DAILY SABAH WITH AFP

BAGHDAD

Published 9 hours ago

The ISIS group began bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq on Thursday, the tourism and antiquities ministry said.

The self-proclaimed State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) “assaulted the historic city of Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy vehicles”,  the ministry said on an official Facebook page, the group’s latest attack on the country’s historical heritage.

Andrew Klavan, whose political comment, often satirical, we sometimes quote with approval and appreciation, now turns us cold with his column at PJ Media.

He starts by quoting a news item from Christianity Today:

The brother of two of the 21 Coptic Christians slaughtered by ISIS beasts in Libya thanked the slavering Islamist murderers because the video of their damnable atrocity included the dying martyrs’ final words of Christian faith:

Speaking on a live prayer and worship programme on Christian channel SAT-7 ARABIC, Beshir Kamel said that he was proud of his brothers Bishoy Estafanos Kamel (25) and Samuel Estafanos Kamel (23) because they were “a badge of honour to Christianity”.

Harrowing scenes of the murders have been seen around the world. The last words of some of those killed were “Lord Jesus Christ”.

Beshir Kamel thanked ISIS for not editing out the men’s declaration of belief in Christ because he said this had strengthened his own faith. He added that the families of the ex-patriate workers are “congratulating one another” and not in despair: “We are proud to have this number of people from our village who have become martyrs,” he told the programme.

He said: “Since the Roman era, Christians have been martyred and have learned to handle everything that comes our way. This only makes us stronger in our faith because the Bible told us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us.”

And then he comments:

Last week, I remarked what good news it was for the victims of the ISIS murderers that Barack Obama says Islamist terror is not an existential threat. But of course that’s pure satire on my part. The real good news for the Coptics is the promise of Christ: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Truly, Christianity and Islam are a perfect match for each other, two ideologies neatly complementary.

Christianity courts persecution. It preaches: “Resist not evil.” It insists on injustice: “Forgive your enemies.”

Islam commands persecution. It preaches: “Kill the infidel.” It prescribes the smiting, stoning, burning and enslaving of its enemies.   

Theirs is the mutual dependence of the masochist and the sadist: a strong relationship that will endure as long as they both shall live.

As we read Soeren Kern’s latest report for Gatestone on the state of Her Britannic Majesty’s Islamic Kingdom (our designation, not his), our wild laughter echoed down our noble godless halls.

Here are extracts. For the whole hilarious story, go here.

Following is a brief summary of some of the main stories involving Islam and Islam-related issues in Britain during January 2015, categorized into three broad themes: 1) Islamic extremism; 2) British multiculturalism; and 3) Muslim integration into British society.

1. Islamic Extremism

On January 7, the British-born Islamist Anjem Choudary defended the jihadist attacks on the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. In an opinion article published by USA Today, Choudary wrote:

Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people’s desires. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. So why in this case did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?

On January 9, Muslim cleric Mizanur Rahman of Palmers Green, north London, also defended the jihadist attacks in Paris and declared that “Britain is the enemy of Islam”. Speaking to an audience in London — his speech was also streamed online to thousands of his followers — Rahman said the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were guilty of “insulting Islam” and therefore “they can’t expect a different result” … “Clearly what happened in France is a war. These cartoons is [sic] part of their own war, is part of the psychological warfare. You can’t have that attitude. You know what happens when you insult Muhammad.”

Rahman … was on police bail after he and Anjem Choudary were arrested in September 2014 on suspicion of terror offenses. Both men deny any wrongdoing and have not been charged. …

An Islamist from Luton was pictured in Syria brandishing an AK-47 rifle. Abu Rahin Aziz, 32, skipped bail before he was handed a 36-week jail sentence for stabbing a football fan in London’s West End. Aziz has been using Twitter to urge other people to join him and to emulate the recent attacks in Paris. In a tweet, Aziz, who also calls himself Abu Abdullah al-Britani, wrote:

Still deciding to what to do with my #british passport, could burn it, flush it down the toilet, I mean realistically its not worth spitting on.

