New York Times Editorial, "Saudi Arabia’s Execution Spree": What About Iran?

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In an editorial entitled "Saudi Arabia’s Execution Spree," The New York Times lambastes "Saudi Arabia’s justice system":

"Ali al-Nimr was sentenced to beheading and crucifixion for participating in a protest at age 17. Raif Badawi was to receive a thousand lashes — a punishment sure to kill — for his blog posts. A Sri Lankan maid, whose name has not been released, was sentenced, on scant evidence, to death by stoning for adultery. These are just some of the people awaiting horrific punishment in Saudi Arabia for things most of the world would not consider serious crimes, or crimes at all. It would be an outrage if their sentences were carried out.

Saudi Arabia’s justice system has gone into murderous overdrive. More than 150 people have been executed this year, the most since 1995. More than 50 people are reported to be scheduled for imminent execution on terrorist charges, though some are citizens whose only crime was protesting against the government. This wave of killing has prompted some to compare Saudi Arabia to the Islamic State: both follow Shariah law.

. . . .

That Saudi Arabia serves on the United Nations Human Rights Council makes this year’s execution spree all the more egregious. It is shameful that the United States and other democracies that consider Saudi Arabia a valuable ally are so often silent in the face of such gruesome excesses."

All true and horrific, but where is there any mention of what happens in Iran, with whose diplomats a jolly John Kerry posed after signing off on an unsigned nuclear deal? Iran hangs homosexuals, stones to death women accused of adultery, and executes poets for "moharabeh," i.e. enmity to God. As reported by Al Jazeera America in an October 27, 2015 article entitled "UN: Executions in Iran could top 1,000 in 2015":

"A U.N. investigator says executions in Iran have been rising at "an exponential rate" since 2005 and could top 1,000 this year as the country cracks down on drug offenders.

Ahmed Shaheed said in a report to the General Assembly circulated Tuesday that Iran executes more individuals per capita than any other country in the world.

He said the majority of executions violate international laws that ban the use of capital punishment for non-violent offenses and for juveniles and he urged Iran to impose a moratorium on the death penalty for all but the "most serious crimes.".

Shaheed, the special investigator on the human rights situation in Iran, said 69 percent of executions during the first six months of 2015 were reportedly for drug-related offenses, reflecting the rising drug influx in the country.

In July, Amnesty International reported a 'surge' in executions in 2015."

A surge in executions in 2015? And all this while, we have been told by the Times that Iranian President Rouhani is a "moderate."

Shame on Obama, Kerry, The New York Times and all of the columnists of the Times who traipse off to Saudi Arabia and Iran and turn a blind eye to human rights outrages.

Roger Cohen, "The Making of a Disaster": When You Play With the Devil (Qatar), There Is Hell to Pay

In a New York Times editorial entitled "The Making of a Disaster," Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen is back today with an explanation of why "The chicken that came home to roost from the Syrian debacle is called ISIS." Cohen provides a laundry list of contributory factors:

• Bush’s "bungled war in Iraq;"
• Saudi and Pakistani funding "of violent Sunni extremism;"
• failure to demonstrate in Egypt "that Arab societies can evolve out of the radicalizing confrontation of dictatorship and Islamism;"
• Obama's inaction and failure to enforce a red line in Syria following Assad's use of chemical weapons against civilians;
• failure to anticipate that jihadi extremists would fill the resultant Arab "vacuum;"
• "inattention, until it was too late, to festering sectarian conflict in a broken Iraqi society left to its fate by a complete American withdrawal."

Saudi and Pakistani funding of Sunni extremism? Cohen forgets to mention Qatar, a country with which the US signed an $11 billion arms deal in July.

Qatar? Funny you should ask. As reported by Al Jazeera yesterday in an article entitled "Kidnapped US journalist freed in Syria" (my emphasis in red):

"An American journalist kidnapped nearly two years ago has been freed in Syria following Qatari mediation and handed over to UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights.

Peter Theo Curtis was handed over to UN peacekeepers in the village of al-Rafid, Quneitra, on Sunday. He has since been turned over to representatives from the US government after undergoing medical check-up, the UN said.

Curtis' family thanked both the governments of the US and Qatar, as well as others who helped negotiate his release.

According to a statement from his family, Curtis was captured in October 2012 and was reportedly held by the al-Nusra Front or by splinter groups allied with the al-Qaeda-affiliated group."

And as reported by The Washington Post today in an article entitled "Qatar played now-familiar role in helping to broker U.S. hostage’s release" by Adam Goldman and Karen DeYoung:

"Qatar, whose relationships with Islamist groups has at times been publicly questioned by the administration, has privately become the go-to U.S. partner for indirect communications with those groups. They include Hamas, at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip for the past month, and Jabhat al-Nusra, the group that held Curtis, which the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization and a 'wholly owned subsidiary' of al-Qaeda.
. . . .

