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Contents: | Weekly Quotes | Short Takes | On Topic Links
Easter Slaughter Tests Sharif’s Push for a More Liberal Pakistan: Natalie Obiko Pearson, Washington Post, Mar. 29, 2016
I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing: Anthony Banbury, New York Times, Mar. 18, 2016
George W. Bush’s Top Envoy on How Close the US Came to Success in Afghanistan: Kyle Smith, New York Post, Mar. 20, 2016
‘The Syrian Jihad,’ by Charles R. Lister: Emma Sky, New York Times, Mar. 15, 2016
WEEKLY QUOTES
“We will not allow them to play with the lives of the people of Pakistan…This is our resolve. This is the resolve of the 200 million people of Pakistan…It strengthened my resolve when I met the wounded people…God willing, I will not sit idle until I bring smiles back on their faces.” — Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif vowed to hunt down the terrorists who carried out the Easter bombing in Pakistan that targeted Christians and killed 72 people. As the country began three days of mourning after Sunday’s suicide bombing in the city of Lahore in a park crowded with families, Sharif said the army would forge ahead with a military operation on extremists and police will go after what he called the “cowards” who carried out the attack. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway Taliban faction that supports I.S., claimed responsibility and said it targeted Christians. (Globe & Mail, Mar. 28, 2016)
“Everyone will get their turn in this war, especially the slave Pakistani media…We are just waiting for the appropriate time…Let Nawaz Sharif know that this war has now come to the threshold of his home…The winners of this war will, God willing, be the righteous mujahideen.” — Ehsanullah Ehsan, spokesman for Jamaat-ur-Ahrar. Pakistan has rounded up more than 5,000 terrorist suspects, then released most of them, in the two days since the bombing in a park in Lahore at Easter, a provincial minister said on Tuesday. The Easter bombing was Pakistan’s deadliest attack since a 2014 school massacre claimed by the Taliban killed 134 students. Jamaat-ur-Ahrar has carried out five major attacks in Pakistan since December. (Globe & Mail, Mar. 29, 2016)
“One day after Robert Fulford’s fine article on Islamist terror, referring to the Brussels bombings, there is another bombing in our part of the world, killing many more. I hope that your coverage and discussion of this latest Islamist horror will note the fact that in the Pakistan city of Lahore there is no question of foreign imperialism, deprivation, poverty or other “root causes” of “radicalization.” A group explicitly and proudly identifying itself as Islamic targeted a celebrating crowd of Christians with murderous intent. I also hope that we might hear something from the many Pakistani Muslims living in Canada — at least beyond the inevitable Ahmadiyya letters to the editor that say this terror has nothing to do with Islam, and using the opportunity to quote verses out of context and preach Islam to us as a religion of peace.” — Gordon Nickel, Bangalore, India. (National Post, Mar. 29, 2016)
“Sunni extremists have conducted killings in Indonesia, Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan, just to name a few. The number of people who kill is small. But the number of people who share their beliefs is larger than many of us would like to think. “In parts of the Muslim community a discourse has grown up which is profoundly hostile to peaceful co-existence,” former British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote recently. “Countering this is an essential part of fighting extremism.” Maybe Justin Trudeau should take note. Like it or not, we really are at war. It’s a war of light against the dark. And last week, the dark was winning.” — Margaret Wente (Globe & Mail, Mar. 29, 2016)
“Today, Europe is being burnt by its [the terror’s] fire in its airports and squares…Those who prepare the poison will taste it themselves, and today Europe is having a taste of what it prepared with its own hands. Unless you fight terror everywhere, first and foremost in Palestine, since the [Israeli] occupation is the ugliest form of terror, as well as in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan — you will be burnt by its fire, and terror has no religion.” — Adnan Al-Damiri, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority Security Forces. Al-Damiri, on his Facebook page, in the immediate aftermath of the Brussels suicide bombings. (Algemeiner, Mar. 24, 2016)
