Saturday 11 January 2020

No, Islamophobia is not the same as antisemitism

Islamists and their apologists have been increasingly promoting the false narrative that “Islamophobia” is no different from antisemitism.
Uzay Bulut, | updated: 10:59
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25013



Murderous violence against Jewish people in the West – by Islamists and others - is getting alarmingly commonplace. Meanwhile, many Islamists and their apologists have been increasingly promoting the false narrative that “Islamophobia” is no different from antisemitism.

For instance, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on March 22 called for a global fight against “rising Islamophobia” like the one against “antisemitism after the Holocaust”. He said in his address at a meeting of ministers from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC): “Just as humanity fought against antisemitism after the Holocaust disaster, it should fight against rising Islamophobia in the same determined fashion.”

Erdogan has long been making misleading analogies between “Islamophobia” and antisemitism as well as fascism and Zionism, a movement that defends the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and espouses support for a Jewish state in the historic Land of Israel.

“Islamophobia must be recognized as a crime against humanity in the same fashion that Zionism, antisemitism and fascism should be,” Erdogan said at the “Fifth Alliance of Civilizations Forum” in Vienna in 2013.

What Erdogan and other Islamists are trying to do is put the victims of violence – the Jewish people – in the same category as the perpetrators of violence or murderous hate- speech – the Islamist anti-Semites.

 “Every single fatal jihadi terrorist attack on Jews in the West between 2012 and 2019 took place in Europe, suggesting the continent is now at the focal point of the jihadi terror threat against Jews in the West,” Mitchell D. Silber, the former Director of Intelligence Analysis at the New York City Police Department and currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s graduate School for Public and International Affairs, wrote in June, 2019.

He continued: “Four deadly terrorist attacks occurred in Europe between 2012 and 2019, which were carried out by individuals motivated to attack explicitly Jewish targets by violent Islamist ideology.”
However, we are constantly “warned” by Islamists and their allies not to engage in “Islamophobia” even when Islamists are targeting and murdering innocent people for believing or thinking differently.
Unlike antisemitism -- which is defined by the 31 member states of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred…toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities” -- Islamophobia is a term that, according to the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner, was invented in the late 1970s by Iranian fundamentalists to “declare Islam inviolate.”

The term was re-introduced in a February 1997 consultation paper, titled “Islamophobia its features and dangers,” produced by the U.K.-based think tank, the Runnymede Trust – which in 1996 had established the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia. In November 1997, the Runnymede Trust published a follow-up a report called “Islamophobia: a challenge for us all.”
As Bruckner pointed out in a scathing essay that was first published in the French daily, Libération, in 2010,

“The term ‘Islamophobia’ serves a number of functions: it denies the reality of an Islamic offensive in Europe all the better to justify it; it attacks secularism by equating it with fundamentalism. Above all, however, it wants to silence all those Muslims who question the Koran, who demand equality of the sexes, who claim the right to renounce religion, and who want to practice their faith freely and without submitting to the dictates of the bearded and doctrinaire. It follows that young girls are stigmatized for not wearing the veil, as are French, German or English citizens of Maghribi, Turkish, African or Algerian origin who demand the right to religious indifference, the right not to believe in God, the right not to fast during Ramadan. Fingers are pointed at these renegades, they are delivered up to the wrath of their religions communities in order to quash all hope of change among the followers of the Prophet.”

In other words, what antisemitism and “Islamophobia” have in common is nothing. ‘Islamophobia’ is actually a deliberate Islamist goal.

“Forget about ‘Islamophobia’ as a social ill akin to racism,” writes Dr. Andrew Bostom, the author of The Legacy Of Jihad: Islamic Holy War And The Fate Of Non-Muslims.

“The creation of fear of Islam is a sacred obligation of faithful Muslims. Fjordman reminds us how the great contemporary Dutch scholar of Islam Hans Jansen, has observed that the Koran, for example 8:60, the verse alluded to in the Muslim Brotherhood emblem,
‘...actually commands Muslims to instill fear of Islam ‘Islamophobia’ into the hearts of non-Muslims, using any means necessary to force them to submit to Islam's might.’”

