SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE SAUDI-TURKEY RIFT

BY MIKE EVANS    Jerusalem Post NOVEMBER 20, 2018

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Shedding-light-on-the-Saudi-Turkey-rift-572375

It appears that Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood are one, and that included sympathizer, and colleague Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi Arabian officials have conceded complicity in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The time has come to shed light on Turkey’s position in the matter. It is recognized by many that the main battle was not between Khashoggi and the Saudis, but rather a clash between Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The struggle is not over the death of the journalist, but rather for control of the entire Sunni world.

Turkey under Erdogan seems to be headed in the same direction Iran is today—an oppressive, tyrannical, Islamic leadership with a so-called democracy. Such a happenstance would make it as difficult for the United States to have a working relationship as does that of Iran. Rather than fostering a rapport with the West, Turkey’s leader seems determined to destroy the association by the choices he makes.

Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Arabian Embassy but did not walk out. It appears that an attempt was made to drug him and return him to his home country to stand trial for charges against the Saudi government. According to some sources, Khashoggi was not garroted; instead he stopped breathing after he was drugged.

Article 6 of Saudi Arabian basic law states it is “punishable by imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years and a fine of not more than SAR 3 million [$800,000] or one of these penalties for a number of crimes, including the production of anything that violates public order, religious values, morals, the inviolability of private life, or preparation, transmission or storage of it through the Internet or a computer.”

I was quietly told – first in Israel by a former high-level member of the Mossad, and later in a meeting with Egyptian intelligence officials – that Crown Prince bin Salman approved the mission to arrest Khashoggi and bring him to justice, as Israel had done with Adolf Eichmann. Unfortunately, the persons charged with secretly arresting the journalist and flying him back to stand trial for incitement accidentally killed him with an overdose and then panicked. It was then that the cover-up ensued.

Shortly thereafter, I flew to the United Arab Emirates and heard the story repeated twice more. While in the various countries, I met with His Royal Highness Crown Prince bin Salman, the Saudi deputy prime minister, and defense minister.

Despite rabid finger-pointing by Turkey, the Saudis were well aware that cameras were trained on consulate corridors. The main issues are the video and the quote from the Turkish paper, the government-run mouthpiece for Erdogan.

Turkish officials immediately leaked the Khashoggi affair to Al Jazeera, the official television channel in Qatar—a country at odds with Saudi Arabia. Since the death of the journalist, the station has offered a 24/7 discourse on the matter, using any means to implicate the Saudi Crown Prince. Information that Khashoggi had asked his fiancé, Hatice Cengiz, to personally contact Erdogan’s aide, Yasin Aktay, should he not return from the consulate. That direct link to Turkey’s president was deemed undesirable and prompted an order that Aktay halt appearances on Al Jazeera, and to stop making references to Erdogan.

Leaks from Turkish intelligence (MIT) regarding events inside the consulate are so detailed that one has to wonder how, when, and why clandestine devises were planted inside the building, as well as the home of the Saudi consul. MIT must have known that an attempt to kidnap Khashoggi was imminent. Not surprisingly, Erdogan has failed to present taped recordings of conversations inside the Saudi consulate that were made days before the death of the journalist. Any speculation on the why must include the theory that the Turkish president knew of the plan only to return Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia.

Recognizing the tension between the journalist and the Crown Prince because of personal attacks by Khashoggi in the Washington Post, knowing that 15 Saudi nationals had arrived on private planes that same day, he was allowed to walk inside the consulate. According to one unidentified source in Saudi, “No one was authorized to kill Khashoggi. We knew we had every right to smuggle him out and arrest him, as he is a Saudi citizen.”

I was in a delegation that had a two-hour meeting with the Crown Prince, and told him the story of “Operation Eichmann.” I knew it well because Isser Harel, who planned the operation, shared it with me at his home one evening over dinner.

At the close of World War II, Adolf Eichmann assumed various aliases and identities in an attempt to elude Allied authorities and evade responsibility for his wartime atrocities. Eichmann was the Nazi transportation administrator assigned the duty of ensuring that trains packed with Jews heading to the death camps were kept in good working order.

In 1960, the Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Agency, then headed by Isser Harel, planned and executed “Operation Finale.” The intelligence agents tracked Eichmann to his village, drugged him and brought him to Israel. There, the fugitive stood trial on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes against the Jewish people.

He was convicted in 1961, and after all appeals were exhausted, he was hanged. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered across the Mediterranean. Such was the plan for Jamal Khashoggi, a plan that went awry, resulting in his death.

I told the crown prince that I believe he did the same thing and drugged Khashoggi to bring him back and charge him with incitement, but the drug killed him. The Prince never denied it; he simply talked about how unfortunate the whole event was. He said “even a prince can make a mistake.”