“I’m afraid people will think we are all Daesh… People watch TV, they see that Muslims killed people, and they think all Muslims are the same. But I’m not the same. Do we look like Daesh?…We are more frightened than the Europeans, because we’ve seen this before — bombs, shooting…That’s what we’re trying to get away from.” — Ahmed Arab, 22, a refugee from Aleppo, Syria. Since I.S. terrorists bombed Brussels last week in attacks that killed 31 people, Europe’s focus has swung sharply to security, raising the prospect of a further tightening of the EU’s migration policies. The attacks renewed a bitter debate over migrants as right-wing European politicians urged a halt to mass immigration in speeches that conflated refugees with terrorism. (New York Times, Mar. 26, 2016)
“Inasmuch as the Daesh [I.S.] are local actors, French and Belgians, the essential battlefield is at home. The actors are among us, they are among us, their targets are among us…We must call Daesh what it is: an organization of criminal assassins. Not an army of fighters waging war. Talk of war, armies and fighting dignify Daesh members, and gives the illusion that there can be a decisive battle. We must stop behaving like [former U.S. president George W.] Bush.” — François Heisbourg, president of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. (Globe & Mail, Mar. 25, 2016)
“Schengen is in the process of dying; it’s politically dead already…I think the fact that euro-zone crisis is a distant memory shows that the political and economic governance – and now security governance – of the EU is in shambles…How much more evidence do you need to prove that the EU project is in disarray? It really is facing an existential crisis.” — Nicholas Spiro, a partner at Lauressa Advisory, a London economic and property advisory. I.S. terrorists who have carried out attacks in France and Belgium may speed the breakup of the 28-country EU bloc. Even before the massacre, the EU – based on lofty ideals about the free movement of people, money and ideas – was reeling from a seemingly endless series of body blows. There was the refugee crisis, the spectre of Britain voting to leave and the rise of parties of extreme right and left, movements united only by their anti-EU positions. (Globe & Mail, Mar. 25, 2016)
“Riyadh does not care if the equipment comes from a factory in Lima, Ohio or Sterling Heights, Mich., rather than one in London, Ont.” — Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion. Dion is defending a controversial $15-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia by saying cancelling it would be a futile gesture. “It would not have an effect on human rights in Saudi Arabia,” Dion predicted, if the Liberals were to scrap a 14-year contract to build fighting machines that will be equipped with machine guns or anti-tank weapons. On Tuesday, Dion also said the Liberal government’s approach to foreign policy is to be rooted in the concept of “responsible conviction…This formulation means that my values and convictions include the sense of responsibility,” Dion said. (Globe & Mail, Mar. 29, 2016)
“This argument that if we don’t do it somebody else will do it I find, frankly, the least convincing…It is not infused with moral, ethical values.” — Louise Arbour, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who once sat on the Supreme Court of Canada. Arbour was in the audience for Dion’s speech on the Saudi arms deal, and she said the contention that some other country would just take over the contract to supply Saudi Arabia with arms is “the weakest argument” that could be made. International censure of Saudi Arabia is on the increase as rights groups decry an erosion of human rights under the current leadership there. (Globe & Mail, Mar. 29, 2016)
“B.D.S. is in virtually all of its aspects anti-Semitic…[students now face] “classic anti-Semitism merged with a new anti-Zionism. These things are so intertwined. Students who are not even openly supportive of the Jewish state are being targeted because of their perceived support.” —Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a Hebrew lecturer at the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz, and one of the founders of the Amcha Initiative, a group that combats antisemitism on campuses. UC’s Board of Regents unanimously adopted a statement condemning antisemitism on its campuses. It became the first public university system to do so since the push for economic boycotts of Israel emerged on campuses across the nation. Rossman-Benjamin added that the university was the first to specifically recognize “that there are forms of anti-Zionism that are anti-Semitic.” (New York Times, Mar. 26, 2016)
“The UN is obsessive and hypocritical when it comes to Israel…Terrible atrocities are taking place across the globe and they are ignored because of political interests, which then worsens their plight…Instead of adopting resolutions to assist women in Syria, Iran or Venezuela, the CSW will adopt a single resolution with only one purpose – defaming and demonizing Israel…This is pure hypocrisy.” — Danny Danon, Israel’s envoy to the United Nations. On March 24, 2016, the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) wrapped up its annual meeting by condemning only one country for violating women’s rights – Israel, for violating the rights of Palestinian women. On the same day, the U.N. Human Rights Council concluded its month-long session in Geneva by condemning Israel five times more than any other of the 192 UN member states. (Arutz Sheva, Mar. 24, 2016)