Bostom explains that this motif -- instilling terror in non-Muslims -- is repeated in Koranic verses such as 3:151 and 8:12, the statements by Islam’s founder, Mohammed, (“hadith”) and his biography ("sira”).

“Koran 8:60 states,
"‘Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of God and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom God doth know.’

“3:151 ‘We shall cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve because they ascribe unto Allah partners, for which no warrant hath been revealed. Their habitation is the Fire, and hapless the abode of the wrong-doers.’

“8:12 ‘(Remember) when your Lord inspired the angels, 'Verily, I am with you, so keep firm those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes.'

“Muhammad reiterates this directive in the most important canonical hadith collection (Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220), stating, ‘I have been made victorious with terror’.”
Bostom concludes: “Today, this true doctrinal and historical meaning of Islamophobia has undergone an Orwellian transformation. Our media and political elites, cowering in submission to the cultural jihadist dictates of the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood front groups which dominate institutional American Islam, now claim ‘Islamophobia’ is an unwarranted, even discriminatory fear of Muslims and their creed.”

Then why are Islamists making such a fuss about “Islamophobia” when terrifying non-Muslims is actually an Islamist duty?

For the term “Islamophobia” that is promoted particularly in the West appears to aim for censorship on the much-needed criticism of the Islamic ideology that has resulted in the annihilation or repression of millions of people including Muslims.

antisemitism or Jew-hatred, however, has historically resulted in severe rights violations, pogroms, and even genocide against Jewish people. Moreover, many Islamists who keep pushing the false narrative that “Islamophobia is the new antisemitism” are themselves anti-Semites and are motivated by the many violent anti-Semitic teachings in the Islamic theology.

Erdogan, for instance, invoked a hadith to sanction killing Jews during a “World Human Rights Day” event on December 11, 2017. "[T]hose who think they own Jerusalem should know that tomorrow they won't be able to hide behind trees," Erdogan proclaimed.

The full hadith that Erdogan referred to says, "The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews."


Herein lies the tragedy: 

Banning the legitimate 
criticisms of the Islamic 
 theology to stop
“Islamophobia” will only
 empower jihadists and 
further harm the victims 
of that ideology.


In his review of Dr. Bostom’s “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism From Sacred Texts to Solemn History”, scholar Raymond Ibrahim writes,

“Far from being a by-product of Western antisemitism or the creation of Israel, animosity toward the Jews has a firm doctrinal base tracing back to Islam's most authoritative texts.

“Koranic verse after verse, hadith after hadith, castigate, condemn and curse the Jews; they are called ‘corrupters,’ ‘exploiters,’ ‘distorters,’ ‘prophet-killers,’ and, most infamously, ‘pigs and monkeys.’ Such slanderous words are contained in the Koran (the eternal words of Allah) and the Hadith (the words of Islam's prophet). Thus, Muslim hostility for Jews clearly has little to do with circumstance or politics.”

Furthermore, the anti-Semitic teachings in Islam seem to have played a large role in the ethnic cleansing of Jews in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf region. Jews in those regions suffered centuries-long, systematic pressures and oppression under Muslim regimes.

Following the Muslim conquest of the region in the 7th and 8th centuries, under Islamic rule, Jews and Christians became “dhimmis”, second-class subjects forced to buy their lives by paying the heavy “jizya” tax to Muslim rulers. Through the 20th century, the persecution of Jews in Muslim countries continued and more than 850,000 Jews were eventually forced out of Arab countries and Iran, where they had lived for over 2,500 years – fully 1,000 years before the advent of Islam.
Although the history of Jewish persecution in Europe and Russia is well-documented, the Jewish persecution in the Muslim world has largely been ignored by academics. Perhaps, it is partly the fear of being called an “Islamophobe” that has prevented many academics from investigating and writing about the Jewish persecution in Muslim societies.

