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In this mailing:
- Bassam Tawil: Western Taxpayers
Funding Abuse of Palestinians
- Richard Kemp: Smoke &
Mirrors: Six Weeks of Violence on the Gaza Border
- Burak Bekdil: Turkey: Erdogan's
Islamist "Family Engineering"
by Bassam Tawil • May 14, 2018 at
5:00 am
- The new law, known as
the Palestinian Cyber Crime Law, comes in the wake of the PA and
its supporters continuing falsely to accuse Israel of targeting
Palestinian journalists. The PA leadership's goal is to ensure
that leaders are immune from journalistic critique.
- Now journalists and
Palestinian human rights organizations will not be able to say
that the crackdown on public freedoms and freedom of the media
is illegal.
- The silence of the
international community and human rights groups allows Mahmoud
Abbas and his allies to get away with assaults on public
freedoms and move forward towards creating a dictatorial regime
for the Palestinians -- one funded with American and European
taxpayers' money.
- The last thing the
Middle East needs is another repressive Arab regime. It is also
the last thing the Palestinians want.
Palestinian
journalists protest in Nablus to demand that the Palestinian
Authority release their colleague, Tareq Abu Zeid, after an earlier
arrest. (Image source: Al Resalah)
In a move that has angered Palestinian human rights
organizations and journalists, the Palestinian Authority (PA) on
April 17 approved a new law that restricts freedom of expression and
the media. The move is seen by Palestinians in the context of the
PA's effort to silence its critics and suppress public freedoms.
Palestinian journalists call it a declaration of war on the media.
Ironically, the approval of the new law, known as the
Palestinian Cyber Crime Law, comes in the wake of the PA and its
supporters continuing falsely to accuse Israel of targeting
Palestinian journalists. The accusations refer to the death of two
journalists in the Gaza Strip who were shot in recent weeks by
Israeli soldiers during violent clashes between Palestinian
protesters and the Israel Defense Forces.
by Richard Kemp • May 14, 2018 at
4:30 am
- Hamas's use of actual
smoke and mirrors to conceal its aggressive manoeuvring on the
Gaza border is the perfect metaphor for a strategy that has no
viable military purpose but seeks to deceive the international
community into criminalising a democratic state defending its
citizens.
- The UN and EU, NGOs,
government officials and media — primary targets for Hamas —
have been willingly taken in. For example a Guardian headline,
'The use of lethal force to cow nonviolent demonstrations by
Palestinians', blatantly misrepresents the violent reality that
has been plain for all to see. Likewise the NGO Human Rights
Watch claims that we are seeing a movement to 'affirm
Palestinians' internationally-recognised right of return'.
- In reality these
demonstrations are far from peaceful and do not pursue any
so-called 'right of return'. Rather they are carefully planned
and orchestrated military operations intended to break through
the border of a sovereign state and commit mass murder in the
communities beyond, using their own civilians as cover. The
purpose: to criminalise and isolate the State of Israel.
- Hamas are planning to
achieve maximum violence at the Gaza border on either the 14th
or 15th May, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the
declaration of the State of Israel, the opening of the US
embassy in Jerusalem and the start of Ramadan — a perfect storm.
Hamas
operatives set fire to thousands of tires, creating smoke screens to
obfuscate their movements towards the Israel border fence. The
operatives hide among the civilian crowd with weapons, seeking an
opportunity to breach the fence and enter Israel. (Image source:
HLMG/IDF)
Since 30th March Hamas has been orchestrating
large-scale violence on the border between Gaza and Israel. The major
flare-ups have generally occurred on Fridays, following mosque
prayers, when we have repeatedly seen concerted action involving
crowds of up to 40,000 people in five separate areas along the
border. Violence and aggressive actions, including specific acts of
terrorism involving explosives and firearms, have also occurred at
other times during this period.
by Burak Bekdil • May 14, 2018 at
4:00 am
- Since Turkey's Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan came to power, he has often described his mission
as "raising devout [Muslim] generations."
- In a speech in 2017,
Erdoğan -- reflecting his Islamist worldview which often comes
with a seeming desire to Islamize Christian Europe -- called on
Turkish families living in Europe to have five children.
- To the Turkish regime,
as long as children have a religious education, and can cite
Arabic prayers that they do not understand, everything is fine.
If education standards fall constantly, and children to go
factories to work instead of schools, or are married off by
their parents and drop out of school, and even if there is
escalating child abuse, all is well...
Pictured:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visits an Imam Hatip high
school, on April 2, 2018. (Image source: aHBR video screenshot)
There is an annual Kodak-moment in Turkey's
festivities every National Sovereignty and Children's Day, April 23,
in which Turkish leaders pick out smart schoolchildren, bring them to
the president's and prime minister's offices, invite them to sit in
their seats with the president and prime minister there -- and hope
the children to make a few witty remarks in front of the cameras. The
statesmen then give the children affectionate pats on the shoulder
and smile at the cameras.
This year, Fatih Mintaş, a sixth-grade student, took
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's seat and had a chat with him. The
president first reminded Fatih that he should be proud of his name
(Fatih in Turkish means "conqueror"). Erdoğan then reminded
Fatih that he, the president, has six grandchildren and wished that
Fatih, too, would have plenty of grandchildren when he grows up.
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