Who or what inspired Erdogan to become involved in the turmoil surrounding Jamal Khashoggi’s death? There is one simple answer: the Muslim Brotherhood. In meetings with the Crown Prince in Abu Dhabi and with Egyptian president Sisi, it was apparent that organization is hated in their countries. Erdogan has welcomed them with open arms, providing assistance and asylum, granting members the right to congregate and strategize against Sisi’s government.

It appears that Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood are one, and that included sympathizer, and colleague Jamal Khashoggi. President Erdogan sacrificed his friend in order to implicate the Saudis and particularly Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman. The Washington Post journalist was the pawn in Erdogan’s game. He was sacrificed in order to get to the king—or in this case, the Crown Prince.

Mike Evans is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with 89 published books, including The New Hitler. He is the founder of Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem of which the late President Shimon Peres, Israel’s ninth president, was the chair. He also serves on the Trump Evangelical Faith Initiative.

PATTERN OF  CORRUPTION ???] …Key players (recurring roles) :  Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; Robert Mueller; James Comey;Rod Rosenstein;. Lois Lerner

From 2001 to 2005 

There was an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

A Grand Jury had been empaneled.

Governments from around the world had donated to the “Charity”.

Yet, from 2001 to 2003 none of those “Donations” to the Clinton Foundation were declared.

Hmmm, now you would think that an honest investigator would be able to figure this out.

Guess who took over this investigation in 2002? No other than James Comey.

Guess who was transferred in to the Internal Revenue Service to run the Tax Exemption Branch of the IRS? Your friend and mine, Lois Lerner.

Guess who ran the Tax Division inside the Department of Injustice from 2001 to 2005?
No other than the Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein.

Guess who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during this timeframe???  Robert Mueller.

What do all four casting characters have in common? They all were briefed and/or were front line investigators into the Clinton Foundation Investigation.
.

Fast forward to 2009.

James Comey leaves the Justice Department to go and cash-in at Lockheed Martin.

Hillary Clinton is running the State Department, on her own personal email server by the way.

The Uranium One “issue” comes to the attention of the Hillary.

Like all good public servants do, you know looking out for America’s best interest, she decides to support the decision and approve the sale of 20% of US Uranium to no other than, the Russians.

Now you would think that this is a fairly straight up deal, except it wasn’t, the People got absolutely nothing out of it.

However, prior to the sales approval, no other than Bill Clinton goes to Moscow, gets paid 500K for a one hour speech then meets with Vladimir Putin at his home for a few hours.

Well, not so fast, the FBI had a mole inside the money laundering and bribery scheme.

Guess who was the FBI Director during this timeframe? Yep, Robert Mueller.
He even delivered a Uranium Sample to Moscow in 2009.

Guess who was handling that case within the Justice Department out of the US Attorney’s Office in Maryland. No other than, Rod Rosenstein.

Guess what happened to the informant? The Department of Justice placed a GAG order on him and threatened to lock him up if he spoke out about it.

How does 20% of the most strategic asset of the United States of America end up in Russian hands when the FBI has an informant, a mole providing inside information to the FBI on the criminal enterprise?

Guess what happened soon after the sale was approved?

~145 million dollars in “donations” made their way into the Clinton Foundation from entities directly connected to the Uranium One deal.

Guess who was still at the Internal Revenue Service working the Charitable Division? No other than, Lois  Lerner.

Fast forward to 2015.

Due to a series of tragic events in Benghazi and after the 9 “investigations” the House, Senate and at State Department, Trey Gowdy who was running the 10th investigation as Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi discovers that the Hillary ran the State Department on an unclassified, unauthorized, outlaw personal email server.

He also discovered that none of those emails had been turned over when she departed her “Public Service” as Secretary of State which was required by law.

He also discovered that there was Top Secret information contained within her personally archived email.

Sparing you the State Departments cover up, the nostrums they floated, the delay tactics that were employed and the outright lies that were spewed forth from the necks of the Kerry State Department, we shall leave it with this…… they did everything humanly possible to cover for Hillary.

Now this is amazing, guess who became FBI Director in 2013?

Guess who secured 17 no bid contracts for his employer (Lockheed Martin) with the State Department and was rewarded with a six million dollar thank you present when he departed his employer.

No other than James Comey.

Amazing how all those no-bids just went right through at State, huh?

Now he is the FBI Director in charge of the “Clinton Email Investigation” after of course his FBI Investigates the Lois Lerner “Matter” at the Internal Revenue Service and exonerates her.

Nope couldn’t find any crimes there.

Can you guess what happened next?

In April 2016, James Comey drafts an exoneration letter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile the DOJ is handing out immunity deals like candy.

They didn’t even convene a Grand Jury.

