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Faced for the past four days with blazes across the country fed by drought and high winds, Israel received airborne assistance from Russia, Turkey, Greece and Croatia.
The flames in many places appeared to be easing somewhat despite the persistent wind, but a new fire erupted close to Jerusalem on Friday afternoon that the emergency services said was apparently started deliberately.
“Things can change and develop as we speak,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
Support from France, Spain and others was due while a US Supertanker, considered the largest firefighting aircraft in the world, was expected to arrive Friday night. More here.
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180 injured, 560 homes burnt after 5 days of raging fires
Some 2,500 firefighters marshalled, half a million tons of water and flame retardant unleashed in 480 missions to battle the flames which incinerated hundreds of homes, forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands; after 5 days of blazes, authorities report that flames finally brought under control.
Overall, three people were moderately injured as a result of the conflagrations, one senior from Haifa, two from Ma’ale Adumim and another 129 who were left in light condition. According to estimates, another 50 people admitted themselves to hospital in light condition.
Over the weekend, 186 fresh fires lit up the country, marking a marginal decrease from an average of 200-250 daily fire incidents.
Photo: Gil Yohanan
As fire crews fought around the clock to quench the flames, last week saw the deployment of approximately 2,000 firefighters, along with 450 IDF Search and Rescue soldiers and 69 Cypriot soldiers.
The firefighting forces unleashed a total of half a million tons of water and flame retardant. Ten countries contributed to the effort while 14 Israeli firefighting planes took to the skies, with the number of combined missions reaching 480. Some of the buildings have infrastructural problems and have thus been declared as dangerous for residence. A total of 1,616 residents have been left homeless.
For those who believe President Obama is a lame duck simply waiting for his departure from the White House and the commencement of wealth pursuits, there is a likely surprise coming. The president has signaled that he may seek a U.N. Security Council Resolution which embodies a Palestinian state with pre-1967 lines, notwithstanding a different stance by President-elect Donald Trump.
This remarkable act would unequivocally betray the U.S. policy of vetoing anti-Israel resolutions. It would also attempt to make “illegal” Israeli buildings in east Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and set in place a stance that President Trump would be hard pressed to overturn. Recently President Obama, in language that can only be regarded as hostile, said that settlement construction, even if regarded as an organic expansion of overcrowded areas is unacceptable. More here.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has written to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), with recommendations for constructing the database of settlement businesses that was mandated as part of a Human Rights Council Resolution adopted in Geneva in March this year.
The letter, sent by HRW’s Israel/Palestine Advocacy Director, Sari Bashi, to Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein,
High Commissioner at OHCHR, offers guidelines for interpreting the resolution, and also singles out three specific institutions for inclusion: Heidelberg Cement, RE/MAX, and FIFA.
As per the resolution, OHCHR is currently compiling a database of business enterprises involved in Israeli settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory and occupied Syrian Golan.
In their letter, HRW “outline[s] the kind of business activities that we believe meet three of the criteria outlined in the Resolution”, including:
“the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport”;
“banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities, including loans for housing and the development of businesses”;
“The use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes”.
HRW also “describe[s] the kind of institutions that, if found to engage in the above-stated activities, should be eligible to be listed in the database”, including non-profit organisations that have responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Finally, HRW names three institutions it recommends be included in the database.
The German multinational Heidelberg Cement, through its subsidiary, Hanson, owns a West Bank quarry for which it pays royalties to the Israeli occupation authorities and “municipal taxes to the settlement Samaria Regional Council.”
RE/MAX, meanwhile, “is a US-based international real-estate brokerage franchise” and the owner of the global franchise network. “Its Israeli franchise, RE/MAX Israel, has a branch in the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim and markets or has marketed homes in at least 17 additional settlements.”
Finally, HRW also singles out FIFA for inclusion, a body which, through its affiliate, the Israel Football Association (IFA), “is organising matches in Israeli settlements in the West Bank on land that has been unlawfully seized from Palestinians.”
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It has been said to follow the money and this is easy due to the wicked agenda of George Soros. He is the largest funder of HRW.