“Basically I support a two-state solution on Israel. But the Palestinian Authority has to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state…And they have to stop the terror, stop the attacks, stop the teaching of hatred…The children…the children are aspiring to grow up to be terrorists. They are taught to grow up to be terrorists. And they have to stop. They have to stop the terror. They have to stop the stabbings and all of the things going on. And they have to recognize that Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state…And if they can’t, you’re never going to make a deal. One state, two states, it doesn’t matter: you’re never going to be able to make a deal.” — Republican Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. (Jewish Press, Mar. 26, 2016)
[Muslim-Americans are] “our most important partners in the nation’s fight against those who would wage violent jihad…That’s why we have to reject any attempt to stigmatize Muslim-Americans, and their enormous contributions to our country and our way of life.” — U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama urged Americans not to stigmatize Muslims following last week’s deadly attacks in Brussels, saying that doing so is “counterproductive” in the fight against radical Islam. “It plays right into the hands of terrorists who want to turn us against one another — who need a reason to recruit more people to their hateful cause,” Obama said. (Newsmax, Mar. 26, 2016)
“There’s a potential existential threat from Iran’s direction, though not in the near future…If the Iranian regime reaches where the nuclear deal allows it to reach, in about 10-15 years it will be on the verge of nuclear development.” — IDF Major General (res.) Amos Yadlin. Yadlin said that I.S. was only fifth in the list of existential threats to Israel, with Iran being the biggest threat. Yadlin said the kind of terrorism I.S. is capable of was “equal to that we’ve been experiencing for 120 years,” and that it has no major military capability to make it a real threat to Israel. He also addressed the terrorist organization’s attacks across Europe and stated that Israel had been giving information to foreign intelligence services that has helped thwart additional attacks. (Jerusalem Online, Mar. 26, 2016)
SHORT TAKES
IRAQ STADIUM BOMBING: I.S. CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY (Baghdad) — Iraqi officials say the death toll from a suicide bombing at a soccer stadium that was claimed by I.S. has climbed to 41, with another 105 people wounded. The bombing took place Friday during a match in the small stadium in the city of Iskanderiyah, 50 kilometres from Baghdad. IS claimed the attack, saying it had targeted Shiite militiamen. The extremist group has lost ground in recent months in Iraq and Syria, but has struck back with a series of large attacks targeting civilians. (Huffington Post, Mar. 26, 2016)
SYRIAN FORCES RETAKE PALMYRA FROM I.S. (Damascus) — Syria’s armed forces say they have driven I.S. out of Palmyra, recapturing the city of Roman ruins as part of a regional push. Under the cover of Russian air strikes, Syria’s military fought alongside foreign fighters, including Hezbollah, to retake the city in a three-week offensive that is a symbolic victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syria’s state television showed video of cracked columns and pieces of sculptures strewn across the floor of the Palmyra museum. Antiquities officials had emptied the museum of most of its artefacts before the city fell last year but had been unable to remove larger pieces. (FT, Mar. 27, 2016)
SENIOR I.S. LEADERS LIKELY KILLED IN U.S. OPERATION (Baghdad) — A Syrian Human Rights monitoring group said on Friday an I.S. leader was killed when his car was targeted in a strike on Raqqa. It did not identify the man, but U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the U.S. believed it killed Haji Iman – an alias for Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, a senior I.S. leader in charge of the group’s finances, and Abu Sarah, who Carter said was charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq. A ceasefire backed by the U.S. and Russia covers most of Syria but not areas held by I.S. The first truce of its kind since the war began has been accompanied this month by the first peace talks attended by Assad’s government and most of the groups opposed to him. (Huffington Post, Mar. 25, 2016)
