In Los Angeles

Supporters of Israel attending a large rally in Los Angeles were attacked Sunday by four Palestinian Arabs carrying 'Palestine' flags, sporting anti-semitic stickers and graffiti and wielding clubs.

The incident occurred at a large solidarity rally outside the Los Angeles Federal building in West Los Angeles, a traditional site for such events. Sponsored by Stand With Us and the Israel American Committee, the rally drew a crowd of about 1,250 Jews and Christian supporters of Israel.

 

The Times of Israel had a pretty good summary of what was said at the rally..a yearning for peace, and an affirmation of Israel's right to defend its people:

"This war is hard for Israel to fight because Hamas is cowardly. They are hiding their rockets and rocket launchers in schools and mosques, hospitals and apartments,” StandWithUs President Roz Rothstein told the crowd. “They are intentionally endangering everyone, on both sides. All of us here today, who support liberal democratic values and peace, hope that Israel succeeds in defeating Hamas.”

Leehy Sha’ar – whose nephew, Gil-ad, was one of the three teenagers kidnapped and killed by Hamas on June 12 — also spoke briefly.

“Israel only wants to live in peace but she can only live in peace with neighbors who also want to live in peace with her,” Sha’ar said. “In the name of the three holy boys, Gil-ad Sha’ar, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrach, may Hashem [God] bless us with unity and strength to defeat the Hamas and terrorist enemies and may Hashem bring us closer to the true peace that we all deserve.”

As always, Palestinian Arabs living in the Los Angeles area and various groupies underlined that message..that peace can't be one way. That contingent, whose numbers eventually swelled to about 200 put on a counter demonstration. It's indicative of the difference between the two groups that the pro-Israel crowd was chanting 'am Yisrael chai' (Israel lives) as opposed to 'Allahu Akbar','Death To Israel' and the other openly anti-semitic slogans coming from the pro-Palestinian counter demonstration.

The signs were quite different too.

The Los Angeles Police did a decent job of keeping the two groups separated but at one point, four men who later turned out to be Palestinians arrived in a pickup truck, jumped out and began physically assaulting the pro-Israel demonstrators with clubs.



A shot was fired at the truck as it fled the area by a DHS officer who was on the scene . The  4 Palestinians were later arrested and will likely be charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Several people were treated on the scene for injuries and I believe on person, an elderly woman, was taken away in a Hatzolah ambulance.

Needless to say, Los Angeles' left wing Times  reported (via 'media reports' meaning the AP) that the violence broke out of the trampling of a Palestinian flag by pro-Israel demonstrators. That's an utter falsehood as anyone who was there and has a regard for truth would tell you. The Arabs started swinging first, and the 'trampling' occurred in an attempt to disarm them. But then, that's The Times.And I'm sure the local Jewish Journal, a paper with a similar political orientation to the Times will be quick to back them up. Israel must be blamed even for a blatant attack like this.

That aside, the message this sent  can't be emphasized enough. It's not 'Israelis' or Israel institutions that are being attacked here but Jews. Just like their Hamas heroes, these people don't differentiate between the two. Nor would it change if Israel ceased to exist.

It's time Jews living in the diaspora understood that reality.

Blaming The Victim, With The Best of Intentions

My latest is up at the Times of Israel. Here's a slice:



It's been said with a great deal of truth that the way to Hell is paved with good intentions.Equally true is that your friends can do you far more harm than your worst enemy, even without perhaps realizing it.

Judea Pearl is the father of murdered reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded by jihadis in Pakistan in 2002 and who now dedicates himself to the Daniel Pearl Foundation and the mission self-described on its website, "to promote mutual respect and understanding among diverse cultures through journalism, music, and dialogue."

Recently, he commented on the boycott of Israeli academics and universities by the American Studies Association (ASA). And  for all his obviously good intentions, those comments show that Judea Pearl has unfortunately  swallowed a healthy dose of anti-Israel narrative, whether he realizes it or not. Parsing this is valuable as a teachable moment, because  he's not alone.

Pearl mentioned quite rightly that two of the common responses to the ASA boycott are unhelpful - the notion that Israel is being unfairly targeted when there are far worse offenders out there, and that Israel is aware of its 'crimes' and is working to rectify them.

