"A Major Concern"

"This [Syria a training ground for foreign-born jihadis] may enhance their ability to attack neighbouring countries or Western interests."
"These al-Qaeda members also train other extremists for possible operations in Western countries."
"They may return to Canada or other countries imbued with knowledge, skills and experience gained in terrorist operations and training camps."
"It is possible some returnees could plan and carry out terrorist attacks in Canada."
Public Safety Canada report

Members of Liwa (brigade) Hamzah, a newly formed Islamist brigade from the Syrian eastern city of Deir Ezzor, hold flags of Jebhat al-Nusra as they take part in a rally in the centre of the city.

This report can join all the others that have been placed in the public spotlight of late, emanating from other Canadian intelligence groups, all warning of the potential for violent jihadi attacks courtesy of fanatic Islamism that has courted and found willing hyphenated-Canadians whose religion is Islam and who have found their country of haven lacking in excitement in comparison to those they covertly travel to, to take advantage of jihad-training camps.

Al-Qaeda members have been most helpful to Jabhat al-Nustra, Ahra al-Sham and the Islamic State group. Highlighting a consequence of the long-toothed civil war in Syria with its sectarian overtones and deadly carnage including its inexorable spread to Iraq; the region had shunted aside Afghanistan and Pakistan vying for the world's most violent fanatical terrorists on the international stage.

Wherever conflict in the Islamic world erupts, there fervent converts and the passionate faithful congregate to learn the fine arts of atrocities.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have bled their al-Qaeda presence into Syria, and are there training what the West politely names as 'extremists' into the cult of martyrdom and barbarism. It has become a "major concern", the report tabled on Friday states, that Syria now represents a welcome mat and training ground for terrorists. This report, titled the 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada was released just as the United Kingdom raised its threat level from Substantial to Severe.

"Developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the West", inspired the UK government to declare that level of emergency awareness. Canada's report cited the knowledge of roughly 130 "individuals with Canadian connections" seeking to validate their purpose in life by aligning themselves with the terrorist groups that an otherwise appalled world looks on with horror as they outdo one another in the stark barbarity of their odious actions, treating human life as expendable dross.

A New York-based intelligence firm, the Soufan Group, estimated months earlier that at least 12,000 foreign fighters from 81 countries have congregated in Syria to do battle the jihadi way. That number includes around three thousand European citizens. Like Canada, the U.K. and other European countries are struggling to come up with a strategy how they may deal with the hundreds of hardline "foreign fighters" joining the Syrian conflict.

"What we are facing in Iraq now with (Islamic State) is a greater threat to our security than we have seen before", said Prime Minister David Cameron. "We could be facing a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a NATO member (Turkey)." Australia has taken the step of deploying counter-terrorism units at two airports, and has pledged to spend $65-million to prevent Australian youth from radicalizing.

Documents on a laptop belonging to a Tunisian man who joined Islamic State in northern Syria were found to contain instructions demonstrating the creation and use of biological weapons.

The RCMP has developed a program of "targeted interventions", to use with 'youths' being drawn into violent extremism. A program that would mobilize community resources and local police when someone is identified as becoming involved in such activity, while not yet having broken any laws. Frontline officers in the RCMP have been trained to identify the indicators of violent extremism with a team set up to track them before and after they travel overseas.

"Despite these successes terrorism continues to pose a threat to Canadians, Canadian interests, and our nation as a whole", warned Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, speaking of the progress government has made to date in dealing with the threat of terrorism.

War And Truce

"The Egyptian formula was on the table on July 15th, it was backed by the Arab League, it was accepted by Israel but rejected by Hamas then and now more than a month later has belatedly been accepted by Hamas."

"As the dust clears from the conflict I'm sure many people in Gaza will be asking why did Hamas reject a month ago what it accepted today, and if it had accepted then what it accepted now, how much bloodshed could have been avoided."

Mark Regev, Israeli government spokesman

"It was possible for us to avoid all of that, 2,000 martyrs, 10,000 injured, 50,000 houses (destroyed)."

"They (Hamas) have a shadow government, if this continues it means no unity. The test is coming soon. The government needs to do its job and handle everything. I'm not saying everything needs to come to an end in one moment, this is a seven-year split that needs months or years."

Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority President

All for one: A very young fighter is decked out in military kit and gear on the streets of Gaza City of Friday

No one is happy, except for Hamas, it seems. The Israelis are disappointed, to say the least, that the final (for the time being) ceasefire has been declared and accepted by both sides, when the intractable problem that Hamas presents as a terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel remains intact, even if Gaza itself does not. That is rectifiable, however, since the international community feels committed to aiding the restructuring of Gaza.

What cannot be resurrected is the lives that were lost, and that would be over two thousand Palestinians whom Hamas obviously felt no compunction in placing directly in harm's way by goading Israel to respond to its attacks on its civilian population, while launching rockets from within the crowded confines of Gaza City, inviting artillery responses back to the site of the launches, whether within UNRWA schools, city hospitals, between apartment blocks, or mosques.

Indoctrinated: Two young Palestinian boys are seen perched on the shoulders of Islamic Jihad militants, holding weapons in their hands during the victory rally in Gaza City

For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it's the shock that Israelis feel that there will be no end to the attacks, merely an all-too-brief interregnum before the Islamists take on the challenge of opposing the presence of a Jewish State once again. For the Palestinian Authority it's the pain of being helpless to dissuade Hamas from exposing Gazans to such tragedy, witnessing Palestinians in the throes of conflict, led by the irresponsibility of terrorists whose game was twofold; attack Israel to cause casualties there, and lead the IDF to cause casualties in Gaza.

This represents the triumph of victory to Hamas. The United Nations estimates that 100,000 Palestinians have been left homeless, and much of Gaza lies in rubble, bearing great resemblance to Syria. On the positive side for Israel, most of the tunnels that threatened to allow Hamas fighters to enter Israel for terrorist attacks have been destroyed. And one third of the rocketry also destroyed, leaving Hamas with possibly two thousand more yet to expend in its 'struggle' against the 'Zionists'.

The Palestinian 'unity' government that Israel denounced, seeing no way it could accept the legitimacy of a putative government of unity, one-half of which was sworn to destroy Israel, may be on the verge of collapse. President Abbas had visions of regaining authority in Gaza, but this is not to be; Hamas is preventing the PA's president from establishing any control of the Strip it took by force from Fatah seven years earlier.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants take part in the rally in Gaza City shortly after President Abbas's interview

And since Hamas rejects emphatically Israel's signal demand that it disarm, none of the demands of Hamas will see the light of day, from lifting of the border crossings to an expansion of fishing rights, and the creation of an international airport, the better to enable Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to restock their spent caches of weapons with newer, more technologically advanced products that Qatar is eager to pay for, and Iran willing to supply.