… A convicted al-Qaeda terrorist with close links to the massacre in Paris cannot be deported from Britain because it would breach his right to a family life. Baghdad Meziane, a 49-year-old British-Algerian who was jailed for eleven years in 2003 for running a terror network recruiting jihadists and fund-raising for al-Qaeda, was released from prison five years early and allowed to return to his family home in Leicester. Since then, Meziane has successfully thwarted attempts by the Home Office to deport him, despite the government’s repeated insistence that he constitutes “a danger to the United Kingdom”. … The Meziane case has cost British taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds in court costs to date. …

Sylvie Beghal, a French citizen, lives rent-free in a four-bedroom house in Leicester after she came to Britain with her children in search of a more “Islamic environment”, after deciding that France was too anti-Muslim.

On January 22, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned that Britain is at “very significant” risk of attack by the Islamic State.

On January 25, Green party leader Natalie Bennett told the BBC1’s Sunday Politics show that it should not be illegal for people living in Britain to join the Islamic State. She was commenting on the British government’s move in June 2014 to make membership of the Islamic State a crime. Bennett said: “This is a part of our policy that I think dates back to the age of the ANC [African National Congress] and apartheid South Africa… What we want to do is make sure we are not punishing people for what they think or what they believe.”

On January 20, the former chief of MI6, Sir John Sawers, warned Britons not to insult Islam if they want to avoid Islamic terrorists from striking inside the country. He said: “If you show disrespect for others’ core values then you are going to provoke an angry response… There is a requirement for restraint from those of us in the West.” …

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles sent a letter to more than 1,000 imams across Britain asking for their help in fighting extremism and rooting out those who are preaching hatred. He also asked them to explain to Muslims how Islam is compatible with being British. The letter said:

We must show our young people, who may be targeted, that extremists have nothing to offer them. We must show them that there are other ways to express disagreement: that their right to do so is dependent on the very freedoms that extremists seek to destroy. We must show them the multitude of statements of condemnation from British Muslims; show them these men of hate have no place in our mosques or any place of worship, and that they do not speak for Muslims in Britain or anywhere in the world. You, as faith leaders, are in a unique position in our society. You have a precious opportunity, and an important responsibility: in explaining and demonstrating how faith in Islam can be part of British identity. We believe together we have an opportunity to demonstrate the true nature of British Islam today. There is a need to lay out more clearly than ever before what being a British Muslim means today: proud of your faith and proud of your country. We know that acts of extremism are not representative of Islam; but we need to show what is.

Muslim groups responded by accusing the British government of stoking “Islamophobia”. 

In an angry response to Pickles, the Chief Executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, Mohammed Shafiq, wrote:

I wish to express my dismay at the letter sent by the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles MP, this letter is patronising and factually incorrect and typical of the Government only looking at Muslims through the prism of terrorism and security. We do not need to be patronised by a Government that claims it wants to give young Muslims an alternative to the extremist narrative and then refuse to discuss foreign policy. In terms of British values, is Mr Pickles really suggesting as the far right do that Muslims are detached from mainstream society? I hope the Minister clarifies his comments.

In an interview with Sky News, Talha Ahmad of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said:

The letter has all the hallmarks of very poor judgment which feeds into an Islamophobic narrative, which feeds into a narrative of us and them.

In a response to Pickles, the MCB wrote:

We do take issue with the implication that extremism takes place at mosques, and that Muslims have not done enough to challenge the terrorism that took place in our name. This is why we responded to the media, and an assertion in some quarters, that you were somehow endorsing the idea that Muslims and Islam are inherently apart from British society. We reject such notions. We also reject suggestions that Muslims must go out of their way to prove their loyalty to this country of ours.