Yes, he has that correct, although the spectacle of a Dutch pension fund divesting from Israeli banks over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria while still continuing to invest in Chinese banks in Tibet makes for interesting speculation on their real motives.

But as he continues, Pearl slips into the narrative of explaining that Israel's occupation was really not intentional, that what he calls the occupation is ugly and unsustainable, and what he refers to as Israel's 'forced presence' needs to end with an agreement to end the conflict.

What Pearl is really doing, whether he realizes it or not is even more deadly then the BDSers, because it's phrased with such reasonable sounding terms.

It's time to recognize a few basic truths here.

In 1948 and in every war since, the Jews were literally fighting for their lives.The Arab objective was never simply to just take over territory, but annihilation.When Palestinians talk today about the nakba of 1948,it's important to remember that what they are mourning is a failed genocide. It's high time this was said, and repeatedly so that it sinks in. The UN declared Israel a state, but there was never any clear agreement about its borders, since the Arabs rejected any notion of living in peace with Israel and figured on a successful jihad to seize and keep all of it.

The entire idea of 'occupation' here is a fallacy. The UN itself never recognized Jordan's 1948 ethnic cleansing and illegal 19-year de facto seizure of the area. This is especially true of Judea and Samaria, where Israel's claim is bolstered by the 1924 San Remo Agreement between Britain and the League of Nations that allowed Britain to partition Palestine into a Jewish state west of the Jordan and and Arab state east of the river called Jordan, and Article 80 of the UN charter which preserved the application of the League of Nations Mandate’s stipulations, as the Levy Report showed. Britain's failure to keep her pledged word and Jordan's invasion do not change that. And when Jordan attacked Israel in 1967, Israel had a perfect right to retain that territory, especially since it included a great deal of legally owned Jewish property. Judea and Samaria never belonged to any other country, especially not to the Palestinians since they did not exist then as a nation.Their sole claim of sovereignty over any part of Judea and Samaria is based on the Oslo Accords, which Yasser Arafat never abided by  and which the Palestinian Authority now says they're no longer bound by anyway.

Like apartheid, 'occupation' is simply another convenient word misused to demonize Israel.And it happens because the conversation when it comes to Middle East peace always revolves somehow around Israel's security and not the rights of its people, while discussions about the Palestinians are exactly the reverse. 

Read the rest here

(Video) Nelson Mandela And Arafat - Another Part Of His Legacy You Won't Hear About

This is the man our president compared to George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln And Gandhi.

In English, with French subtitles.

For more on Mandela, go here.

How the Left Excuses Obama's Schmoozing with Dictators

 

A comment came in this morning from one of my readers on the Left that said "About President Obama Shaking Raul Castro’s Hand…".

It wasn't published because it contained a link to Mad King Chuckle's asylum over at Little Green Footballs, which I and a plethora of other sites refuse to link to for reasons you can discover for yourself here.

And by the way, my prediction about Chuckles getting shut out by both sides and dropping like a stone came true...it just took a bit longer than I thought.

So what did the linked article contain? Pictures of people who, in Chuckles mind are 'right wing fascists' shaking hands with dictators. Of course, there's nothing in the gallery like Madeline Albright smiling and drinking champagne with Kim Jong-il in North Korea, Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton sucking Yasser Arafat's extended appendage, Tony Blair kissing Khaddaffi, nothing like that.

Instead, we see things Nixon shaking hands with Mao, President Reagan in an obviously posed picture with Soviet leader Gorbachev,Kissinger shaking hands with Chilean dictator Pinochet, Churchill shaking hands with Stalin, an ancient picture of Newt Gingrich with Arafat and a picture of George HW Bush shaking hands with Hugo Chavez as an ex-president.

Again, this is a teachable moment on how the Left lies as a matter of instinct. It's worth a peek, since a ton of White House connected Lefties got their marching orders from the White House this morning and will probably peddle the same schtick.

In the first place, we have here a fine example of one of the Left's primary arguments used as a cover for doing anything despicable - 'hey, he did it too!"