Qatari officials say their country’s contributions are the natural outgrowth of their belief in nonjudgmental dialogue.

. . . .

Obama administration officials don’t necessarily buy into the altruistic narrative, and some share the concern of Qatar’s Persian Gulf neighbors that it is seeking only to boost its status as a regional power far beyond its size. While Treasury Department officials have said the Qatari government no longer funds groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, they believe that a handful of wealthy Qatari individuals continue to raise funds for Islamist groups in Syria."

What is the reason that Qatar wields such enormous power over the al-Nusra Front and the Taliban (Qatar brokered the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl last month in May)? Answer: Qatar's ongoing funding of terror. Qatar no longer funds the al-Nusra Front and ISIS? Bullshit! If Qatar didn't want to continue funding these monstrous Islamic terrorist organization, it would not allow its citizens to continue to make "contributions."

And although there was no direct payment of ransom for the release of Peter Theo Curtis, America's $11 billion arms deal with Qatar in June greased the wheels.

Apparently, Obama and friends never learned that when you play with the devil, ultimately there is hell to pay.

Rula Salameh, "A Palestinian Mother’s Fear in East Jerusalem": Not Afraid of Honor Killings?

Andrew Rosenthal's New York Times op-ed page is back to its old tricks. Who cares if Hamas has fired from Gaza more than 360 missiles at Israeli civilians over the past few days? Instead, the readership of the Times must only be informed of the anger and fear of a Palestinian woman living in East Jerusalem.

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "A Palestinian Mother’s Fear in East Jerusalem" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/opinion/a-palestinian-mothers-fear-in-east-jerusalem.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0), Rula Salameh complains:

"The world must hold the Israeli government accountable for . . . blatant disregard for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem — the lack of bomb shelters is just one of many basic services that the Israeli authorities fail to provide to Palestinians living under their rule."

Fascinating! I hadn't realized that Hamas is targeting the Dome of the Rock and Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

In addition, Ms. Salameh tells us:

"In a cruel twist of fate and policy, the Israeli authorities informed me that my son would not be given a Jerusalem ID as long as I remained married to his father. Because one of his parents was a Palestinian without a Jerusalem ID, my son was not entitled to inherit my residency status. After years of financially and emotionally draining legal struggle, my husband and I divorced — the strain ended not just our marriage but our relationship."

Interesting! Are we to understand that the "Israeli authorities" were solely to blame for her divorce?

Ms. Salameh declares:

"The world must hold the Israeli government accountable for its actions. For its military campaigns that have taken the lives of too many sons and mothers in Gaza over the past few days and in the West Bank over the past few weeks."

Of course, Ms. Salameh does not mention Hamas's policy of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. See the following July 8, 2014 MEMRI video in which Hamas Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri adulates this human-shield policy and commends "the character of our noble, jihad-fighting people":



Most remarkably, Ms. Salameh makes no mention of honor killings in Gaza and the West Bank. As reported in March 2014 by Al Jazeera in an article entitled "Upsurge in Palestinian 'honour killings'" (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/upsurge-palestinian-honour-killings-gaza-201432372831899701.html) by Lena Odgaard:

"Two teenage Palestinian girls were killed in separate incidents last month in so-called 'honour killings', revenge attacks carried out most often by family members against women suspected of 'immoral sexual conduct'.

The deaths sparked protests with more than 100 people assembling outside the general attorney's office in Gaza on March 3, demanding violence against Palestinian women come to a halt. Five women died in honour killings in the Palestinian territories in 2011. That number rose to 13 in 2012 and doubled to 26 last year.

. . . .

But the day after the protest, another woman, Samah Bader, was stabbed to death by her husband in their apartment in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. She became the eighth woman killed in the Palestinian territories since the beginning of the year - raising concerns the deadly trend will continue to spiral upwards."

But why mention "honor killings" if this horrifying phenomenon cannot also be blamed upon the "Israeli authorities"? Surely, if we think hard enough, there must also be a way to hold the "Israeli authorities" accountable for this abomination.

Destruction of Syria's Chemical Weapons and Obamacare: Both Still on Track?

As might be expected, Syria is not honoring its agreement to destroy its stocks of chemical weapons; however, the West is attempting to make light of the delay. As reported by Al Jazeera (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/01/syria-misses-deadline-remove-chemical-arms-20141102036154308.html):

"Ships waiting to remove Syria's chemical weapons have returned to port in Cyprus because the country has missed a December 31 deadline.

