The Militia Terrorists Next Door

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By Adam Housley

Members of the Islamist extremist militia blamed for the Benghazi terror attack had moved in next door to the U.S. consulate months before the strike but “nothing was done” despite concerns about the dangerous neighbors, sources tell Fox News.

Sources say members of Ansar al-Sharia moved to the house just outside the east wall of the compound within three weeks of American personnel renting the facility, and later used the location to help plan and take part in the attack on the American consulate on Sept. 11, 2012.

The neighbors prompted multiple security requests — including repeated requests up until the day of the attack — for more weapons and personnel.

“We warned D.C. about the guys who moved in next door, but nobody knew what to do and nothing was done,” a U.S. intelligence source said.

According to one intelligence source, American security personnel specifically asked for an M240 machine gun to mount on the roof at the consulate for added protection, but were turned down repeatedly.

A State Department source also confirmed to Fox News that “they asked for a belt-fed mounted machine gun, but were specifically denied by the State Department because they said it would upset the locals.”

Asked about these assertions at Monday’s press briefing, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf called the claims “dubious.”

But a senior State Department official acknowledged Tuesday that there was a request of some kind from the Benghazi post on Aug. 22. “It was being considered in Tripoli on the day of the attack. It was contained in a list of security requests, so to say that the request was rejected is inaccurate,” the official said.

The official said the department, though, has “no record” at this point of Ansar al-Sharia moving in next door.

Fox News is told that American personnel also requested sandbags to help fortify positions at the compound because “the only thing in between us and the neighbors was grass and a couple of trees and a wall.”

“The State Department knew it. Everyone on the ground knew it,” one source with direct knowledge of the attack said.

Another source said the sandbags were denied because “making shooting positions was too aesthetically unpleasing.”

The threat was so well-known that on the night of the attack, as rescuers from the nearby annex were facing heavy fire while leaving the consulate, they “made sure to make a left turn out of the consulate and not a right turn” where the Ansar al-Sharia house was located.

The revelations continue to raise questions about the State Department response and training of agents, ahead of the attack which killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, as well as Americans Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Others were also injured.

Further, leaders of the local Libyan militia known as “‘The February 17 Martyrs Brigade” — which was tapped to provide security at the U.S. compound in Benghazi — not only didn’t respond to help save American lives, but may have directly participated in the 2012 attack on Americans. This has prompted criticism of the State Department for its original decision to contract with the powerful militia.

According to multiple sources, the department selected the militia over multiple other militia groups, private companies and even U.S. Marines to protect and secure the American consulate in Benghazi, despite the fact that those on the ground questioned the decision. As one special operator noted, “They may have been sold as the best option … but it was a terrible option. Only D.C. trusted them.”

Sources also say militia leaders may have helped orchestrate and directly participated in the attack — even though they were being paid, being fed, given automobiles and even allowed to swim in the consulate pool by the U.S. State Department. Fox News also has learned that the leader of the brigade, Fawzi Bukhatif, left Benghazi the day the attack ended on Sept. 12, even as the consulate and annex were still smoldering and Americans were standing on the Benghazi tarmac waiting to get out.

“It is truly one of the worst outsourcing decisions of all time,” said another source with direct knowledge of the attack.

Adam Housley joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 2001 and currently serves as a Los Angeles-based senior correspondent.

But there is more.

We knew about Ansar al Sharia long before the attack on the U.S. mission post in Benghazi. The intelligence community sounded the warnings all through 2011-2012 but Barack Obama chose not to get his Presidential Daily Briefings and the State Department under Hillary Clinton had/has a division at Foggy Bottom that knew too.

For a complete summary of who is in Ansar al Sharia, what they are and where they are go here.

 

Netanyahu Continues to Prove the Reality

First, a must watch video here.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 22 July 2014), at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, made the following remarks at his meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:

“Mr. Secretary, I appreciate the fact that you came here and that you took time to see what we’ve just shown you. I think it’s clear that Israel is doing what any country would do if terrorists rained down rockets on its cities and towns – hundreds of rockets, day after day, week after week. In addition, as I’ve shown you, Hamas has dug terrorist tunnels under hospitals, mosques, schools, homes, to penetrate our territory, to kidnap and kill Israelis.