This is how eight-year-olds attempt to excuse their misdeeds when caught doing something they shouldn't by a parent or teacher. And it's an absolutely worthless argument. If one president does something wrong, (if they actually did) does that excuse the current occupant of the Oval Office from doing the same thing, just like magic? Nope.

Not only that,but you'll notice another favorite Leftist tactic, false equivalency. Over half of these photos are NOT of serving American presidents. Unfortunately for the country, President Obama is, and as such is a much bigger symbol of the country than some congressman or secretary of state.

And then, there's context. Nixon's trip to China? That was a major tour de force in geopolitical strategy, which constrained the Soviets after they had virtual free range during Jimmy Carters failed presidency, and was a big part of ending the Vietnam War because neither the Soviets or the Chinese were willing to intervene on behalf of North Vietnam and risk antagonizing America. After all, you can't blame Nixon because the radical Leftist Democrats in congress whom came in after Watergate refused to abide by the treaty we signed with Vietnam's Thieu and Cambodia's Lon Nol and allowed the commies to overrun those countries and murder and enslave millions.

Reagan and Gorbachev? Now, based on what the legacy media and the alphabet networks were putting out at the time, here I thought the Left loved them some Gorby, and also loved nuclear disarmament, which is what they our president and Gorbachev were actually.No mention, of course, that when the Soviet dictator made demands President Reagan felt were unreasonable, like abandoning our missile defense, Ronaldus Maximus simply got up and walked away. And bye bye Evil Empire.

Churchill and Stalin? Once FDR made the Soviets an ally after the Nazis invaded and put them at the top of the list for Lend Lease, thanks to Soviet sympathizer (and possible agent according to the Venona Papers)what was Churchill supposed to do, spit on him?

There are plenty of other examples of this I could give about the pictures Chuckles chose.On the other hand, there's no diplomatic or strategic excuse whatever for our president fondling Raul Castro or most of the other dictators he has a fetish for.Unlike any of the others,(the only possible exception is Iran's Rouhani, and the less said about that swamp of appeasement, the better) this is a constant pattern with him. He apparently is simply on their wavelength. He likes them and what they stand for. And that's very different, and sends a huge message...especially at an international shindig like the Mandela memorial.

It's to be expected that Chuckles and other Obama lackeys would pull this out of the nether portions of their anatomy, hoping to slide it by you as gold instead of the material it actually is. Don't be fooled.

The Mixed Legacy Of Nelson Mandela

 

Former South African leader Nelson Mandela has passed away at the age of 95, from complications resulting from a lung infection.

Since he was essentially a secular saint, the hagiographies, the emotional tributes and the kicky sound bites will be in abundance. His place in history is assured, because like other secular saints, burning incense and making offerings at his altar is seen to confer virtue on the worshiper, especially if they're white.

Nelson Mandela was an important figure in contemporary history, no doubt. But who was Nelson Mandela really? What did he accomplish? What is his legacy?

That's a more complicated and nuanced story that you're unlikely to hear about much in the medias frenzy over the next week or so. Because it doesn't quite fit the script for a secular saint. And the complexity can be imagined when you learn that Mandela was the proud recipient of both the U.S. Medal of Freedom awarded to him by President Obama and the Order of Lenin, given to him by the Soviet Union, hardly a bastion of freedom or even simple human decency.

 

Certainly, he looked and sounded like a secular saint. A member of a family of Xhosa royalty, his tall, dignified bearing and his measured speech could almost have been cooked up by a Hollywood casting agent.

Nelson Mandela was born in Mvezo, a small village in the eastern part of South Africa's cape province. Coming from a prominent family , he received excellent schooling in South Africa's best schools so he could work as a councilor for the the Xhosa's Thembu royal house. He later attended University of Fort Hare, an elite black institution in Alice, Eastern Cape. There he first got his political indoctrination in anti-colonialism and his introduction to Marxism. Traveling to Johannesburg in 1941, he first ran into the African National Congress in the person of Walter Sisulu, then a member of the fledgling African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). In Johannesburg, Mandela was taken under the wing of Lazar Sidelsky, a Left wing Jewish lawyer sympathetic to the ANC and a partner in the law firm of Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman, who gave Nelson Mandela a job as a law clerk.