In the final analysis, Hamas lobbed thousands of rockets for 50 days at Israel, while Israel destroyed launch sites and weapons caches and tunnels. And it took the lives of Hamas leaders to further disable the terrorist group. None of which gave Hamas pause to reconsider its triumphant assertion of victory. Like North Korea whose mad leader coerces his captive population to believe that the country keeps enjoying one triumph after another, even while people starve, Hamas pumps its population to celebrate the victory that brought death and destruction to them.

'Victory': A Palestinian girl holds a Kalashinkov as Islamist fighters celebrate what they call a 'victory' over Israel following Tuesday's ceasefire

But celebrate they do, dressing their children in cute little specially-designed military uniforms, giving them weapons to hold for adorable photographs, instilling in their impressionable minds how honourable it is to aspire to die for Islam in the process of slaughtering Jews whose sole purpose in life is to make life a misery for Palestinians.

Boycotting Jewish Industry

To be seen as utterly hateful to the scorned, ignore their enterprise, their presence, their words and their deeds as though they don't exist. The Jews as social pariahs. Somehow though, to those now embarked on the exercise thinking they are forging a brave new path to justice and morality on the world scene, it is a tired old minefield they ply, likely to blow up at any time, disabling their path of virtuous and ethical play.

Jews have long been accustomed to opprobrium, to isolation, to slander, to violence directed toward them. They know there is no shame in being cast out by intellectual and sanctimonious barbarians. For a tribe whom the world has traditionally set upon as a symbol of everything that they feel is wrong with the world, it is limited in numbers, but capable, despite the most horrendously inhumane measures to destroy their presence, to carry on, comport themselves with dignity and patience.

The patience is required to remind themselves that they've seen it all, experienced it all before, many times. In the knowledge that Jews have been singled out expressly by a war juggernaut to use rare resources, time and manpower on an officially institutionalized exercise in mass annihilation, and managed despite monumental life-loss to surmount the hatred and the slaughter, Jews are almost, but not quite, immune to the virulence of anti-Semitism.

A member of Einsatzgruppe D prepares to shoot a Ukrainian Jew,
who is forced to kneel before a mass grave full of other victims.

As an intelligent tribe, capable of using their naturally-endowed creative energy and grey matter to good use, Jews cannot themselves fathom the depths of lunatic dysfunction that would turn the world into a mad, slavering beast anxious to annihilate those they are swift to identify as other than themselves. But experience is a great teacher, and one need not be a genius to understand that hatred is a lethal disease leading to fear, paranoia and destruction.

Time may pass and events alter the manner in which the world views itself, but it seems that the passage of time does nothing to divert the popular masses, particularly those who must absorb a passion and choose the passion of hatred and racism to devote themselves to to give meaning to their lives. Israel looks for solutions, in representing itself as a haven for Jews in a world determined they should find no place for themselves, no sanctuary where they will be safe from hatred.

True enough, in choosing to return to the land of their heritage, where the nation emerged as a separate human grouping from others around them, they have positioned themselves geographically to bear the more immediate brunt of savagery expressed toward Jews living in the State of Israel, propelled by surrounding enemies of ancient origin. And it is Israel's response to continued violent attacks against its existence that infuriates its critics abroad; that Israel is capable of enduring all.

Militants prepared to execute Palestinians in Gaza City suspected of spying for Israel. Up to 18 were killed. Credit Reuters

Each time Israel rises to defend itself from attack, to strike back at those who strike it with the intention of destroying it, the world of external critics rise in fury to condemn the Jewish state for protecting its citizens from doom. The Boycott/Divestment strategy of the Israel-haters, Jew-baiters represents a civilized version of active conflict, with the hoped-for end result that it should succeed to destroy the country's economic future.

In Europe, mobs of hate-suffused leftist righteousness march with signs aloft proclaiming solidarity with Hitler and the gas chambers, lamenting their lack of total existential success. Where not only consumer products emanating from Israel itself, but those produced elsewhere in Europe for the Jewish market are the object of boycott. Threats and violence accompany the process, and many retailers anxiously accede to the demands, clearing their stock of offending items.

In the streets Jews are attacked, their freedoms violated, their synagogues and community centres fire-bombed, looted and desecrated. In North America the more popular and trendy view is to use barcode-reading smartphone apps to single out Israeli made products.  Or they target companies with Jewish ownership. And now that summer is gone for another year it is time for universities to reactivate the popular campus activities so the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement is not neglected.

Foods brought on campus that have a Jewish-owned or Israeli-made provenance are considered a red flag for those dedicated to Israel's downfall. Any links to Israel are forbidden to prove that those involved have a conscience and will not tolerate the support in any measure of what they claim to be an Apartheid state. University students with exposure to higher education feel they can smell apartheid in a country that gives equal citizenship rights to Jews, Arabs, Christians, Muslims, Druze and Kurds.

In comparison, say to the area they champion as Palestine where Jews may not enter unless they court dismemberment. The encircling wall, they claim, is ample evidence of apartheid, when it was in fact an costly emergency measure required to bring to a halt continued mass slaughter known as suicide-attacks where all-too-willing aspirant martyrs found their way to Paradise by killing as many Jewish civilians as possible, to be later celebrated for the passion of their hate.

Student union leaders might think of hurting Israel economically where it really counts; not in defying the distribution on campus of food products, which they do, finding anything labelled 'kosher', or 'Israel', monstrously disgusting, but by selecting products which express Israel's true prosperity, its production in the high-tech sector. Which would then lead them to boycott the use of a wide range of Jew-tainted technology.



Boycotting Google with its two research and development centres located in Israel. Eschew the use of iPhones, flash drives, instant messaging, voicemail and allied products whole or in part invented in Israel. Insist on no longer using Word, Excel and other products invented by Microsoft Israel, and cease the use of computers powered by Israeli Intel processors. Someone should whisper in their ears that every major IT company in the West relies on their R&D divisions in Israel, or on Israeli patents.

75 UN troops flee into Israel to escape Syrian rebels

Israel confirms entry of UNDOF peacemakers across Golan border; al-Nusra rebels attack troops near DMZ; Irish troops extricate some Fijian colleagues

By Times of Israel staff, AP and AFP August 30, 2014, 11:53 am Updated: August 30, 2014, 3:18 pm 

Armed rebels seen at Syria's Quneitra border crossing to the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Friday, Aug. 29, 2014. (photo credit: AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

 

Seventy-five UNDOF peacekeepers in the Golan Heights fled Syrian territory for the Israeli-controlled Golan on Saturday after their positions were attacked by rebel forces.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed that a number of UN peacekeepers entered Israel. He spoke on condition of anonymity. Channel 2 said 75 UN troops had crossed the borders, after two UN positions on the Syrian side of the border were targeted by al-Nusra rebel forces. 