Syria was supposed to have removed part of its chemical weapons arsenal for destruction on Tuesday, but Wael Nader Al Halqi, Syria's prime minister, said security concerns and bureaucracy had caused delays in transporting the weapons to the Syrian port of Latakia.

International inspectors insisted the overall mission was still on track, as Scandinavian ships continued training exercises off Cyprus in preparation for transporting the toxic cargo. The delay came as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 130,000 people had been killed since the conflict began in March 2011, with the overwhelming majority caused by conventional arms."

Bureaucracy caused the delay? Yeah, right.

Just like Obamacare - the president's other signal achievement - the deal for the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons is "still on track"? Of course it is.

Kind of reminds you of the words from the song from "Bye Bye Birdie":

And if you're feeling cross and bitterish
Don't sit and whine
Think of banana split and licorice
And you'll feel fine
I knew a girl so glooming
She'd never laugh or sing
She wouldn't listen to me
Now she's a mean old thing
So spread sunshine all over the place
Just put on a happy face
So, put on a happy face

Protests Continue in Turkey: Care to Comment, President Obama?

As reported this morning by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22924886):

"Protesters have clashed with Turkish police in Istanbul, after riot squads used tear gas and water cannon to eject demonstrators from Gezi Park.

The protesters quickly fled the park, but later erected barricades across nearby streets and lit bonfires.

Witnesses said it was one of the worst nights of unrest since the park was occupied 18 days ago.

. . . .

Clashes continued into Sunday morning in the streets around [Taksim] square, eyewitnesses say.

. . . .

Thousands of people also took to the streets of the capital, Ankara, to express support for the protests.

The Confederation of Public Workers' Unions (KESK) also said it would call a nationwide strike on Monday, while another union grouping is deciding whether to join the action.

Medical officials estimate that 5,000 people have been injured and at least four killed since protests began in earnest on 31 May."

You will recall that when interviewed by his friend Fareed Zakaria in 2012, Obama listed Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan as one of his best international friends (http://swampland.time.com/2012/01/19/inside-obamas-world-the-president-talks-to-time-about-the-changing-nature-of-american-power/):

"I think that if you ask them, Angela Merkel or Prime Minister Singh or President Lee or Prime Minister Erdogan or David Cameron would say, We have a lot of trust and confidence in the President. We believe what he says. We believe that he’ll follow through on his commitments. We think he’s paying attention to our concerns and our interests. And that’s part of the reason we’ve been able to forge these close working relationships and gotten a whole bunch of stuff done."

Yup, Mr. President, you've "gotten a whole bunch of stuff done" with Erdogan. I suppose that's why Turkey today leads the world in arresting journalists (see: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/02/2013217124044793870.html).

Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Post, Goes to Bat for Fareed Zakaria, Plagiarizer and Liar

As you will recall, I have repeatedly complained to The Washington Post concerning Fareed Zakaria's opinion piece entitled "Obama appeals to Israel's conscience," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-obama-appeals-to-israels-conscience/2013/03/27/a4365b18-96f5-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story.html?hpid=z2) in which he falsely claimed:

"After all, Israel has ruled millions of Palestinians without offering them citizenship or a state for 40 years."

Of course, as well known to Zakaria, Israeli prime ministers Barak and Olmert offered Arafat and Abbas an independent state along the 1967 lines with agreed upon land swaps, and Olmert even offered Palestinian control of east Jerusalem. Arafat and Abbas refused.

After publication of my blog item on this topic yesterday (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/all-washington-posts-mice-fareed.html), Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post finally replied:

Dear Mr. Grossman,

The history of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is contentious and, as I’m sure you know, subject to widely differing interpretation. Mr. Zakaria’s statement is within the bounds of acceptable interpretation for an opinion columnist.

Thank you for your interest.

Fred Hiatt

"The history of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is contentious and, as I'm sure you know, subject to widely differing interpretation"? You don't say! Yes, I can indeed accept this vacuous platitude.

But "Mr. Zakaria's statement is within the bounds of acceptable interpretation for an opinion columnist"? Even the Palestinians are not contending that Israel did not offer them "a state for 40 years." Perhaps it can be claimed that Israeli offers did not meet Palestinian requirements or expectations, but no one - I repeat no one - can claim that offers were not made.

First, have a look at Bernard Avishai's February 2011 New York Times article entitled "A Plan for Peace That Still Could Be" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&) in which Avishai writes:

A viable plan exists: it is waiting to be forged from the far-reaching proposals that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority made to each other in 2008. We had a glimpse in mid-January of these negotiations — the 'Palestine Papers,' leaked by Al Jazeera; and then excerpts from Ehud Olmert’s memoir, published in Israel.