In those days,the ANC was essentially a non-violent social justice movement that lobbied for black rights and engaged in local politics. However, like many similar organizations in the West, it had been targeted by the Soviet Comintern and was already infiltrated by members of the CPSA as well as by actual Soviet agents.

While the evidence is mixed over whether Nelson Mandela ever joined the communist party, he frequently attended their meetings, and many of his closest associates, like Lionel 'Rusty' Bernstein, Joe Slovo, the long-time leader of the CPSA, his wife Ruth First, Gaur Redebe, Walter Sisulu and Nat Bregman definitely were, and some of them might have been actual Soviet agents. All of them were under 'party discipline just as American communists were, which meant that their marching orders came directly from the Comintern and the Kremlin, no deviations allowed. Many members of CPSA became part of the ANC and the CPSA is still a part of the ANC's political coalition today. Mandela's openly expressed admiration and later friendship for communist dictators, his views on nationalization of South Africa's major industries and government redistribution of wealth and his subsequently receiving the Order of Lenin from the Soviets shows that at best, he was a communist sympathizer.

After South Africa's 1948 general election, the Afrikaner-led Herenigde Nasionale Party took power, uniting with the Afrikaner Party to form the National Party. They implemented the system of racial segregation known as apartheid. Mandela and his supporters were able to depose the existing ANC President Alfred Bitini Xuma at that time, who favored non-violence in seeking black civil rights and was an open anti-Communist. As Mandela wrote later in his memoirs, "We had now guided the ANC to a more radical and revolutionary path."

In 1955, Mandela finally went fully over to the idea of using terrorism as as a political tool, or as he put it, the ANC "had no alternative to armed and violent resistance. " In this, he was greatly influenced by his open admiration of the tactics of Mao Tse Tung and Fidel Castro.

In fact, the first 'revolutionary' act of Mandela's was to send communist party apparatchnik and ANC member Walter Sisulu to the People's Republic of China to obtain weapons. The PRC turned Mandela down, officially because they felt the ANC was not prepared for Mao-style guerilla warfare, but perhaps more likely because they were already deeply involved in arming and training the Viet Minh in their attempt to overthrow the Diem government in South Vietnam and similar operations with groups like the Pathet Lao elsewhere in South East Asia. They also likely underestimated Mandela and the ANC's ability to win a war where resupply would be so difficult and no communist-controlled havens were nearby.

However, Mandela and the ANC began to collect whatever weapons and explosives they could get hold of and prepare for armed struggle on their own,while continuing to work on political agitation against the apartheid regime.

It was at this time that Mandela, inspired by Castro's guerilla groups like 26th of July Movement and the Viet Minh founded his own terrorist elite, Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation", abbreviated as MK) with communists Walter Sisulu and Joe Slovo. The MK made their debut with 57 bombings on Dingane's Day (16 December) 1961, followed by further attacks on New Year's Eve.MK killed civilians and military alike, and two of their more famous operations were the Church Street bombing and the Magoo's Bar bombing, both of which targeted civilians and were designed for maximum carnage..

The MK and an ANC group run by Mandela's wife Winnie called the "Mandela United Football Club" were also responsible for the murder, torture and kidnapping of both whites and black political opponents and their families who opposed 'armed struggle'. Much of this came out through Mandela's own Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated crimes committed under apartheid by both the government and the ANC. The 1998 findings of that investigation were suppressed by President Mandela.

Winnie Mandela is credited with introducing the practice of using necklacing, forcing a gas or oil soaked tire over the head and shoulders to pin the arms of the victim and then lighting it on fire.Her quote? "With our matches and our necklaces we will liberate this country." She has never served a day in jail, and still sits on the ANC executive committee.

It's worth recalling that the ANC was officially named a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department and many other western nations. That designation wasn't rescinded officially by the State Department until 1990.

Mandela was arrested in August of 1962, charged this time with inciting strikes and violence and leaving the country illegally.The police subsequently uncovered paperwork in 1963 that documented MK's terrorist activities, some of which directly implicated Mandela.