Earlier in the day, the Philippine defense chief said that Filipino peacekeepers in the Golan Heights were attacked by Syrian rebels, who are also holding dozens of Fijian troops hostage.

Clashes continued in the area through Saturday.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin told reporters Saturday in a series of text messages that Filipino troops manning one UN encampment had been “extricated,” while soldiers in another encampment were “now under attack.”

Asked if there was a fresh firefight Saturday, Gazmin replied: “Yes.”

Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala later told AFP that “there is still an ongoing standoff but there was a firefight earlier today.”

“All our troops are safe,” he said.

Activists and officials confirmed to AP that clashes had erupted between the al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels and UN peacekeepers, after the militants surrounded their encampment.

They also said other UN peacekeepers were able to flee from a different encampment that that was also surrounded by rebels of the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate.

The clashes came after Syrian rebel groups, including the Nusra Front, overran the Quneitra crossing — located on the frontier between Syrian and Israeli controlled parts of the Golan Heights — on Wednesday, seizing 44 Fijian peacekeepers.

The Nusra Front also surrounded the nearby Rwihana and Breiqa encampments, where other UN peacekeepers were holed up.

Saturday’s gunbattle began early in the morning at the Rwihana base some 1.5 miles (2.3 kilometers) from Quneitra, where 40 Filipino peacekeepers were surrounded by Nusra fighters who were ordering them to surrender, said Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Abdurrahman, whose information comes from a network of activists throughout Syria, said he was not aware of any fatalities among the 40 Filipino peacekeepers in the Rwihana encampment as sporadic fighting continued throughout the day.

The 35 Filipino UN peacekeepers at the Breiqa encampment were extracted on Saturday morning, with the assistance of Irish peacekeepers who rushed to the scene, said officials.

The Irish UN peacekeeper battalion, which is tasked with emergency responses, evacuated all the Filipino UN peacekeepers on Saturday morning, said a military official.

He said there was no shooting involved, and no injuries. He said that the Irish battalion also evacuated another base on Friday but provided no further details.

Gazmin confirmed that peacekeepers from his country were “extricated.”

The Nusra Front has recently seized hostages to exchange for prisoners detained in Syria and Lebanon.

The situation of the peacekeepers, tasked with monitoring a 1974 disengagement accord between Syria and Israel, remains “very, very fluid,” the UN secretary-general’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters Friday at the UN headquarters in New York.

The UN said in a statement that it had received assurances from credible sources that the 44 Fijian peacekeepers seized Wednesday “are safe and in good health.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the detention of the Fijians and called for their immediate release.

The UN mission, known as UNDOF, has 1,223 troops from six countries: Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands and the Philippines.

Various rebel groups have been engaged in intense fighting with the Syrian military in and near the Golan Heights.

Also Saturday, a Syrian activist released a video showing extremists from the Islamic State group opening fire and killing dozens of men stripped down to their underwear.

The men in the video were likely those who were captured after the extremists overran a Syrian airfield on Sunday; Syrian soldiers who were stuck behind front lines after the northeastern Tabqa air base fell to the Islamic State group.

The video, released by an activist who uses the name Abu Ibrahim Raqqawi, corresponded with The Associated Press reporting of the event. It matched a series of other videos that were released since Wednesday. One video showed the men being held in a concrete-floor room; another showed the men forced to march through a barren landscape in their underwear, herded like sheep. Another showed their seemingly lifeless bodies in piles on the ground.

The British-based Observatory earlier said around 120 captive government troops from Tabqa were killed near the base.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government.

The Islamic State group uses violence and images of violence, from mass-killings to beheadings, to instill fear in its opponents and win recruits as it seeks to expand a proto-state it has carved out in Syria and Iraq.

Earlier Saturday, a spokeswoman for President Benigno Aquino said he was “keeping a close watch” on the fate of the troops who were serving as part of the peacekeeping force on the Golan Heights.

The head of Filipino troops on UN missions Colonel Roberto Ancan said in Manila on Friday that “we can use deadly force in defense of the UN facilities.”

Meanwhile, Fiji military officials confirmed Saturday that they no longer know the whereabouts of the 44 peacekeepers captured by al-Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights.

“Their whereabouts at this stage, unfortunately, I cannot confirm,” Brigadier Mosese Tikoitoga told reporters after speaking to the head of the UN team negotiating for their release.

“They confirmed that our men are safe and they are all well. [But] they have been moved to a location out of the bombardment range of any security forces or the Syrian security forces.

“It is out of the UN territory. But again it’s the word of the group. We’ve got no verification what so ever, no communication but we’re only relaying the message that was delivered to us by the negotiators.”

Australia’s foreign minister on Saturday condemned the detention of the peacekeepers.

“Australia condemns the detention … of 44 Fiji peacekeepers in the Golan Heights by armed groups,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement. “As a member of the UN Security Council, Australia demands the unconditional and immediate release of all the detained United Nations peacekeepers.”

The situation of the peacekeepers, whose mission monitors a 1974 disengagement accord between Syria and Israel, remained “very, very fluid,” the UN secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Friday at the UN headquarters in New York.

The UN said in a statement it has received assurances from credible sources that the Fijian peacekeepers “are safe and in good health.”

The statement added that they had been informed “the intention behind holding the peacekeepers was to remove them from an active battlefield to a safe area for their own protection.”

Poroshenko: Ukraine 'close to point of no return'

BBC News online -- 30 August 2014

Ukraine's president has said his country is "close to a point of no return - full scale-war".

Petro Poroshenko was speaking in Brussels, where he said a meeting of EU leaders had agreed to prepare more sanctions against Russia.

Outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton earlier accused Russia of "direct aggression" in east Ukraine.

Russia denies that its forces are backing rebels, who have been gaining ground on Ukrainian forces.
Mr Poroshenko said Ukraine was a victim of "military aggression and terror".

He said: "I think that we are very close to the point of no return. Point of no return is full-scale war.
"Any offensive action which would be undertaken [by Russia]... would be a point of no return. And that's why we undertake enormous efforts to stop that."

Mr Poroshenko said that new EU sanctions against Russia would be prepared and would be implemented depending on the success of a proposed peace plan.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite says Russia is "practically in a war against Europe"

He said: "Based on my proposals, which were supported by the majority of the member states, there are possible sanctions that would be implemented."
He said he hoped to publish a draft of his peace plan next week.

Mr Poroshenko also said that he would discuss the possibility of a ceasefire at a meeting in Belarus on Monday of the Contact Group, which includes Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The EU and the US have already imposed sanctions against dozens of senior Russian officials, separatist commanders and Russian firms accused of undermining Ukrainian sovereignty.