And Islamists are now importing their murderous Jew-hatred to Europe and northern America. A few examples:
  • In Belgium, a high school teacher in Brussels shared a Facebook video of an imam calling for a jihad, or holy war, against the Jews and those who “conspire” with them. Talal Magri, who teaches about Islam as part of the religions major at the Royal Agri Saint-Georges Athenaeum, posted the video in November, 2019 of an unidentified man preaching in Arabic, the La Dernière Heure website reported.  “Those who cooperate, work, conspire with the Jews, Allah, take them without delay. Shake their bases and topple their buildings, Allah. Support the jihad fighters, whom some of us find excuses not to join,” the preacher is seen saying.
  • In Denmark, imam Mundhir Abdallah of Copenhagen’s Al-Faruq mosque, referred to the hadith calling for Muslims to rise up against Jews. “Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them,” Abdallah said in a Facebook and YouTube video post in March, 2018. 
  • In Spain, imam Saleheoldine al-Moussaoui of the municipality of Azuqueca De Henares near Madrid said in a Friday sermon in 2017: “Oh Allah, destroy the plundering Jews… count them one by one, and do not spare a single one of them.”
  • In France, Toulouse imam, Mohamed Tatai, in a sermon delivered in 2017, recited the same Hadith, stating that on Judgment Day, the Muslims will kill the Jews. He told his listeners that “prophet Mohammed told us about the final and decisive battle: ‘Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the stones and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him – except for the Gharqad tree, which is one of the trees of the Jews.’” The December 15, 2017 sermon was posted on the YouTube channel of the Grande Mosquée de Toulouse on January 30.
  • In the US, Pittsburgh Imam Naeem Abdullah - in lectures uploaded to his YouTube channel between October 2016 and December 2018 - said Jews “make a mockery of their religion,” and “have all the money.” He added: “If you look deeper behind the scenes, Jews [sic] running everything,” and said some Jews “were turned into monkeys and pigs, literally.”
  • In Canada, in 2014, sheikh Wael AlGhitawi, an imam at a Montreal mosque, asked Allah during a sermon to “destroy the accursed Jews,” and “kill them one by one.” In another sermon in 2017, the imam said that Jews were “people who slayed the prophets, shed their blood and cursed the Lord.”
Apparently, 75 years after the Holocaust, the calls to “kill the Jews” are being made again across Western countries – this time mostly by imams and other Muslims. However, in November of last year, Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen, the secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), “demanded the introduction of an international law to criminalize all acts of Islamophobia,” reported the website Arab News.

Herein lies the tragedy: Banning the legitimate criticisms of the Islamic theology to stop “Islamophobia” will only empower jihadists and further harm the victims of that ideology. Even if “Islamophobia” is legally criminalized internationally one day, Islamic violence against Muslims and non-Muslims will continue and probably will get even worse as there will be no one left to criticize the ideas motivating jihadist terror, hatred and abuse.

A good place to begin the battle is to stop spreading the lie that “Islamophobia” is the same as antisemitism.


Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist; political analyst and Muslim affiars expert formerly based in Ankara. Her writings have appeared in various outlets such as the Washington Times, Christian Post, Arutz Sheva, Jerusalem Post and Gatestone Institute.

Congress Can’t Make War

Drought ignites human-wildlife conflict in Zimbabwe

JANUARY 11, 2020, by Ish Mafundikwa

Taken on November 12, 2019 it shows the carcass of an elephant that succumbed to drought in the Hwange National Park, in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwean villager Dumisani Khumalo appeared to be in pain as he walked gingerly towards a chair under the shade of a tree near his one-room brick shack.

The 45-year-old was attacked by a buffalo days earlier, and he was lucky to be on his feet.

Wild animals in Zimbabwe were responsible for the deaths of at least 36 people in 2019, up from 20 in the previous year.

"I thank God that I survived the attack," said Khumalo with a laugh, making light of the fact that the buffalo almost ripped off his genitals.

Authorities recorded 311 animal attacks on people last year, up from 195 in 2018.

The attacks have been blamed on a devastating drought in Zimbabwe which has seen hungry animals breaking out of game reserves, raiding human settlements in search of food and water.

"The cases include attacks on humans, their livestock and crops," said national parks spokesman Tinashe Farawo.

