Hezbollah's tunnels offer sneak peek at looming major conflict with Israel

BY LT. GEN. KENNETH GLUECK (RET.), LT. GEN. MICHAEL TUCKER (RET.) AND LT. COL. GEOFFREY CORN, — 02/25/19 

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/431370-hezbollahs-tunnels-offer-sneak-peek-at-looming-major-conflict

For weeks, Israeli and Lebanese soldiers have eyed each other uneasily at close range while Israeli engineers neutralize cross-border infiltration tunnels. These sophisticated tunnels, clearly intended to attack civilians, embody Hezbollah’s ongoing efforts to threaten substantial harm to Israel. They are also a reminder of that border’s fragile calm, and the potential for major destruction and suffering that would befall both Israeli and Lebanese civilians in another conflict on Israel’s northern front.

Israel undoubtedly could deal Hezbollah a crippling military blow in such a conflict. Indeed, Hezbollah has no illusion of military victory. Instead, it will seek to delegitimize Israel in the court of public opinion by illegally exposing civilians to harm on both sides of the border and then exploiting widespread misunderstanding about the laws of war.

These concerns were central to the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s (JINSA) Hybrid Warfare Task Force and its fact-finding mission to Israel earlier this year. The ensuing task force report examined the operational and legal challenges Israel would face in another northern war.

Though unknown by us or the public during our visit, the ongoing discoveries of these terror tunnels offer valuable glimpses into this looming war.

For the first time since 1973, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confronts the very real prospect of a sizable incursion. Years of fighting alongside Russian and Iranian forces in Syria have transformed Hezbollah into a formidable military force capable of launching such a raid, relying on coordinated infantry, artillery, and even armor and drones. This represents a major leap from Hezbollah’s small hit-and-run tactics in the 2006 Lebanon war.

The tunnels are integral to this new threat. Built in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 prohibiting Hezbollah’s rearmament in this area, they are reportedly wide enough to move heavy military equipment and large troop units. Yet even in the unlikely event Israel locates every tunnel (five have been uncovered thus far), Hezbollah will still use the terrain and towns of Southern Lebanon to complicate Israeli counterattacks and maximize civilian casualties.

Hezbollah is under no illusion such tactics will produce anything close to decisive military victory. Instead, these raids will target Israeli civilian communities where Hezbollah will seek to inflict as many casualties, take as many hostages and cause as much destruction as possible before ultimately being annihilated or withdrawing.

By inflicting significant casualties and “planting its flag” on Israeli territory, even briefly, Hezbollah will burnish its credentials as the only force capable of standing up to Israel. This also will compel Israeli leadership to respond forcefully in self-defense.

When Israel responds, Hezbollah will exploit Lebanese civilians’ suffering – brought about primarily by its own illicit tactics of using these civilians to shield military assets – to delegitimize Israel’s self-defense.

This reflects the growing “hybrid” threat, where quasi-state enemies use combat to produce maximum carnage that is exploited in a broader diplomatic and information campaign. Thus, despite its substantially improved military capabilities, Hezbollah’s ultimate goal will be to defeat Israel politically, by exploiting public reaction to the inevitable destruction and suffering Hezbollah’s own aggression will produce.

Exercising its core tactic, Hezbollah uses civilian buildings as entry points for these tunnels. Far more pervasively, it emplaces military assets in civilian buildings and densely populated villages, knowing full well the IDF will be compelled to eliminate these capabilities – most notably firing positions, missile and rocket stockpiles and infiltration routes. And the IDF will have to do so rapidly, preventing Hezbollah from devastating Israel’s military bases, critical infrastructure and cities.

Hezbollah is banking on predictable condemnation falling on Israel for the inevitable collateral damage and civilian suffering resulting from such military action. But the true irony is that the IDF will make all possible efforts to mitigate risks to the same Lebanese civilians being exploited by Hezbollah. Its operations will be guided by international law, even as Hezbollah deliberately violates those same obligations.

But perversely, Hezbollah will use the resulting images of destruction to Lebanese villages and suffering of Lebanese civilians to stoke political and popular pressure on Israel to terminate its military campaign prematurely.

Hezbollah’s strategy relies on exploiting widespread misunderstanding of the Law of Armed Conflict, chiefly the prevalent but erroneous assumption that the army blowing something up must bear all responsibility for the ensuing suffering. In reality, as will almost certainly be the case with Hezbollah, those who expose civilians to mortal risk by attempting to shield behind them are truly responsible for the consequences.

Exploiting this misunderstanding worked for Hezbollah in 2006, just as Hamas, ISIS and others regularly find success with such approaches against armed forces that try, often in vain, to avoid civilian casualties.

As former operational commanders and military legal experts, we know first-hand how similar tactics are employed by America’s adversaries. It is therefore vitally important that American policymakers, the media and other public leaders recognize, publicize and highlight Israel’s lawful efforts to address the illicit threats posed by Hezbollah – for the sakes of our ally, U.S. national security and regional stability.

Lt. Gen. Kenneth Glueck (ret.) is former commander, U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Command; Lt. Gen. Michael Tucker (ret.) is former commander, First United States Army; Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn is Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law Houston; all three are members of JINSA’s Hybrid Warfare Task Force.