The president of the Bradford Council for Mosques, Mohammed Rafiq Sehgal, said … :

We ask Mr Pickles to publicly apologize to the Muslim community for bringing this peaceful section of the British society into disrepute. Blaming Muslims may win Mr Pickles and his party some support from the right wing voters but it does not help good community relations. …

2. British Multiculturalism

On January 29, a Sky News investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, a large town in South Yorkshire, found that hundreds of new cases continue to emerge. In August 2014, the so-called Alexis Jay report revealed that between 1997 and 2013, at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited, mostly by Muslim gangs, and that municipal officials in Rotherham and police in South Yorkshire failed to tackle the problem because of politically correct concerns over being branded as “racist” or “Islamophobic”. … One victim told Sky News: “It’s still going on if not worse, because now they’re having to hide it more.”

… It emerged that hospitals across Britain are dealing with at least 15 new cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) every day, and that the problem is especially acute in Birmingham. … Although FGM has been illegal in Britain since 1984, there has not been a single conviction in the UK. …

Tarik Kafala, the head of BBC Arabic, the largest of the BBC’s non-English language news services, said that the term “terrorist” was too “loaded” to describe the actions of the men who killed 12 people in the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. … “We try to avoid describing anyone as a terrorist or an act as being terrorist. What we try to do is to say that ‘two men killed 12 people in an attack on the office of a satirical magazine’. … Terrorism is such a loaded word …”  Kafala’s comments are in line with the BBC’s editorial guidelines on reporting terrorism. …

Durham Free School, a Christian school, will be forced to close after government inspectors found that the school was failing to help students understand “British values” or “prepare them for life in modern Britain”.  The report said: “Some students hold discriminatory views of other people who have different faiths, values or beliefs from themselves.” Teachers said the verdict was grossly unfair and based on a comment made by a single pupil, who gave the wrong answer when inspectors asked him what a Muslim was. His answer to the question apparently included a reference to terrorism. The teachers said the school’s Christian ethos made it an easy target for officials who wanted to show they were promoting the government’s diversity agenda. …

Oxford University Press (OUP) warned its authors not to mention pigs or sausages in their books, to avoid causing offense to Muslims. …

3. Muslim Integration

Zack Davies, 25, attacked a 24-year-old Sikh named Sarandev Bhambra with a machete at a Tesco supermarket in Mold, north Wales. Bhambra was seriously injured. British newspapers initially portrayed the attack as a “racially-motivated attempt” by a right-wing extremist promoting “white power”. It later emerged that Zack Davies is actually a Muslim convert who goes by the name Zack Ali. On the morning of the attack, Ali warned on his Facebook page of his impending attack: “The wrath of Allah is about to come down upon the kafir [unbeliever], I will have my revenge.” He also posted four verses from the Koran that call for violence against non-Muslims. …

On January 27, a judge at the Newcastle Crown Court sent four Muslim teenagers to a juvenile detention center after they admitted to attacking a 41-year-old Jewish man in nearby Gateshead. [They] pleaded guilty to racially-aggravated common assault for the attack, which they said was motivated by the Arab-Israeli conflict. The night before the attack, Sultan sent a text message saying he was “going to go Jew bashing” and asked a friend: “Do you want to go to Gateshead to smash some Jews up.”  …

A Muslim trainee lawyer at the London-based law firm Clifford Chance produced a 21-minute YouTube video, in which he blamed non-Muslims for the jihadist attacks in Paris. Aysh Chaudhry, 22, said:

Brothers and sisters, we would not be here had it not been for the fact that the kafir [non-Muslims] had gone to our lands and killed our people and raped and pillaged our resources. This, brothers and sisters, is what we need to understand. We need to move away from this apologetic tone and have confidence in Islam because we are enslaved otherwise. We need to remove this Western cultural lens with which we are viewing and responding to attacks on Islam from our eyes. Stop putting freedom on this pedestal. This is a value stemming from secular, liberal beliefs. We don’t need a value which stems from a bankrupt ideology. We are becoming infatuated with the civilization of the kafir and their beliefs and their values and indeed we have latched on to these. Now you know who you are if you are of those who state ‘I will die to protect your freedom and I believe in freedom of speech’.