These new charges were brought as well, and Nelson Mandela and two co-conspirators - all three of whom ultimately admitted being involved in terrorism - were sentenced to life imprisonment in June of 1964, for 23 specific acts of sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government.

Mandela was sent to Robben Island, where he would essentially rot for the next 18 years,until 1982. The personal courage he showed during this time is undeniable. He spent his time in an 8x7' concrete cell with a straw mat to sleep on, some of it in isolation. He endured physical abuse by his jailers and hard labor, first breaking rocks into gravel and then quarrying lime.

Through it all, he somehow kept his spirits up, helping to form classes with the other prisoners on various topics.

In 1982, Madela's circumstances changed, when he was moved to a much more pleasant jail, Pollsmoor Prison, where he stayed between 1982-1988. He was allowed relative freedom,indulged in gardening and was able to take classes to complete his LLB degree.


Outside Pollsmoor, things were changing.

While the Soviet gulags and the enslavement of Eastern Europe,the communist run killing fields in Cambodia, terrorism at home and abroad against Israel and Fidel Castro's concentration camps on the Isle of Pines scarcely merited any attention, South Africa's apartheid became a major cause celebre'. And with it, 'Free Mandela!' became a rallying cry.

Violence in South Africa escalated, both between whites and black and along tribal lines. The ANC 's portion included an attempted attack on South Africa's Koeberg nuclear power plant near Cape Town in 1982, which would have incurred horrendous casualties among both blacks and whites and an environmental catastrophe if it had been successful. It very nearly was.

The violence was also deliberately orchestrated by the ANC to sabotage reforms to apartheid that then President P.W. 'Pik' Botha was trying to initiate, which permitted some non-whites to vote and to elect their own parliaments to control education, health, and housing.

Believe it or not, it was Margaret Thatcher who first suggested to Botha that he free Mandela as a gesture towards peace and to reduce international tension. In February 1985 Botha did exactly that, offered Nelson Mandela a release from prison provided he "unconditionally rejected violence as a political weapon".

Mandela turned him down, partly out of the principle that he would not negotiate anything while the ANC was banned, but mostly because accepting Botha's offer would have ended Mandela's credibility with the more hardline factions of the ANC, a problem that would recur later. So the killing went on, with the ANC committing 231 terrorist attacks in 1986 and 235 in 1987.

South African Minister of Justice Kobie Coetsee made another try at negotiations, setting up talks between Mandela and the Botha government starting in May 1988. Mandela was again offered his freedom, the government agreed to the release of political prisoners and the ANC provided that they permanently renounce violence, break links with the Communist Party and agree to negotiate a fair political settlement. Mandela refused.

Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday in 1988 was made a sort of international jamboree, including a gala 'Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute' concert at London's Wembley Stadium. He was subsequently moved to Victor Verster Prison, another relatively comfortable facility where he spent time in the prison hospital recovering from tuberculosis.

In 1989, Botha suffered a stroke and F. W. de Klerk took over as president. De Klerk realized that apartheid was unsustainable and took what amounted to giant steps to make the transition in the face of strident opposition from his own party. He unconditionally released all ANC prisoners except Mandela, and after several talks with Mandela which both men considered friendly and productive, Mandela was finally released in 1990 and the ANC was legalized.

Nelson Mandela had gotten his unconditional surrender. And that he considered it as one is evident from the speech he made immediately after his release, at Cape Town's City Hall. He made it clear that the ANC's armed struggle was not over, and would continue "against the violence of apartheid." He said he hoped that the government would agree to negotiations, so that "there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle", but he was clear on insisting that his main focus was to bring peace to the black majority.

In view of that speech, what happened next is all the more surprising.

First,Mandela went on what amounted to a world tour,meeting and befriending, among others, his long time idol Fidel Castro, something many Cubans have neither forgotten nor forgiven, and justifiably so. He also befriended Yasser Arafat, whom he referred to as his 'brother'. Not totally a mystery, since both men were Soviet-trained.

Then he came back to South Africa and sat down with De Klerk and the National Party to negotiate the end of apartheid. He started out by offering a temporary ceasefire, something that outraged the ANC hardliners but reflected Mandela's sense of reality, that more bloodshed would only end in either an ANC defeat or at best, a partitioned nation.De Klerke in turn responded, lifting the state of emergency.