Like a lightning bolt of statistical impossibility, like a miracle from God himself, like the true “Gangsta” Homey is, James steps out into the cameras of an awaiting press conference on July the 8th of 2016, and exonerates the Hillary from any wrongdoing.

Can you see the pattern?

It goes on and  on, Rosenstein becomes Asst. Attorney General, Comey gets fired based upon a letter by Rosenstein, Comey leaks government information to the press, Mueller is assigned to the Russian Investigation sham by Rosenstein to provide cover for decades of malfeasance within the FBI and DOJ and the story continues.

FISA Abuse, political espionage..... pick a crime, any crime, chances are...... this group and a few others did it.

All the same players.

All compromised and conflicted.

All working fervently to NOT go to jail themselves.

All connected in one way or another to the Clinton's.


As of this writing, the Clinton Foundation, in its 20+ years of operation of being the largest International Charity Fraud in the history of mankind, has never been audited by the Internal Revenue Service……Let us not forget that Comey's brother works for DLA Piper, the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation's taxes.

WRONGLY CONVICTED FORMER REP. STEVE STOCKMAN SENTENCED TO 10 YEARS IN PRISON

Rachel Alexander Town Hall    11-12-18

https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2018/11/12/wrongly-convicted-former-rep-steve-stockman-sentenced-to-10-years-in-prison-n2535751?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=&bcid=9930c656b2212929c884960baf64bc5a&recip=26163198

Democrats are gloating over the sentencing of former Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) last week. He was ordered to serve 10 years in prison for the vague charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Whenever prosecutors want to get someone who hasn’t actually committed a crime, they use those vague but scary sounding charges. He was also ordered to pay $1,014,718.51 in restitution, to be divided between him and two other co-defendants.

What did Stockman actually do to warrant this? He facilitated four donations from two donors totaling $915,000 to two nonprofits he was associated with. One of the nonprofits spent some of the money on a campaign mailer showing the differences between Stockman and the senator he was running against. It is a (c)4 and its purpose was to educate voters. The mailer did not endorse Stockman or tell people how to vote, so it did not run afoul of campaign laws. The donors were fine with how their money was used, which was mostly for youth education. 

But prosecutors said it constituted fraud. They said Stockman stole charitable contributions and used them for personal expenses. The truth is, he never benefited personally but took some pay before he ran for office. He was a fundraiser for the nonprofits before he was in office. The nonprofit merely chose to spend some of the money later on a campaign mailer. Stockman’s charitable efforts were ignored. He was recognized for hiring the handicapped including the deaf, blind and mentally handicapped. Gallaudet University, the first school of higher education for the deaf, gave him an award for his efforts. 

Stockman was charged with money laundering and wire fraud in part because Wells Fargo opened a new savings account for him. But this was a well-known scandal that was the fault of Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo opened up millions of fraudulent savings and checking accounts on behalf of Wells Fargo clients without their permission. They ended up paying a fine of $185 million. 

The case against Stockman was so weak it took prosecutors four grand juries to finally get an indictment. It took four years to investigate what should have been a six month investigation. It cost $15-20 million to go on a fishing expedition, which included intimidating witnesses. 

Benjamin Wetmore, a key witness for the prosecution and an attorney for one of the nonprofits, says Stockman is completely innocent. He described what happened, “If you can get away with the lie to exert maximum political and personal damage on someone, it doesn’t matter if a correction gets printed later, or if an appeal succeeds; all that the masses remember is the original hit.”

Prosecutors piled up so many vague and confusing charges that Stockman could have ended up the rest of his life in prison. Even 10 years was unfair. A 2016 study revealed that between 1986 and 2014, the average sentence for a defendant who received a prison sentence for federal public corruption was just 13 months. This is a tremendous disparity. It sounds more like a sentence someone would get for wrongful death. Stockman has been in prison since April. 

Stockman believes he was targeted because of his conservative activism. He was known for boldly opposing President Obama. He was a Congressional whistleblower on Obama administration corruption, with such actions as calling for the House Select Committee to investigate the government's handling of the Benghazi embassy tragedy of lost American lives, exposing President Obama’s payment to the Haqqani terrorist network in exchange for the release of Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, and revealing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s violation of the Iran sanctions to allow the sale to Iran of specialized steel used in nuclear weaponry. 

The DOJ is full of deep state operatives. They have continued conducting political witch hunts against vocal conservatives under the Trump administration. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions did nothing to stop it. The deep state went after Stockman hard because he was a threat. They wanted to silence him and make an example out of him, so others would be hesitant to follow in his footsteps. 

Sadly, most of the conservative media hasn’t reported on this corruption. They are running articles that rubber stamp the press releases from the DOJ. The press release announcing the sentencing is filled with errors and lies. For example, it says that "Stockman failed to pay taxes on any of the $1,250,571.65 in fraudulently acquired donations."  Well, only a slim portion of those donations made their way into Stockman's personal accounts — what he was paid before he ever took office. And taxes were paid on that income. 