TURKISH JEWS CALL FOR TIGHTENED STATE SECURITY AGAINST I.S. THREAT (Ankara) — Turkey’s organized Jewish community called on Ankara to boost security at its institutions across the country following reports claiming that an attack by I.S. is “imminent.” According to an intelligence source, I.S. intends to target Jewish kindergartens, schools and youth centers, with the most likely target being a synagogue in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, which is attached to a school. The report came just two days after law enforcement officials in Ankara warned of possible attacks against Jews and Christians by I.S., which took credit for a March 19 suicide bombing on a busy Istanbul shopping street that killed five people, including three Israelis. Turkish media reported that the attacker had followed a group of Israeli tourists before setting off his explosives. (Jerusalem Post, Mar. 29, 2016)
TURKISH JOURNALISTS TRIAL ADJOURNED (Ankara) — The trial of two prominent Turkish journalists, charged with revealing state secrets, has been adjourned until April 1. Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, from the newspaper Cumhuriyet, were arrested in November over a report alleging that the Turkish government had tried to ship arms to Islamists in Syria. They deny the charges but face possible life sentences if found guilty. Their supporters say the case is a major test of press freedom in Turkey. The Turkish government has come under increasing international criticism over its treatment of journalists. Earlier this month, Turkish police raided the offices of the country’s biggest newspaper, Zaman, hours after a court ruling placed it under state control. (BBC, Mar. 25, 2016)
DETAINED ONTARIO MAN CHARGED WITH TERROR OFFENCE (Toronto) — A man detained last week out of fear he might commit a terrorist act was charged Tuesday with a terrorism-related offence. Police allege that Kevin Mohamed participated in, or contributed to, the activities of a terrorist group over a two-year period. The RCMP said the arrest followed an “extensive” investigation amid suspicion that Mohamed had travelled to Turkey in 2014 to join Jabhat Al-Nusra, a listed terrorist entity. Mohamed returned to Canada a month later, police allege. Mohamed was arrested in Waterloo, Ont., under a recent law that essentially allows detention without charge. (CTV, Mar. 29, 2016)
CANADA ASKS UN TO RETHINK ANTI-ISRAEL PROF FOR KEY MIDEAST POST (Ottawa) — Canada’s foreign affairs minister has called on the United Nations to review its appointment of a Canadian law professor with a history of anti-Israel bias to a key Middle East post. Stéphane Dion is questioning the naming of Michael Lynk of Western University in Ontario as the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine. Canada’s opposition Conservative Party also called for Lynk to be disqualified from the position based on his past statements on Israel. Lynk “was not put forward by Canada and does not represent the views of this government,” Dion’s office said in a statement. (Times of Israel, Mar. 28, 2016)
CALL FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST CROATIAN SOCCER FANS IN WAKE OF ANTISEMITIC CHANTS (Osijek) — The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called for sanctions to be leveled against Croatian football supporters in the wake of numerous fascist and antisemitic chants by local fans at the Israeli-Croatian friendly match held in Osijek, Croatia. the Center noted that Croatian fans had expressed identification with the Ustasha fascist regime which ruled Croatia during World War II and orchestrated the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians. (Wiesenthal Center, Mar. 28, 2016)
ISRAEL’S SUPREME COURT SHOOTS DOWN GAS DEAL (Jerusalem) — Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday overturned the government’s landmark deal to begin pumping natural gas. The decision gave parliament a year to amend the plan or the framework will be canceled. It cited a clause in the deal that would prevent Israel from making significant regulatory changes for the next 10 years as reason for scuttling it. It argued the clause restricted parliament’s powers. Netanyahu has made the energy deal a centerpiece of his agenda, saying the gas sales from Israel’s large reserves would bring energy self-sufficiency and billions of dollars in tax revenues. Critics have said the deal gave excessively favorable terms to the government’s corporate partners. (Washington Post, Mar. 27, 2016)
ISRAELI COMPANY HELPS FBI BREAK APPLE SECURITY (Jerusalem) — An Israeli company could dramatically circumvent the legal conflict between the FBI and Apple by hacking the iPhone of San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook. Cellebrite, a multinational cellular forensic company headquartered in Petah Tikva, has a sole-source contract with the FBI and provides the intelligence service with the Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), which can break into locked iPhones and Android devices. The US government has for weeks been attempting to legally compel Apple to hack into the phone belonging to Farook who murdered fourteen people in San Bernardino, California with his wife in December. Apple has publicly refused and has insisted that breaking into the phone would compromise the security of all its devices. (Jewish Press, Mar. 23, 2016)