Israel begins construction of smart fence along Gaza border

By Anna Ahronheim   February 3, 2019 

Netanyahu: 'At the end of last week, we began building a barrier on the Gaza border which will prevent the infiltration of terrorists from Gaza into our territory.'

Defense Ministry begins construction of smart-fence along Gaza border.. (photo credit: DEFENSE MINISTRY)

Israel’s Defense Ministry announced that it has begun the construction of an upgraded security barrier along the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

“On Thursday, we began working on the final component of the barrier project along the Gaza border,” said Brig.-Gen. Eran Ophir, head of the army’s fence-building administration. “The barrier is unique and especially suited to threats from the Gaza Strip and will provide a maximum response to prevent entry into Israeli territory.”

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The new barrier will be 65 kilometers long, stretching along the route of the border from the new sea barrier near Zikim beach in the north to Kerem Shalom crossing in the south. Made from galvanized steel, it will weigh about 20,000 tons and will reach a height of about six meters.

The project is being carried out by the Defense Ministry’s Engineering and Construction Department and the Border and Sewage Administration.

The smart-fence is the above-ground part of Israel’s underground barrier, which has a system of advanced sensor and monitoring devices to detect tunnels. The Defense Ministry stated that the work on the underground barrier “will continue in parallel to the work on the fence.”

At the beginning of the year, Israel announced that the naval barrier meant to stave off Hamas infiltrations from the sea is nearing completion, seven months after work began.

The 200-meter sea barrier is made up of three layers, including one below the sea level, which is lined with seismic detectors and other tools, a layer of armored stone and a third layer in the form of a mound. In addition to the three layers, a six meter (20 foot) smart-fence surrounds the breakwater to provide a final security measure.

“The barrier is similar to the one on the Egyptian border, but it has significant improvements and includes innovative security elements,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that the smart-fence has been specially adapted to security threats and will have an additional component for the defense of communities in the Gaza border vicinity.

“At the end of last week, we began the construction of the barrier on the Gaza border,” said Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The barrier will prevent the infiltration of terrorists from Gaza into our territory. Those in Gaza have to understand that if they do not keep quiet, we will not hesitate to act.”

The border with Gaza is Israel’s most explosive, with 1,000 rockets fired toward southern Israel in 2018 and more than 10 months of violent protests along fence, with Palestinians launching incendiary aerial devices and throwing explosive devices toward troops. Gazans have also been cutting through the fence, infiltrating from the Hamas-run enclave into southern Israel.

Early on Sunday morning, the IDF arrested five Palestinians who infiltrated into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip. Armed with knives, the men were arrested and transferred to Shin Bet security service for questioning.

The fence along the Egyptian border, which is similar to the one which will be built along the Gazan border, has slashed almost completely the number of illegal African migrants arriving in Israel. The number of infiltrations from the Sinai – with 14,669 infiltrations in 2010 to 213 in 2015, to 14 in 2016 – prompted authorities to raise the height from five meters to eight meters along a 17-kilometer stretch. There have been no infiltrations from Sinai since.

FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS THE FBI AND THE US INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES  HAVE DEMONSTRATED A REMARKABLE INEPTNESS IN  PREVENTING FOREIGN PENETRATIONS BY HOSTILE SPY SERVICES.

For more than 30 years the FBI and the US intelligence agencies  have demonstrated a remarkable ineptness in  preventing foreign penetrations by hostile spy services.

As a result many brave foreign nationals who risk their lives inside extremely brutal regimes to provide the United States with essential information have been detected, imprisoned,  tortured and executed.

One of the colossal intelligence failure under the Obama administration was  the loss of all recruited agents in China  [Between 20 and 30 of  the US   recruited agents in China were killed or imprisoned.] Media sources blamed the loss on a former CIA officer, Jerry Chung Shin Lee, who was arrested in January 2018 and is suspected of passing along their names to China.

Another colossal intelligence failure under the Obama administration  occurred in  May 2011 when, according to Iranian state media,  30 people were arrested as CIA spies and 42 others were suspected of involvement with U.S. intelligence. It is not known how the agents were discovered, but a likely cause was a breakdown in agent-handler communications.

Insiders attribute this failure to information that  was  provided to Iran by Monica Witt, a former Air Force counterintelligence officer (and later an intelligence contractor) who  defected to Iran 1n 2013 [where she is immune from any US criminal prosecution.]

Additional information  on this case  became available  when a federal grand jury  indicted Ms. Witt  on charges of passing extremely sensitive secrets to agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.  

Below, we share Pam Geller’s assessment: DOJ  and FBI officials portray Ms. Witt’s indictment as a victory   lauding the exposure of a foreign spy after a multiyear probe. Yet the real story is not Ms. Witt’s indictment but her defection to Iran in 2013. She brought with her details of a secret communications system American handlers use to talk to their recruited agents.

The FBI fumbled the case in 2012 by warning Ms. Witt she might be targeted for recruitment by Iranian intelligence. A trained counterspy, she knew that the tip-off meant she was under investigation and surveillance. It likely set in motion her flight to Iran a year later. 