. . . .

I spoke with Olmert this year in Jerusalem on the morning of Jan. 21, and that same evening with Abbas in Amman, Jordan. The leaders revealed in detail what was proposed, what was implicitly agreed, what the gaps were and what they suggested was susceptible to compromise.

. . . .

Olmert insisted that he had conceded to Abbas every major demand Palestinians had made for decades: a border based scrupulously on the 1967 lines, a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem and 'recognition of the problem' of refugees.

. . . .

Even on borders, Olmert and Abbas were able to agree on fundamentals: a desire to disrupt as few lives as possible and to maximize the contiguity (and therefore the economic possibility) of Palestinian cities. "We didn’t waste a minute during our months of negotiation," Abbas said.

Where bridging proposals seemed most called for was over the extent and nature of land to be swapped — in effect, the fate of specific large Israeli settlements. The Israeli position, where it diverged from the Palestinian, was not about principle but focused primarily on the practical matter of how many (often violent) settlers the Israeli government would have to force back behind the Green Line.

. . . .

Olmert’s security principles were the following: Palestine would have a strong police force, "everything needed for law enforcement." It would have no army or air force. The Palestinian border with Jordan, through which missiles and heavy armaments might be smuggled, would be patrolled by international forces, probably from NATO.

. . . .

So when Olmert finally showed Abbas his map on Sept. 16, it was an established principle of these negotiations that any territory Israel sought to annex in Greater Jerusalem would have to be compensated like any other occupied territory. This was unprecedented. Olmert held that the no man’s land also be divided 50-50, with Israel understandably taking more around its highway and ceding more in other areas, but this slight divergence from Rice’s definition was of no great consequence. 'I told Abbas this land had never been used, so the only reasonable thing was to divide it,” Olmert said. "He seemed quite happy with it."

The real issue in contention, however, was which Israeli settlements would be permitted to stay, and which would have to be removed.

. . . .

Olmert, for his part, was presenting a plan in which the most sparsely populated settlements would be evacuated, but Efrat (extending from Gush Etzion), Maale Adummim (a town just east of Jerusalem) and Ariel, a town of 18,000 between Ramallah and Nablus, should be permitted to stay.

. . . .

"I told him, 'Sign,'" Olmert said. "'You will never get a better proposal from any Israeli government for the next 50 years.'" Abbas would not sign.

. . . .

Olmert made his most comprehensive offer to Abbas on Sept. 16, 2008, the opening day of the General Assembly in New York.

Count the number of time that the words "offer," "plan," "proposed" and "proposal" appear above.

Concerning Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's earlier peace proposal providing the Palestinians with statehood, have a look at Sandy Tolan's 2011 article in al Jazeera entitled "Two-state solution: A postmortem" (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121810588471977.html):

Like other such fictions - chief among them "Israel's generous offer" at Camp David in 2000 - this one is not entirely without substance. As the Palestine Papers show, the two sides did agree on various security arrangements, land swaps and some principles of the right of return, much to the alarm of many Palestinians. Just as significantly, Palestinian negotiators agreed to allow Israel to annex major settlement blocs in East Jerusalem - a fact that, in the wake of the document dump, is eroding what is left of Abbas' credibility among his own people.

. . . .

The US has long been hypersensitive to Israeli domestic political considerations while ignoring those of the Palestinians and the broader Arab and Muslim worlds. In 2000, Yasser Arafat turned down Israel's "generous offer," refusing to agree to a "sovereign presidential compound" in the Old City - essentially, a golden cage near the Muslim holy sites.

Again, it can be claimed that Israeli offers in 2000 did not meet Palestinian requirements or expectations, i.e. were insufficiently "generous,"but no one - I repeat no one - can claim that offers were not made.

Sorry, Mr. Hiatt, but Zakaria's fabrication does not fall "within the bounds of acceptable interpretation for an opinion columnist" or any other serious journalist for that matter.

[See my follow-up e-mail to Fred Hiatt: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/the-ongoing-zakariahiattwashington-post.html]

Gail Collins, "Peculiar Naming Rites": In Hagel's Case, the Joke Is on Us

Gail Collins is fortunate enough to know absolutely nothing about international terrorism, but this does not prevent her from lending support to Chuck Hagel, Obama's nominee for secretary of defense. In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Peculiar Naming Rites" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/opinion/collins-peculiar-naming-rites.html?_r=0), Colins tells us that the Postal Service is actually "looking to launch a clothing line," and then continues:

"This is not make-believe, like the story about Chuck Hagel giving a speech to Friends of Hamas. Dan Friedman, a New York Daily News reporter, says he thinks he inadvertently started that one when he called a Republican aide and asked if there were any rumors floating around about the nominee for secretary of defense. As an example, Friedman said, he asked about speaking fees from anything like 'the Junior League of Hezbollah' or 'Friends of Hamas.' Soon the idea was all over the right-wing media.