Now, in the face of such wanton terrorism, no country could sit idly by. It would exercise its right, inherent and legitimate right of self-defense as we are doing, and act decisively to end the threat to its citizens. This is what Israel is doing. We did not seek this escalation, Mr. Secretary. We accepted the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. I don’t need to remind you it was a proposal that was supported by the UN, by the Arab League, by the United States, by Europe. Hamas rejected it. We accepted the humanitarian ceasefire proposal that the UN proposed afterward. Hamas rejected that. We accepted the ceasefire proposal of the Red Cross in Shejaia. Hamas rejected that, twice. I think the international community must take a clear stand; it must hold Hamas accountable for consistently rejecting the ceasefire proposals and for starting and prolonging this conflict. The international community must hold Hamas accountable for its increasing and indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. And the international community must hold Hamas accountable for using Palestinian civilians as human shields deliberately putting them in harm’s way, deliberately keeping them in harm’s way.

Mr. Secretary, we have made every effort and will continue to make every effort to avoid civilian casualties. We are targeting Hamas terrorist targets. We’ve just shown you these targets, embedded in civilian areas, embedded in mosques, embedded in hospitals, embedded in agricultural schools. Hamas is embedded in there in order to sustain civilian casualties, because they know that we will have to protect our citizens; that we have to act against their targets. So they are committing a double war crime: both targeting our civilians and hiding behind their civilians. And they want, I repeat: They want more civilian casualties, whereas we want no civilian casualties at all, and we’re taking the utmost pain to minimize that. I think the people of Gaza, and that’s become absolutely clear to the world, are the victims of the brutal Hamas regime. They are holding them hostage and they are hiding behind them.

You know, Mr. Secretary, the international community has pressed us to give cement to Gaza to build schools, hospitals, homes. And now we see what has happened to those deliveries of cement. They have been used to dig tunnels next to a kindergarten, not to build a kindergarten but to build a tunnel that penetrates our territory so that Hamas can blow up our kindergartens and murder our children. They’ve used for a long time our willingness to try to keep civilians at a minimum. They’ve been using them to keep on firing at us. We have even opened up a field hospital, Mr. Secretary, to help Hamas civilians, and Hamas is preventing civilians of Gaza from going to our hospital. I believe that you understand this. I believe that you understand that it is the right of every state to defend itself. And Israel will continue to do what it needs to do to defend its people.

Mr. Secretary, this is not only our right; this is our duty.”

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon Meets with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (Communicated by the Defense Ministry International Media Advisor)

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, today (Tuesday, 22 July 2014), made the following remarks at the start of his meeting with UN Secretary General Ban

Ki-moon:

“Welcome Secretary General. You’re most welcome in our country Israel. We very much appreciate your sincere intentions to put an end to the violence in the region.

As you know, we are engaged now in the 15th day of Operation Protective Edge which was actually initiated by Hamas, its provocations of rocket launches on our civilians and it has been deteriorated and now we are trying to stop it by all means – to stop the violence. Unfortunately we have here in the Gaza Strip a terror entity led by Hamas with other terror factions, violating international law and order and international law, by using rockets and all kinds of terror targeting deliberately our civilians and using their own civilians as human shield. This is a challenge for us, myself as the Defense Minister and the Israel Defense Forces how to confront and stop this kind of terror.

We do our utmost to avoid civilian casualties, but it is almost impossible in this populated area in Gaza which is used by Hamas as a launching pad for rockets and of course as a base for the terror offensive.

We will show you later on all kinds of tools used by Hamas; how they launch rockets from schools, mosques, neighborhoods and so forth, and the way that they use now underground tunnels trying to attack our civilians and communities around the Gaza Strip, which is a relatively new challenge, which we have to stop as well.

I hope in this visit you will have a better understanding of the challenges ahead of us. Israel is a democracy and a member of the United Nations and we look forward to the international support in the way that we believe that this threat should be confronted. We are ready and determined to continue this operation until we stop this wave of violence against our civilians.

Thank you.”

___________

So what else has the media missed as the reality on the ground? Well the Palestinians cut the power supply to Israeli settlements.

As Hamas continues to launch missiles into Israel, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement expresses its support for the murder of Israelis by posting a video praising nine female terrorists, among them eight suicide bombers.

 

The nine murderers whom Fatah chose to glorify killed 75 and wounded over 350 people in total. They were:

Dalal Mughrabi, bus hijacker (37 killed)

Hanadi Jaradat, suicide bomber (21 killed)

Andalib Takatka, suicide bomber (6 killed)

Hiba Daraghmeh, suicide bomber (3 killed)

Ayyat Al-Akhras, suicide bomber (2 killed)

Zainab Abu Salem, suicide bomber (2 killed)

Wafa Idris, suicide bomber (1 killed)

Mirfat Mas’oud suicide bomber (1 wounded)

Darin Abu Aisheh, suicide bomber (3 wounded)

The background of these people are:

Dalal Mughrabi – led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history, known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978, when she and other Fatah terrorists hijacked a bus on Israel’s Coastal Highway, killing 37 civilians, 12 of them children, and wounding over 70.