Residents flee fighting in Mariupol in the south-east

Baroness Ashton said there was "deep concern" over "direct aggression by Russian forces". She called on Russia to stop the flow of arms, equipment and personnel into Ukraine.
As she arrived at the talks in Brussels, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Russia was "practically in a war against Europe".

She said: "We need to support Ukraine, and send military materials to help Ukraine defend itself. Today Ukraine is fighting a war on behalf of all Europe."

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the EU faced "a completely unacceptable situation of having Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. Consequences must follow if that situation continues".

Ukrainian military vehicles evacuate from Starobesheve

French President Francois Hollande said the Ukraine crisis was the biggest since the end of the Cold War.
He said: "What's happening in Ukraine is so serious that the European Council will be obliged to react by increasing the level of sanctions if things remain as they are."

However, the BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels says there are still divisions within the EU on how to deal with the Ukraine situation.

Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said the "jury is still out" on whether sanctions had worked, adding: "We need to find a ceasefire, a peace plan."

Federica Mogherini, named on Saturday as Catherine Ashton's successor, said there could be no military solution to the crisis and that while sanctions were being worked on, the diplomatic process would need to continue.

Government forces have lost ground in recent fighting.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said on Saturday that Russian tanks had attacked the town of Novosvitlivka near Luhansk and "destroyed virtually every house".

Spokesman Andriy Lysenko said troops had been ordered to retreat from Novosvitlivka.
Troops are also reportedly trying to evacuate Ilovaisk in the Donetsk region. It has been surrounded by rebels.

Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko told the Russian News Service radio station a new offensive was being planned to create a corridor between Donetsk and Luhansk.

In south-eastern Ukraine, people have been leaving the port city of Mariupol, after advancing rebels captured Novoazovsk to the east.

Western and Ukrainian officials say this offensive has been substantially helped by Russian regular troops, opening a new front. Russia denies the accusation.

Some 2,600 people have died in fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions since April.
The conflict erupted following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula a month before.

War in eastern Ukraine: The human cost

• At least 2,593 people killed since mid-April (not including 298 passengers and crew of Malaysian Airlines MH17, shot down in the area) - UN report on 29 August
• 951 civilians killed in Donetsk region alone, official regional authorities said - 20 August
• In some particularly dangerous places, such as Luhansk region, victims are said to have been buried informally, making accurate counts difficult
• Rebels (and some military sources) accuse the government of concealing true numbers
• 155,800 people have fled elsewhere in Ukraine while at least 188,000 have gone to Russia

Sorry to Remind You, but Golda Meir Was Right - Part III of IV

by Burak Bekdil
August 29, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4658/golda-meir-was-right

So in the EU-candidate Turkey, a pianist should be punished for his re-tweets, but a pop-singer should be congratulated for her first-class racist hate-speech. This is contagious.
No reporter present at Mr. Ihsanoglu's campaign launch speech thought about asking him if his commitment to the "Palestinian cause" included any affirmation of the Hamas Charter, in particular a section that says, "…The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslims, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"
Turkey is also the country where a few years earlier, a group of school teachers (yes, school teachers!) gathered in a demonstration to commemorate Hitler.

Part II of this mini-series ended with a colorful quote from the Turkish Kurdish pop star, Yıldız Tilbe, whose tweets wished God to "bless Hitler," and predicted that, "It will be Muslims again who will bring the end of Jews." Perhaps Ms. Tilbe thinks (or hopes) Hitler was Muslim.

No doubt, thanks to her tweets, she has the talent to rise even higher in the hall of fame. Such tweets are absolutely normal in a country where the Islamists' occasional after-Friday-prayers slogan, "Now I understand Hitler," has always won hearts and minds. It is also the country where, a few years earlier, even a union of school teachers (yes, school teachers!) gathered in a demonstration "to commemorate Hitler."

But we all know Turkey well enough to guess that the Hitler-fetish is not a reflection of any possible feeling of admiration for the 20^th century's greatest psycho. Instead, it is a childish expression of the oriental thinking that adores "the enemy of my enemy."

Last year, in the EU-candidate Turkey, a world-renowned pianist, Fazil Say, was sentenced to a (suspended) 10-month sentence for re-tweeting a few lines dubiously attributed to Omar Khayyam, a 12^th century Persian polymath. The judges ruled that his tweets "endangered public order and peace by insulting religious values embraced by whole or a part of the society."

In the "new Turkey," where the abnormal is the new normal, Ms. Tilbe's tweets blessing Hitler cannot have insulted the religious or ethnic values embraced by the extremely small part of the society -- because they are too small.

So, in the EU-candidate Turkey, a pianist, Mr. Say, should be punished for his re-tweets, but a pop-singer, Ms. Tilbe, should be congratulated for her first-class racist hate-speech.

Renowned Turkish pianist Fazil Say (right) was sentenced to 10-months in prison (suspended) for re-tweeting quotes attributed to the 12th century Persian polymath Omar Khayyam.

This is contagious. When, in society and politics, an abnormal practice becomes the norm, the abnormal becomes "the new normal." Take Anti-semitism in Turkey, a craze becoming increasingly as trendy as a 'selfie,' and mixed up with opportunism. It can come from a bureaucrat who wants to win promotion; from a pop star who wants to look charming to the government to boost his or her popularity; from a corporate employee who wants a better position or salary. Or it can come from a politician who wants to address the largest possible chunk of the voter base.

For example, the opposition's presidential candidate, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, otherwise a most refined gentleman with an impressive academic and diplomatic background. When asked by reporter from a state-run news agency to clarify his earlier statement that "Turkey should be impartial over Middle Eastern disputes," he quickly sensed that this was a trick-question aimed at portraying him as an "unbiased man" in the Arab-Israeli dispute. But of course he was partial. He spoke for several minutes, listing his career achievements -- proving how deeply he felt for the "Palestinian cause" -- which included a decoration.

For understandable reasons, Mr. Ihsanoglu enjoyed reminding reporters of his "lifelong struggle devoted to the Palestinian cause." He further decorated his campaign speech by adding that it was his honor to have prayed at the al-Aqsa mosque (in Jerusalem), and that the rest, for him, was unimportant.

No reporter present at Mr. Ihsanoglu's campaign launch speech thought about asking him if his commitment to the "Palestinian cause" included an affirmation of the Hamas Charter, in particular a section that says, "The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the (last) Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"

How fabulous that, after a foreign minister whose greatest foreign policy goal is to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque "in the Palestinian capital Jerusalem," now we have a presidential candidate who too is proud to have prayed at the same mosque.