Financier and philanthropist George Soros of the Open Society Foundation announced in 2010 his intention to grant US $100 million to HRW over a period of ten years to help it expand its efforts internationally. He said, “Human Rights Watch is one of the most effective organizations I support. Human rights underpin our greatest aspirations: they’re at the heart of open societies.” The donation increases Human Rights Watch’s operating staff of 300 by 120 people. The donation was the largest in the organization’s history.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s son-in-law is being designated the point person to resolve the political and territory conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians. Haaretz reports American progressives are building a guide to fully oppose all things Trump so it could be the threat has been delivered early and aggressively.
Exactly how deep this political debate will go remains to be determined however, there are many in Congress that stand with the Palestinians and support efforts to the resettlement efforts.
Since June 2007, these U.S. policy priorities have crystallized around the factional and geographical split between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. From FY2008 to the present, annual Economic Support Fund (ESF) assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip has averaged around $400 million, with that amount divided between U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-administered project assistance (through grants and contracts) and budget support for the Palestinian Authority (PA). Annual International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) non-lethal assistance for PA security forces and the criminal justice sector in the West Bank has averaged around $100 million. In line with Obama Administration requests, baseline funding levels for both ESF (including ESF-Overseas Contingency Operations, or ESF-OCO) and INCLE have declined since FY2013, with FY2017 requested annual assistance amounts of $327.6 million for ESF and $35 million for INCLE. Because of congressional concerns that, among other things, U.S. aid to the Palestinians might be diverted to Palestinian terrorist groups, the aid is subject to a host of vetting and oversight requirements and legislative restrictions. Additionally, the United States is the largest single-state donor to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The full summary is here.
It is estimated that between 27,000 and 31,000 foreign fighters have flocked to Iraq and Syria since the breakout of the war in 2011. More here.
No one mentions Pakistan either.
TEHRAN: (APP) More than 1,000 combatants sent from Iran to fight in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria have been killed in the conflict, the head of Iran’s veterans’ affairs office said Tuesday.
“The number of martyrs from our country defending the shrines has now passed 1,000,” Tasnim news agency quoted Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahalati, the head of Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs’ and Veterans’ Affairs, as saying.
Iran has sent military advisers, as well as fighters recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work with Assad’s forces. They are known in Iran as “defenders of the shrines” in reference to Shiite holy sites in Syria.
Shahidi did not specify the nationalities of those killed.
Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad and provides both financial and military support for his regime.
The Fatemiyoun Division of Afghan recruits organised by Iran comprises the majority of volunteers sent from Iran to fight in Syria and Iraq.
Iran says they are sent to fight against Sunni extremists such as the
Islamic State group (IS).
The Islamic republic denies having any boots on the ground in Syria, and insists its commanders and generals of the elite Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations wing act as “military advisers” both there and in Iraq.
Iranian media regularly report on the death of Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani “martyrs” in Syria, whose bodies are buried in Iran.
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The Obama administration changed the balance of power in the Middle East with several disgusting decisions including failing on the red line threat, the JPOA nuclear deal and paying the huge ransom. The winner is clearly Assad as he remains safe yet the single achievement award goes to Tehran.
Trump would be well advised to begin to dismantle the balance of power beginning with removing Assad with the help of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Nations. That would begin to address Iran’s power in the region but it could be a nasty conflict for sure. If Iran and Syria are not addressed, then more countries will seek nuclear weapons, and deadly conflicts will not stop as there is no easy method or proposal for the West to exit out of the region after Islamic State is defeated due to the continued hostilities between the militias, the Sunnis and Shiite and the ruling governments.
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Mike Pompeo’s Iran File
If he honors the nuclear deal, Trump needs to enforce it vigorously.
WSJ: In summer 2015 Congressman Mike Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton visited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, where they learned of two secret codicils to the Iranian nuclear deal. The Obama Administration had failed to disclose these side agreements to Congress. When pressed on the details of the codicils, Secretary of State John Kerry claimed never to have read them.
We’re reminded of this episode on news that Donald Trump has asked Congressman Pompeo to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. The Kansas Republican is being denounced by liberals as a “hardliner,” but the truth is that he has shown an independent streak that has allowed him to raise thorny questions and gather vital information that Administration officials want suppressed. Isn’t that what Americans should expect in a CIA director?
That goes double regarding the Iranian nuclear deal, which Mr. Pompeo opposed in part because of the diplomatic legerdemain he and Sen. Cotton uncovered in Vienna. Of the two secret deals, one concerned the nuclear agency’s inspection of the Parchin military facility, where the Iranians were suspected of testing components of a nuclear deal. The other concerned Iran’s non-answers to questions about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.