Ayyat Al-Akhras – The youngest female Palestinian suicide bomber (aged 17). Belonging to Fatah, she blew herself up near a Jerusalem supermarket on March 29, 2002, killing 2 and wounding 28. Israel transferred the terrorist’s body to the PA on Feb. 2, 2014.

Wafa Idris – The first Palestinian female suicide bomber. Belonging to Fatah, she blew herself up on Jaffa Road in central Jerusalem on Jan. 27, 2002, killing 1 and wounding over 100. As a volunteer for the Palestinian Red Crescent she was able to bypass Israeli security and enter Jerusalem in a Palestinian ambulance.

Darin Abu Aisheh – Female suicide bomber from Fatah who blew herself up at the Makkabim checkpoint between Modiin and Jerusalem on Feb. 27, 2002 after she was asked to get out her car for inspection, wounding 3 police officers.

Andalib Takatka – Female suicide bomber from Fatah who blew herself up on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem on April 12, 2002, killing 6 and wounding more than 80.

Zainab Abu Salem – Female suicide bomber from Fatah who blew herself up at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem on Sept. 22, 2004, killing 2 Israeli border policemen and wounding approximately 30.

Hiba Daraghmeh – Female suicide bomber from the Islamic Jihad who blew herself up at the Amakim shopping mall in Afula on May 19, 2003, killing 3.

Hanadi Jaradat – Female suicide bomber from the Islamic Jihad who blew herself up at the Maksim restaurant in Haifa on Oct. 4, 2003, killing 21 people and wounding over 50.

Mirfat Mas’oud – Female suicide bomber from the Islamic Jihad who blew herself up near Israeli soldiers in Beit Hanoun on Nov. 6, 2006, wounding 1 soldier.

Hamas, the Manipulation Mission

Hamas Interior Ministry To Social Media Activists: Always Call The Dead ‘Innocent Civilians’; Don’t Post Photos Of Rockets Being Fired From Civilian Population Centers

Courtesy of MEMRI

In light of the recent round of fighting in Gaza, the Hamas interior ministry has issued guidelines to Gaza Strip social media users for reporting events and discussing them with outsiders.

The ministry’s guidelines, which it is calling the “Be Aware – Social Media Activist Awareness Campaign,” were issued via an instructional video posted on its official website and via posters published on its Twitter and Facebook pages. Both the video and the posters were also posted on the ministry’s social media accounts and forums.[1]

The guidelines are aimed at ensuring preservation of the line of Hamas and other Palestinian organizations; preventing the leaking of information that would be of military value to Israel; bolstering Hamas’s propaganda efforts outside the Gaza Strip, in both the Arab world and the West; and preventing damage to Hamas’s image. Hamas particularly seeks to cement the perceptions that its actions are a response to Israeli aggression and that all Gaza casualties are “innocent civilians,” and to ensure that there is no evidence of rockets being fired from Gaza population centers.

The Hamas interior ministry website included the following text along with its instructional video: “The Information Department of the Ministry of the Interior and National Security has instructed activists on social media websites, particularly Facebook, to correct some of the commonly used terms as they cover the aggression taking place in the Gaza Strip. The following Information Department video calls on all activists to use the proper terminology, in order to play their part in strengthening the home front and in properly conveying information worldwide.”[2]


“Be Aware – Social Media Activist Awareness Campaign” instructional video posted on official Hamas interior ministry Facebook page


Message to Facebook activists on Hamas interior ministry website

Following are excerpts from the guidelines:

“Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine, before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank. Don’t forget to always add ‘innocent civilian’ or ‘innocent citizen’ in your description of those killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

“Begin [your reports of] news of resistance actions with the phrase ‘In response to the cruel Israeli attack,’ and conclude with the phrase ‘This many people have been martyred since Israel launched its aggression against Gaza.’ Be sure to always perpetuate the principle of ‘the role of the occupation is attack, and we in Palestine are fulfilling [the role of] the reaction.’

“Beware of spreading rumors from Israeli spokesmen, particularly those that harm the home front. Be wary regarding accepting the occupation’s version [of events]. You must always cast doubts on this [version], disprove it, and treat it as false.

“Avoid publishing pictures of rockets fired into Israel from [Gaza] city centers. This [would] provide a pretext for attacking residential areas in the Gaza Strip. Do not publish or share photos or video clips showing rocket launching sites or the movement of resistance [forces] in Gaza.

