The weapons were sent by Iranian-backed militias in Syria to a cell of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan that has links to the military wing of Palestinian group Hamas, the people told Reuters. The cache was seized when members of the cell, Jordanians of Palestinian descent, were arrested in late March, they said.

The alleged plot and arrests, reported here for the first time, come at a time of sky-high tensions in the Middle East, with an American-backed Israel at war in Gaza with Hamas, part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” network of proxy groups built up over decades to oppose Israel.

In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas said it had “no ties to any acts targeting Jordan” and that it only sought to target Israel.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/jordan-foils-arms-plot-kingdom-caught-iran-israel-shadow-war-2024-05-15/

[Disclaimer]

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“This is a refugee claimant who is seeking Canada’s protection from the Egyptian authorities, and usually those matters are private, and we would not communicate with a government that someone is alleging is persecuting them.”

Another transcript of a hearing on Oct. 25, 2017, shows the public safety minister’s counsel saying that a liaison officer was going to travel to Egypt to speak to a government minister about the Muslim Brotherhood.

The counsel said the officer was aware Elmady was a refugee claimant and would be discreet and make “limited inquiries,” according to the transcript.

Elmady authorized his translator to provide the transcripts to The Canadian Press.

Elmady said his refugee claim was rejected last October after the CBSA characterized him as a “security threat” because he is a member of the Freedom and Justice Party of Egypt that’s linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not listed on Canada’s list of terrorist entities.

Elmady was one of millions of Egyptians who took to the street in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising to protest against the country’s then-president, Hosni Mubarak, and demand democracy. His party came to power following the 2012 elections, a year after Mubarak’s resignation.

In 2013, Egypt’s army chief seized power in a military coup against the elected Freedom and Justice Party’s government.

Since then, the government has been arresting thousands of the party’s members and Muslim Brotherhood supporters after labelling them as “terrorists” in a campaign that Amnesty International called in 2015 a “ruthless bid to crush dissent.”

Elmady said the campaign against his party forced him to flee Egypt for Saudi Arabia before eventually landing in Canada in 2017.

Another lawyer for Elmady, Washim Ahmed, said he was detained following his landing in Vancouver for two months, and he did not have a battery for his hearing aid device that he needs.

During the interrogation, the CBSA also breached client-solicitor privilege by accessing an email exchange between him and a lawyer without his consent, Ahmed alleged.

Elmady said the CBSA assessment of his case was based on unfair procedures that put him and his family in Egypt at risk.

He said the Egyptian police are now closely watching his father, wife and two children and are intimidating them.

“My father was arrested for two days,” he said in Arabic. “My wife doesn’t know what to do.”

Mithoowani said her client is now challenging his inadmissibility decision before the Federal Court and is filing for a pre-removal risk assessment which would give him limited protection to stay in Canada if he proves that his life will be at risk if he is deported.

The CBSA said it would be inappropriate to comment on a specific case when there is ongoing litigation.

It said the removal of an individual from Canada follows a series of processes and recourse mechanisms that afford foreign nationals due process.

“It is only after such processes have been exhausted that the CBSA can remove a person from Canada,” the agency said in a statement.

“We can also tell you that the CBSA is committed to respecting private, sensitive and privileged information while also protecting the safety and security of the Canadian border.”

CBSA added that officers are instructed not to examine content clearly marked as being subject to solicitor-client privilege, nor to examine content over which a traveller asserts privilege.

In a statement earlier this month, Mary-Liz Power, then a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, said privacy legislation prevents her from commenting on specific cases but everyone deserves equal and competent treatment in their interactions with border services officers.

“(The officers) undergo mandatory anti-racism training that benefits them, the agency, and helps them better support the public they serve every day,” she said.

“We will always ensure Canada remains a welcoming country for those fleeing war and persecution.”

Justin Mohammed, a human rights law and policy campaigner at Amnesty International Canada, said Canadian officials should be informed by context if they inquire about refugee claimants to their country of origin, especially when the foreign government itself is the alleged agent of persecution.

“It would be really important to consider the possibility of harm that could come to relatives or other persons who are close to the refugee claimant,” he said.

Mithoowani said the case speaks to the need to provide a body that can oversee the actions of the border agency. There’s too much discretion left to individual agents, she said.

“What this case shows is that there’s a systemic problem of CBSA agents acting in ways that they should not act,” she said.

“There are no effective complaint mechanisms. There’s no overview of these processes, even though their actions can have such devastating consequences.”

The Liberal government tabled two pieces of legislation that would make the CBSA subject to the same civilian complaints process that applies to the RCMP, but the bills didn’t pass in Parliament.

Elmady said he doesn’t understand how, in a country such as Canada, his case has been handled the way that it has.

“I was hoping, over the last three years, that there would be justice and someone would understand my situation.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 19, 2021.