He said elephants caused most fatalities, while hippos, buffalos, lions, hyenas and crocodile also contributed to the toll.

Hwange National Park, which is half the size of Belgium, is Zimbabwe's largest game park and is situated next to the famed Victoria Falls. The park is not fenced off.

Animals breach the buffer and "cross over to look for water and food as there is little or none left in the forest area," Farawo said

Starving animals

Khumalo vividly remembers the attack.

More than 200 elephants starved to death over three months last year



He was walking in a forest near his Ndlovu-Kachechete village to register for food aid, when he heard dogs barking.

Suddenly a buffalo emerged from the bush and charged, hitting him in the chest and tossing him to the ground.

It went for his groin and used its horn to rip off part of the skin around his penis.

Khumalo grabbed the buffalo's leg, kicked it in the eye and it scampered off.

Villagers in Zimbabwe's wildlife-rich but parched northwestern region are frequently fighting off desperately hungry game.

More than 200 elephants starved to death over three months last year.

Despite suspecting that Khumalo was hunting illegally when he was attacked, Phindile Ncube, CEO of Hwange Rural District Council admitted that wild animals are killing people and that the drought has worsened things.

"Wild animals cross into human-inhabited areas in search of water as ... sources of drinking water dry up in the forest," said Ncube.

He described an incident that took place a few weeks earlier, during which elephants killed two cows at a domestic water well.

Armed scouts have been put on standby to respond to distress calls from villagers.

But it was while responding to one such call that the scouts inadvertently shot dead a 61-year-old woman in Mbizha village, close to Khumalo's.

"As they tried to chase them off one (elephant) charged at them and a scout shot at it. He missed, and the stray bullet hit and killed Irene Musaka, who was sitting by a fire outside her hut almost a mile away."

In this file photo taken on November 12, 2019 a hippo is stuck in the mud at a drying watering hole in the Hwange National Park, in Zimbabwe.

Chilli cake repellant

Locals are encouraged to play their part to scare off animals. One way is to beat drums.

But the impact is limited.

"Animals, such as elephants get used to the noise and know it... won't hurt them, so it does not deter them in the long term," said George Mapuvire, director of Bio-Hub Trust, a charity that trains people to respond to animal attacks.

Bio-Hub Trust advocates for a "soft approach" that encourages peaceful co-existence between humans and wildlife.

Mapuvire suggested burning home-made hot chilli cakes to repel wildlife.

"You mix chilli powder with cow or elephant dung and shape it into bricks, once the bricks dry, you can burn them when elephants are approaching. They can't stand the smell!"

Villagers have created an elephant alarm system by tying strings of empty tin cans to trees and poles.

When the cans click, they know an elephant is approaching and they light chilli cakes to keep it away.

Another way of keeping elephants at bay is the chilli gun, a plastic contraption loaded with ping-pong balls injected with chilli oil.

"When it hits an elephant, it disintegrates, splashing the animal with the chilli oil," Mapuvire explained.

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US Politics - Pelosi Broadcasting Service

Pelosi Broadcasting Service


With government television, the Speaker will always be the star.