A spokesperson for Clifford Chance, one of the most prestigious law firms in the world, said: “The firm is committed to establishing an inclusive culture where people with diverse backgrounds and views work effectively together and feel confident to develop their potential.”

Finally, police in Bradford on January 29 launched a manhunt for an unidentified white male who allegedly muttered derogatory comments about Islam on a bus. The incident, described by police as a public order offense, allegedly happened on the 576 Halifax to Bradford bus, between 10:00 pm and 10:20pm on January 8. The suspect is described as white, aged 40 to 50, about five feet 8 inches tall. He was wearing a black woolly hat and black jacket that may have had a bit of red on it.

For readers who missed hearing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress today, here’s the heart of it – the part that is most important for Americans to hear.

Backed by Iran, Assad is slaughtering Syrians. Backed by Iran, Shiite militias are rampaging through Iraq. Backed by Iran, Houthis are seizing control of Yemen, threatening the strategic straits at the mouth of the Red Sea. Along with the Straits of Hormuz, that would give Iran a second choke-point on the world’s oil supply. Just last week, near Hormuz, Iran carried out a military exercise blowing up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier. That’s just last week, while they’re having nuclear talks with the United States. But unfortunately, for the last 36 years, Iran’s attacks against the United States have been anything but mock. And the targets have been all too real. Iran took dozens of Americans hostage in Tehran, murdered hundreds of American soldiers, Marines, in Beirut, and was responsible for killing and maiming thousands of American service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. Beyond the Middle East, Iran attacks America and its allies through its global terror network. … It helped Al Qaida bomb U.S. embassies in Africa. It even attempted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, right here in Washington, D.C. In the Middle East, Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa. And if Iran’s aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow. So, at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations. We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of conquest, subjugation and terror. Now, two years ago, we were told to give President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif a chance to bring change and moderation to Iran. Some change! Some moderation!  Rouhani’s government hangs gays, persecutes Christians, jails journalists and executes even more prisoners than before. Last year, the same Zarif who charms Western diplomats laid a wreath at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh. Imad Mughniyeh is the terrorist mastermind who spilled more American blood than any other terrorist besides Osama bin Laden. I’d like to see someone ask him a question about that. Iran’s regime is as radical as ever, its cries of “Death to America,” that same America that it calls the “Great Satan,” as loud as ever. Now, this shouldn’t be surprising, because the ideology of Iran’s revolutionary regime is deeply rooted in militant Islam, and that’s why this regime will always be an enemy of America. Don’t be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn’t turn Iran into a friend of America. Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam. One calls itself the Islamic Republic. The other calls itself the Islamic State. Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world. They just disagree among themselves who will be the ruler of that empire. In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no peace for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone. So when it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy. The difference is that ISIS is armed with butcher knives, captured weapons and YouTube, whereas Iran could soon be armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs. We must always remember – I’ll say it one more time – the greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen. But that, my friends, is exactly what could happen, if the deal now being negotiated is accepted by Iran. That deal will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It would all but guarantee that Iran gets those weapons, lots of them. Let me explain why. While the final deal has not yet been signed, certain elements of any potential deal are now a matter of public record. You don’t need intelligence agencies and secret information to know this. You can Google it. Absent a dramatic change, we know for sure that any deal with Iran will include two major concessions to Iran. The first major concession would leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure, providing it with a short breakout time to the bomb. Breakout time is the time it takes to amass enough weapons-grade uranium or plutonium for a nuclear bomb. According to the deal, not a single nuclear facility would be demolished. Thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium would be left spinning. Thousands more would be temporarily disconnected, but not destroyed. Because Iran’s nuclear program would be left largely intact, Iran’s breakout time would be very short – about a year by U.S. assessment, even shorter by Israel’s. And if Iran’s work on advanced centrifuges, faster and faster centrifuges, is not stopped, that breakout time could still be shorter, a lot shorter. True, certain restrictions would be imposed on Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s adherence to those restrictions would be supervised by international inspectors. But here’s the problem. You see, inspectors document violations; they don’t stop them. Inspectors knew when North Korea broke to the bomb, but that didn’t stop anything. North Korea turned off the cameras, kicked out the inspectors. Within a few years, it got the bomb. Now, we’re warned that within five years North Korea could have an arsenal of 100 nuclear bombs. Like North Korea, Iran, too, has defied international inspectors. It’s done that on at least three separate occasions – 2005, 2006, 2010. Like North Korea, Iran broke the locks, shut off the cameras. Now, I know this is not going to come as a shock to any of you, but Iran not only defies inspectors, it also plays a pretty good game of hide-and-cheat with them. … The IAEA said again yesterday that Iran still refuses to come clean about its military nuclear program. Iran was also caught – caught twice, not once, twice – operating secret nuclear facilities in Natanz and Qom, facilities that inspectors didn’t even know existed. Right now, Iran could be hiding nuclear facilities that we don’t know about, the U.S. and Israel. As the former head of inspections for the IAEA said in 2013, he said, “If there’s no undeclared installation today in Iran, it will be the first time in 20 years that it doesn’t have one.” Iran