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/lawyers-for-egyptian-asylum-seeker-facing-deportation-say-oversight-of-cbsa-needed-1.5434076

The post Lawyers for Egyptian asylum-seeker facing deportation say oversight of CBSA needed first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The recent saga surrounding the implications of American withdrawal from Afghanistan has not gone unnoticed in Cairo. Egyptian policy circles believe it has opened the door for Islamist and extremist groups to gain momentum across the region, and regime messaging is framing the situation accordingly.

Since last May, Cairo seemed to be readying itself for the consequences related to the controversial American decision to pull out of Afghanistan. Sheikh Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayab changed his rhetoric from his usual emphasis on sticking to traditional interpretations of religious texts and instead called for reform, stating that “it is a source of vitality and dynamism in Islam.” The Egyptian parliament approved legal amendments that expanded the power of government to fire state employees if they were found to have links with organizations that Egypt has designated as terrorist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. In the same vein, judges interrogated in a humiliating way two of Egypt’s most prominent Salafists clerics—Muhammed Hussein Yaqoub and Muhammed Hassaan—during a televised court session.

While Egyptian rhetoric and legal actions against Islamists ramped up in the months preceding the U.S. withdrawal, Egyptian rhetoric since the Taliban took over Afghanistan is characterized by three themes: a heightened concern over radicalization and the view that Western states are not addressing this threat seriously, and a sense that the U.S. withdrawal indicates either American weakness or lack of trustworthiness.

Intellectuals’ discussions within the elite circles of Cairo have focused on nation-state building to enhance Egypt’s regional soft power while maintaining its culture domestically. They have made numerous references to Afghanistan’s past in the mid-20th century, when it had a functioning state system and had good relations with Egypt. One of the most frequently mentioned books in Egyptian media lately has been An Egyptian woman in Afghanistan, which depicts the personal story of the first Egyptian academic to obtain a doctorate degree from Kabul in 1968 during its ‘flourishing times.’

There is also a clear consensus in Cairo is that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan occurred via a deal with the Taliban, and that the Taliban government serves U.S. interests in some capacity. Veteran Egyptian diplomat Mustafa el-Fiky sarcastically described the group’s easy ascendence to power as “arriving on a white horse.” Many Egyptian intellectuals are interpreting the move as a tactical U.S. decision to pressure Russia and China by unleashing the fundamentalist group, a facet of the broader American power competition with the Russians and Chinese. This conspiratorial perspective argues that the United States will also benefit financially, as wealthy Gulf states will be incentivized to purchase more American weaponry to defend themselves from this new threat.

For those who do not buy into this conspiratorial belief, completion of U.S. withdrawal efforts from Afghanistan has cemented the view that an alliance with Washington is not fully guaranteed and American power is in decline. In this line of thinking, more efforts should be directed toward Beijing and Moscow to diversify weapons and diplomatic options. Leftist and nationalist voices are the biggest champions of this strategy, and there appears to be a joyful atmosphere among them because of an American loss. They are hopeful that what happened in Afghanistan will repeat itself when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Meanwhile, the internal Egyptian security apparatus is increasingly on the alert in anticipation of Islamists resorting back to violence domestically and potential recruitments among young Egyptians to travel to Afghanistan for the purposes of Jihad. Indeed, the historical term Afghani Arabs—referring to the Arab nationals who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and return to carry out attacks against their own governments—has reemerged among security experts. According to general Egyptian assessments, they are potentially going to take Sinai mountains, Libya, and Syria as a haven due to the fertile environment to carry out their operations.

Generally, the reduction of U.S. power does not worry Cairo in the same manner as the Gulf states in the region, which have a tight security architecture with Washington. What does concern Egypt is that the vacuum left by America will likely increase the peak of terrorism throughout the region. Hence, further crackdowns on Islamists and further efforts to regional alliances with likeminded states is likely to be the Egyptian strategy in the years to come when navigating these new regional realities.

Source: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/cairo-acts-its-fears-radicalization-after-afghanistan

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The end of an era is upon the State of Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – the longest serving prime minister in the history of the state – will leave office and the “Shinui” or “Change” bloc will be sworn into office as Israel’s new government, according to a Likud source who spoke Thursday night with The Jerusalem Post.

That means Yamina’s chairperson Naftali Bennett will be sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister, an event that has not taken place for the past 12 years.

The decision to facilitate the transfer of government was made Thursday night.

Also Thursday, Yair Netanyahu, son of the incumbent prime minister, said in a tweet that Facebook temporarily blocked his account for a 24-hour period.

The suspension was implemented after the younger Netanyahu wrote a post advocating a demonstration next to the house of Yamina MK Nir Orbach, who has been wavering on his commitment to the new “change” coalition.

Regardless, the transfer of power from the prime minister to his successor is likely to take place next Wednesday, said the Likud source.

“We don’t want to deal with a challenge to the Supreme Court, receive bad press and look like sore losers,” the source said. “We fight the Supreme Court over more serious issues.”

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid will succeed Bennett and serve as prime minister in two years’ time under a coalition deal agreed to by both men.

Likud Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin is to be replaced by Yesh Atid MK Mickey Levy.