U.S. Judge Lee H. Rosenthal appeared to be biased against Stockman throughout the trial. She fell asleep several times and reportedly is friends with Stockman’s opponent. Wetmore observed, “At one point, during an argument I was presenting to her in court, she was making obvious non-verbal cues such as rolling her eyes and laughing at my argument quietly, just feet away from me.” After she announced the sentence, she sarcastically said, “That’s a long time, but Mr. Stockman, I think you earned it.” Stockman intends to appeal.

Adam Schiff will shut down the probe that found FBI abuses.

Burying the Other Russia Story

The Editorial Board Wall Street JournalNov. 9, 2018 

Arguably the most important power at stake in Tuesday’s election was Congressional oversight, and the most important change may be Adam Schiff at the House Intelligence Committee. The Democrat says his top priority is re-opening the Trump-Russia collusion probe, but more important may be his intention to stop investigating how the FBI and Justice Department abused their power in 2016. So let’s walk through what we’ve learned to date.

Credit for knowing anything at all goes to Intel Chairman Devin Nunes and more recently a joint investigation by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (Judiciary) and Trey Gowdy (Oversight). Over 18 months of reviewing tens of thousands of documents and interviewing every relevant witness, no Senate or House Committee has unearthed evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the presidential election. If Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found more, he hasn’t made it public.

Potomac Watch Podcast

But House investigators have uncovered details of a Democratic scheme to prod the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign. We now know that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee hired Fusion GPS, which hired an intelligence-gun-for-hire, Christopher Steele, to write a “dossier” on Donald Trump’s supposed links to Russia. 

Mr. Steele fed that document to the FBI, even as he secretly alerted the media to the FBI probe that Team Clinton had helped to initiate. Fusion, the oppo-research firm, was also supplying its dossier info to senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion.

House investigators have also documented the FBI’s lack of judgment in using the dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump aide Carter Page. The four FISA warrants against Mr. Page show that the FBI relied almost exclusively on the unproven Clinton-financed accusations, as well as a news story that was also ginned up by Mr. Steele. 

The FBI told the FISA court that Mr. Steele was “credible,” despite Mr. Steele having admitted to Mr. Ohr that he passionately opposed a Trump Presidency. The FBI also failed to tell the FISA court about the Clinton campaign’s tie to the dossier.

This abuse of the FBI’s surveillance powers took place as part of a counterintelligence investigation into a presidential campaign—which the FBI also hid from Congress. Such an investigation is unprecedented in post-J. Edgar Hoover American politics, and it included running informants into the Trump campaign, obtaining surveillance warrants, and using national security letters, which are secret subpoenas to obtain phone records and documents. 

Mr. Nunes and his colleagues also found that officials in Barack Obama’s White House “unmasked” Trump campaign officials to learn about their conversations with foreigners; that FBI officials exhibited anti-Trump bias in text messages; and that the FBI team that interviewed then Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn reported that they did not think Mr. Flynn had lied about his Russian contacts. Mr. Mueller still squeezed Mr. Flynn to cop a guilty plea.

All of this information had to be gathered despite relentless opposition from Democrats and their media contacts. Liberal groups ginned up a phony ethics complaint against Mr. Nunes, derailing his committee leadership for months. Much of the media became Mr. Schiff’s scribes rather than independent reporters. Meanwhile, the FBI and Justice continue to stonewall Congress, defying subpoenas and hiding names and information behind heavy redactions.

There is still much more the public deserves to know. This includes how and when the FBI’s Trump investigation began, the extent of FBI surveillance, and the role of Obama officials and foreigners such as Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic who in spring 2016 supposedly told Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that Russia held damaging Clinton emails. When he takes over the committee, Mr. Schiff will stop asking these questions and bless the FBI-Justice refusal to cooperate.

Senate Republicans could continue to dig next year, but Mr. Mueller seems uninterested. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March asked Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber to look into FBI misconduct, but there has been little public reporting of what he is finding, if he is even still looking. Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz is investigating, though that report is likely to take many more months. 

***

All of which puts an additional onus on Mr. Trump to declassify key FBI and Justice documents sought by Mr. Nunes and other House investigators before Mr. Schiff buries the truth. A few weeks ago Mr. Trump decided to release important documents, only to renege under pressure from Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and members of the intelligence community. 

Mr. Sessions resigned this week and perhaps Mr. Rosenstein will as well. Meantime, Mr. Trump should revisit his decision and help Mr. Nunes and House Republicans finish the job in the lame duck session of revealing the truth about the misuse of U.S. intelligence and the FISA court in a presidential election.