 
Lloyd Billingsley,  Front Page Magazine


The Library of Congress bestows the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song and the 2020 winner is country crooner Garth Brooks. Even so, on the first weekend of the new year, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) did not show the award ceremony for Brooks, and nothing appeared for 2019 winners Emilio and Gloria Estefan or 2017 winner Tony Bennett.
That same weekend kicked off National Football League playoffs but those who tuned into PBS saw a marathon show for 2016 Gershwin Prize winner Smokey Robinson. The show was taped on November 16, 2016, and aired on February 13, 2017. With Brooks, Estefan and Bennett grabbing the Gershwin Prize after that, some viewers may have been puzzled that PBS went with Smokey Robinson, but they wouldn’t have been disappointed.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1940, the “Tracks of My Tears” composer had supplied the soundtrack for countless Baby Boomers. His group, the Miracles, was Motown’s first vocal ensemble and Smokey’s 1960 “Shop Around,” became the first million seller for Barry Gordy’s label. Robinson was also the force behind Motown hits such as “Get Ready,” “My Girl,” “My Guy,” and “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” covered by the Beatles.
Host Samuel L. Jackson said his first 45 was by Smokey, explaining that a 45 was “a record not a gun.” That drew some laughs but the show was all about the music.
On the nearly two-hour broadcast, various artists performed Smokey’s hits, backed by a top-drawer band. The marathon “Get Ready” rocked the place and Jo Jo’s soulful rendition of “Who’s Loving You?” had Smokey and Barry Gordy leading the cheers as the packed house shouted for more. They got it, with performances by The Tenors, Esperanza Spaulding, Kip Moore, Tegan Marie, Corrine Bailey Rae and others.
In the fullness of time, Smokey Robinson took the stage his own self. He paid tribute to George and Ira Gershwin, and recalled the time when “the song was king.” Smokey’s performance of “Our Love is Here to Stay,” erased any doubt that the Motown star still had what it takes as a singer, and that he richly deserved the Gershwin Prize. On the other hand, the broadcast left some doubt whether Smokey Robinson was the real star of the show.
Smokey’s performance gave way to a delegation of politicians including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The San Francisco Democrat got the loudest applause, in an audience stacked with Democrats such as former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, repeatedly shown during the broadcast. During the “My Girl” finale, the camera dutifully cut to a smiling Nancy Pelosi, as though the show was all about her, and in a way it was.
The taping took place shortly after the 2016 presidential election, which Hillary Clinton lost and Donald Trump won. After that stunner, with Trump Derangement Syndrome surging, the old-line establishment media gave more attention to loser Hillary Clinton.  Republicans held on to the Senate and also took the House, so no surprise that PBS would seize the opportunity to showcase Nancy Pelosi, who gave way to Republican Paul Ryan as Speaker.
President Donald Trump was not on the ballot in 2018, as Democrats took back the House and reposted Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Pelosi spearheaded the drive to impeach Trump, holding the party-line vote just before Christmas break. In these conditions, it comes as no surprise that PBS would bypass Garth Brooks, Tony Bennett and Gloria Estefan, or past Gershwin Prize winners such as Stevie Wonder and Willie Nelson, to re-run the 2017 broadcast that showcased Nancy Pelosi. As the San Francisco Democrat knows, another dynamic is in play.
The budget of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is $449 million, the bulk of it from direct government grants trickling down through Congress. President Trump has sought to eliminate that funding, so the PBS re-run was also about keeping the taxpayer dollars coming. With Nancy Pelosi’s hands on the purse strings, PBS bosses are always singing “My Girl.”
By contrast, no taxpayer dollars were involved the creation of Smokey Robinson’s music or the establishment of the Motown label. Barry Gordy, Smokey Robinson and many others teamed up to produce records that people liked and wanted to buy. That’s how the free market works.
Meanwhile, at this writing Nancy Pelosi is still refusing to move along the articles of impeachment to the Senate, as the Constitution demands. For his part, Sen. Mitch McConnell is willing to move forward on a trial without agreeing to rules about witnesses and without any votes from Democrats.
It’s not Nancy Pelosi’s show anymore. As President Trump says, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

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Super-rich install luxury safe rooms to hide from MS-13 :)

Hamptons’ ‘paranoid’ super rich installing luxury panic rooms to hide from MS-13 gang