A formal request to begin the process of replacing Levin was submitted to Knesset Secretary Yardena Muller-Horowitz by the 61 Knesset members who are to comprise the new coalition.

Yamina chairperson and incoming prime minister Naftali Bennett told Israel’s Channel 12 News on Thursday that he will soon take office and “end the chaos and get the country back on track.”

Asked about what he will do if Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas attempts to prevent Israel from going to war with Hamas or Hezbollah, Bennett said he will do what he must to maintain the nation’s security – even if it means going again to an election.

Bennett called Abbas a “courageous” leader and apologized for calling a “supporter of terror” in the past. The Ra’am party, and Abbas, are members of the Southern Islamic Movement, which was founded in 1971 along the general lines of the Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned the Hamas terrorist organization.

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After a year of invasions, attacks, aggression, ethnic-cleansing, using Syrian refugees as mercenaries, buying Russian defense technology and working with Iran to oppose the US role in Syria, Turkey’s regime is trying to change its tune to sabotage Israel’s growing friendship with Greece and the UAE.

Ankara has worked closely with western lobbyists and experts who it has cultivated over the years to push this narrative. It is a sophisticated attempt aimed at trying to convince Israel’s government that Ankara wants a new leaf in relations, but Ankara refuses to change and merely wants to muddy the waters between Israel and Jerusalem’s partners in the region.

The push began at Israel HaYom, a newspaper Ankara assumes is read by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and which it thinks is a line directly into Israel’s right-leaning ruling politicians. Turkey watched closely the US election, afraid of president-elect Joe Biden after having poured support towards the Trump administrations.

Between December 5 and 6 articles appeared in Hebrew and then English suggesting that Turkey wanted reconciliation with Israel after a decade in which Ankara’s increasingly anti-Israel regime had hosted Hamas and compared Israel to the Nazis. The “reconciliation” would involve Turkey getting everything it wanted and ruining Israel’s relations with Greece and Cyprus.

Israel had signed a gas pipeline deal with Greece and Cyprus this year and Turkey wants to sabotage that. So “reconciliation” would mean Israel losing allies and Turkey hosting Hamas terrorists and calling Israel a nazi country. Turkey would get everything. Israel: Nothing.

Turkey also pushed this story via Al-Monitor, with an article claiming shared interests on Iran and in the Caucasus push Israel and Turkey closer. In fact Turkey often welcomes Iran regime figures and with Iran it supports Hamas and vows to “liberate” Jerusalem. There is no evidence Israel and Turkey have any shared interests on Iran. But the article claimed “secret contacts between Turkey and Israel.”

There was. No evidence of these supposedly “secret” contacts except Turkey purposely leaking this to make it seem Israel was ready to do Ankara’s bidding. This is the same Turkish regime that said “Jerusalem is ours” and frequently bashes Israel. The regime has never said anything positive about Israel in the last decade. An article on November 30 at Al-Monitor also suggested a “secret channel.” If it’s secret why is Turkey talking so much about it to journalists?

Nevertheless, the willing lobbyists who work on Ankara’s behalf pushed this narrative, complete with maps made in Turkey printed in Israeli media and think tanks. The maps showed Turkey controlling waters off Cyprus and even maybe carving away part of Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone. This would be “reconciliation” by way of surrendering Israel’s decades of work on gas development at sea and Israel’s work with Cyprus, Greece, and Egypt. Israel’s work with Greece is also linked to the new peace with the UAE because the UAE and Greece are increasing cooperation.

Turkey’s regime led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood and is the main opponent of Egypt’s current leadership. Turkey even threatened to break relations with the UAE for normalizing ties with Israel. Ankara has worked to isolate Israel and stop normalization, threatening countries that work with Israel. This is part of Turkey’s “reconciliation.”

Ankara also pretended it was willing to “mend fences” by appointing a new envoy who is known for anti-Israel and anti-Zionist views. Reports last week said Turkey had appointed Ufuk Ulutas as a new envoy. Ulutas wrote in 2013 that Zionism as a “culturally/religiously racist” ideology and that it has “separatist content as well as expansionist policies, the plan committed many massacres, displacing millions of people. It physically and mentally tortured locals.” This is Turkey’s attempt to “mend fences” with Israel, by sending an envoy who accused Israel of “displacing millions” and has called Zionism “racist.”

It was Turkey that withdrew its ambassador from Israel several times over the past decade. Turkey’s regime helped support the Mavi Marmara that tried to break the blockade on Gaza in 2010. Ankara then ordered Israel to apologize for stopping the ship in a raid that led to ten deaths after Israeli soldiers were attacked.

Turkey was the main opponent of US President Donald Trump moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Erdogan compared Israel to Nazi Germany at the UN in September 2019. Turkey gave Hamas leaders, including numerous wanted terrorists, a red carpet twice this year, leading to the US State Department condemning Ankara.

Reports in the UK suggest that Hamas plans terror attacks from Turkey and has done cyber attacks and that the Mossad concluded Turkey is a rising threat, according to the Times of London. In addition Turkey harassed an Israeli ship off Cyprus last year and the IDF has said Turkey’s threats could be a challenge, according to an annual report reported in January.