“To the administrators of news pages on Facebook: Do not publish close-ups of masked men with heavy weapons, so that your page will not be shut down [by Facebook] on the claim that you are inciting violence. In your coverage, be sure that you say: ‘The locally manufactured shells fired by the resistance are a natural response to the Israeli occupation that deliberately fires rockets against civilians in the West Bank and Gaza’…”

Additionally, the interior ministry prepared a series of suggestions specifically for Palestinian activists who speak to Westerners via social media. The ministry emphasizes that conversations with them should be conducted differently from conversations with other Arabs. It stated:

  • “When speaking to the West, you must use political, rational, and persuasive discourse, and avoid emotional discourse aimed at begging for sympathy. There are elements with a conscience in the world; you must maintain contact with them and activate them for the benefit of Palestine. Their role is to shame the occupation and expose its violations.
  • “Avoid entering into a political argument with a Westerner aimed at convincing him that the Holocaust is a lie and deceit; instead, equate it with Israel’s crimes against Palestinian civilians.
  • “The narrative of life vs. the narrative of blood: [When speaking] to an Arab friend, start with the number of martyrs. [But when speaking] to a Western friend, start with the number of wounded and dead. Be sure to humanize the Palestinian suffering. Try to paint a picture of the suffering of the civilians in Gaza and the West Bank during the occupation’s operations and its bombings of cities and villages.
  • “Do not publish photos of military commanders. Do not mention their names in public, and do not praise their achievements in conversations with foreign friends!”


Posters on the Hamas interior ministry Facebook page

Endnotes:

[1] Facebook.com/moigovps, July 9, 2014.

[2] Moi.gov.ps, July 11, 2014. The video was also uploaded to the ministry’s YouTube channel,  Youtube.com/channel/UCR_ij9aO3tu4kdAV4mdEYPg.

Clinton, Gaza, Palestinians, Islam and an Airport

At this moment in time, Israel has been forced into an operation to stop rockets, weapons smuggling via tunnels and to finally establish some quiet where those inside Israel don’t have to seek shelter from rocket fire several times a day.

The lasting phrase ‘Pray for Peace, Prepare for War’ has been a daily objective by Israel as the hostilities from four sides must stop. Israel has since really never enjoyed the full scope of the promise in a signed agreement that included President Bill Clinton.

Let us go back and remember what Bill Clinton did and said and how shallow and fleeting it later became.

Remarks to the Palestine National Council and Other Palestinian Organizations in Gaza City
December 14, 1998

Thank you. Mr. Speaker—Mr. Za’anoun, Chairman Arafat, Mrs. Arafat; members of the Palestinian National Council, the Palestinian Central Council, the Palestinian Executive Committee, Palestinian Council heads of ministries; leaders of business and religion; to all members of the Palestinian community; and to my fellow Americans who come here from many walks of life, Arab-American, Jewish-American: This is a remarkable day. Today the eyes of the world are on you.

I am profoundly honored to be the first American President to address the Palestinian people in a city governed by Palestinians.

I have listened carefully to all that has been said. I have watched carefully the reactions of all of you to what has been said. I know that the Palestinian people stand at a crossroads: behind you a history of dispossession and dispersal, before you the opportunity to shape a new Palestinian future on your own land.

I know the way is often difficult and frustrating, but you have come to this point through a commitment to peace and negotiations. You reaffirmed that commitment today. I believe it is the only way to fulfill the aspirations of your people. And I am profoundly grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Chairman Arafat for the cause of peace, to come here as a friend of peace and a friend of your future, and to witness you raising your hands, standing up tall, standing up not only against what you believe is wrong but for what you believe is right in the future.

I was sitting here thinking that this moment would have been inconceivable a decade ago: no Palestinian Authority; no elections in Gaza and the West Bank; no relations between the United States and Palestinians; no Israeli troop redeployments from the West Bank and Gaza; no Palestinians in charge in Gaza, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Tulkarem, Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, and so many other places; there was no Gaza International Airport.

Today I had the privilege of cutting the ribbon on the international airport. Hillary and I, along with Chairman and Mrs. Arafat, celebrated a place that will become a magnet for planes from throughout the Middle East and beyond, bringing you a future in which Palestinians can travel directly to the far corners of the world; a future in which it is easier and cheaper to bring materials, technology, and expertise in and out of Gaza; a future in which tourists and traders can flock here, to this beautiful place on the Mediterranean; a future, in short, in which the Palestinian people are connected to the world.

I am told that just a few months ago, at a time of profound pessimism in the peace process, your largest exporter of fruit and flowers was prepared to plow under a field of roses, convinced the airport would never open. But Israelis and Palestinians came to agreement at Wye River, the airport has opened, and now I am told that company plans to export roses and carnations to Europe and throughout the Gulf, a true flowering of Palestinian promise.