The violence continued, particularly black on black,but it lessened considerably. As Mandela and De Klerke intended, they now had a breather to work things out.

Negotiations at first went nowhere. De Klerk insisted on a federal system to protect minority rights,while Mandela and the ANC insisted on straight majority rule. De Klerk condemned the ANC's violence and wanted a firm pledge that it would stop, while Mandela called de Klerk "head of an illegitimate, discredited minority regime" and called for a UN peacekeeping force to be sent to South Africa to prevent "state terrorism".

Another wild card was the tribal issue, the battle between the largely Zulu Inkatha and the ANC.The Zulkus had absolutely no use for Mandela or the ANC, and probably killed more ANC 'soldiers' than South Africa's security forces did.

That eventually proved to be the breaking point. De Klerk agreed to Mandela's demand that the Inkatha would be disarmed and their cantons fenced off, essentially giving the ANC political control of South Africa. In exchange, Mandela agreed that white civil servant's jobs would be safeguarded, something that outraged his ANC followers. The two further agreed to a multiracial general election being held,and an interim constitution, guaranteeing separation of powers, creating a constitutional court, and a bill of rights.

The election, which was held in 1994 made Mandela president and ended apartheid. And in spite of sporadic violence, the transition of power to black rule was relatively peaceful,because both De Klerke And Mandela used every bit of their influence to push the agreement through,urge reconciliation and avoid what would have been a horrendous civil war.

That was Nelson Mandela's greatest accomplishment, and one duly recognized when Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerke shared the Nobel Peace prize. That and the fact that rather than become just another African Marxist dictator, he remained committed to the democratic process and took a number of steps to remain a symbol of reconciliation between white and black South Africans.

That also was the core of the other part of his legacy, which again, the media isn't likely to discuss amid all the hoopla.

Nelson Mandela recreated the ANC as a Marxist, terrorist organization when he took it over. And he subsequently purged it of most of the members who didn't see things his way. Through all of the struggle to end apartheid, that's pretty much what it remained. It was a house built on a rotten, flawed foundation. Many of Mandela's ANC followers expected a payoff for victory that they never got - domination over the white minority,the pick of the government jobs and white-owned property,and that redistribution of wealth Mandela had always talked about. Mandela may have still held those convictions, but he had changed his mind about implementing them on the scale his ANC followers expected. It might have been out of sheer expediency, because he realized that it was impractical and self-defeating or because he was willing to forgo it as the price for gaining power while avoiding a civil war. Or it might have been because the fall of his old pals in the Soviet Union or simply the wisdom age sometimes brings had taught him something. In any event, he was prepared to sacrifice the Marxist economic principles and the romance of 'armed struggle' in order to get what he wanted, and as a national icon he had the political capital to do it.

This sort of duplicity surfaced in many areas of Nelson Mandela's personal and political life. For instance, if you read his memoirs, published in 1995 after he became president, there are a number of positive mentions of Jews and Israel. Many of the ANC's early white supporters were Jews, as were most of Nelson Mandela's early friends and associates. In fact, as Mandela himself wrote, a key figure in helping Mandela understand guerilla warfare tactics was Arthur Goldreich, a South African Jew in the CPSA who fought with the Palmach during Israel’s War of Independence. When Mandela and his ANC associates were arrested in 1962, it was at their safe haven at Liliesleaf Farm owned by Goldreich, who was jailed as a result.

However, once Mandela took power and became a symbol of the Non-aligned movement, things changed. Mandela enjoyed a major love affair with anti-semitic dictators like Yasser Arafat and Moamar Khaddaffi, made a point of telling the world as early as 1990 that he did not consider the PLO a terrorist organization.He even visited Iran in 2000, laying a wreath on the grave of the Ayatollah Khomeini and lauding his successor, the Ayatollah Khamenei, saying "we are indebted to the Islamic Revolution”. Nor did he have a single negative word to say about the the first UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, which was so blatantly anti-Semitic that most western countries walked out, and even UN Commissioner Mary Robinson, no friend of Israel (and another questionable awardee of the Presidential Medal Of Freedom by President Obama), felt the need to distance herself from it. Ditto with the second one in Switzerland in 2009, which was even boycotted by the host country and where Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his usual speech about Zionism of Racism and how the Holocaust never happened.Nor did he ever have anything to say about his ANC comrade Desmond Tutu's blatant Jew hatred.