Ankara has made no moves to condemn Hamas terrorism or apologize for comparing Israel to the Nazis. While the UAE is celebrating Hanukkah and welcoming Jews, Turkey is increasingly antisemitic and extremely anti-Israel. Nevertheless the narrative from Ankara continues.

While Turkey is the largest jailor of journalists and all media in Turkey is pro-government, there are no articles in Turkey supporting Israel, but foreign newspapers are being fed information from Ankara about the “reconciliation.”  Turkey even pushed an article at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, arguing that Israel should ignore Cyprus water rights and gas claims and create a direct maritime jurisdiction with Turkey. This would give Turkey everything and Israel nothing and violate agreements with Cyprus and international law.

Turkey did this before in the spring, trying to slow down Israel’s energy ties with Egypt, Greece and Cyprus and France. Turkey claims that the US has obstructed its “geostrategic destiny,” according to an article at the Hoover Institution. The destiny appears to be one that includes occupying Syria, ethnically-cleansing Kurds and supporting attacks on Armenians, as well as hosting Hamas and fueling extremism from the Middle East to Europe.

The story of the “secret” push to mend-fences with Israel is all about Turkey trying to use media and its long propaganda arm abroad to harm ties between Israel, Greece, Cyprus and the UAE, making it appear Israel is conducting “secret” talks behind the backs of its friends. Turkey leaked this entirely to harm Israel’s relations and even sent maps to Israeli media to use, maps that ignore Cyprus and violate agreements Israel has.

Israel’s friends and partners in Cyprus, Greece, Egypt and the UAE are the opposite of Ankara’s regime. They don’t host Hamas and call Israel a Nazi country, they don’t bash Israel and they don’t appoint envoys known for claiming Zionism is racist. Ankara is one of the most hostile countries in the world to Israel outside of Iran. No other countries in the world besides Ankara and Iran give Hamas a red carpet and Turkey’s current leadership gives Hamas even more respect than Iran does, treating it with the respect of a foreign country.

Ankara has a long history of mobilizing media abroad through contacts to push its narratives, usually to get everything it wants and giving nothing in return. For instance Ankara speaks to friends and lobbyists in Washington to claim that it was “confronting Iran and Russia,” when in fact Ankara was working with Iran and Russia against US interests in Syria and buying Russia’s S-400s.

Now Turkey has pivoted to try to pretend it wants to compartmentalize certain issues with Israel, such as trade and maritime ties, as part of pretending the last year of chaos and extremism Ankara unleashed is behind it. Ankara wants more than anything to play the “good cop” for the new Biden administration, much as it worked to get support from Trump for invasions of Syria, Libya, and threats against Greece and Armenia.

But reality shows what is actually happening in Ankara. The regime is increasingly a far-right openly racist regime against Armenians and Kurds, and Jews are often objects of hatred for the Turkish-backed extremists that it has unleashed in Syria and other countries. If Turkey wanted reconciliation it wouldn’t use it to sabotage Israel’s alliances and isolate Israel and its own media, which is entirely pro-government, would support Israel.

Instead Turkey bashes Israel at home and tars Israel as a “Nazi” country. That is not how reconciliation works. The leaked stories about “secret” talks are designed only to muddle Israel’s relationships with other states in the region as part of an Ankara regime project which it openly says is designed to “liberate” Jerusalem from the “Zionists,” an ideology of religious extremism Ankara shares with Iran’s regime.

While countries like the UAE are welcoming Israelis and Jews and talking about tolerance, Ankara’s government jails dissidents and lashes out at minorities, spreading hatred and intolerance. In that toxic mix, there is no reality of mending fences, only a new anti-Israel envoy and an extremist authoritarian government in Ankara that wants Israel isolated so it can manipulate the incoming Biden administration. When Turkey apologizes for comparing Israel to the Nazis, then that might be evidence that it has changed. Ankara’s current regime will never do that.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/turkeys-regime-seeks-to-isolate-israel-using-reconciliation-propaganda-651911

The post Turkey’s regime seeks to isolate Israel using ‘reconciliation’ propaganda first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Russian authorities are confused about how to respond to spontaneous public actions. A protest of Islamic activists in front of the French embassy in Moscow, on Thursday (October 29) was allowed, but another one, on Friday, was forcefully dispersed (Kommersant, October 30). The fiercest excoriation of the hard stance taken by Macron in the wake of the wave of Islamist-motivated violence came from Ramzan Kadyrov, who finds it necessary to justify his brutal rule over Chechnya with staunch defenses of Islamic values (Republic.ru, October 28). The Kremlin implored the country’s regional leaders not to interfere in foreign policymaking, which is the prerogative of the president (RBC, October 28). But Kadyrov dared to reject this reprimand and demanded an apology from maverick Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who found it convenient to elaborate on the disapproval expressed by the Kremlin (Moscow Echo, October 30). Despite Kadyrov’s embrace of the Islamic cause, the resistance against his dictatorial rule continues, and in a recent “special operation” in Grozny, three police officers were killed while storming a hideout of suspected terrorists (Kavkazsky Uzel, October 13; see EDM, October 26).