Hamptons’ ‘paranoid’ super rich installing luxury panic rooms to hide from MS-13 gang
Fearing the vicious Salvadoran MS-13 gang, which has plagued Long Island’s Suffolk County and threatens to spread its terror further, residents from the wealthy Hamptons area in New York are turning their homes into fortresses.
The extreme security measures include sleeping with guns, installing bulletproof windows and sometimes even luxury panic rooms.
Supermarket mogul, John Catsimatidis, told the New York Post that he sleeps with a gun underneath his pillow. “A Walther PPK/S, the same one James Bond carried,” he said.
“[My wife] Margo prefers a shotgun. Although, once, she thought she heard something, got the shotgun out and shot through the door,” he added.
RT
Fears that the gang is spreading to the eastern tip of Long Island were bolstered by Southampton Town’s police chief Steven Skrynecki, after he stationed police with anti-terrorism gear at charity galas throughout the summer of 2017.
In April, the gang murdered four men at a soccer field in Central Islip. Three months later a Hampton Bays brothel, which was raided by police, was found to be tagged with an MS-13 sign.
RT
The gang is “in Suffolk County. What's an hour car ride? They are near,” an unnamed Southampton homeowner said.
Long Island contractor Chris Cosban, whose company Covert Interiors installs pricey panic rooms, told the daily: “The big thing [with homeowners] in the Hamptons is that if somebody has it, they [all] want it.”
The price for a panic room ranges from $25,000 to over $200,000 which Cosban explains with ‘a wow factor.'
“They like to brag about it,” he said. People used to open up their garages and show off their Lamborghinis, but “now they take guests to the wine bar in their safe room,” said Herman Weisberg from personal security firm Sage Intelligence.
RT
He explained that clients look at the panic rooms as a secondary space that can double as a wine cellar or a secure room to display guns.
Some East Enders say that their wealthy neighbors are going overboard and “get more paranoid the richer they become.”

Texas Becomes First State to Close Doors to New Refugees

Bronson Stocking Posted: Jan 10, 2020 5:40 PM
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2020/01/10/texas-becomes-first-state-to-close-its-doors-to-refugees-n2559345
 
 Texas Becomes First State to Close Doors to New Refugees
Source: Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP


Texas Governor Greg Abbott has closed the doors to new refugees in the state of Texas, making him the first governor to refuse new refugees under an executive order signed by President Trump empowering state and local governments with control over refugee resettlement within their jurisdictions.
 
While other Republican governors have come under fire for allowing refugee resettlement to continue within their states -- at least 18 Republican governors have given their consent -- in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Abbott writes that Texas has already taken in more than its fair share of refugees while also contending with the "disproportionate migration issues resulting from a broken federal immigration system."


(Via The Daily Wire)
“Texas is one of the most welcoming states for refugees seeking to escape dangers abroad,” Abbott begins. “Since FY 2010, more refugees have been received in Texas than in any other state. In fact, over that decade, roughly 10% of all refugees resettled in the United States have been placed in Texas. Even today, the process of resettling continues for many of these refugees.”
“In addition to accepting refugees all these years, Texas has been left by Congress to deal with disproportionate migration issues resulting from a broken federal immigration system,” the governor continues. “In May 2019, for example, around 100,000 migrants were apprehended crossing this state’s southern border. In June 2019, individuals from 52 different countries were apprehended here. And in FY 2018, the apprehensions included citizens from disparate countries like China, Iran, Kenya, Russia, and Tonga. Texas continues to have to deal with the consequences of an immigration system that Congress has failed to fix.”
“At this time, the state and non-profit organizations have a responsibility to dedicate available resources to those who are already here, including refugees, migrants, and the homeless — indeed, all Texans,” the Republican writes in his denouement. “As a result, Texas cannot consent to initial refugee resettlement for FY2020. This decision does not deny any refugee access to the United States. Nor does it preclude a refugee from later coming to Texas after initially settling in another state.”
“Texas has carried more than its share in assisting the refugee resettlement process and appreciates that other states are available to help with these efforts,” Abbott concludes.


In addition to granting state and local jurisdictions control over refugees resettled in their communities, President Trump has cut the annual number of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. by more than 80 percent since President Obama's final year in office. In fiscal year 2020, President Trump capped the number of refugees at 18,000, down from the 30,000 limit set in fiscal year 2019.

Iran says it 'unintentionally' shot down Ukrainian jetliner


The Associated Press Staff
Published Friday, January 10, 2020 10:47PM EST  
Last Updated Friday, January 10, 2020 10:59PM EST 
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/iran-says-it-unintentionally-shot-down-ukrainian-jetliner-1.4762972

 Plane crash
 In this Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 photo, rescue workers search the scene where a Ukrainian plane crashed in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)



TEHRAN, IRAN -- Iran announced Saturday that its military `unintentionally' shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing all 176 aboard.