Both issues went to the question of whether Iran’s compliance with an agreement would be verifiable, and it’s easy to see why the Administration was so reluctant to disclose the facts. The IAEA was permitted one inspection of Parchin, where it discovered uranium traces, and the agency later issued an exculpatory report on Iran’s military work to facilitate the deal’s implementation.
We’ve since learned much more about the precise terms of the nuclear deal—including the Administration’s willingness to ignore them to placate the Iranians. That includes allowing the mullahs to build and test ballistic missiles and exceed the deal’s 300-kilo limit on low-enriched uranium. The IAEA also reported this month that Iran exceeded its heavy-water limit for the second time this year.
The scope of Iran’s violations was laid out last week in a detailed analysis from the nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security. “IAEA reporting is so sparse as to confirm suspicions that compliance controversies are being deliberately omitted from the report,” note authors David Albright and Andrea Stricker. That makes the CIA’s job of investigating Iran’s nuclear programs all the more important, which is another reason to welcome Mr. Pompeo’s nomination.
Beyond that is the larger question of how the incoming Administration should treat the nuclear deal, which Mr. Trump has often called “disastrous.” Mr. Pompeo tweeted last week before his nomination that he wants to see the deal rolled back. But the question is how to do that in a way that doesn’t allow Iran to break out in a sprint to build the bomb. A unilateral U.S. withdrawal would also make it hard, if not impossible, to rally a world coalition for new global sanctions against Iran.
One strategy for the Trump Administration would be to announce that it will honor the deal reluctantly—and enforce it unsparingly. That puts the diplomatic onus on Tehran for its violations. This would include enforcing the “economic snapback” that the Obama Administration promised when it tried to sell the deal to Congress but had no intention of delivering.
The Trump Administration could also resume enforcement of current U.S. sanctions on Iran for its support for terrorism and human-rights abuses. Holding financial institutions accountable for “know your customer” rules when doing business with Iran would be an excellent place to start, as would a resumption of sanctions on banks like Sepah, which funds Iran’s ballistic-missile program.
Undoing the strategic damage of the Iran deal won’t happen overnight, and the Trump Administration will have to move carefully to avoid diplomatic missteps with allies and adversaries. Having Mr. Pompeo at CIA gives more confidence that at least the U.S. will be honest when Iran is breaking its commitments.
There is an entry and exit program managed by the Department of Homeland Security….well they maintain it but don’t use it to remove people…but it does exist to the point of a backlog of 1.6 million and it actually a Visa Overstay system.
Thank you GW Bush, as NSEERS was launched in 2002 and used to collect names, backgrounds and locations of people that were inside the United States that would pose a threat and cause additional harm to the homeland. The Bush administration earnestly applied all elements of this program and performed thousands of deportations as well as criminal investigations on violators or those connected to nefarious groups and organization. By the end of the calendar year 2002, 3,995 wanted criminals had been arrested attempting to cross into the United States.
The 9/11 Commission Report dedicated an entire chapter to immigration and the flaws. Many of the hijackers were in the United States illegally. Okay, then the 9/11 Commission also made stout recommendations of which everyone in Congress agreed to and signed. Then a few years later, those agreements began to fall apart on the Democrat side and continue to be forgotten today.
So, Obama Should Pardon ‘Dreamer’ Immigrants, Democrats Say
Bloomberg: A group of House Democrats called on President Barack Obama to pardon about 750,000 young undocumented immigrants who are temporarily shielded from deportation under a 2012 executive order, a move that reflects growing concern about a shift in immigration policy expected after President-elect Donald Trump takes power in January. More here.
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Back to that database.
Then the Obama administration decided there were legal challenges to its application and use.
GAO had previously reported that, as of January 2011, DHS had a backlog of 1.6 million unmatched arrival records that had not been reviewed through automated or manual processes. DHS tracks arrivals and departures and closes records for individuals with matching arrival and departure records. Unmatched arrival records indicate that the individual is a potential overstay. In 2011, DHS reviewed this backlog of 1.6 million records, closed about 863,000 records, and removed them from the backlog. As new unmatched arrival records have accrued, DHS has continued to review all of these new records for national security and public safety concerns. As of June 2013, DHS’s unmatched arrival records totaled more than 1 million. More here from the 2013 report.