What complicates Putin’s position yet further is the forceful and emotionally charged attack on Macron’s defense of democratic values by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who seeks to claim the leadership role for the cause of political Islam (Russiancouncil.ru, October 25). Disagreements between Moscow and Ankara over the Syrian and Libyan conflicts remain barely manageable, and Putin still cannot find a convincing response to Turkey’s massive support for Azerbaijan in the latter’s already-five-week-long war with Armenia over Karabakh (The Insider, October 23). In a recent phone conversation with Putin, Erdoğan announced that he had drawn a “red line” for Russia in the Caucasus, thus undercutting Moscow’s support for Yerevan and rendering the ongoing Russian diplomatic maneuvers ineffectual (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 28). Russia tried to counter by delivering an airstrike against a pro-Turkish militia camp in Syria’s Idlib province, but Erdoğan raised the stakes further by threatening a new offensive in Syria (Kommersant, October 29). Putin could have chosen to try to condemn Turkey’s alleged backing of terrorists and extremists of various sorts, from al-Qaeda offshoots to the Muslim Brotherhood; but he is reluctant to confront his increasingly difficult “strategic partner” (Carnegie.ru, October 30).

Russian nationalists who used to rally around Putin’s flag planted in annexed Crimea are now upset with his failure to cut Erdoğan down to size. However, their anti-Islamic fervor threatens to destabilize the Kremlin leader’s broader regime-entrenching course (Svobodnaya Pressa, October 30). A major challenge to this course keeps growing in Belarus, where embattled President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is now promising to treat the peaceful mass protests as a “terrorist threat” (Newsru.com, October 27). Putin may not be quite ready to subscribe to this definition and may disapprove of Lukashenka’s pledge to “take no prisoners”; but the Russian president has committed to supporting the fellow-autocrat who has relied on brutal violence to prolong his reign (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 28). Police power, among other methods, already gained Belarus’s leader nearly three months of extra time since the falsified elections in early August. But the unexpected resilience of Belarusian society in rejecting Lukashenka and withstanding his regime’s violent attacks signify the inevitable near end of this rule by repression (Rosbalt, October 30).

Lukashenka may act as a cornered despot, but Putin is more aware of the grim legacy of state terror in Russia, where October 30 is annually marked to remember the victims of political repressions (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, October 30). The traditional action of reading randomly selected names of people who were executed or perished in Joseph Stalin’s GULAG was organized virtually this year, but it reached millions of Russians via online social networks, which remain uncensored despite many efforts to establish state control (October29.ru, October 29). Tragic family stories thus gain traction with the new generations who have grown up knowing only Putin as the irreplaceable leader and are now experiencing the maturing of his corrupt autocracy (Znak.com, October 30). Putin yearns to ensure the stability of his illiberal regime by branding opposition activists as “extremists,” expecting that selective punishments will suffice to dishearten mass support for these “radicals.” But as some observers note, the ugly shadow of Stalinism grows deeper under his power vertical (Riddle, October 27).

The radicalization of Islamist-indoctrinated youth is a much lesser concern for Putin than the deepening disappointment in his self-serving rule among the increasingly propaganda-resistant populace. He may even find glee in Macron’s troubles and seek to benefit from France’s problems with the Muslim world. Yet his own inability to restrain the arrogant Kadyrov or to confront the ambitious Erdoğan may undercut his residual support even deeper than his courtiers dare to assess. The multiple escalating tensions caused by the unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic is certainly apparent in many societies; but in Russia, it is aggravated by the crisis of a long-underfunded health care system and the failure in leadership caused by the protracted self-isolation of the presumably omnipotent guarantor of stability. Belarus is a striking example of the determination in society to stay the course of peaceful resistance to a regime’s attempts to terrorize it into submission. In Russia, however, the accumulated discontent is so combustible that even an utterly senseless, random terrorist attack could become a trigger for a sequence of violent explosions of anger—a recurrent feature of Russia’s tragic history.

Source: https://jamestown.org/program/new-wave-of-islamic-extremism-adds-to-putins-troubles/

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It may not be news on the mainstream outlets, but we’re in the middle of an insurrection to overthrow everything to do with the United States.  Months after the fact, “protesters” are still battling police in the streets at all hours of the night and early morning.  They’ve spray-painted buildings, including federal offices and courthouses.  The coalition of antifa, black lives matter and Muslim brotherhood have banded together to battle police throwing every available projectile at them.  President Trump has sent officers from the Border Patrol and Homeland Security to protect federal property, and you undoubtedly know the response, not only from the protest groups, but from the “progressive” Mayors of Portland, Chicago and other big cities.