Meanwhile, more and more Palestinians are dying as Turkish (and Arab and Persian) dignitaries remain wholeheartedly committed to the Palestinian cause -- in words. But our Palestinian brothers keep on dying happily, do they not, for us? Is that not a stairway to heaven? And all while the poor victims' masters and brothers remain so proud to be committed to the Palestinian cause.
(to be continued)

Burak Bekdīl, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily News and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Related Topics:  Palestinian Authority, Turkey  |  Burak Bekdil

Sorry to Remind You, but Golda Meir Was Right - Part II of IV

by Burak Bekdil
August 28, 2014 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4657/golda-meir-was-right

A front-page headline was particularly revealing: They (Israel) bombed a mosque in Gaza! Including the exclamation mark!
A quick internet search, if you typed "mosque bombing Shiite-Sunni," would give you 782,000 results on July 16.
Why did we not hear one single Turkish voice protest the death of 300,000 Muslims in Darfur?
Hamas's Charter is must-read fun.

Jihadists keep on saying that "they love death more than we love life." Good for them.
Then there are the proxy jihadists. In 2012, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that, "Iran provided the Palestinian organizations the technology to produce Fajr-5 and other missiles, and they can now produce these missiles themselves in large quantities." Apparently, Iran will fight Israel down to the last Palestinian. And so will Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the Sunni mullah. It's one of the rare qualities Sunni and Shiite Islamists feature: They have an obsession about fighting Israel at times when their Sunni and Shiite militants are not busy killing each other.

A recent front-page headline in Turkey's flagship newspaper, Hürriyet, was particularly revealing: They (Israel) bombed a mosque in Gaza! Including the exclamation mark! Yes, the exclamation mark, at times when sectarian mosque bombing is so routine that it cannot find even a few column inches of space in Muslim newspapers. A quick internet search, if you typed the words "mosque bombing Shiite-Sunni," would give you 782,000 results on July 16.

But again, the "they-(Israel)-bombed-a-mosque" shock on Muslim faces is not too unfamiliar. From my column on June 3, 2010, "Why is Palestine 'a second Cyprus' for Turks?":

"But why do the Turks have the 'Palestine fetish' even though most of them can't point the Palestinian territories out on a map? Why did they not raise a finger when, for instance, the mullahs killed dissident Iranian Muslims? Why did the Turks not raise a finger when non-Muslim occupying forces killed a million Iraqi Muslims? Why did we not hear one single Turkish voice protesting the deaths of 300,000 Muslims in Darfur?
"Subconsciously (and sadly) the Muslim-Turkish thinking tolerates it if Muslims kill Muslims; does not tolerate it but does not turn the world upside down when Christians kill Muslims; pragmatically ignores it when too-powerful Christians kill Muslims; but is programmed to turn the world upside down when Jews kill Muslims."

What else, other than that hatred, could bring two otherwise unmatchable people into precisely the same line of thinking? One is an Egyptian cleric with the typical bigotry of an Egyptian cleric; and the other is a Turkish-Kurdish female singer who burst onto the pop song scene along with a life full of scandals, including drug abuse and a conviction.

Muhammad al-Zoghbi, the Egyptian cleric, said in a May 3 television interview that, "not a single Jew will remain on the face of this earth." The TV program's theme was, "The war on the Jews, their annihilation or the eradication of their country." But here comes into the picture the charter of the organization Mr. Erdoğan does not hide his deep admiration for: Hamas.

Hamas's charter is must-read fun. My favorite section prophesizes that: "The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the (last) Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"
Mr. al-Zoghbi's interviewer must be an intellectual man, as he asked the cleric if the section about speaking trees and stones was an allegorical expression, to which Mr. al-Zoghbi replied: "Whoever says this is an allegory (that trees and stones will speak) is wrong. The trees will actually talk. And the walls as well."

But Yıldız Tilbe, the Turkish-Kurdish pop star, is apparently less patient than waiting for the moment when the trees and stones will guide Muslims to the last standing Jew so that they can kill him. Hers is a nostalgic, probably too-difficult-to-fulfil wish, unless Arabs, Turks or her Kurdish kin invent the time machine.

On her Twitter account last week, she wrote: "May God bless Hitler. He did far less (than he should have)." And that: "It will be Muslims again who will bring the end of Jews." To which the honorable mayor of Ankara, Melih Gökçek replied: "I applaud you."

(to be continued)

Burak Bekdīl, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily News and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum. This article was originally published in slightly different for form on July 18 in the Hürriyet Daily News.

Related Topics:  Burak Bekdil

Sorry to Remind You, but Golda Meir Was Right - Part IV of IV

by Burak Bekdil
August 30, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4659/golda-meir-was-right

In Turkey however, the protests were not peaceful. They included smashing a sculpture than was neither Jewish nor Israeli.
It was the usual "We-Muslims-can-kill each other-but-Jews-cannot" hysteria.
If Turkish crowds were protesting against Israel in a political dispute, why Koranic slogans? Why were they protesting in Arabic rather than their native language? Do Turks chant German slogans to protest nuclear energy?

Finally, Adolf Hitler is a Turkish hero! With the current pace of events, a boulevard in Ankara can be named after him.

But the Turks' newfound Holocaust-fetish is not a response to one of the 20^th century's greatest crimes; nor is their love affair with the funny moustached little man.

The Fuhrer also once said something that might perfectly fit Turkey seven decades later: "I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few."

Turks love Hitler because they hate Jews (not Israelis or the Israeli government). Why, otherwise, would Turks be targeting, in every way possible, Turkish Jews -- who are full Turkish citizens like themselves?

Bulent Yildirim, for instance, one of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's favorite Islamists, said that, "Turkish Jews will pay dearly for Israel's actions."

According to Prime Minister Erdogan, Israel, with its offensive on Gaza, which has killed more than 2000 people, "has gone beyond Hitler." Mr. Erdogan knows that 2000 is not greater than 6 million. So what makes him think that the deaths of 2000 Palestinians is "genocide" but the killing of hundreds of thousands by his good friend Omar al-Bashir in Sudan was not genocide? Well, Mr. Erdogan once explained that Muslims don't commit genocide. Good.

Mr. Erdogan's top Islamic cleric, however, has offered a different -- and, no doubt, more accurate account -- about Muslim deaths. Professor Mehmet Gormez, head of the Religious Affairs Directorate, said: "A thousand Muslims are being killed each day, and 90% of the killers are other Muslims."

If Professor Gormez is not a Zionist agent, Mr. Erdogan's (and half the Turks') Jewish witch-hunt cannot be a response to "Muslims are being killed": no one, for instance, has even attempted to destroy the diplomatic missions of Iraq where the latest Gaza death toll could be merely any month's count.

It was the usual "We-Muslims-can-kill-each-other-but-Jews-cannot" hysteria. In a way, "it's religion, stupid."

During the past few weeks, there have been democratic protests against Israel's Operation Protective Edge in many cities across the world -- except in Arab cities.

In the West, protesters marched, chanted slogans, carried placards and protested Israel peacefully -- over political disagreements. Because for them this is a political dispute and they side with the Palestinians. That's all perfectly democratic.