As she boarded the plane, she texted her handler: “I’m signing off and heading out! Coming home.” Other texts reveal she “told all” to an Iranian ambassador in Central Asia and had plans to go public. 

The spy charges cover the period from 2012-15. The indictment is largely symbolic, since the prospects of bringing the case to trial are slim to none. The FBI’s assistant director for national security, stated that she became an “ideological” defector after converting to Islam. Her actions, he added, inflicted “serious damage to national security.”

According to prosecutors, Ms. Witt worked at the Air Force Office of Special Investigations from 2003-08 and then as a contractor, running an ultra secret Special Access Program, or SAP, until August 2010. The program gave her access to details about counterintelligence operations, true names of recruited agents, and identities of U.S. intelligence operatives in charge of recruiting foreign agents.Ms. Witt left the contractor in August 2010 for unspecified reasons.

Re:The New York Times has thrust itself into an active   leadership role in  the campaign to demonize Israel [and to demonize  American Jewish support of Israel]

Authorship Credit  Notes:   

This is a  MIL-ED  editorial rewrite of an  article by Ira Stoll ['New York Times Claims Osama Bin Laden Motivated by ‘News Coverage of Displaced Palestinians”      https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/02/17/new-york-times-claims-osama-bin-laden-motivated-by-news-coverage-of-displaced-palestinians/ ]  

Stoll’s original article should be read in conjunction with an article by Rabbi  [Prof.] Rav Fischer  [  "Democrat Identity Politics allow Jew-Haters to seep through the cracks”   http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23461 ]

The purpose of this distribution is to bring additional  information to the immediate attention of our military officer  readership.  Useful ideas  and information contained in the articles  should be credited to the authors.   The MIL-ED editorial staff is responsible for any errors  that   may  have been introduced by our editorial   distribution process.

The New York Times has thrust itself into an active   leadership role in  the campaign to demonize Israel [and to demonize  American Jewish support of Israel]

The New York Times has thrust itself into an active   leadership role in  the campaign to demonize Israel [and to demonize  American Jewish support of Israel] by  reporting as" fact"  what had been previously been  fringe  conspiracy theory accusations :  that  US support of Israel in Israel's disputes with the" Palestinians" is directly responsible for the murder of US citizens by Islamic terrorists.  

 Example 1. The New York Times, in a recent article, claimed that that Osama Bin Laden was motivated by “news coverage of displaced Palestinians.” The Times‘ September 11 revisionism states “The suffering of the Palestinians has long been an animating cause for Al Qaeda, a stand-in for the victimization of Muslims at the hands of Western powers. Biographies of Osama bin Laden say that as an adolescent, he cried watching news coverage of displaced Palestinians who had been forced off their land.”

These NEW claims by the Times, had previously been rejected by the New York Times. 

On September 23, 2001, former Jerusalem bureau chief of the paper, Serge Schmemann, wrote, “The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were apparently not about Israel and the Palestinians, at least not directly. … There were no indications that the architects of the attack had American support for Israel as their primary motivation.”

On October 12, 2001, the Times, in an an op-ed by a former US diplomat, Dennis Ross, headlined, “Bin Laden’s Terrorism Isn’t About The Palestinians.” Ross wrote that any claim that the attack on America “was about the plight of the Palestinians” was as “absurd” as Saddam Hussein’s claim that he had invaded Kuwait in 1990 to help the Palestinians.

In 2002, the Times reported that even the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, did not buy this nonsense. Arafat sought to distance himself unequivocally from Al Qaeda , publicly warning Osama bin Laden in an interview to stop justifying attacks in the name of Palestinians.[“I’m telling him directly not to hide behind the Palestinian cause,” Mr. Arafat was quoted as saying referring to recent statements by Al Qaeda leaders.“Why is bin Laden talking about Palestine now?” Mr. Arafat said. “He never helped us. He was working in another, completely different area and against our interests.”]

 Example 2. A recent Times news article about deadly attacks in Africa by affiliates of the terrorist group Al Qaeda blames them on President Trump’s decision to obey an American law that required him to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The Times reported, “The attacks came fully seven months after President Trump moved the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the disputed holy city, which Mr. Trump recognized as the country’s capital. Widely seen as inflaming tensions and as a demonstration of the administration’s favoritism toward Israel in its long conflict with the Palestinians, the move drew condemnation at the time from many corners, including Al Qaeda and other extremist militant organizations.”

The New York Times coverage not only demonizes Israel and American Jews in the eyes of their fellow Americans and also feeds the fantasy that if only the Israel-Palestinian issue could be somehow resolved, Al Qaeda and other similar anti-American and anti-Western terrorist groups would immediately cease their violent attacks.

 The New York Times refers to “biographies” of — not just one, but plural — of Osama bin Laden . Which biographies is the Times is talking about?. And how believable are these Times-cited reports of Bin Laden’s adolescent tears? One biography of Bin Laden is by Michael Scheuer, a former CIA official who has complained of a “fifth column of pro-Israel US citizens” who are “unquestionably enemies of America’s republican experiment.” That erodes his credibility. Another Bin Laden biography, by Jonathan Randal, reports that Bin Laden, “like so many other Saudis, had a long record of indifference about the Palestinian cause.”