I come here today to talk about that promise, to ask you to rededicate yourselves to it, to ask you to think for a moment about how we can get beyond the present state of things where every step forward is like, as we say in America, pulling teeth. Where there is still, in spite of the agreement at Wye—achieved because we don’t need much sleep, and we worked so hard, and Mr. Netanyahu worked with us, and we made this agreement. But I want to talk to you about how we can get beyond this moment, where there is still so much mistrust and misunderstanding and quite a few missteps.

You did a good thing today in raising your hands. You know why? It has nothing to do with the government in Israel. You will touch the people of Israel.

I want the people of Israel to know that for many Palestinians, 5 years after Oslo, the benefits of this process remain remote; that for too many Palestinians lives are hard, jobs are scarce, prospects are uncertain, and personal grief is great. I know that tremendous pain remains as a result of losses suffered from violence, the separation of families, the restrictions on the movement of people and goods. I understand your concerns about settlement activity, land confiscation, and home demolitions. I understand your concerns and theirs about unilateral statements that could prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations. I understand, in short, that there’s still a good deal of misunderstanding 5 years after the beginning of this remarkable process.

It takes time to change things and still more time for change to benefit everyone. It takes determination and courage to make peace and sometimes even more to persevere for peace. But slowly but surely, the peace agreements are turning into concrete progress: the transfer of territories, the Gaza industrial estate, and the airport. These changes will make a difference in many Palestinian lives.

I thank you—I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership for peace and your perseverance, for enduring all the criticism from all sides, for being willing to change course, and for being strong enough to stay with what is right. You have done a remarkable thing for your people.

America is determined to do what we can to bring tangible benefits of peace. I am proud that the roads we traveled on to get here were paved, in part, with our assistance, as were hundreds of miles of roads that knit together towns and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

Two weeks ago in Washington, we joined with other nations to pledge hundreds of millions of dollars toward your development, including health care and clean water, education for your children, rule of law projects that nurture democracy. Today I am pleased to announce we will also fund the training of Palestinian health care providers and airport administrators, increase our support to Palestinian refugees. And next year I will ask the Congress for another several hundred million dollars to support the development of the Palestinian people.

But make no mistake about it, all this was made possible because of what you did, because 5 years ago you made a choice for peace, and because through all the tough times since, when in your own mind you had a hundred good reasons to walk away, you didn’t. Because you still harbor the wisdom that led to the Oslo accords, that led to the signing in Washington in September of ’93, you still can raise your hand and stand and lift your voice for peace.

Mr. Chairman, you said some profound words today in embracing the idea that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace as neighbors. Again I say, you have led the way, and we would not be here without you.

I say to all of you, I can come here and work; I can bring you to America, and we can work; but in the end, this is up to you—you and the Israelis—for you have to live with the consequences of what you do. I can help because I believe it is my job to do so; I believe it is my duty to do so; because America has Palestinian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, other Arab-Americans who desperately want us to be helpful. But in the end, you have to decide what the understanding will be, and you have to decide whether we can get beyond the present moment where there is still, for all the progress we have made, so much mistrust. And the people who are listening to us today in Israel, they have to make the same decisions.

Peace must mean many things: legitimate rights for Palestinians—[applause]—thank you— legitimate rights for Palestinians, real security for Israel. But it must begin with something even more basic: mutual recognition, seeing people who are different, with whom there have been profound differences, as people.

I’ve had two profoundly emotional experiences in the last less than 24 hours. I was with Chairman Arafat, and four little children came to see me whose fathers are in Israeli prisons. Last night, I met some little children whose fathers had been killed in conflict with Palestinians, at the dinner that Prime Minister Netanyahu had for me. Those children brought tears to my eyes. We have to find a way for both sets of children to get their lives back and to go forward.

Palestinians must recognize the right of Israel and its people to live safe and secure lives today, tomorrow, and forever. Israel must recognize the right of Palestinians to aspire to live free today, tomorrow, and forever.

And I ask you to remember these experiences I had with these two groups of children. If I had met them in reverse order, I would not have known which ones were Israeli and which Palestinian. If they had all been lined up in a row and I had seen their tears, I could not tell whose father was dead and whose father was in prison or what the story of their lives were, making up the grief that they bore. We must acknowledge that neither side has a monopoly on pain or virtue.