The statement came Saturday morning and blamed "human error" for the shootdown.

The jetliner, a Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines, went down on the outskirts of Tehran during takeoff just hours after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at U.S. forces.

 Iran had denied for several days that a missile downed the aircraft. But then the U.S. and Canada, citing intelligence, said they believe Iran shot down the aircraft.

The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, at least 63 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials.

Armed Iranian national detained near Mar-a-Lago

Commentary: As Iran-US drama plays out, North Korea leader Kim Jong Un takes notes

By Steven Borowiec
11 Jan 2020 06:18AM
(Updated: 11 Jan 2020 06:20AM)
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/iran-soleimani-north-korea-kim-jong-un-nuclear-trump-summit-12249686

To Kim, the Iran crisis underscores how vital nuclear weapons are to the hermit kingdom and how important patience is in playing the long game, says Steven Borowiec.

 Composite picture of Qasem Soleimani, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.    Composite picture of Qasem Soleimani, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. (Photo: AFP, Reuters)

SEOUL: The recent drama between the United States and Iran has elements North Korea will find of great interest.

From Tehran’s perspective, the tensions must look like a story of a small, poor but proud country pushing against an incursive superpower, using asymmetrical means, and that superpower responding with a targetted but overwhelming force with a surgical strike on a national hero.

Last week, the US government responded to Iranian provocations by killing top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, and Iran retaliated by declaring all US military personnel “terrorists” and launching attacks on US military installations in neighbouring Iraq.

The Middle East tensions come at a time when some analysts are nearly ready to give up on the prospect of Washington and Pyongyang reaching a lasting agreement regarding the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and the lifting of US economic sanctions.

The two sides’ recent attempts to sit down for negotiations, including the second Donald Trump-Kim Jong Un summit in Hanoi, amounted to little more. Since then, North Korea has said it is no longer interested in holding meetings that do not yield results.

 

The current conflagration with Iran serves an example of how bad things could get.

TENSIONS OVER NORTH KOREA HEATS UP OVER 2019


North Korea raised the temperature in December, in advance of the “year-end deadline” Pyongyang had unilaterally imposed on the US to make some kind of fresh proposal to renew momentum for dialogue.

Pyongyang then carried out weapons tests and alluded to possibly bestowing an unwanted “Christmas gift” - presumably an aggressive provocation of some sort - on the US.


 The North promised an ominous 'Christmas gift' earlier this month if Washington does not make concessions by the end of December. (File photo: AFP/Handout)

The tough talk raised the possibility that North Korea would do something that would effectively end the dialogue mood and bring the two sides back to square one.

Against this backdrop, North Korea may be quietly pleased that Washington’s attention is now fixed on the situation in the Middle East.

But there is no indication what North Korea’s leadership is thinking. The hermit kingdom’s state media has not mentioned the US-Iran discord.

DISTRUST, DETERRENCE AND THE LIMITS OF AGREEMENTS

Despite their outward silence, Pyongyang’s power elite are no doubt monitoring developments in the Middle East and taking notes.

One lesson they may be taking is the potential impermanence of a nuclear deal with the US.
In 2015, Iran signed a deal with the US, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and Germany that mandated restrictions on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and required inspections by external monitors. In response, the other countries agreed to lift sanctions on Iran.

Despite Iran having stuck to the terms of the deal, the US officially withdrew from the agreement in 2018, with President Donald Trump saying it had been a disadvantageous deal for the US.

Since then, Washington and Tehran have slid deeper into antagonism, culminating in the recent killing of Soleimani, who was arguably the most important operative in the Middle East.
LIMITS OF COMPARISON BETWEEN IRAN AND NORTH KOREA
Now is a good time to point out that Iran and North Korea are different in important ways.
The latest flare-up is part of a decades-long chess match between Iran and the US seeking control of the strategically vital Middle East.

Trump delivers remarks on his intentions regarding the Iran nuclear deal at the White House 
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up a proclamation declaring his intention to withdraw from the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement in Washington, U.S. May 8, 2018. (File photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

North Korea does not seek to project its influence across its region as Iran does through its proxies in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.