When Media Foist False Narratives to Sow Social Discord, They Indeed Are the Enemy of the People DOV FISCHER  The American Spectator: 11-1-18 Jim Acosta of CNN and other media personalities get exercised when the President calls Fake News the “enemy of the people.” President Trump does not call all news outlets or personalities by that term — only the Fake News. Certainly, that term is quite an incendiary sobriquet. The President reciprocates with it because he gets attacked with incendiary abuse. No American President in memory has been picked on and lied about with the intensity and frequency that President Trump has had to endure. The media — because it is almost-monolithically Left-Democrat — regularly depicted Ronald Reagan as a moron, occasionally tying him to a movie in which he acted, Bedtime for Bonzo, where he went to bed in one scene alongside a chimpanzee. (They forget that he was cast in the film as a university professor.) Reagan endured it, avoided reciprocal name-calling, and history unequivocally has registered that he actually was quite brilliant, understood what so many others could not grasp, revived the moribund Jimmy Carter economy with creative strategies and tax-cutting boldness that George H.W. Bush myopically had called “Voodoo Economics,” stared down Mikhail Gorbachev and defeated a century of Communism, and launched an anti-ballistic military focus that his enemies mocked as “Star Wars” but that today is central to protecting Western democracies from incoming ballistic missiles. The “Iron Dome” missile-defense system that Israel has used so effectively against Gaza Hamas terrorist rockets is the fruit of “Star Wars.” The Left Media almost universally depicted the brilliant Reagan as an idiot, and he somehow shrugged it off. Donald Trump is different because we do not manufacture our Presidents with interchangeable parts on an assembly line. It very well may be that the past week’s Pittsburgh terrorist attack, and the way the President responded, and the way the Left Media then hit the President viciously anyway is the “Rosetta Stone” — the small piece of archaeological evidence historians will need — to decipher that Donald Trump was right to call the Fake News Left Media the “enemy of the people.” 1. “The People” Benefit From a Robust and Independent Press — and a Fake News Regime Indeed Is the Enemy of the People “The People” indeed benefit from a robust “press” — more accurately called “media” in this digital age of televised news, digital internet-based news, and so much more than the mere newsprint “press.” If Stalin’s Soviet Russia had been covered by a robust media (and if such media could have survived), “The People” would have learned that Stalin’s five-year economic plans disastrously were failing and were leading to mass starvation, moreover that he consciously was perpetrating genocide by starving millions of Ukrainians to death in the Golodomor, that he was putting millions of prisoners to work in tundra prisons to dig through ice manually to build canals and other infrastructure. An honest news media would have alerted the West, too, that Stalin was murdering millions. The New York Times had a sycophantically pro-Stalin liar, Walter Duranty, filing Fake News reports from the Soviet Union for more than ten years. The Times published the lies daily as “news” and made him their Moscow bureau chief for fourteen years. As a result, the West was lulled, cheated of the truth, made unaware of the evil. Yes, the Fake News indeed was the enemy of the people. Likewise, the New York Times— and the other mainstream media who took their lead from them — by and large refused to report on the unfolding Nazi Holocaust of six million Jews. Between 1939 and 1945, the New York Times published more than 23,000 front-page stories. Of those, 11,500 were about World War II. Only twenty-six — in six years — were about the Holocaust. The Times was passively complicit. A robust newsmedia can save lives by exposing and revealing, while a Fake News regime can serve to assist in the despoiling of a people. When media foist false narratives to sow social discord, or when they assist tyranny with falsehoods, they indeed are the enemy of the people. Social discord leads to streets being set on fire — witness Ferguson and Baltimore during the Obama Years. Social discord dispirits potentially valuable citizens who could help build a society, instead turning them against that society and motivating them to work towards its downfall or simply to drop out. In its worst aspect, social discord leads to armed insurrection and civil war. If the problem is that a Stalin is murdering millions by deliberately starving them while incarcerating millions others in slave camps in the Gulag, then insurrection and civil war can be righteous, potentially saving such a despoiled society. But when the society actually is doing quite well, when freedom reigns and people of all colors, creeds, religions, and ethnicities are enjoying remarkable opportunities to succeed and to live wonderfully rich and precious lives alongside their neighbors in respectful diversity, then Fake News media indeed are the enemy of the people when they seek to sow social discord in that welcome environment, aiming to up-end civil harmony. 