has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted. And that’s why the first major concession is a source of great concern. It leaves Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure and relies on inspectors to prevent a breakout. That concession creates a real danger that Iran could get to the bomb by violating the deal. But the second major concession creates an even greater danger that Iran could get to the bomb by keeping the deal. Because virtually all the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will automatically expire in about a decade. Now, a decade may seem like a long time in political life, but it’s the blink of an eye in the life of a nation. It’s a blink of an eye in the life of our children. We all have a responsibility to consider what will happen when Iran’s nuclear capabilities are virtually unrestricted and all the sanctions will have been lifted. Iran would then be free to build a huge nuclear capacity that could produce many, many nuclear bombs. Iran’s Supreme Leader says that openly. He says Iran plans to have 190,000 centrifuges, not 6,000 or even the 19,000 that Iran has today, but 10 times that amount – 190,000 centrifuges enriching uranium. With this massive capacity, Iran could make the fuel for an entire nuclear arsenal and this in a matter of weeks, once it makes that decision. … Now I want you to think about that. The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons and this with full international legitimacy. And by the way, if Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile program is not part of the deal – and so far, Iran refuses to even put it on the negotiating table – well, Iran could have the means to deliver that nuclear arsenal to the far-reaching corners of the Earth, including to every part of the United States. So you see, my friends, this deal has two major concessions: one, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program and two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade. That’s why this deal is so bad. It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb. So why would anyone make this deal? Because they hope that Iran will change for the better in the coming years, or they believe that the alternative to this deal is worse? Well, I disagree. I don’t believe that Iran’s radical regime will change for the better after this deal. This regime has been in power for 36 years, and its voracious appetite for aggression grows with each passing year. This deal would only whet Iran’s appetite for more. Would Iran be less aggressive when sanctions are removed and its economy is stronger? If Iran is gobbling up four countries right now while it’s under sanctions, how many more countries will Iran devour when sanctions are lifted? Would Iran fund less terrorism when it has mountains of cash with which to fund more terrorism? Why should Iran’s radical regime change for the better when it can enjoy the best of both worlds: aggression abroad, prosperity at home? This is a question that everyone asks in our region. Israel’s neighbors, Iran’s neighbors, know that Iran will become even more aggressive and sponsor even more terrorism when its economy is unshackled and it’s been given a clear path to the bomb. And many of these neighbors say they’ll respond by racing to get nuclear weapons of their own. So this deal won’t change Iran for the better; it will only change the Middle East for the worse. A deal that’s supposed to prevent nuclear proliferation would instead spark a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet. This deal won’t be a farewell to arms. It would be a farewell to arms control. And the Middle East would soon be crisscrossed by nuclear tripwires. A region where small skirmishes can trigger big wars would turn into a nuclear tinderbox. If anyone thinks this deal kicks the can down the road, think again. When we get down that road, we’ll face a much more dangerous Iran, a Middle East littered with nuclear bombs and a countdown to a potential nuclear nightmare. Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve come here today to tell you we don’t have to bet the security of the world on the hope that Iran will change for the better. We don’t have to gamble with our future and with our children’s future. We can insist that restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program not be lifted for as long as Iran continues its aggression in the region and in the world. Before lifting those restrictions, the world should demand that Iran do three things. First, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East. Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world. And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel … If the world powers are not prepared to insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal is signed, at the very least they should insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal expires. If Iran changes its behavior, the restrictions would be lifted. If Iran doesn’t change its behavior, the restrictions should not be lifted. If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, let it act like a normal country. … Iran’s nuclear program can be rolled back well-beyond the current proposal by insisting on a better deal and keeping up the pressure on a very vulnerable regime, especially given the recent collapse in the price of oil. Now, if Iran threatens to walk away from the table – and this often happens in a Persian bazaar – call their bluff. They’ll be back, because they need the deal a lot more than you do. And by maintaining the pressure on Iran and on those who do business with Iran, you have the power to make them need it even more. My friends, for over a year, we’ve been told that no deal is better than a bad deal. Well, this is a bad deal. It’s a very bad deal. We’re better off without it. Now we’re being told that the only alternative to this bad deal is war. That’s just not true. The alternative to this bad deal is a much better deal: a better deal that doesn’t leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure and such a short breakout time; a better deal that keeps the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in place until Iran’s aggression ends; a better deal that won’t give Iran an easy path to the bomb; a better deal that Israel and its neighbors may not like, but with which we could live, literally. And no country has a greater stake – no country has a greater stake than Israel in a good deal that peacefully removes this threat. Ladies and gentlemen, History has placed us at a fateful crossroads. We must now choose between two paths. One path leads to a bad deal that will at best curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions for a while, but it will inexorably lead to a nuclear-armed Iran whose unbridled aggression will inevitably lead to war. The second path, however difficult, could lead to a much better deal, that would prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclearized Middle East and the horrific consequences of both to all of humanity.