ISRAELI MILITARY RANKS 9TH MOST POWERFUL GLOBALLY ON DEFENSE (Jerusalem) — Israel’s military is the 9th strongest in the world, according to the international defense site Global Firepower (GFP), which released its annual list on Friday. In its rankings, GFP said, it only took conventional military capabilities into account when compiling its list, which includes a total of 126 countries. The U.S. topped the list, followed by Russia and China in second and third place, respectively. While Israel was outranked by countries such as India (4th) and South Korea (8th), its conventional military strength exceeded that of other countries in the region, including Iran, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. (Algemeiner, Mar. 27, 2016)
ISRAELI GYMNASTS TAKE ANOTHER GOLD (Paris) — Israel’s national rhythmic gymnastics team continued its sensational form with another gold medal, finishing in first place in the ribbons final at the Thiais Grand Prix in France. After getting the new season off to an impressive start last month by claiming two bronze medals in the Grand Prix in Moscow, the team registered a score of 17.9 in the ribbons final to finish ahead of Belarus and Ukraine. Israel ended the all-around competition in fifth place overall. The blue-and-white women booked their place at the Rio Olympics last December. (Jerusalem Post, Mar. 28, 2016)
A NEW NATIONAL LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK (Jerusalem) — The cornerstone will be laid next Tuesday for a new $200 million National Library, which will stand opposite the Knesset, in Jerusalem. Scheduled for completion towards the end of 2019, the state of the art complex will open to the public in 2020. Funding for the library, which will incorporate reading rooms, a cultural center replete with art galleries and a 450 seat auditorium, will come from the government, the Rothschild family’s Yad Hanadiv and the Gottesman Fund of New York. The National Library was established in Jerusalem in 1892, 400 years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and was initially called the Isaac Abrabanel Library in honor of the head of the Sephardic diaspora. (Jerusalem Post, Mar. 28, 216)
BOOKS OF ESTHER FOUND IN WARSAW GHETTO SYNAGOGUE BROUGHT TO ISRAEL (Jerusalem) — Three Books of Esther scrolls read on Purim during the Holocaust were recently found in a hidden synagogue at the Warsaw Ghetto after a wall in an old building in the ghetto collapsed. Researchers at the Shem Olam Institute in Kfar Haroeh, made the discovery of the scrolls. The scrolls were transferred to a storage archive at the institute. Rabbi Avraham Krieger, head of Shem Olam, said: “The more we investigate the life of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, we discover the courage and mental strength the Jews exhibited to keep the faith alive despite the grief and the threat of death that surrounded them from all directions. These scrolls, which relate the Jews’ miraculous rescue from those who sought their destruction, survived the Nazi hell.” (Algemeiner, Mar. 24, 2016)
Easter Slaughter Tests Sharif’s Push for a More Liberal Pakistan: Natalie Obiko Pearson, Washington Post, Mar. 29, 2016—The suicide bomber who slaughtered dozens of Pakistanis enjoying a day in the park to celebrate Easter Sunday probably had another target: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s vision of a more liberal, inclusive democracy in the Muslim-majority nation.
I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing: Anthony Banbury, New York Times, Mar. 18, 2016 —I have worked for the United Nations for most of the last three decades. I was a human rights officer in Haiti in the 1990s and served in the former Yugoslavia during the Srebrenica genocide.
George W. Bush’s Top Envoy on How Close the US Came to Success in Afghanistan: Kyle Smith, New York Post, Mar. 20, 2016 —The summer of 2001 looked like a promising one for Afghanistan. Broad opposition to the Taliban was growing, and to the Bush administration’s point man on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, it seemed that under the leadership of the charismatic officer Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance could be paving the way for a return to the relative stability the country had enjoyed for 50 years before the Soviet invasion of 1979.
‘The Syrian Jihad,’ by Charles R. Lister: Emma Sky, New York Times, Mar. 15, 2016 —When I last visited Syria in July 2011, four months after the protests had begun, around 2,000 Syrians had already died. The Syrians I spoke to during that visit were confident that their country would not collapse into civil war as Iraq had.