At the end of America’s Civil War, in my home State, a man was elected Governor who had fought with President Lincoln’s forces, even though most of the people in my home State fought with the secessionist forces. And he made his inaugural speech after 4 years of unbelievable bloodshed in America, in which he had been on the winning side but in the minority in our home. And everyone wondered what kind of leader he would be. His first sentence was, “We have all done wrong.” I say that because I think the beginning of mutual respect, after so much pain, is to recognize not only the positive characteristics of people on both sides but the fact that there has been a lot—a lot—of hurt and harm.

The fulfillment of one side’s aspirations must not come at the expense of the other. We must believe that everyone can win in the new Middle East. It does not hurt Israelis to hear Palestinians peacefully and pridefully asserting their identity, as we saw today. That is not a bad thing. And it does not hurt Palestinians to acknowledge the profound desire of Israelis to live without fear. It is in this spirit that I ask you to consider where we go from here.

I thank you for your rejection fully, finally, and forever of the passages in the Palestinian Charter calling for the destruction of Israel, for they were the ideological underpinnings of a struggle renounced at Oslo. By revoking them once and for all, you have sent, I say again, a powerful message not to the Government but to the people of Israel. You will touch people on the street there. You will reach their hearts there.

I know how profoundly important this is to Israelis. I have been there four times as President. I have spent a lot of time with people other than the political leaders, Israeli schoolchildren who heard about you only as someone who thought they should be driven into the sea. They did not know what their parents or grandparents did that you thought was so bad; they were just children, too. Is it surprising that all this has led to the hardening of hearts on both sides, that they refused to acknowledge your existence as a people and that led to a terrible reaction by you?

By turning this page on the past, you are taking the lead in writing a new story for the future. And you have issued a challenge to the Government and the leaders of Israel to walk down that path with you. I thank you for doing that. The children of all the Middle East thank you.

But declaring a change of heart still won’t be enough. Let’s be realistic here. First of all, there are real differences. And secondly, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, as we used to say at home. An American poet has written, “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.” Palestinians and Israelis in their pasts both share a history of oppression and dispossession; both have felt their hearts turn to stone for living too long in fear and seeing loved ones die too young. You are two great people of strong talent and soaring ambition, sharing such a small piece of sacred land.

The time has come to sanctify your holy ground with genuine forgiveness and reconciliation. Every influential Palestinian, from teacher to journalist, from politician to community leader, must make this a mission to banish from the minds of children glorifying suicide bombers, to end the practice of speaking peace in one place and preaching hatred in another, to teach schoolchildren the value of peace and the waste of war, to break the cycle of violence. Our great American prophet Martin Luther King once said, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.”

I believe you have gained more in 5 years of peace than in 45 years of war. I believe that what we are doing today, working together for security, will lead to further gains and changes in the heart. I believe that our work against terrorism, if you stand strong, will be rewarded, for that must become a fact of the past. It must never be a part of your future.

Let me say this as clearly as I can: No matter how sharp a grievance or how deep a hurt, there is no justification for killing innocents.

Mr. Chairman, you said at the White House that no Israeli mother should have to worry if her son or daughter is late coming home. Your words touched many people. You said much the same thing today. We must invest those words with the weight of reality in the minds of every person in Israel and every Palestinian.

I feel this all the more strongly because the act of a few can falsify the image of the many. How many times have we seen it? How many times has it happened to us? We both know it is profoundly wrong to equate Palestinians, in particular, and Islam, in general, with terrorism or to see a fundamental conflict between Islam and the West. For the vast majority of the more than one billion Muslims in the world, tolerance is an article of faith and terrorism a travesty of faith.

I know that in my own country, where Islam is one of the fastest growing religions, we share the same devotion to family and hard work and community. When it comes to relations between the United States and Palestinians, we have come far to overcome our misperceptions of each other. Americans have come to appreciate the strength of your identity and the depth of your aspirations. And we have learned to listen to your grievances as well.

I hope you have begun to see America as your friend. I have tried to speak plainly to you about the need to reach out to the people of Israel, to understand the pain of their children, to understand the history of their fear and mistrust, their yearning, gnawing desire for security, because that is the only way friends can speak and the only way we can move forward.

I took the same liberty yesterday in Israel. I talked there about the need to see one’s own mistakes, not just those of others; to recognize the steps others have taken for peace, not just one’s own; to break out of the politics of absolutes; to treat one’s neighbors with respect and dignity. I talked about the profound courage of both peoples and their leaders which must continue in order for a secure, just, and lasting peace to occur: the courage of Israelis to continue turning over territory for peace and security; the courage of Palestinians to take action against all those who resort to and support violence and terrorism; the courage of Israelis to guarantee safe passage between the West Bank and Gaza and allow for greater trade and development; the courage of Palestinians to confiscate illegal weapons of war and terror; the courage of Israelis to curtail closures and curfews that remain a daily hardship; the courage of Palestinians to resolve all differences at the negotiating table; the courage of both peoples to abandon the rhetoric of hate that still poisons public discourse and limits the vision of your children; and the courage to move ahead to final status negotiations together, without either side taking unilateral steps or making unilateral statements that could prejudice the outcome, whether governing refugee settlements, borders, Jerusalem, or any other issues encompassed by the Oslo accord.