2. Pittsburgh: The Rosetta Stone A maniacal dirtbag murdered eleven Jews in Pittsburgh. In time, perhaps after a decade or two of ACLU appeals, he will be electrocuted, injected, hanged, or hopefully all three. The dirtbag hated Jews, and he likewise hated President Trump. President Trump responded to the news immediately with profoundly sensitive and healing words aimed at condemning anti-Semitism and at comforting and consoling the Jewish community. Listen to his words. If the role of a President is to heal and unify, as President Reagan did after the Challenger tragedy, as President Bush did after 9-11, then this President did so eloquently, sensitively. And then came the sowers of social discord to destroy the moment…. The Left Media would not allow the President that moment to heal and unify. Instantly, they brought in one Left-Democrat anti-Trump “analyst” after another to blame Mr. Trump for the attack. They never blamed President Jimmy Carter’s anti-Jewish rhetoric for the 1977 Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue shooting in St. Louis. Nor Bill Clinton for the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shootings of yeshiva students that included the murder of Ari Halberstam. Nor Clinton’s rhetoric for the 1999 Granada Hills Jewish Community Center shooting in Los Angeles. Nor Obama for the deadly 2009 Holocaust Museum shooting in Washington, D.C. Nor Obama for the 2014 Overland Park Jewish Community Center shootings in Kansas City that murdered three. But this time — with the same social dynamics as the others — they tried blaming the President. By sowing social discord with outright absolute falsehoods at a time that called for healing, the Left Media indeed were acting as enemy of the people. Facts are different from opinions. Facts can be discerned and evidenced. There is a reason that as many as 82 percent of Israeli Jews love President Trump, that more than 90 percent of American Orthodox Jews support President Trump. Likewise, a huge majority of British Jews — by more than three-to-one — support England’s conservative party and despise the Labour Socialists. Similarly, millions of Jews who have left the former Soviet Union hate Marxism and socialism, are solidly capitalist and conservative, indeed have changed the face of Israeli politics towards the more conservative Likud, now led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Throughout the world, Jews now vote conservative, are conservative — as reflected in our country, too, by American Orthodox Jews. The independent Pew Research Center has found that the Orthodox Jewish community will be the predominant Jewish community in a few decades, as the others disappear. Just as the voting patterns of the American Deep South have changed 180 degrees from Democrat to Republican in the century since the Civil War, so is the American Jewish metamorphosis now on pace to synchronize with every other Jewish community in the world that has moved towards conservatism. But Jews are not monolithic, as witness those in Hollywood and in certain media. So look at what the Fake News Left Media did after President Trump healed and unified: They received a news release from a small, utterly insignificant, nothing of a Radical Leftist group, calling itself “Bend the Arc,” which said that they did not want the President of the United States to visit Pittsburgh. The thing is, those Radical Leftists do not want the President to visit anywhere. Just as there are rabid Leftist Catholics (not to mention the more mainstream Leftist Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and the Kennedys) and rabid Leftist Protestants, these also are rabid Leftists. Within the normative mainstream American Jewish community, “Bend the Arc” is a joke, off the charts. Their CEO started off as a sex-club “dancer.” C’mon! As reported: “Cotler, who identifies as queer, recounted how a lesbian couple invited her to their [event] after she did a table dance for them at what she refers to as a ‘sex club.’” Feh! So this Leftist fringe group issues their statement — and the Fake News Left Media then falsely report that “the Jews of Pittsburgh” (not “some Jews”) do not want the President to visit. Consider these headlines — and they are a mere sampling: “‘You Are Not Welcome’: Jewish Community Leaders Do Not Want President Trump To Come To Pittsburgh” (Salon) “Pittsburgh Jewish Leaders Tell Trump To Stay Away Unless He Denounces White Nationalism” (NY Daily News) “Trump ‘Not Welcome’ In Pittsburgh After Synagogue Shooting” (Al Jazeera) “Pittsburgh Jewish Leaders Tell Trump To Denounce White Nationalism” (Reuters) All those stories thereupon cite the same insignificant radical-fringe “Bend the Arc” statement. Honestly — if there still is such a thing as honesty — that is outright Fake News. I know the American Jewish community. I have been a Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America, a congregational rabbi for decades, sat for six years during this past decade on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America, have sat on committees of Jewish Federations and Boards of Hillels, have a whole lifetime résumé in this area. My rabbinical colleagues and I were bristling all day, reading and hearing this Fake News. The rabbi of the temple where the murders happened, Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers, explicitly welcomed a visit by the President. To report such lies, at a time of such intense passion, is to stoke flames among the populace. It is not unfair to call such liars “Enemies of the People.” They do it similarly to convince Americans of Color that this President hates them. He beams so proudly that he has helped reduce poverty and unemployment in the African-American community. Likewise, in the Latino and Greater Hispanic communities. It is a hallmark of his every speech. How compare him to Hitler, for G-d’s sakes? Why sow social discord between and among races when the President, despite his classical Trumpian gaffes, actually takes so much pride in his being a President for all Americans, in a country where — in his trademark line — “we all bleed the same red, white, and blue”? Why denigrate his outreach to Black Americans, whether via Kanye West and Jim Brown or by speaking to a Young Black Leadership Summit? Why begin narrating his Presidency on Day One by reporting falsely, as Zeke Miller of Time magazine did, the lie that he had removed a bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King