Choosing What to Quote. One hint of this story’s possible source does come in a previous Times article, from December 2017, which begins, “Osama bin Laden was just 14 when his mother noticed that he had stopped watching his favorite Westerns. She found him fixated instead on news reports about Palestinians, tears streaming down his face as he watched TV in their home in Saudi Arabia. ‘In his teenage years, he was the same nice kid,’ his mother related. ‘But he was more concerned, sad and frustrated by the situation in Palestine,’ she said, according to Lawrence Wright’s account of bin Laden’s trajectory and Al Qaeda’s rise in his book, ‘The Looming Tower.’”

Even that, though, is a truncated account; the full quote from the Wright book has Bin Laden’s mother claiming that her teenage son would “weep” about “the situation in Palestine in particular, and the Arab and Muslim world in general.” The Wright book passage mentions nothing at all about “displaced Palestinians who had been forced off their land.” The rest of the Wright book passage explains also that during the same period, Bin Laden became more religious, with some ascribing the change “to a charismatic Syrian gym teacher at the school who was a member of the Muslim Brothers.”

The Times could just as easily have blamed the gym teacher or the Muslim Brotherhood; instead, it blames the Jewish State of Israel.

Israel begins construction of smart fence along Gaza border 

Netanyahu: 'At the end of last week, we began building a barrier on the Gaza border which will prevent the infiltration of terrorists from Gaza into our territory.' 

By Anna Ahronheim

February 3, 2019 

Defense Ministry begins construction of smart-fence along Gaza border.. (photo credit: DEFENSE MINISTRY) 

Israel’s Defense Ministry announced that it has begun the construction of an upgraded security barrier along the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

“On Thursday, we began working on the final component of the barrier project along the Gaza border,” said Brig.-Gen. Eran Ophir, head of the army’s fence-building administration. “The barrier is unique and especially suited to threats from the Gaza Strip and will provide a maximum response to prevent entry into Israeli territory.”

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The new barrier will be 65 kilometers long, stretching along the route of the border from the new sea barrier near Zikim beach in the north to Kerem Shalom crossing in the south. Made from galvanized steel, it will weigh about 20,000 tons and will reach a height of about six meters.

The project is being carried out by the Defense Ministry’s Engineering and Construction Department and the Border and Sewage Administration.

The smart-fence is the above-ground part of Israel’s underground barrier, which has a system of advanced sensor and monitoring devices to detect tunnels. The Defense Ministry stated that the work on the underground barrier “will continue in parallel to the work on the fence.”

At the beginning of the year, Israel announced that the naval barrier meant to stave off Hamas infiltrations from the sea is nearing completion, seven months after work began.

The 200-meter sea barrier is made up of three layers, including one below the sea level, which is lined with seismic detectors and other tools, a layer of armored stone and a third layer in the form of a mound. In addition to the three layers, a six meter (20 foot) smart-fence surrounds the breakwater to provide a final security measure.

“The barrier is similar to the one on the Egyptian border, but it has significant improvements and includes innovative security elements,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that the smart-fence has been specially adapted to security threats and will have an additional component for the defense of communities in the Gaza border vicinity.

“At the end of last week, we began the construction of the barrier on the Gaza border,” said Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The barrier will prevent the infiltration of terrorists from Gaza into our territory. Those in Gaza have to understand that if they do not keep quiet, we will not hesitate to act.”

The border with Gaza is Israel’s most explosive, with 1,000 rockets fired toward southern Israel in 2018 and more than 10 months of violent protests along fence, with Palestinians launching incendiary aerial devices and throwing explosive devices toward troops. Gazans have also been cutting through the fence, infiltrating from the Hamas-run enclave into southern Israel.

Early on Sunday morning, the IDF arrested five Palestinians who infiltrated into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip. Armed with knives, the men were arrested and transferred to Shin Bet security service for questioning.

The fence along the Egyptian border, which is similar to the one which will be built along the Gazan border, has slashed almost completely the number of illegal African migrants arriving in Israel. The number of infiltrations from the Sinai – with 14,669 infiltrations in 2010 to 213 in 2015, to 14 in 2016 – prompted authorities to raise the height from five meters to eight meters along a 17-kilometer stretch. There have been no infiltrations from Sinai since.

Rise of Democratic party Islamists signals trouble for US Jews

Judith Bergman - Gatestone Institute  February 10, 2019

(AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

If the past is any way to predict how Jews will respond to this threat, sadly, the vast majority will probably remain indifferent to the ominous political changes now taking place around them.

Are democracies in trouble?

As someone outside the world’s most powerful democracy, the United States, it is concerning to see how many countries in the West are being transformed. In Europe, free speech continues to be seriously eroded, churches are desecrated, and religious Europeans murdered.