The whole speech has been posted by the Prime Minister’s office here.

It’s a great speech, and we do not like having to disagree with any part of it. But in the light of what Netanyahu himself says in it about the nature of the Iranian regime, we cannot believe that the present leaders of Iran will agree to any sort of deal except one that gives them all they want – such as the Obama-Kerry deal at present on the table in Geneva.

And besides, Obama is all too willing to make this bad deal an even worse one in his desperation to get any deal at all. He is surely not prepared to try and make a better deal. (The unintelligent Nancy Pelosi, possibly speaking for all the Democrats who hate Netanyahu, says that the speech is “an insult to Americans’ intelligence”.)

We think the only alternative is war. A pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities needs to be made now. Can, and will, Israel do it?

The Prime Minister implied that his country not only can, but will if it has to:

As Prime Minister of Israel, I can promise you one more thing: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel. I know that you stand with Israel. You stand with Israel because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors.

He has said before that Israel would take whatever steps it had to to defend itself, implying the possibility of a military strike when it would have been a somewhat easier undertaking. But it did not happen. Perhaps he sees this as an eleventh hour. Perhaps now it will happen. If it does not, Iran will be a nuclear-armed power, and that will bring those “horrific consequences to all humanity”.

This opinion column appears today , March 3, 2015, in The Times of London.

It points out that there is a necessity to oppose the deal that Obama is making with the monstrous Iranian regime.