The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was asked to take a hard look at the NSEERS program and they made some deletions with the approval of Secretary Jeh Johnson in 2011.
DHS Removes Designated Countries from NSEERS Registration (May 2011)
As part of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties‘ (CRCL) outreach efforts, we have translated the following announcement into Arabic, Bengali, Farsi, French, Pashto and Urdu.
DHS announced the removal of the list of countries whose nationals have been subject to registration under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS)—effectively ending the NSEERS registration process through the publication of a notice in the Federal Register.
DHS and the U.S. government have conducted roundtables, meetings, and town halls with our community partners around the nation, regarding the NSEERS process. NSEERS was first implemented in 2002 as a temporary measure in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and was designed to record the arrival, stay, and departure of certain individuals from countries chosen based on an analysis of possible national security threats. The NSEERS registration required approximately 30 minutes in secondary inspection, per person, per arrival; and NSEERS registrants were also required to register upon departure at one of the 118 designated ports of departure, limiting travel flexibility.
So for the year 2015, DHS issued an Entry/Exit Overstay Report and the real change in word definitions began to change.
An overstay is a nonimmigrant who was lawfully admitted to the United States for an authorized period but stayed or remains in the United States beyond his or her lawful admission period. DHS identifies two types of overstays—those individuals for whom no departure has been recorded (Suspected In-Country Overstay) and those individuals whose departure was recorded after their lawful admission period expired (Out-of-Country Overstay). The overstay identification process is conducted through arrival, departure and immigration status information, consolidated to generate a complete picture of individuals traveling to the United States.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) collects biographic information on all nonimmigrant arrivals to the United States through an inspection by a CBP officer. In the air and sea environment, CBP officers validate the manifest information provided by commercial and private aircraft operators. For many nonimmigrants, submission of biometric information is also required upon admission and is captured in the presence of a CBP officer.1 In addition, CBP has strengthened the document requirements at air, land, and sea Ports of Entry (POEs) by reducing the number of accepted travel documents one may use to enter the United States, 2 which in turn has increased CBP’s ability to quickly and accurately collect information on arriving aliens, particularly at the land borders.
The United States did not build its border, aviation, and immigration infrastructure with exit processing in mind. Consequently, United States airports do not have designated areas exclusively for travelers leaving the United States. Instead, departures of travelers are recorded biographically using outbound passenger manifests provided by commercial carriers. Under regulations governing the Advance Passenger Information System, carriers are required to validate the manifest information against the travel document being presented before a traveler is permitted to board their aircraft or sea vessel.
In the land environment, travelers arrive at land POEs via various modes of transportation, including cars, trains, buses, ferries, bicycles, trucks, and on foot. There are major physical infrastructure, logistical, and operational hurdles to collect an individual’s biographic and biometric data upon departure. Due to the existing limitations in collecting departure data in the land environment, this report does not include departure and overstay information from those travelers who entered the United States through a land POE. CBP is addressing these limitations through various efforts, including increased information sharing and partnerships, targeted operations, analyzing land POE departure traffic, and several pilots to experiment with innovative means of collecting biometric information from individuals departing via land POEs.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) anticipates the ability to provide a broader scope of data in future Entry/Exit Overstay Reports. Efforts by CBP, as described in this report, are ongoing and will continue to improve the existing process and availability of departure data.
In January 2012, CTCEU initiated the use of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in support of its Overstay Program to screen overstays by identifying potential matches to derogatory intelligence community holdings.
FY 2015 only, the Department determined that there were a total of 44,928,381 nonimmigrant admissions to the United States for business or pleasure through air or sea POEs that were expected to depart in FY 2015. Of this number, the Department calculated a total overstay rate of 1.17 percent, or 527,127 individuals. In other words, 98.83 percent had left the United States on time and abided by the terms of their admission.
At the end of FY 2015, Suspected In-Country Overstays were 482,781 individuals, with a Suspected In-Country Overstay rate of 1.07 percent. This data indicates that 98.93 percent had departed the United States or transitioned to a lawful immigration status.
If you can stand reading the report and how the numbers are filtered and sifted, go here.
EuroNews: German police have raided 190 sites in 10 states in a massive operation against Salafist activists who have been distributing Korans along with their own propaganda.