“Clean up the graffiti and go home!”  For at least a week most media outlets have come unglued, claiming that Trump has unleashed “federal troops” to “disappear peaceful protesters in unmarked vehicles.”  They’ve said, “This is what we’d expect of a foreign dictator.”  It looks as though we can expect this narrative to play on.  The President has just said he intends to send federal police to a list of cities, including Albuquerque?

Apparently the carnage in Minneapolis and New York was so spectacular, the media failed to even inform us about what a hotbed Portland had become.  The insanity is ongoing in Portland to this day.  It’s the sixties all over again, with a whole generation having been brainwashed instead of educated. The radical bombers and rioters of the ’60s are now esteemed professors, and they’ve turned the nation’s youth against their own parents and against the United States.

There’s no way I can’t tell you of the work Glenn Beck has done, exposing the connections between the radical professors, the “Arab Spring” protests that roiled the Middle East, the invasion of Europe by “poor refugees” and now the full-blown attempt to destroy the American culture and economy.  He’s got the goods.

Some of us have been highly suspicious of the media reporting about the Chinese virus.  Yes, we do know of a handful of people who are said to have tested positive.  But none of them died, and for some it was a matter of something like the common cold.  For others we know it was like a bad flu, but they survived it and are doing fine.  Nevertheless, every news report claims a new spike in cases, and proceeds to lecture that you must be afraid.

News anchors across the board read the “wire,” claiming that cases are “exploding” in state after state, county after county, city after city.  You must proceed with fear, assuming you proceed at all.   They express total exasperation at President Trump for not having issued a national mask order.  Meanwhile lawsuits are flying over mask “mandates.”  All the mandates we care about are the ones God-ordained.  Isn’t that the whole idea behind the American philosophy?  Laws are to maintain a peaceful, orderly society according to God’s Laws for mankind.  Beyond that, we don’t think too much of little officials who’ve had a taste of power.

Here in Texas, our governor saw fit to order a mask mandate.  He says we can all go back to living if we’ll just wear our masks, wash our hands, stay at least six feet apart and stop touching our faces.  You’d be amazed at how few pay the least bit of attention.  But businesses don’t have that luxury.  If they’re a restaurant or bar, they can have their business license or liquor license revoked if they don’t follow protocol, regardless of the soundness of whatever logic the “authorities” are pushing this week.  Credit goes to Victor Davis Hansen for coming up with this gem.  “They’re trying to save our lives by preventing us from living.”

Meanwhile, the media’s beloved protesters obviously don’t care a whit about “keeping everyone safe.”  Portland, Oregon has nightly battles between protesters and police.  These poor cops are standing around dodging rocks, bricks and frozen water bottles.  Meanwhile the President sent in some Border Patrol, U. S. Marshals, and DHS officers to protect the federal courthouse and office buildings.  And the media goes nuts.

Who knew there was trouble in Albuquerque, of all places?  It’s going to get a compliment of federal police too.  Turns out they’ve had violent confrontations in the streets resulting in shootings.  All this is over a statue of a conquistador who founded the settlement, but is accused having massacred Indians.  All that happened some 400 years ago, long before the founding of the United States.  Do you ever get the idea that radicals are just looking for an excuse to create anarchy?

It’s “marshal law” say all the networks.  They’re “stormtroopers.”  It’s the gestapo!  Anchors and “experts” on all the cable channels claim that this is merely a dry run for when Trump refuses to leave the White House after losing the upcoming election.  They wedge that in between calling the President a racist, xenophobe, narcissist, dictator, claiming he values his political fortunes more than he cares about the people of the United States.  Just guessing, but it’s doubtful many would have given up the luxury and freedom of his billionaire lifestyle to become the target of lowlife communists, the darlings of network anchors.

The Church of God has a history of preaching that the end of the age is at hand.  It made the mistake of predicting that the church would flee to a place of safety, even naming that place, as the tribulation of Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation began destroying western culture.  That was fifty and more years ago.  Since then, some of these guys who led away splinter groups have called themselves prophets and apostles and claim they are administering the “government of God” among their flocks and will lead them to a place of safety.  That is, after their people have given everything they have to the “church.”

If somebody knows what they’re saying or doing now, please keep it to yourself.  We don’t even want to know.  It’s a huge embarrassment that they took some of the most bizarre claims of Herbert W. Armstrong very late in his life, when he was suffering severe health problems and under the smothering influence of his “advisor,” and applied those claims to themselves.  Suddenly they are apostles and prophets with God’s infallibility, and people just wait for their instructions.  If you’ve ever been under such dictatorial authority, our hearts go out to you.

Ours is a work of watching and warning, not issuing and enforcing “orders.”  Things are getting mighty dicey of late.  We’ve got a communist insurrection underway that is wealthy and has the tacit approval of most mainstream corporations and media.  Sports used to be a way of escaping the nonsense.  Not any more.  The franchises are all going to rub our faces in their racist nonsense.  Professional baseball, basketball and football have gone out of their way to let us know they side with the mob.  Most TV networks are not only on board, but airing ads about how they stand for diversity, inclusion, equality and justice.  In fact, they’re hoping they don’t get burned to the ground.