In Turkey, however, the protests were not peaceful. They included smashing a sculpture that was neither Jewish nor Israeli. But the Turkish protests featured something different from the others and quite revealing: they were constantly accompanied by Koranic rehearsals, Muslims prayers and the famous Arabic slogan "Allah-u akbar" [Allah is the greatest].

Anti-Israel protesters in Istanbul are shown waving the flags of Hamas and the PLO, as well as the black flag of jihad, July 19, 2014. (Image source: PressTV YouTube video screenshot)

If the Turkish crowds were wherever they were to protest against Israel for killing Palestinians in a political dispute, why Koranic slogans? Why were they protesting in Arabic rather than their native language? Do Turks chant German or Portuguese slogans when they gather to protest nuclear energy, or negligence regarding the deaths of more than 300 miners in Soma? So, what makes Arabic the lingua franca at every anti-Israel (more realistically, anti-Jewish) protest? Is this a mere coincidence that repeats itself every time, everywhere?

The title of this four-part series was intended to be a forceful reminder at times like this that Hitler was right to think that (religious) emotion is reserved for the many and reason for the few.

Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel, had a perfectly realistic point when she said that peace in the Middle East would only be possible "when Arabs love their children more than they hate us." I now think her line was incomplete: Peace won't come just when Arabs love their children more than they hate Jews; it may come when they also love their children more than they hate 'other' Muslims.

Burak Bekdīl, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily News and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Related Topics:  Israel, Turkey  |  Burak Bekdil

Qatar Pledges to Fund New Gaza Flotilla After Turkey Pulls Support

Tags:

Flotilla gaza Gaza blockade humanitarian aid IDF Israel maritime blockade Israeli naval blockade Mavi Marmara Palestinians Qatar Turkey

Snapshot of footage from the MV Mavi Marmara by IDF sources, showing an Israeli soldier being beaten with iron pipes during the Gaza flotilla raid. Photo: IDF.

The government of Qatar and the Turkey-based, terror-tied IHH Islamic charity on Monday agreed that the Gulf state would fund an upcoming “humanitarian” flotilla to Gaza, according to Israel’s NRG News.

The strategic cooperation agreement signed in Doha between the two “calls for the implementation of immediate, medium, and long-term joint humanitarian goals and to rationalise the use of their resources to achieve ‘maximum impact,’” The Gulf Times reported on Tuesday.

The Turkish organization, which several countries deem a terrorist entity, organized the infamous Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010, which tried to breach an Israeli anti weapons-smuggling naval blockade.

Israeli naval commandos commandeered the lead vessel in the six-ship group, killing nine foreign nationals after they were attacked upon boarding the craft.
IHH last month said they’d try to repeat the act, soon.

“The organization will send another flotilla after they receive permission from the government in Ankara that Turkish naval forces will defend the flotilla and its participants,” IHH leader, Bulent Yildirim, said.

Ankara, however, pulled its support for the planned protest several weeks ago.
Both IHH and Qatar are close to Hamas, and Yildirim reportedly also has ties to al-Qaeda.
According to Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News, “Yildirim is being investigated for allegedly financing al-Qaeda through his organization,” daily Habertürk has reported.

“The probe, led by an Istanbul specially authorized prosecutor, accuses Yildirim of ‘providing financial aid to al-Qaeda via his foundation” with absolute secrecy, reportedly without official numbering and identification.

Qatar has faced harsh criticism from Israel in recent weeks over its funding for terror group Hamas which has been engaged in an ongoing battle with the Jewish state.

Sat August 30, 2014

Amid a trail of Al Qaeda atrocities, world leaders call on someone else "to stamp out the disease"

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis August 30, 2014, 11:29 AM (IDT)

Tags:  Al Qaeda,  ISIS,  John Kerry,  Barack Obama,  David Cameron,  Binyamin Netanyahu,  UN observers,  Golan,  Kurds,  Sinai,

Al Qaeda executions in Sinai

US Secretary of State John Kerry tried to turn attention away from President Barack Obama highly-criticized  admission Thursday, Aug. 28, "We don't have a strategy yet" for dealing with Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq” - with an article in the New York Times, calling for a “coalition of nations… to stamp out the disease of the Islamic state group.”

Obama said only that the strategy under preparation won’t be ready before next month.

debkafile’s counter-terrorism sources note that until then, and until Kerry’s coalition of nations comes together and decides what to do, Al Qaeda’s IS’s campaign of bloody atrocities and conquests will remain unchecked. And so will the spread of what the British Prime Minister David Cameron called, in a special news conference Friday, “the poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism.”

Cameron warned that, while there was much talk about the threat to Europe of returning home-grown Islamists, “IS is already here.” The return of at least 500 people from fighting in Syria and Iraq "for Islamic State extremists attempting to establish a caliphate” represented a "greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before.”

New laws, said the British premier, would make it easier to take passports away from people traveling abroad to join the conflict.

Announcing the elevation of the UK terror threat from “substantial” to “severe,” Cameron cited the example of the British Islamist who took part in the beheading of the American journalist James Foley on Aug. 18.

He also confirmed that Al Qaeda’s Islamic State perpetrated the May 24 attack on the Jewish Museum of Brussels, in which the Israeli couple, Emanuel and Miriam Riva, was murdered  - as further evidence that Islamist terror was already loose on the streets of Europe.

He was the first prominent world leader to assign the Brussels attack to Al Qaeda, which Israeli officials have so far avoided doing.

The "severe" threat level was imposed in the UK only twice before: in 2006 after the discovery of liquid bombs aimed at airliners and when, the following year, extremists attempted to bomb Glasgow Airport and London's West End.

Friday, IS released another indescribable video showing the beheading of a Kurdish soldier among 15 captured Peshmerga in orange boiler suits, who were grouped before a Mosul mosque. It was labeled “2nd Message to America” and threatened to execute the entire group if Iraqi Kurdistan continued to cooperate with the United States.

Just a few hours earlier, footage was shown of the mass execution of 300 Syrian soldiers forced to run through the desert in their underwear. They were said to have been taken prisoner at the Syrian air base of Tabqa.

Those barbaric scenes were flashed across the world by international media.

Less noticed was the video tape released on Thursday, Aug. 28, by Al Qaeda’s Sinai branch, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, which showed the beheading of four local citizens and their admission that they had collaborated with Israeli intelligence to identify targets for Egyptian and Israeli air raids. This tape runs 30 minutes.

Egyptian security sources said the four had been abducted Tuesday near the northern Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwaid.