'The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed — let alone that a former senator would speak to them,' Friedman wrote.

I think I speak for us all when I say: Hahahaha."

Collins, of course, does not mention that when interviewed by Al Jazeera in 2009, America's prospective secretary of defense agreed that America is "the world’s bully" (see: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/339418/senator-cruz-questions-hagel-al-jazeera-interview-nathaniel-botwinick).

Just an accidental, spur of the moment slip of the tongue on Hagel's part? I don't think so. Again, during a 2007 speech before the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Hagel labeled the US a "schoolyard bully" (see: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/02/20/Hagel-2007-U-S-Acting-Like-Schoolyard-Bully).

Hezbollah? As known to all, Hagel was one of only 12 US Senators who refused to sign a 2006 letter asking that the EU brand Hezbollah a terror organization.

This refusal on Hagel's part has become that much more poignant given the determination that a Hezbollah bomber was responsible for the deadly 2012 Burgus bus bombing aimed at Israeli tourists in Bulgaria (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/world/europe/explosion-on-bulgaria-tour-bus-kills-at-least-five-israelis.html?pagewanted=all), and the recent admission by a Hezbollah operative in Cyprus that he was also seeking to help murder Israeli tourists (see: http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=303941).

Hagel, a moron and an anti-Semite as America's next secretary of defense? Hahahaha? Why am I not laughing?

Paul Krugman, "Europe’s Economic Suicide": Yes, but Not Owing to Austerity

Time to be politically incorrect.

In his New York Times op-ed entitled "Europe’s Economic Suicide" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/opinion/krugman-europes-economic-suicide.html?_r=1), Paul Krugman predictably takes the position that Europe needs to spend its way out of its current economic malaise:

"Europe has had several years of experience with harsh austerity programs, and the results are exactly what students of history told you would happen: such programs push depressed economies even deeper into depression. And because investors look at the state of a nation’s economy when assessing its ability to repay debt, austerity programs haven’t even worked as a way to reduce borrowing costs.

. . . .

Rather than admit that they’ve been wrong, European leaders seem determined to drive their economy — and their society — off a cliff. And the whole world will pay the price."

Well, I've got news for Paul: Europe is dying a slow death of its own making, and neither spending nor austerity are going to save it.

Do you remember Libya's eccentric dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, who was captured in a roadside drain outside his hometown of Sirte in October 2011, and who was shot to death after first being sodomized by his "Arab Spring" captors? Qaddafi may be dead, but consider his plans for Europe, which are still very much alive. In a speech broadcast by Al Jazeera on April 10, 2006 (http://www.jihadwatch.org/2006/05/qaddafi-europe-and-the-us-should-agree-to-become-islamic-or-declare-war-on-the-muslims.html):

"Some people believe that Muhammad is the prophet of the Arabs or the Muslims alone. This is a mistake. Muhammad is the Prophet of all people. He superseded all previous religions. If Jesus were alive when Muhammad was sent, he would have followed him. All people must be Muslims. . . . We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. . . Allah mobilizes the Muslim nation of Turkey and adds it to the European Union. That's another 50 million Muslims. There will be 100 million Muslims in Europe. Albania, which is a Muslim country, has already entered the EU. Fifty percent of its citizens are Muslims."

Europe will be become Muslim in a few decades? Is this merely the deranged prediction of a madman? I don't think so. Consider that according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (http://www.pewforum.org/future-of-the-global-muslim-population-regional-europe.aspx#1):

"The number of Muslims in Europe has grown from 29.6 million in 1990 to 44.1 million in 2010.34 Europe’s Muslim population is projected to exceed 58 million by 2030. Muslims today account for about 6% of Europe’s total population, up from 4.1% in 1990. By 2030, Muslims are expected to make up 8% of Europe’s population."

Also according to this report, Muslims in France, Belgium, Sweden and Austria will comprise some 10% of these countries' populations by 2030, and Muslims in the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland will amount to some 8%. Needless to say, 10% and 8% are distant from a majority, but these percentages could well be enough to swing elections and influence budgetary planning, particularly when they are growing from year to year.

Will the swelling Muslim population of Europe contribute to this continent's science and industry and adopt its culture and democracy, or will Europe be contending with higher unemployment, swollen welfare rolls and honor killings (see: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/232735/honor-killings-rise-phyllis-chesler)?

You already can guess my thoughts on the matter . . .