The defiant decision of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to plead direct to the United States Congress against rushing into a nuclear deal with Iran represents a watershed in the dismal relations between Jerusalem and the Obama administration. A foreign leader is being invited by Republicans to denounce the president on American soil. It is a speech that even before its delivery today has split Israel and the Jewish community in America, and is being presented by the Obama team as crude electioneering and provocative mischief-making on the part of Mr Netanyahu. Yet it is a necessary speech. All the signs are that the US, flanked by five other powers including Britain, is accelerating towards a deal with Tehran that will allow it to retain significant capacity to enrich uranium. The arrangement would in theory allow the West to spot and block one year in advance any attempt to build a bomb. That presumes easy access to the most sensitive nuclear sites and a quick and efficient verification system. Israel does not trust Iran. It sees a regime that is so desperate to have sanctions lifted it is willing to fabricate concessions. The negotiations do not include Iran’s ballistic-missile programme, whose prime function can only be the delivery of a bomb. Mr Netanyahu therefore comes to Washington full of suspicion not only about Iranian intentions but also those of the Obama administration. He fears the nuclear treaty would be the first step towards projecting Tehran as a de facto ally and a regional power-broker. A nation that is so often challenged by Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias and the Iranian-supplied weaponry of Hamas has a right to be concerned. Mr Netanyahu has, however, talked himself into an awkward corner. The calendar creates an unfortunate linkage between the Israeli election on March 17 and the next deadline for a settlement with Iran on March 28. Fear of Iran is thus being played out in the Israeli campaign against the fear of losing its most powerful ally, the United States. Almost 200 retired Israeli security officials have warned Mr Netanyahu that he risks not only a rupture with Washington but also advertising Israel’s weakness. President Obama has needlessly aggravated relations with the Israeli government by making it public that he is angry with the prime minister. More, he seems ready to veto the bipartisan Kirk-Menendez bill that would impose further sanctions on Tehran if it failed to sign an accord. This saps the negotiating power of the West. The relationship between the United States and Israel is too important, too fundamental to Middle Eastern peace, to be drawn into partisan feuding. Relations between Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu have never been warm but the US should recognise that Iran cannot be blindly trusted. Tehran is already a leading sponsor of terrorism in the region; it is alarming to contemplate how nuclear weapons would transform this status. There is still time to build cheat-proof assurances into a future accord. This must be done to reassure Israel and all of Iran’s rightly nervous neighbours. Rigorous inspection, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency, must become the norm. Any attempt to conceal should be punished. Washington cannot deny itself the option of escalating sanctions. Iran, though ready for its own reasons to sit down with the West, remains a hostile power rather than a putative ally. *Adam Levick* Managing Editor, UK Media Watch.

 

In the picture above, an IS member unsheathes his sword as he prepares to behead an ancient Babylonian statue.  His sheath is the Koran and the sword is covered with verses from the Koran. The caption states: “With this sword is civilization and humanity slaughtered.”

We quote Raymond Ibrahim, above and below:

The Daily Mail reports:

Islamic State thugs have destroyed a collection of priceless statues and sculptures in Iraq dating back thousands of years.

Extremists used sledgehammers and power drills to smash ancient artwork as they rampaged through a museum in the northern city of Mosul.

Video footage shows a group of bearded men in the Nineveh Museum using tools to wreck 3,000-year-old statues after pushing them over.

Extremists used sledgehammers and power drills to smash ancient artifacts at a museum in the northern city of Mosul

Militant uses a power tool to destroy a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity at the Ninevah Museum in Mosul, Iraq. The statue dates back to the 9th century B.C.

A man shown in the video said the items were being destroyed because they promoted idolatry.

“The Prophet ordered us to get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered countries after him,” the unidentified man said.

The articles destroyed appeared to come from an antiquities museum in the northern city of Mosul, which was overrun by Islamic State last June, a former employee at the museum told Reuters.

The extremist group has destroyed a number of shrines – including Muslim holy sites – in a bid to eliminate what it views as heresy.