 Are signs that the same transformation is beginning in the United States as well?  International observers have begun asking if the U.S. has a problem. Additionally, according to the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, released on January 29: “Global jihadists in dozens of groups and countries threaten local and regional US interests, despite having experienced some significant setbacks in recent years, and some of these groups will remain intent on striking the US homeland. Prominent jihadist ideologues and media platforms continue to call for and justify efforts to attack the US homeland.”

The report adds: “Homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) are likely to present the most acute Sunni terrorist threat to the United States, and HVE activity almost certainly will have societal effects disproportionate to the casualties and damage it causes.”

Late last year, a synagogue in Pittsburgh was attacked. In Ohio, another attack was being planned, “inspired by the mass shooting” in Pittsburgh.

Threats are, of course, directed against Christians as well as Jews.

Abroad, the U.S. is being mocked, and Europe has set up a payment channel to enable trade with Iran that evades U.S. sanctions.

The American Jewish community seems to be facing a threat that it appears quite content to ignore.

Not since the aviator legend Charles Lindbergh gathered fellow American Nazis together and others condemned American Jews as being a “fifth column” has the American Jewish community faced such a threat as it does today from openly anti-Semitic candidates recently elected to Congress.

Indifference likely to come with cost

If the past is any way to predict how Jews will respond to this threat, sadly, the vast majority will probably remain indifferent to the ominous political changes now taking place around them. Their indifference, however, is likely to come with an eventual cost.

Today’s Congressional freshmen class includes Democrats who clearly seek to upend the belief held by members of the Jewish community that they are a respected minority within the American society. These newly elected members seem to be trying to isolate the Jewish community from their political base by engaging in the traditional canard used by past demagogues, from Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s tweet accusing Jews of dual loyalty to the age-old lies that Jews conspire to control the media and finance.

These anti-Semitic falsehoods are being promoted against a backdrop of increased assaults on members of the Jewish community at a rate not seen in generations.

A new report from the U.K.-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, and most likely also applicable in the U.S., has established “a clear link between antisemitism and hostility towards Israel, finding that the strongest holders of antisemitic views tend to support boycotts of Israel or consider it an apartheid state.”

“Jonathan Boyd, executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the report’s co-author, said that people who hold ‘traditional antisemitic views’ about divided Jewish loyalties or the nefarious use of power are more likely to back ideas of boycott or apartheid than those who do not hold them.”

The report was based on a survey of 4,000 people in Britain carried out by Ipsos Mori between late 2016 and early 2017.

The threat emerging from within the Democratic Party is not without irony. The party has been the traditional home of the majority of American Jews since the days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (His studied indifference to chilling evidence of the Holocaust — that was smuggled out to the Allies — is a topic for another day.) However, with the last election cycle putting Islamists, who are openly hostile to Jews, in the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party has jettisoned even the pretense of repudiating their anti-Semites. As of this writing, not one Democratic Congressional leader has called for disciplinary action in the wake of recent anti-Semitic slurs by Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Rather, there are Republicans who have called out Tlaib.

A new generation of Democrats

These emerging political threats to the Jewish community come at a time when social media has totally altered how, where and by whom political positions are communicated throughout American society. They also come at a time when radical Islamists, who have assumed seats in Congress, are seeking to stoke the fires of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Further, it comes at a time when a legitimate women’s rights movement has been hijacked by an anti-Semitic leadership. Expect the Democratic Party to be pushed further into the Islamist camp in the months to come.

An entire generation of liberal Democratic leadership that at least recognized Israel’s right to exist is being pushed aside. The leaders that remain (such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) had been “assaulted” daily with online tweets, trolls and bots launched by younger, aggressive and thoroughly committed Democratic socialists who seek to reinvent the party in their own image, sometimes by using sophisticated online tactics that seemed unstoppable, until Pelosi awarded them plum positions on the prestigious House Oversight and Foreign Relations Committees.

The Jewish American experience in standing with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s is in the process of being relegated either to ancient history, or the realm of fiction, or discarded as inconsequential.

As an observer far from the U.S., perhaps it is easier to see, and call attention to, this threat. In Israel, for instance, the Jewish community may quarrel and debate among itself but it always appreciates the precarious nature of its survival. Today’s American Jewish community, however, remains blind to the threat, repeating the mantra of the German Jews of the early 1930s that there has always been anti- Semitism and, aside from some uncomfortable moments, it is not really an existential threat.

A retired attorney, Pete Cohon, noted:“Democrats were presumed to be for the little guy, and Republicans were assumed to be rich, white men. The Jewish community (other than the Orthodox) and the Democrats became joined at the hip. The majority of Jewish families taught its kids to vote Democrat for justice for the little guy. Voting Democrat became a part of Jewish culture in America…

“These Jews just can’t let anything disturb the comfortable delusion that they inherited from their parents and grandparents that the Democrats are for the little guy, especially the Jews.

“But times have changed, and they are wrong. Today, the big issue is the survival of Israel, and it is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are on our side.”

From this offshore observation post, however, it is apparent that, over time, American Jews who are Democrats, and most apparently are, will find themselves the voters and donors of a party that will initially seek to marginalize them, then ostracize them, and finally, demonize them. This transformation will be brought about by a group of new leaders, who will have the means effectively to rebrand their emerging power base, either implicitly or explicitly, as the neo-Islamic Democratic Party, thereby asserting a dominance that will make today’s political landscape unrecognizable.