Now, it will take good faith, mutual respect, and compromise to forge a final agreement. I think there will be more breakdowns, frankly, but I think there will be more breakthroughs, as well. There will be more challenges to peace from its enemies. And so I ask you today never to lose sight of how far you have come. With Chairman Arafat’s leadership, already you have accomplished what many said was impossible. The seemingly intractable problems of the past can clearly find practical solutions in the future. But it requires a consistent commitment and a genuine willingness to change heart.

As we approach this new century, think of this, think of all the conflicts in the 20th century that many people thought were permanent that have been healed or are healing: two great World Wars between the French and the Germans—they’re best friends; the Americans and the Russians, the whole cold war—now we have a constructive partnership; the Irish Catholics and Protestants; the Chinese and the Japanese; the black and white South Africans; the Serbs, the Croats, and the Muslims in Bosnia—all have turned from conflict to cooperation. Yes, there is still some distrust; yes, there’s still some difficulty; but they are walking down the right road together. And when they see each other’s children, increasingly they only see children, together. When they see the children crying, they realize the pain is real, whatever the child’s story. In each case there was a vision of greater peace and prosperity and security.

In Biblical times, Jews and Arabs lived side by side. They contributed to the flowering of Alexandria. During the Golden Age of Spain, Jews, Muslims, and Christians came together in an era of remarkable tolerance and learning. A third of the population laid down its tools on Friday, a third on Saturday, a third on Sunday. They were scholars and scientists, poets, musicians, merchants, and statesmen setting an example of peaceful coexistence that we can make a model for the future. There is no guarantee of success or failure today, but the challenge of this generation of Palestinians is to wage an historic and heroic struggle for peace.

Again I say this is an historic day. I thank you for coming. I thank you for raising your hands. I thank you for standing up. I thank you for your voices. I thank you for clapping every time I said what you were really doing was reaching deep into the heart of the people of Israel.

Chairman Arafat said he and Mrs. Arafat are taking Hillary and Chelsea and me—we’re going to Bethlehem tomorrow. For a Christian family to light the Christmas tree in Bethlehem is a great honor. It is an interesting thing to contemplate that in this small place, the home of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the embodiment of my faith was born a Jew and is still recognized by Muslims as a prophet. He said a lot of very interesting things, but in the end, He was known as the Prince of Peace. And we celebrate at Christmastime the birth of the Prince of Peace. One reason He is known as the Prince of Peace is He knew something about what it takes to make peace. And one of the wisest things He ever said was, “We will be judged by the same standard by which we judge, but mercy triumphs over judgment.”

In this Christmas season, in this Hanukkah season, on the edge of Ramadan, this is a time for mercy and vision and looking at all of our children together. You have reaffirmed the fact that you now intend to share this piece of land, without war, with your neighbors, forever. They have heard you. They have heard you.

Now, you and they must now determine what kind of peace you will have. Will it be grudging and mean-spirited and confining, or will it be generous and open? Will you begin to judge each other in the way you would like to be judged? Will you begin to see each other’s children in the way you see your own? Will they feel your pain, and will you understand theirs?

Surely to goodness, after 5 years of this peace process and decades of suffering and after you have come here today and done what you have done, we can say, “Enough of this gnashing of teeth. Let us join hands and proudly go forward together.”

Thank you very much.

Note: Rocket attacks on Israel history here.

Israel bombed the airport in 2001 due to 2nd Intifada.

 


NOTE: The President spoke at 5:30 p.m. in the Main Hall at the Shawwa Center. In his remarks, he referred to Speaker Salim Za’anoun of the Palestine National Council; Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority, and his wife Shua; and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel.

 

 

Ukraine Then and Now and How

Sadly, the world witnessed a tragedy when almost 300 people perished at the border of Ukraine and Russia. Almost immediately there was looting by murders, thugs, arms smugglers, well just the exact model of terrorists.

The media continues to call these people in the Donetsk region of Ukraine ‘pro-Russian separatists. They are exactly not that. They are ‘Soviet Loyalists’, the old Soviet Union Tzarists that use precisely the same tactics commonly applied by KGB operatives. What is worse, not only has Putin assigned these people to Eastern Ukraine, but most were chosen for these specific tactics.