The organising group, the TWRTrue Religion has been banned.
It is thought to have several hundred members, and is believed to have recruited some 140 young people to fight in Syria.
Its leader, the Palestinian-born Ibrahim Abou-Nagie who lived in Germany for 30 years, is now believed to be based in Malaysia and setting up a new group there. Germany tried to prosecute him in 2012, but failed.
The raids were on mosques, offices and private homes, and was the biggest operation of its type since the 2001 shutdown of the Kalifatstaat extremist group.
“With today’s ban we are giving a clear signal. There is no place in our society for radical extremists who are willing to use violence. Here, we are drawing a clear line to also be able to protect the peaceful Islam in Germany,” said Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere.
Germany has banned five other organisations accused of having Islamic extremist-jihadi aspirations since 2012, but De Maiziere stressed the ban was on the group and its propaganda, not the distribution of the Koran in general or translations of it.
Thomas de Maizière, the German interior minister, said the government had banned the True Religion organization, which is also known as Read (as in the instruction to read the Quran), because it acted as a “collecting pool” for would-be Islamist fighters.
Starting on Tuesday morning, officers raided 190 premises in more than half of Germany’s 16 states. Materials were secured, but there were no detentions, Mr. de Maizière said.
“The organization brings Islamic jihadists together under the pretext of the harmless distribution of the Quran,” Mr. de Maizière told reporters in Berlin, stressing that the authorities were acting against the group because of its work to foster violence, not because of its faith. “A systematic curtailment of our rule of law has nothing to do with the alleged freedom of religion,” he said.
The move comes after months of surveillance of the organization, whose bushy-bearded members have become a common sight in pedestrian shopping areas in major German cities. Mr. de Maizière said that 140 of the group’s supporters are known to have traveled to Syria or Iraq to fight on behalf of the Islamic State.
“The translations of the Quran are being distributed along with messages of hatred and unconstitutional ideologies,” Mr. de Maizière said. “Teenagers are being radicalized with conspiracy theories.”
The move comes a week after the authorities arrested five men who were accused of aiding the Islamic State in Germany by recruiting members and providing financial and logistical help.
The True Religion is the sixth Islamist organization to be banned in Germany since 2012, under an effort to ensure domestic security and to prevent radicalized young people from leaving the country to fight for extremists abroad.
Germany has been gripped by a wave of small-scale terrorist attacks this year, including three that were claimed by the Islamic State: the knifing of a policeman in February, an ax attack by a young refugee, and a suicide bombing, both in July. (The only deaths in those assaults were those of the attackers.)
Most of the nearly one million migrants and refugees who arrived in Germany last year were Muslims. Security officials have been concerned that those who become frustrated or disillusioned at the difficulty of starting a new life in Europe could provide fertile ground for radical Islamists seeking to recruit members.
The campaign to hand out the Qurans to passers-by was the idea of Ibrahim Abou-Nagie, a Palestinian who preaches a conservative brand of Islam known as Salafism. German security officials said he was not in Germany at the time of the raids. Mr. de Maizière declined to comment on Mr. Abou-Nagie’s possible whereabouts.
Mr. Abou-Nagie, who has lived in Germany for more than 30 years, has been on the radar of German security officials since 2005, when he set up a website that officials say spreads extremist propaganda. An attempt to prosecute Mr. Abou-Nagie in 2012 on charges of incitement of religious hatred failed.
Even as they are carrying out a sweeping effort to prevent radical Muslims from committing terrorist acts, the German authorities are also working to stop violence by far-right extremists. There was a 42 percent increase in the number of violent acts committed by the far right in 2015, according to the country’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors said they had charged eight men from the eastern state of Saxony with forming a far-right terrorist organization known as the Freital Group, after the city near Dresden where many of the group’s attacks were carried out. The charges were brought by the state court in Dresden last Wednesday, the prosecutors said.
“The aim of the organization was to carry out explosive attacks on shelters for asylum seekers, as well as homes, offices and automobiles of political dissidents,” the prosecutors said in a statement. “Through these actions, the suspects wanted to create an atmosphere of fear and repression.”
Others from the group are already facing charges, including attempted murder, carrying out an explosion and vandalism, over a series of attacks that began in late July 2015 and continued through November of that year. Those assaults involved lobbing explosives at the offices of the Left Party and at a refugee shelter in Freital.