And not far away, in the Gaza Strip, Hamas last week summarily executed 29 alleged collaborators with Israeli intelligence, three of them women, and seven in a public square.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has characterized Hamas as belonging to the same family of murderous extremists as the Islamic State. Israel did indeed fight a limited, inconclusive war on the Palestinian fundamentalists, but no order has gone out for an operation to rescue the 43 Fiji members of the UN Disengagement Observer Force, who were abducted by the Syrian Al Qaeda Nusra Front just 150 meters from its Golan border.

UNDOF policed the Golan buffer zone for 40 years until it was overrun in the fighting between Syrian insurgents including Islamists and the Syrian army. So far there have been no executions, but the danger to the observers is ever present.

Saturday, Saudi sources reported that Qatar had undertaken to broker their release from Nusra on behalf of the UN. Israel, which spurned Qatar in the role of middleman for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, now finds the emirate, which champions Islamist terrorists in the Middle East, assigned a task in its northern back yard. An IDF rescue operation would have prevented this intervention, as well as delivering a timely, preemptive blow to Al Qaeda fighters sitting on Israel’s borders.

It would also have gone far toward muting the many Israeli critics of their government’s decision to curtail the 50-day Gaza operation by a truce, before Hamas was finished off for good.

Bur after the IDF campaign against Hamas, the Israeli prime minister was ready to line up with Western leaders, who make speeches about the horrors of the Islamist extremists and shore up their defenses, while at the same time avoiding putting their hands in the wasps’ nest and their boots on the ground, for tackling them in their Middle East lairs. “Coalitions” and “allies” are assigned the brunt of this mission.

Hoping against hope to jerk them into action, Saudi King Abdullah Saturday issued a wake-up call. He asked Western foreign ambassadors summoned to his palace in Jeddah to convey an urgent message to their leaders: Terrorism at this time is an evil force that must be fought with wisdom and speed," said King Abdullah. "And if neglected I'm sure after a month it will arrive in Europe and a month after that in America."

Russia Confronted, Ukraine Invaded

"Columns of heavy artillery, huge loads of arms and regular Russian servicemen came to the territory of Ukraine from Russia through the uncontrolled border."
"The situation is certainly extremely difficult and nobody is going to simplify it. Still, it is controlled enough for us to refrain from panic."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko

"There was a regrouping of our troops to better protect Mariupol."
Col. Andriy Lysenko, spokesman, national security council, Ukraine

"There are active soldiers fighting among us who preferred to spend their vacation not on the beach, but with us, among their brothers, who are fighting for their freedom."
Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister, 'Donetsk People's Republic'

Oleksandr Ratushniak / AFP / Getty Images   Armed Ukrainian servicemen comb the area after being shot at by 

pro-Russian militants at their check-point near the small city of Dzerzhynsk, in the Donetsk region, on Thursday.

Panic, goes the thinking, is useful to the enemy, if it can be instilled in the public of Ukraine. It is a utilitarian weapon, similar to tanks, armoured personnel carriers and rifles, according to the president. This is the other side of the terror coin; when terrorists succeed in instilling terror in a population through committing horrendous atrocities, its usefulness can be seen in costly steps taken by governments in hopes of preventing further such events.

Even as Mr. Poroshenko addressed his national security council to order mandatory conscription for the armed forces, NATO released satellite images corroborating accusations that Russian forces were actively engaged in the fighting in Ukraine. Over one thousand Russian soldiers had joined the separatists fighting the Ukrainian military, NATO emphasized.

According to Col. Andriy Lysenko, speaking for the national security council, the Ukrainian military was preparing for a counteroffensive against "more and more Russians" appearing within Ukraine. Russia, he said, was sending new anti-aircraft defence systems to eastern Ukraine where separatists, with Russia's help, were holding the town of Novoazovsk, when Ukrainian forces were forced to retreat a day before.

Although Russia repeatedly protests the accusations that it has sent soldiers or weapons to Ukraine, the rebels themselves are not media-shy about boasting of their invaluable assistance. The leader of the major separatist group in southeastern Ukraine stated on Russian television that up to four thousand Russians, active-duty soldiers on leave included, were fighting against Ukrainian government forces.               

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking in advance of next week's NATO summit to be held in Wales, stated that the alliance is prepared to open new bases in eastern Europe where troops from member countries will rotate for stays of months at a time As well, NATO was creating a spearhead unit within an existing rapid reaction force to deal with emergencies in the east as they arise.

DigitalGlobe via NATO    What NATO claims are Russian military units moving in a convoy formation with self-propelled artillery in the area of Krasnodon, Ukraine.

Since the conflict began in the spring, between 3,000 and 4,000 Russians had fought with the separatists. Tensions between the United States and the European Union have arisen where the British and French are among those warning the deployment of Russian troops in Ukraine was unacceptable, and additional measures to punish Russia must be contemplated.

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, didn't bother to deny that Russians were actively fighting in eastern Ukraine, claiming they were volunteers. On the other hand, he asserted, the Ukrainian government was "waging war against its own people". Describing the soldiers as volunteers evades the issue of direct Russian involvement when in fact Russia is determined to go even further than simply annexing Crimea.

The latest incursion from Russia involving armoured personnel carriers, troops and weapons and the confrontation in the south has raised the potential of a direct clash between Ukrainian forces and Russian military. Ukraine's intelligence fears the armoured columns that captured Novoazovsk outgunning Ukrainian forces now threatening Mariupol, far from the fighting in Luhansk and Donetsk, has aided the separatists by diverting Ukrainian forces.

Added to that is the fact that the Russian advance could very well be the initiation of a ground offensive with plans to seize Ukrainian territory to establish for Russia a land route connecting it to Crimea. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, raised in East Germany, speaks Russian, the only Western leader who speaks regularly with Vladimir Putin, though her patience with him appears to be waning.

That Russian troops were taken by Ukrainian forces well within Ukrainian territory, and recent military funerals held in Pskov, northern Russia for troops killed in Ukraine, and the questions that Russians themselves are finally asking of their government, gives rise to other questions. Why the continued provocations, what will be the end of them, and how to adequately respond?

Poland is agitating for NATO to base several army brigades in Poland on a permanent basis. As members of NATO, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, all concerned that they have ethnic Russian citizens and Moscow has rumbled about its concerns over the well-being of its nationals living in the near abroad, raises other concerns for NATO which by law, must come to the aid of any of its members. Good enough reason why Ukraine is now resurrecting its wish to be a NATO member.

Since Russia's annexation of Crimea, NATO has operated back-to-back military exercises in eastern Europe, sent warships to the Mediterranean and the Black sea, and has quadrupled the number of fighter jets on call to defend alliance airspace. None of which has stirred the back hairs on Vladimir's Putin's neck one iota.