Unfortunately for sufferers of Israel Derangement Syndrome, the major public expression of Mandela's 'anti-zionism' was actually an admitted forgery, written by a Palestinian 'activist' named Arjan el Fassed. Still there's no doubt that Nelson Mandela, who was happy to receive Jewish money and support when he needed it was also happy to hypocritically dump Israel and the Jews and ignore major human rights violators when it was convenient.

During Nelson Mandela's presidency, he concentrated on national reconciliation and convincing South Africa's whites to remain in the country to bolster the economy as his main tasks, and he was largely successful at that, at least at first. But it did not sit well with many of his old ANC comrades-in-arms,and again, he was always faced with trying to deal with the fallout from trying to balance the two.

It prevented him from successfully managing the economy, as he was torn between attempting to attract foreign investment by maintaining the status quo and his own leaning towards nationalizing most of it as most of his ANC followers wanted. He attempted to placate the ANC by increasing welfare payments, looking the other way as ANC figures helped themselves to graft and corruption,and by handcuffing the police to the point where crime in South Africa became such a major problem that almost one million of the whites left the country, further damaging the economy. De Klerk, who had stayed on as part of the government left the coalition at that point.

By 1997, Mandela, in ill health and frustrated finally had enough and allowed his ANC deputy Thabo Mbeki to take over most of the duties as president while he remained as a symbol until Mbeki formally was elected and took office in 1999. After that, Mandela pretty7 much stayed out of politics.

Nelson Mandela's true legacy is the nation of South Africa as it exists today.

South Africa was indeed a nation that embraced apartheid, a racist system of government. But it was also a prosperous nation with a western style economy, where jobs were so plentiful that whole nations like Botswana relied on expatriate worker's remittances for a significant part of their economy, famine and epidemics were non-existent, and the rule of law ensured at least a basic level of safety for most of its citizens and their property regardless of race, even if political liberty was largely confined to the country's white residents.

Today, the country admits to 25% unemployment, although the true figures are probably closer to 30%. Foreign investment is scarce. The Rand, formerly one of the world's more stable currencies has weakened considerably, with major price inflation on staples and cooking oil. Eighteen years after the end of apartheid, it's estimated that half of South Africa's children live in poverty.

Political corruption is rampant, and so is crime. South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world per capita, and carjackings and home invasions are epidemic. According to a 2012 Interpol study, a woman is more likely to be raped in South Africa than to learn to read, and a child is raped every three minutes.

Many observers actually see rape as becoming a part of South Africa's culture.

Even worse, since the police have now been totally integrated with former ANC members, distrust of them is widespread, especially since it's been revealed that almost 1,500 of them have had serious criminal convictions. Corruption is widespread and many South Africans now live in fear of both criminals and of their own police.As an example, at least 12 South African police in the Western Cape province were arrested on charges of rape in 2012, with the number of unreported rapes by uniformed police in the province extrapolated to be as much as 4 to 5 times higher because of the inherent danger in reporting the crime.

AIDs is also epidemic, with the South African government having done little or nothing to stem the disease.

And the trend in South Africa seems to be getting worse, not better. Thabo Mbeki had the same problems Mandela did with dealing with the issue of solving South Africa's problems while not alienating his ANC base, and he was much less committed to reconciliation and racial equality than Mandela. And current president, Jacob Zuma is far worse.

The current condition of South Africa is Nelson Mandela's true legacy, regardless of whatever good intentions he had or his personal courage. The nature of the house he built in South Africa today is a reflection of the rotten, corrupt and violent material he used to create it, no matter how he tried to change the basic nature of that material once he took power.

It remains to be seen if the of the changes he tried to make afterwards ever take root.So far, for all the hoopla, it appears that the rotten foundation Nelson Mandela used to build the South Africa of today is crumbling and reverting to its basic nature.