When you look at the bravery and the dignity with which our founders conducted themselves in the business of winning our freedom, this stuff looks like tiddlywinks.  But only in terms of its actual importance.  Some of us believe the racists are the people trying to rile everybody up about racism.  The rest of us are hoping the anarchists and the violent masked masses find something productive to do with their lives.

The United States has been a great blessing to all mankind.  We’ve got real concerns, and no time to be drawn aside by a bunch of thugs yearning to loot expensive retailers.  We want the police to do their jobs and return peace and order to cities and public places.  We’re not about to take a knee, or join some movement of appeasement.  If they’re bent out of shape about some historical injustice, they can write a letter.  But attacking police has got to stop.  Rioting, burning, looting is not protest.  The protests are NOT peaceful.  They are cover for a movement that seeks to destroy Western culture.

In my neighborhood, two houses have lawn signs that say God is in control.  Certainly God has intervened at critical times in history, and you’d have to be blind to ignore the miracles He wrought, several in the war that won our independence.  But the idea that He’s “controlling” the lies, the deceptions and the violence we see playing out around us seems a stretch.  My Dad believed that God allowed humanity to do what it would, intervening only when He saw fit.  Will He see fit to intervene and save the Western world?  Does the Western world deserve His intervention and continued blessings?

God is in control whenever He wants to be.  Otherwise, he’s allowing events to unfold here on Earth.  He hears the prayers of the righteous, but how many are there?  It seems that there are many upright people trying to do what’s right, but have been deceived by their own families and churches about God’s Sabbaths and commanded observances that commemorate historical events of all our forefathers.  There are things they don’t understand and cannot accept, but they are living otherwise honorable lives.

Evil has descended upon the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, and Europe.  All have been consumed by the deception we call fake news.  Every one of those nations has already fallen victim to an ideology of evil, contrary to the Bible and contrary to the founding principles that allowed for the peace and prosperity foretold and promised to Abraham by God.  He made good on His promises, but our societies have long since abandoned our responsibilities that were part of the covenant.  In essence, we’ve nationally reneged on respecting His Word and obeying His Laws.

Society has demanded that we acquiesce to some of the most heinous sins ever invented.  They are celebrated with parades and debauchery, you must applaud lest “society” destroy your life.  Our nation needs the prayers of people God respects.  We’re in the middle of a big deal, and it’s starting to look as if there’s no going back.  Not only with the communists that want to destroy freedom and capitalism, but with communist China. If we want God to intervene and save Western civilization one more time, it will take repentance for having broken His Laws.  No, there is not yet a ten-nation beast power.  Jerusalem is not surrounded with armies.  We can still buy and sell, sort of.  The abomination of desolation has not been set up, and there is yet no temple.  But Western civilization is in grave trouble.  We suspect that the author of evil is directing the deception and the destruction, and we know where the only hope lies.

Mark

PS  It looks as though we’ll still be able to keep all our Feast sites running. Of particular concern was the one at Land Between the Lakes.  But that was a false alarm and we are secure in that location.  Any questions can be directed to our Coordinator Mike Partridge (812) 867-9835.

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 24 July 2020 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

For some time they were patient with those who believe in inviolable rights handed down from the Creator God.  It’s in our Declaration and codified in Constitutional language.  But they’ve had enough already.  Now, you will submit on the basis of keeping everybody safe, or they’d have you believe that you’re risking “killing people” by transmitting a disease you don’t know you have.  So you’re not sick?  That’s what you think.  Why, this virus can hide out for at least a couple of weeks while you spread it to people who’ll die.  It’s made to order for the destruction of capitalism. They’d have us believe that simply displaying a mask is somehow “saving lives,”  even if you’re not sick.  Perhaps especially if you’re not sick because it’s sending a message to everyone around you.

Because many have refused to play by the new rules, governors are threatening to shut down everything completely.  In California, business concerns were “allowed” to begin working again as long as all COVID protocols were followed.  But then a funny thing happened.  Hardly anyone showed up anywhere with masks and gloves.  It’s not nice to flaunt official MANDATES.  So now everything has to be shut down again!  That ought to teach the public that when the governor or mayor gives an order, you better obey their mandates, or suffer their wrath.

New definitions for words have been devised, and a whole new range of phrases that don’t mean what you thought they did.  It’s not acceptable anymore to say you’re not racist.  Under the evolving new lingo, that’s proof positive that you’re a racist, alright.  You must be “anti-racist” in order to be left alone, and that means supporting the tenants of BLM (which used to stand for the Bureau of Land Management, but that’s probably a racist bit of knowledge).   Somewhere in the process of being “anti-racist”, you must admit that “systemic racism” is part and parcel with American culture and the capitalist system.  Becoming “anti-racist” means you have to help, or at least support its destruction.