It is more than painful, as anti-Semitic libels are whitewashed by the media or risk becoming part of the Congressional Record, to watch the American Jewish community being played by the political party that many have called “home.”

Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Whatever happened to the ACLU?

Jonathan S. Tobin(February 14, 2019 / JNS)

https://www.jns.org/opinion/whatever-happened-to-the-aclu/

Jewish supporters need to ask why the civil-liberties defense group is supporting BDS and anti-Semitism while abandoning its First Amendment absolutism?

There was a time when many Jews were disgusted with the American Civil Liberties Union’s belief that all forms of non-violent dissent deserved a vigorous defense. In 1977, the country was outraged when the American Nazi Party sought to hold a march in Skokie, Ill. The Nazis chose Skokie because of its large Jewish community, replete with Holocaust survivors. But while most Jews sought to prevent the Nazis from carrying out this provocation, the American Civil Liberties Union stuck to its First Amendment principles and defended the Nazis’ right to march in court. They ultimately prevailed, even though the hate group eventually carried out their publicity stunt in Chicago.

The decision cost the ACLU a lot of Jewish support. But it continued to thrive in its niche as defenders of the rights of the unpopular to exercise their rights. But more than 40 years after that controversy, the ACLU decided to change its policies from one of First Amendment absolutism. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that the group had decided to shift to a stance in which its case selection guidelines now call for it to deploy its legal expertise only on behalf of those individuals or groups with positions that the ACLU’s liberal board supports.

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Protesters, many of them Jewish, gather for an anti-Nazi demonstration in front of the Skokie village hall, May 1977. Credit: Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

Why did the ACLU throw out its guiding principles?

In August 2017, a neo-Nazi/Ku Klux Klan torchlight march through Charlottesville, Va., stunned and horrified the nation. The following day, a clash between the Nazis and those who protested their presence turned lethal when one of the counter-demonstrators, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, was killed in a car-ramming attack. And when U.S. President Donald Trump chose to conflate opposition to removing Confederate statues (the issue that had brought out the Nazis and their opponents) with support for hate, the ACLU felt it had to choose between its desire to be a rallying point for the “resistance” to the president and its principles. They chose the former, and that meant it wouldn’t be repeating its Skokie stand in the future.

It’s possible to draw line between support of the First Amendment and support of the right of extremists to endanger the public by engaging in speech that is the moral equivalent of crying “fire” in a crowded theater (as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote).

But now that the ACLU is no longer prepared to defend all sorts of dissidents, the choices it makes as to which causes it deems worthy of their efforts are highly instructive. And in the last month, the ACLU has signaled that its priorities are to defend the right to engage in discriminatory boycotts against Israel, as well as support of expressions of anti-Semitism.

That’s the obvious conclusion after the ACLU pulled out all the stops in its efforts to defeat a bill that would support the rights of states to ban entities or individuals that engage in boycotts of Israel and Israeli citizens from doing business with the government.

The ACLU claims this is a defense of the First Amendment. The Constitution protects the right of those who advocate for Israel’s destructions or for boycotts of it to express their opinions. But there is no constitutional right to engage in commercial conduct that discriminates against a class of persons or those associated with the only Jewish state on the planet. To the contrary, the states and the federal government are on firm constitutional ground to deem such discrimination illegal, as is the case when it comes to similar actions directed at African-Americans or other ethnic or religious groups.

Ilhan Omar campaigning at the Twin Cities Pride Parade in Downtown Minneapolis, on June 24, 2018. Credit: Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons.

That the ACLU would weigh in on behalf of BDS is deeply troubling. BDS is a movement steeped in anti-Semitism, as its supporters’ statements and actions have repeatedly proved. The struggle against it has nothing to do with free speech—and everything to do with anti-Semitism—since it is a concept based on the notion that Israel, alone of all countries in the world, deserves to be eliminated.

The U.S. Senate passed the bill, sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), by a resounding 77-23 margin. But the opposition of the 22 Democrats and one Republican (Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a devout libertarian but also a longtime critic of Israel) bodes ill for its fate in a House of Representatives controlled by the Democrats. The fact that six of the seven Senate Democrats running for president (Corey Booker, Sherrod Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren) voted against the anti-BDS bill and only one (Amy Klobuchar) in favor showed that the ACLU understands what the left-wing base of the Democrats (that the presidential contenders are looking to please) is thinking.

But it’s just as telling as to what other kinds of speech the ACLU thinks is not only worthy of defense, but also laudable. When Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) tweeted an anti-Semitic trope about Jews buying Congress, her party’s leadership chastised her and forced her to apologize. But not the ACLU.

Jamil Dakwar, the head of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program, chose that moment to tweet:

“The pressure on @IlhanMN to apologize is only the tip of the iceberg. The ultimate goal is to silence her and to boot her out of Congress for her courageous positions on foreign policy issues including her support to the BDS movement. Are you with Trump or @Ilhan. #IStandWithIlhan.