Ukraine territory going back to the 1700’s lived under two rules and struggles for control by both the Russian and Poles/Austrians. After the second World War, Eastern Ukraine slowly and fully assumed Soviet culture.

One the KGB faded with the break-up of the Soviet Union, the FSB was created along with GRU, the intelligence wing of the Kremlin and the Spetsnaz, hostile special forces were expanded. It is also noted that most of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States are all ruled by Communist parties. Authoritarian politics still exists. There are 29 post Communist countries but the remnants within rule has not eroded including religion, educationally,  civil liberties and even economically. These conditions leave major opportunities for fraud, corruption, conflicts of interest and activism.

 

Now it is also important to understand the history of the Eastern Ukraine region and why it is so easy for Putin to annex the area into his control.

  • The Donetsk was founded by a Welsh businessman who built a coal industry and a large steel business forming an industrial center.
  • During the Soviet days, Donetsk was actually named Stalin/Stalino, at one point the city was even named Trotsk, after Leon Trotsky.
  • There are 430 streets in the Donetsk and Luhansk named for Vladimir Lenin.
  • In the 1920-30’s Donetsk Oblast advanced and constructed a city wide water and sewage system and began exploring gas as an energy resource.
  • In 1939, Soviet annexation took place under a secret clause of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which included the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
  • The Nazi invasion for the most part destroyed the city and it was this time that an estimated 3000 Jews died and 100,000 people were killed in concentration camps.
  • Nikita Khrushchev later renamed the city Donetsk due to the Donets river.
  • Sometime later gangs took over the region and assumed control of industry and it was then that living conditions became so bad for residents that revolutions took place most recently the Rose Revolution in 2004 then the Orange Revolution in 2004.
  • At one point in 1994, Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power, which it inherited from the Soviet Union on a pledge not to use military force as an independent nation. Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum on security assurances that included signatories of U.S., Russia and the U.K..
  • The Budapest Memorandum was actually a mutual agreement where Ukraine would be protected by the West against an invasion by Russia. This document is binding by International law.
  • Nuclear weapons were also held in Belarus and Kazakhstan. These were removed by Russia in 1992.
  • The United States paid the largest part of the expense in removing the weapons from the region, delivering them to Russia, this included ICBM’s, silos, strategic bombers.
  • During these revolutions, philanthropist George Soros funded NGO’s training participants in the fueling of the revolutions and was quickly targeted by Ukraine and Russian leadership and it was at this time the anti-American attitudes were re-born.
  • Soros tried once again to do the same in 2010 using the Arab Spring as a newer model and for the most part failed.
  • There are over 100 ethnic groups in the Donetsk region, yet Russian is the common language.
  • In the Donetsk Oblast, the highest proportion of people claimed allegiance to Soviet Identity.
  • The Party of Regions (Soviet culture) was established in 2001 which has deep historical ties to Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU).
  • For some order and restoration, Ukraine in 2004 declared her intention of seeking NATO membership and the United States took advantage to build a relationship with Ukraine especially during the Iraq war making use of resources.
  • It was this time that once again Ukraine as a total become a larger divided house between pro-Western supporters versus that of the Eastern side of Ukraine that remained anti-West.

Russia today seeing the past weaknesses of Ukraine and the faithful loyalty of the Eastern region to the old Soviet model, it was with east that Putin was able to install his propaganda, military and fighters to begin his expansion of Soviet territory beyond his successful annexation of Crimea.

 

Ukraine has been a divided country that has been desperate in objectives attempting to satisfy ethnic groups for peaceful, economic, political and security standards. When this country or any country is experiencing split cultures, histories, religions, industries, separations, fraudulent political strife it is ripe for the take-over as witnessed in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

The Russian oligarchs have long invested in the energy resources in Ukraine and have bought influence there for the sake of lasting loyalty. For Putin to install his hostilities and proxy armies into Eastern Ukraine was an easy feat due mostly to attitudes, culture and historical ethnicity. These are Putin’s old school tactics he was once personally a part of and he and his ilk from the old Soviet Union have employed all the familiar characteristics where making it new again with aggressions such as employing Spetsnaz teams in Eastern Ukraine to shoot down commercial airlines.

Question is now, who will forcefully challenge Putin with on his next quest, there is no more global leadership and certainly none coming from the United States where the legacy of America has always been to provide some offensive measures to keep stability, equilibrium and a less messy world.

For further reading on the subject:

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/05/trilateral-process-pifer

http://www.academia.edu/2041738/Post-Soviet_Authoritarianism_The_Influence_of_Russia_in_its_Near_Abroad_