Militants are also believed to have sold ancient artwork on the black market in order to finance their bloody campaign across the region.

ISIS destroy artifacts with sledgehammers at Mosul museum

 

Yesterday it was revealed how terrorists had blown up the Mosul Public Library, sending 10,000 books and more than 700 rare manuscripts up in flames.

Leading members of Mosul society reportedly tried to stop the fanatics destroying the building, but failed.

The director of the library, Ghanim al-Ta’an, said that the extremists used homemade bombs in the attack, which took place on Sunday.

He told Middle Eastern website Geran: “ISIS militants bombed the Mosul Public Library. They used improvised explosive devices.”

Presumed destroyed are the Central Library’s collection of Iraqi newspapers dating to the early 20th century, maps and books from the Ottoman Empire and book collections contributed by around 100 of Mosul’s establishment families.

Large segments of the priceless winged-bull Assyrian protective deity are hurled to the ground as militants smash it to pieces

Isis first invaded the Central Library in January. Residents say the extremists smashed the locks that had protected the biggest repository of learning in the northern Iraq town, and loaded around 2,000 books – including children’s stories, poetry, philosophy and tomes on sports, health, culture and science – into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts.

“These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned,” a bearded militant in traditional Afghani two-piece clothing told residents, according to one man living nearby who spoke to The Associated Press.

The enlightened West is doing nothing to stop them.

“Our evening is over us; our night whelms, whelms and will end us.”

– Gerard Manley Hopkins: Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves. ( He was a Jesuit. But even so, a very good poet.)

The Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL) jihadis have issued a video proudly showing them smashing ancient artifacts in Mosul’s central museum. They have also destroyed 8,000 books, and precious manuscripts, many very ancient, from the library of Nineveh.

This video includes parts of that one, while making an unspoken but most eloquent and apt comment on it:

(Hat-tip our Facebook commenter Tedd Allen)

The Muslim in this video from the British TV channel Sky News is speaking for an Islamic organization called CAGE.

CAGE, be it well noted, is run by former Guantanamo Bay inmates – and is an affiliate of Amnesty International. 

Amnesty International was taken over by extreme lefties decades ago.

Although Amnesty International is not mentioned, this interview illustrates how far the bizarre alliance between Islam and the Left has defiled and contorted a Western institution founded originally to defend the principle of individual freedom.

Here comes a future political leader.

We quote from The American Mirror:

President Obama may enjoy the approval of 84% of blacks, but don’t count CJ Pearson among them.

Pearson, a 12-year-old middle school student in Georgia, has more informed opinions than many adults.

The student posted a YouTube video yesterday in which he seeks to “applaud Mayor Rudy Giuliani for his comments about President Barack Obama” [that Obama does not love America].

CJ Pearson says:

Here’s the truth of the matter: I don’t want to be politically correct. I don’t care about being politically correct at this point.

President Obama, You don’t love America. If you really did love America, you would call ISIS what it really is: an assault on Christianity, an assault on America and downright hate for the American values that our country holds. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion and every single thing that our country stands for.

I hope that one day people will get enough guts to speak out against your downright hatred for this nation. …

But here’s what you need to realize: here in America, we don’t back down to terrorists. We fight them on their own battleground and we annihilate them till the very end.

Here in America, we don’t allow the government to take away what we work for but we continue to work harder so that we may continue to succeed.”

Pearson is executive director of a group called “Young Georgians in Government”.

His Facebook page says he is “committed to fighting for conservative principles and engaging young people in the political process.”

“Most young people really don’t have an interest in government or politics, but we need to pique that interest. We need to make sure they know that the decisions politicians make are going to affect them,” the student told ABC 6 in a profile story last December.

We overlook the reference to Obama’s “assaulting” Christianity. We assault Christianity too – but far more intelligently than Obama does, of course.

We like everything else CJ Pearson  says.

This week we take two cartoons from PowerLine’s The Week in Pictures.

We like them both, equally.