The top officials in Pyongyang are aware, if perhaps displeased, that they have little leverage in shaping regional developments or influencing affairs in China, South Korea or Japan.

North Korea has also not tested the US’s patience the way Iran appears to have during Trump’s administration, with the US having concluded that Iran struck oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, attacked ships off the Strait of Hormuz and provoked an attack in Iraq in which an American contractor was killed, not to mention its part in rousing crowds to the US embassy in Baghdad.

Iran’s regional aggression therefore allows Trump to claim that Soleimani had to be taken out for pre-emptive purposes, that US citizens were in danger against this backdrop. On Friday (Jan 10), Trump also claimed that Soleimani was planning to blow up the US embassy in Baghdad.

This is notwithstanding that US members of Congress concluded this week that the Trump administration failed to conclusively demonstrate that Soleimani posed an "imminent threat" to the US.

And while it has voiced threats involving US military bases in South Korea and Japan, North Korea knows better than to court trouble through openly confronting the US or directly attacking its interests in East Asia.

The US embassy siege by pro-Iran protesters in Baghdad lasted just over a day, but analysts warn it could have lasting implications for Iraq's complex security sector and diplomatic ties. (Photo: AFP/AHMAD AL-RUBAYE)

The question for North Korea now is what to do while the attention of the US is elsewhere. Pyongyang could easily go back to launching projectiles off its coast to remind the world it is still here, still brandishing nuclear weapons, and try to extort aid from South Korea or China in exchange for peace.

THE SECURITY GUARANTEES NUCLEAR WEAPONS OFFER

But the reality is it will not be giving up its nuclear weapons anytime soon.
Strategically, North Korea knows its nuclear weapons offer the only effective deterrence against an attack and guarantee of its security.

It had reacted badly when Trump officials spoke of “a Libya model” in 2018 and has learnt from the annexation of Crimea how Ukraine’s disarmament-for-compensation-and-security-assurances deal can be a risky endeavour with massive ramifications.

North Korea has also for years publicly claimed that it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself from US aggression, that there are outside forces who wish to topple its system, and the people of the country must forego normal freedoms, unite and resist.

The targeting of Soleimani could strengthen that narrative. There are other examples North Korea feels illustrate this point.



     Libya's late leader Muammar Gaddafi, pictured in Rome in 2009. (Photo: AFP/Christophe Simon)

The violent ousting of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is said to have been heeded with almost mythic importance in North Korea as a story of how one strongman trusted the outside world, gave up his nukes and ended up forced from his throne as a result.

North Korea's leadership took from Gaddafi's downfall the lesson that by giving up his nuclear weapons program, he made himself vulnerable. Had he kept his nukes, the line of thinking goes, he could have stayed in power and his people would have been safe and independent.

THE DANGER OF DRONES

There is another unnerving wrinkle to the past week's events: With the killing of Soleimani, the US displayed a willingness to carry out targeted drone attacks of top officials.

Don’t test our tolerance for aggression because we will respond decisively: The signal may have been primarily intended for Iran but the message no doubt was also received by North Korea.

At this point it is most likely that North Korea will bide its time, and that instead of carrying a provocation to get Washington's attention, it will look to continue developing weapons, improving its technology with the goal of one day being recognised as a nuclear power.


 If Kim Jong Un feels he has succeeded in his quest to build a nuclear weapon, some experts believe he may be open to talks to end his dangerous stand-off with the United States. (Photo: AFP)

Pyongyang has shown itself willing to play the long game, to endure long-term suffering in a way that impatient westerners have difficulty understanding. And the US clearly sees North Korea as a less pressing threat than Iran, with its manoeuvring for regional dominance.

The lesson from the past week is that despite the cordiality of the past year or so, whatever trust North Korea and the US had built is fragile, and the two sides have drifted further apart.

It will now be even more difficult for them to strike a deal when, or if, they convene for negotiations again.

Steven Borowiec is the politics editor of Korea Expose.