This makes it crystal-clear that the ACLU isn’t opposing the anti-BDS bill on bogus free-speech grounds. It’s doing so because it is actually in favor of an anti-Semitic movement. House Democrats should take that into consideration when the ACLU and others on the left ask them to defeat the anti-BDS bill.

The ACLU has come a long way from a controversial but principled stand in favor of Nazis marching in Skokie to an unprincipled defense of BDS, anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel. Not only does it no longer deserve a reputation as a fearless defender of civil rights, the organization is unworthy of the support of any American, Jewish or non-Jewish, no matter what their political loyalties might be.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

MAJ Matthew Golsteyn .. petition for presidential pardon review

At the end of last year, President Trump said he would review MAJ Matthew Golsteyn's case, and you and I MUST keep the pressure on. Will you add your name to this FREE MATTHEW GOLSTEYN PETITION to the President? Matt was a highly decorated Green Beret, a West Point grad, and a loving father and husband. In 2010, a planted bomb killed two marines working with his unit and injured three others. Matt and his men tracked down the bombmaker with the help of an Afghani informant, but thanks to the Army's "catch and release" policies, they only had a short window of time to keep him in custody. Meanwhile, Matt knew once the bombmaker was released, he, his men, and the civilian informants would be in more danger than ever after the terrorist went back to the Taliban with the intel he gathered in holding. So, after letting him go, Matt set up an ambush and killed the terrorist well within the rules of engagement. But now almost a decade later, the Army claims to have "new evidence" that he murdered the bombmaker in cold blood, and he's facing the death penalty. That's why I need patriots like you to join me in calling on the President to intervene and literally save an American hero's life. The Army has flat-out lied against Matthew Golsteyn more than once. And now, they're keeping vital information to his case — and his freedom — under wraps. They refuse to release the transcript of the job interview that sparked the investigation — and they refuse to release the transcript of a Board of Inquiry hearing back in 2015. Matt is fighting for his life. Will you fight for him like he fought for you, and sign the FREE MATTHEW GOLSTEYN PETITION to the President? Thank you for your continued support. Semper Fi David "Bull" Gurfein LtCol, USMCR (Ret.) Chief Executive Officer, United American Patriots

The border wars plot to destabilize and transform America

Cliff Kincaid  February 14, 2019

Our MIL-ED "Cliff Kincaid evaluation dilemma".  

 When our editorial board assigns a  “reliability of  source“  score to our numerous potential sources , Cliff Kincaid scores low [2 or 3 on a scale of 0 to 5 ] and other sources such as David Ignatius score high [4 or 5 on a scale of 0 to  5]. 

 On the other hand, when we evaluate the materials produced  by  Kincaid he scores an overwhelming percentage of 5s on a   scale of 0 to 5, while materials from David Ignatius {which reflects the symbiotic /parasitic relationship that Ignatius has with elements of CIA and State]  often draw evaluations of 1s and 2s.

The article [below] by Kincaid summarizes much of our findings and concerns. We are indebted to Kincaid for pointing out that  the massive Russian and Iranian operations in South America should be of deep  concern …

Whether or not the Russians intentionally operated a deception operation within in United States may be up for debate. What is not debatable is that the manipulations orchestrated by elements within the CIA, and the Department of Justice in cooperation with key Democrats such as Representative Adam Schiff are giving the Russians cover for their  South American operations." To quote Kincaid, :”The Russians must be laughing themselves silly.”

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kincaid/190214

The Center for a Secure Free Society held a news conference the other day about the roles of Russia, China, Venezuela, and other countries in flooding the U.S. with illegal aliens. Mario Duarte, Secretary of Strategic Intelligence for the Republic of Guatemala, spoke at the event, calling the caravans and their impact on U.S. border security the "weaponization" of refugees.

The term, "weaponization," was also used by NATO's top commander in Europe, Philip Breedlove, to describe what the Russians and Syrians were doing in the Middle East with the Islamic refugees there. Germany's Angela Merkel welcomed them, destabilizing Europe. Here, President Trump campaigned for office on the basis of stopping this flow into the U.S. Objectively speaking, Merkel and not Trump has been serving Russian interests.

The popular reality TV show, "Border Wars," on the National Geographic Channel, captures the determined efforts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ICE, DEA, the U.S. Coast Guard and local law enforcement to keep our nation safe. They fight terrorism and apprehend drug smugglers. The process of intercepting people entering the United States illegally is another mission they have. These illegal aliens have become a weapon of war, just like in the Middle East. A Border Wall would be another line of defense.

Venezuela, Russia, and Cuba

Participants in the SFS news conference said the evidence shows that Venezuela, propped up by Russian and Cuban forces, and Chinese loans, has been financing the caravans, as part of a plan to destabilize the United States. The security experts also said Russia practices strategic deception. That is, they focus our attention on one thing when they are busy causing trouble somewhere else. Indeed, the weaponization of the refugees of Latin America can be seen as an explanation of Russia-gate – the idea that Trump was a Russian agent. It was a masterstroke by the Russians. The disinformation has led to almost two years' worth of investigations, by a special counsel and Congress, into Trump's political, personal, and business dealings. As all of this was unfolding, the Russians were up to no good south of our border, as thousands of illegal aliens have flooded our country, some marching in caravans. It has been Trump, the alleged Russian agent, who has pushed back against the Russian plan.