from the Oval Office? Why publish falsehoods to sow discord among the Black and Latino communities — if not to aim cynically to peel away their votes — by trying falsely to report that he is a bigot who hates them? Here is a man who was in the public eye, in the world’s media center in the heart of Manhattan, with a weekly network television show, building skyscrapers and hotels, golf courses and casinos — all bearing his name — and no stain of racism or bigotry of such sort ever got attached to him through all those decades in the limelight. Why cause enmity and divide the nation, disillusion African Americans and Latinos from recognizing that this President seeks their advancement alongside that of everyone else? Only to sow civil discord, to promote tension and unrest in the name of advancing an agenda that assures greater television ratings, higher advertising dollars, and a change in the elected government chosen of The People, by The People, and for The People. 3. The Proof the Pudding: Tagging the Most Pro-Jewish President in American History as an Anti-Semite. So it comes back to the Rosetta Stone — the way the Left Media falsely portrays this President’s relationship with one demographic, the Jews, demonstrating a pattern of Left Media mendacity aimed at sowing social discord throughout. Even before he was elected President, the Left Media was calling him an anti-Semite by clutching at straws to prove the false narrative. Just as they did by propping up “Bend the Arc” into a Fake News depiction as “Jewish Leaders,” they regularly dig up the most irrelevant and unrepresentative people from the Far Left who are JINOs— Jews In Name Only — as “experts” on Trump and anti-Semitism. It does not end. These are lies, damned lies, and more damned lies being perpetuated by enemies of the people. Just consider these facts about the Trump Administration and the Jews: Vice President Mike Pence personally physically helped repair damages at a desecrated Missouri Jewish cemetery. Nikki Haley, in stark contrast from Obama’s Samantha Power, was a fierce defender of Israel at the United Nations. The Trump Administration — unlike Obama — has vetoed every anti-Israel UN vote and even has warned the anti-Israel bigots that “We are taking down names.” Trump has appointed as America’s ambassador to Israel a person who is not a constant critic of Israel, unlike so many of the previous ones. The President moved America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem, honoring a promise that others made but then lied about. He pulled the United States out of the anti-Israel and brutally corrupt UN Human Rights Council. He cut nearly $300 million from “aid” to Mahmoud Abbas that we annually were throwing down the garbage. He pulled America out of the corrupt and outright anti-Semitic United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). He pulled out of the disastrous Iran Deal that endangered the United States as well as Israel. He hunted down and deported perhaps the last known Nazi War Criminal still hiding in the United States. He has acted to protect religious liberty, a subject of great concern for Jews who observe Jewish religious practices and observances — substantially curtailing the “Johnson Amendment” that circumscribes sermons from the pulpit; supporting religionists against Obamacare requirements that compromise their beliefs on matters like birth control; supporting Masterpiece Cake Shop and their right to exercise their religious beliefs. His Secretary of Education, Betsy De Vos, has visited and praised yeshivot, Orthodox Jewish day schools. He commuted the viciously anti-Semitic prosecuting and sentencing of Sholom Rubashkin, releasing him from a virtual-lifetime sentence. He has named Kenneth Marcus as the Department of Education’s new Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights — bringing in someone who will treat the rising scourge of campus anti-Semitism on the Left as a bona fide civil rights issue. He closed the PLO Office in Washington, D.C. This is an anti-Semite? If so, may G-d smite us with an abundance of such anti-Semites! Although his daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared Kushner are Orthodox Jews — as are their children, his grandchildren — that family connection in itself is not determinative. After all, we are told that George Soros is a Jew, and most every Jew I know would gladly trade Soros for two anti-Semites and a neo-Nazi to be named later. Soros is a major opponent of Israel and secretly funds organizations that oppose critical Israel policies. But the demonstrated life record of President Trump, a lifetime of working closely with Jews, amicably and warmly, makes him someone whom Jews throughout the world appreciate deeply. Again — every survey and poll of Jews who actually live the Jewish observances, the kosher laws, the Sabbath, the Torah demonstrates that he is warmly regarded in that community. The Fake News about Trump and Jews is the Rosetta Stone. Once one cracks that hidden code, everything else becomes clear. The Left Media indeed propound Fake News, lies, and falsehoods. They undertake to stoke anger among African Americans, among Latinos, among women. The People rely on them for the news, the truth — and, yes, for honest reporting when the President is wrong because The People benefit when they are told the truth, even when the truth is not pretty. But to depict him as an agent of Putin, as a man perpetrating treason, a hater? These are the lies that come only from Enemies of the People. Copyright © 2018 Rabbi Dov Fischer's Samizdat: Resisting The Sanctuary State, All rights reserved.  You are receiving this email because you opted to receive these samizdat.  Our mailing address is:  Rabbi Dov Fischer's Samizdat: Resisting The Sanctuary State Box 122 5319 University Drive Irvine, Ca 92612 Add us to your address book