ISIS Triumphant in Atrocity

"Stop circulating false news."
"They are driving our soldiers like a herd of sheep."
"[The Assad government is] a filthy failure that has destroyed the country's trees and people and allowed ISIS to rise."
Comments on Syrian pro-government Facebook page

Syrian soldiers, dispatched to the area in a column, arriving nearby to the Taqba airbase in Raqqa province, to come to the aid of other Syrian troops who were fighting ISIS jihadis determined to control the airbase, and in the process became victims themselves when they were taken prisoner by the terrorists. "We ambushed them and arrested them", said a Lebanese ISIS fighter, Yousef.

IAFPG/Getty Images

Yousef said through an interview on the Internet that the ISIS fighters had forced the 120 soldiers to run about in the desert, the plan being to exhaust them physically. They were then locked into an interior where they were beaten. "Then we took them out and shot them", he said. Videos posted online by ISIS supporters gave a miserable hint of the soldiers' final hours alive.

In one of the videos, the prisoners are seen running in a line through a stretch of desert while bearded ISIS fighters stood laughing, and herding them like sheep.
"The state of Islam!" shouted the fighters, repeating a common ISIS slogan.
The soldiers were forced to respond with: "It remains." 
Quite the triumphantly punishing ritual. One the prisoners would not live to tell their grandchildren about.

 IAFPG/Getty Images

There was the video with its images of jihadist terrorists taunting the humiliated soldiers who wore nothing but their undershorts, their military uniforms stripped away. Marching the men through the desert, then lining them up and gunning them down. The entire deadly-maleficent episode duly filmed and posted on the Internet to entertain and invite other like-minded jihadis to come and join in the fun and games.

Thus came to an end the battle for control of the Taqba airbase in Raqqa province as the terrorists took control of the base. Some of the Syrian communities that have supported President Bashar Al-
Assad in the past three years of civil war may be re-thinking their position. The government, through the state news agency SANA, reported, when the base fell to the ISIS jihadis that troops had withdrawn from the base, regrouped, and were successfully fighting close by.

After a pro-government Facebook page posted a video of the captured soldiers being marched through the desert, and another one showing their dead bodies, the comments from viewers were contemptuous of the government on the one hand, and disbelieving that the event had ever occurred. One comment addressed the regime's press office, that it had promised to "do everything necessary to follow up on the shortcomings that have led to the loss of a number of areas and a large number of martyrs for the homeland."

This is the regime that did nothing, when it still could -- in the early days when ISIS moved over from Iraq into Syria -- to control it. At that time the regime felt that ISIS could be useful in helping it fight the Syrian Free Army. Which is what ISIS did, before deciding to head back to Iraq and take Mosul and a growing swath of territory, then tracked back to Syria and did the same there. And now is threatening the Alawite Baathist regime.

The Iraqi Sunni ISIS agents of death confronting the Shiite Alawite Syrians content enough to deliver their Sunni Syrian counterparts to torture, starvation, chemical attacks, and death. 

Anti-Semitism: Alive and Kicking

"In every place [I visit] I'm very well received."
"If the BDS movement has been effective [it's because] we in Israel have been over-reacting. It's a phenomenon that exists, but if you analyze this phenomenon, how many people are there who are the usual suspects?"
"First of all, we feel responsible for the well being of every Jew. It doesn't matter where they live. The phenomenon of anti-Semitism is part of what we are following intensively in our daily work. We follow the events here [in Canada]."
"The problems we have in the Middle East should not be exported to other countries. I think this is a bad phenomenon. There's no reason, living here in paradise [Canada], to have these confrontations."
Rafael Barak, Israeli ambassador to Canada

Anti-Semitism has been given a new lease on its malicious, diseased life. Before, individual Jews could be despised on the basis that they represented "the Jews", that accursed 'race' whom all others love to hate; upon whom all others could heap the scorn of being responsible for all the ills of the world by their conniving, mendacious plans to control the world. For a nation that aspires to control the world, one can only comment, sourly, that despite the fact that Jewish intellectuals outweigh those of any other ethnic group, a poor job has been done of it.

Jews may represent the highest number of over-achievers, those whom the world recognizes as geniuses in every field of human endeavour, representing within the sciences and the humanities the highest number of Nobel prize winners, but they remain regarded as an inferior, troublesome species, regardless. When Jews are attacked and refuse to become victim to hatred and violence, they are accused of being oppressors for defending themselves.

The State of Israel -- whose presence is an assurance to international Jewry that a haven awaits them during times of uncertainty -- has become the world's dartboard to receive the unending supply of poisoned arrows of racism. Sneering at the Jewish determination to defend themselves from existential danger, the old anti-Semites have been encouraged to come out of hiding, assured that now they can do so with impunity; indirectly attack Jews by boycotting and slandering Israel.

It is the actions of a state that they deride and condemn, not the people within the state, so obviously it is not anti-Semitism, they claim, but the sanctimonious standing in judgement of what they perceive as morally unacceptable is the reality. It has become immoral to defend oneself, but morality is an altering, shape-shifting vision depending on what is being perceived; if the attackers are presumed to be oppressed, their violence is condoned, and the state's condemned.

Protesters chant during a pro-Gaza demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in London, Aug. 1, 2014.  (photo by REUTERS/Neil Hall)

Liberal, enlightened Europeans with their exchangeable values and critiques see an easy target in Israel, not to be confused with anti-Semitism. The flood of Muslim immigration that has altered the European landscape has renewed the racist disease, given it fresh impetus under the guise of denouncing an oppressive state refusing to melt into failed history in favour of leaving its geography to the avails of surrounding Arab nations.

The latest rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe has stimulated almost 30% of Jews living in Europe to seriously consider abandoning the countries that have been their homes for centuries and more. Anti-Semitic incidents have doubled in Britain and in France where shouts of "Jews to the gas chambers" has become a popular mantra from Spain to Germany to Norway. And where, just incidentally he flags of Hamas and ISIS can be seen boldly carried by protesters.

In Canada, a small percentage of university student groups have voted to favour sanctions against Israel; the motions pass because of a small coterie of dedicated vocal activists condemned by their critics as outright anti-Semites and blatant hypocrites for ignoring dramatically horrendous human rights abuses in many countries of the world, choosing to focus on what they insist are human rights abuses committed by the State of Israel.

Israel, stated Ambassador Barak, is well aware of the growing emphasis of anti-Semitic chants and acts of violence accompanying pro-Palestinian protests organized around the world, and accelerating each time there is a conflict between Israel and Hamas. In some circles there have arisen arch comments that 'Islamophobia' represents the new anti-Semitism.

In the wake of September 11, FBI statistics demonstrated that anti-Semitic attacks far outnumbered anti-Muslim attacks.

When Islamist-jihadist terrorist attacks take place, there are no mobs rampaging to attack Muslims and fire-bomb their mosques where they live in Europe, but when tensions rise in the Middle East, mob-action, incited by Muslims living in Europe, spew hateful rhetoric at the presence of Jews, hound them, attack them, and their synagogues as well.