Center for a Secure and Free Society (SFS) participants David Grantham, Director of Intelligence for the Tarrant County (Texas) Sheriff's Office, and Joseph M. Humire, Executive Director of SFS, were reluctant to admit in interviews with this columnist that Russia-gate was a strategic deception operation. They did not want to admit what is now being reported openly by NBC News – that a two-year Senate intelligence committee investigation has uncovered no evidence of Trump conspiring with the Russians.

The Russia-gate investigations, including the one by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, have the earmarks of a Russian disinformation operation, carried forward by the Democratic Party, to divert the attention of our nation from what really matters – Russian meddling in Latin America. We know that Russia-gate was conceived in Russia, in the form of the fake Russian dossier on Trump, and was used by the losing political party in the 2016 presidential election as a means by which the Democrats intended to delegitimize Trump.

Except mainly for proceedings involving Trump friend Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi, and their possible connections to WikiLeaks, a Russian asset, it is apparent that Russia-gate prosecutor Mueller has come up empty on the issue of direct Russian influence on Trump. Still, whether WikiLeaks had Russian connections or not, the Democratic Party emails that were released were legitimate and newsworthy. They were embarrassing to the 2016 Hillary for president campaign. Mueller's team also obtained a guilty plea from a Russian woman whose apparent purpose was to infiltrate the NRA. That's interesting but hardly evidence of the Trump campaign working with Russia.

One can now see that the impact of the investigations wasn't to produce a case against Trump but divert attention from the real Russian plot to flood the U.S. with refugees after a period of destabilization south of our border. Remember that former President Barack Hussein Obama had been indifferent or even sympathetic to the plans by socialist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela to form an anti-American bloc in Latin America. Obama even recognized Communist Cuba, signaling acceptance of "socialism" by the United States.

Obama is the Russian Mole

If any U.S. president has been a Russian agent, it was Obama. He was raised and mentored by a Communist Party member, Frank Marshall Davis, and as president facilitated Russian and Communist operations throughout Latin America by treating Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil as worthy experiments in socialism. It's interesting to note that Marxist former presidents of Brazil Lula and Rousseff were allies of Obama but have since been impeached or thrown into prison. An anti-communist alliance of nations, including the U.S., Colombia and now Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro, is making a mark. But in Venezuela itself, as a result if Obama's policies, the only real "alternative" to Maduro, the successor to Chavez, is another socialist, Juan Guaido.

The lessons have to be clearly understood and the implications of what we know have to be stated in stark terms. One of the key players in Russia-gate was Obama's CIA director John Brennan, who, interestingly enough, had voted for the Communist Party when it was funded by Moscow. Finding out how this security risk was hired by the CIA and how he became CIA director would go a long way toward understanding the nature of the Deep State and why Trump is today suspicious of findings from intelligence agencies such as the CIA.

The Crisis in Latin America

History shows that at the same time that Russia-gate was unfolding, Russia, China, and Venezuela were causing trouble in Latin America, producing not only millions of refugees (3 million from Venezuela alone) but directing thousands of them in caravans on their way to the U.S. southern border. It was Trump, all along during this entire process, who was exposing and standing up to the real Russian plot to cause conflict and chaos in Latin America. While some of these migrants have sincere motives and seek a better life, Mario Duarte, Secretary of Strategic Intelligence for the Republic of Guatemala, cited evidence in his talk of how Islamic extremists are infiltrating the caravans. Has the FBI been paying attention to this? Or has it been too busy plotting to remove President Trump and sending a heavily-armed SWAT team to apprehend Roger Stone?

Trump, who has now gotten a deal for a little more than $1 billion for his Border Wall, after originally calling for $25 billion, has been targeted by America's enemies, using our own media against him, in one of the greatest Russian deception operations of all time. His presidency hangs in the balance, along with the security and survival of the United States.

The Democrats, of course, had another motive for going along with the Russia-gate ploy. Their "Brown is the New White" political strategy involves bringing in more people from Latin America to vote for them in U.S. elections. By doing so, they diminish the importance and power of conservative voters. In this context, largely because of the impact of illegal immigration, California has become a socialist one-party state within the U.S. It's a model for what they intend to do to America as a whole.

This was predicted back in 1962 by Karl Prussion, a former FBI informant, in his booklet, "California Dynasty of Communism." He wrote, "To all communists in the United States, California is the pilot area. The Golden State has been chosen to be the model Soviet state."

Of course, some Republicans and big Republican donors, such as the Koch Brothers, favor more immigrants as well – as a means by which Big Business obtains cheap labor. And with the failure by leaders of the Congressional Republicans and Democrats to deliver funds for a complete Border Wall in the latest deal, tens of millions more people will be coming. In fact, Gallup reports that 42 million Latin Americans are ready to move to the U.S. permanently.

The Russians must be laughing themselves silly.

Cliff Kincaid is a veteran journalist and media critic.

© Copyright 2019 by Cliff Kincaid

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kincaid/190214

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.