American Interests After the Khasoggi Murder

Jewish Policy Center    October 31, 2018

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2018/10/31/american-interests-after-the-khashoggi-murder/

Now that the first blast of hot air is gone, it may be possible to discuss l’Affaire Khashoggi rationally. First, the stipulations:

• Jamal Khashoggi should not have been killed. Period.
• In the longer form, that stipulation reads that no one should be killed by governments that disapprove of what they say, write, or think. That applies to Saudi Arabia, but also to Russia, Turkey, Iran and China, and others, all of which have dispatched their enemies to far less fanfare. [By the way, where is Interpol President Meng Hongwei who disappeared on a visit to China from his home in France in early October?]
• Turkey is not a reliable source of information on Saudi Arabia. Its animosity goes back centuries.
• The United States is not responsible for Kashoggi’s death, as The Washington Post more than implied. It is not the judge and jury of his killers and was not in a position to protect a man moving between two other countries. Righteous anger is not a call to war.

If Lord Palmerston was right about friends and interests, then it is American interests for which President Trump along with Congress is responsible.

In the cauldron of the Middle East, America’s essential security interest is to prevent Iranian expansion into and weaponization of other countries.

Iran’s nuclear program does not stand apart from the Mullah’s Shiite hegemonic intentions, it underpins them. Whatever hope America has for religious tolerance, free expression, women’s rights, minority rights, loyal opposition, and so on in the region, they cannot succeed if the Islamic Republic does. Iran is the fountain of evil in the Middle East, with tentacles that go as far afield as Venezuela.

It is in the American interest to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and in the Persian Gulf.

The first priority is Iran’s war in Yemen. NOT the “Saudi war in Yemen,” as it has been characterized in the media (here, here, here, and here for just a few examples). Iran is aiming for a military position in the heel of Arabia from which it could close the narrow Bab el Mandeb Straits. Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – America’s allies – would lose their Red Sea exit to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. And the American base in Djibouti – our only one in Africa – would have Iranians at the door. Iran has already claimed the Red Sea is not safe for the U.S. Navy. The Navy responded that it will defend freedom of navigation both there and in the Persian Gulf, and to that end has been conducting military exercises in both.

It is in the American interest not to allow Iran to reach the Mediterranean Sea overland.

The second priority is Iran’s war in Syria. If closing the Red Sea to American allies is important to Iran, equally important is establishing a permanent presence in Syria along the land route to the Mediterranean Sea. Known as the “Shiite Crescent,” the route Iran seeks traverses Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, putting a “lid” on Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel in the north. The U.S. military position in Syria is to prevent that.

It is in the American interest to have the Arab states accept Israel as a legitimate, permanent presence in the Middle East.

Third is Iran’s subversion of the Sunni Gulf States. Here, Israel plays in interesting and increasingly important role. The burgeoning relationship between Israel and the Arab States is based not on friendship but on a realistic appraisal of the risks to the region posed by Iran.

Last week’s meetings between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Sultan of Oman, in Oman, refute the assumption that Israel’s only partner in the Persian Gulf was Crown Prince Mohammad bin Sultan (MbS). Unlike other Israeli visits to the region, this one wasn’t a secret; the Sultanate supplied video. Israeli Minister Miri Regev was in Abu Dhabi Monday and Minister Yitzhak Katz’s will be in Oman later this week.

Omani Foreign Minister Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah told a security meeting in Bahrain. “Israel is a state present in the region and we all understand this…Maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same [as  others states]…”

It is in the American interest to reject simplistic tropes about Sunnis and Shiites and to build a realistic understanding of the cross-currents among its present adversaries.

The cross-pollination of Iran and Qatar with Turkey and Hamas is counterintuitive for Americans who believe the Sunni-Shiite divide is the only one that matters. It is not. Persian Iran and Aryan Turkey have fought Arabs for centuries. They are both expansionist and have been at odds with each other as well as with Arabs – but they find a common interest now in the discomfiture of the Christian West and its Jewish partner.

Turkey takes the side of the Muslim Brotherhood in its fight against both Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It has allies in Shiite Iran and Shiite Qatar, the latter of which has made major investments in Turkey to offset the collapsing lira. Qatar also finances Sunni Muslim Brotherhood Hamas. Iran finances Sunni jihad in Africa and socialist Venezuela.

The U.S. needs to account for that cross-pollination.

It is in the American interest to follow Lord Palmerston through a particularly messy part of the world.