It’s why you keep hearing about the need for a “conversation.”  Nothing means what it did.   Innocent-sounding phrases now have all kinds of ramifications, and you must learn what things really mean, and why you’ve been part of the problem without knowing it; why you’re probably sick and don’t know it.  In short, we’re being herded into admission and submission.  It looks like that is what nearly all the big corporations, everything from TV networks to sporting goods chains are doing, admission and submission.  Corporations think the quickest way to get the goon squad out of the street and off their backs is to agree to every demand coming our way.

That means changing the names of everything.  The Washington Redskins announced that they’re giving in as an organization, and now they’re going to change the name.  We’re not sure to what.  Glenn Beck suggested The Washington Weasels.  It’s hard to remember how many times this argument has come around.  The last time it did, they couldn’t seem to find any tribe or Indian representative who was offended.  It seems like some came forward and said explicitly that the moniker wasn’t offensive, but that was then.  Now they’ve got BLM, antifa, the Muslim Brotherhood and every other radical misfit on the bandwagon.  From recent experience, they know and we know that there will be attacks, fires interspersed with “peaceful protests” at any attempt to go forward without taking a knee for the mob.  But that won’t be the end of it.  They’ll have another grievance soon.

Here in Tyler, the local news reported this morning that there will be meetings to determine whether the names of both high schools in town must be changed.  One is John Tyler High School, the other is Robert E. Lee High School.  If they manage to get those names changed, maybe the name of the city is next!  At the rate names of things and places are falling into disrepute, soon we may not know where we are or where we’re going.

Disney, of all places, has the quarterback with a hairband who doesn’t play football as a production partner to give his unique perspective on all aspects of race relations in sports.  He’s going to produce a special that chronicles his life, and it’s going to include never-before-seen footage that’s been shot over these years he’s not been playing.  Oh boy, we can’t wait!  Instead of football, he’s been signing big deals with the likes of Nike just to make sure we never buy another pair of shoes from them.  That ought to show us!

News anchors have been beside themselves because our president wouldn’t don a mask in public, and finally, they claim, a hospital visit was put on his official schedule for the express purpose of getting pictures of Donald Trump in a mask.  “Pretty sad,” said CNN.  He’d never have set the photographic example, except that they put him in a hospital situation where infectious patients in residence made it a necessity.  Too bad he didn’t just refuse to go the hospital under the circumstances.  If he’d done that, there would have been a media meltdown that would have lasted until they had another bombshell accusation.  Maybe he needs new advisors and planners.  Going along with the demands of the mob right now is tantamount to helping accomplish the goal of a communist revolution.  Some of us just aren’t on board!

Crime has exploded in America’s big cities.  Police in New York (and many other places) are afraid to do their jobs, lest they be called you know what, possibly fired and prosecuted.  Criminals have been encouraged to resist and fight police or run if confronted.  Even a presidential hopeful is now calling police “the enemy.”

The destruction of Western civilization is underway, and it’s being carried out in such a way that no one dares fight back.  After all, you may get the dreaded virus and DIE.  Every time it looks like the economy may bounce back, the news reporters ON EVERY NETWORK and local station dependent on wire services announces a spike in cases.  This testing extravaganza was a bad idea.  It’s hard to know whether the tests are unreliable, or those conducting them are part of the plot.  Laura Ingraham reported that the testing stations in Florida are reporting 100% of people tested are positive, none negative.  In Virginia, every time they get another positive result out of someone who’s tested positive, it’s listed as an additional case.  One person who tested positive 15 times has been reported as 15 separate cases in the “numbers,” which of course don’t lie.

It was reported today that the U. S. government has dispatched an estimated  EIGHT TRILLION dollars to make sure people weren’t under undue financial stress as they stayed home unable to go to work, lest one or another state government make an example of them.  It turns out that’s a “guestimate” for all of 2020.  A mere 4.75 trillion has been expended to date.

Several states that make up a sizable proportion of American productivity are still LOCKED DOWN.  They’re determined that children not return to school in the fall, and that means many adults have a problem going to work, assuming it’s “allowed.”  That ought to fix capitalism, once and for all.

Maybe you’ve noticed, the lock-downs include churches!  You will NOT assemble to worship God, or the police might show up!  So who do you fear?  The rioters obviously don’t fear the authorities or God.  We fear and worship God, and the local “authorities” will learn to sooner or later, assuming they ever get over their power trip.

Source: https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/admit-youre-part-of-the-problem-and-submit/

The post Admit you’re part of the problem and Submit! first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Omar attends the Muslim Caucus Education Collective’s 2019 conference in D.DC – Reuters

Al Arabiya English‘s Abdulla Almanai reports that U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was recruited by a foreign government, passed sensitive information that was relayed to Iran, and received funding by a foreign government, quoting a sworn deposition by a Canadian businessman in a Florida court.

In video link testimony from Toronto, Canada to a Florida District Court on October 23, Kuwaiti-born Alan Bender claims to have ties with governments and royal officials across the Middle East including Qatar. He says he met Qatar’s Secretary to the Emir for Security Affairs Mohammad bin Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Masnad and two other senior Qatari officials.

The three allegedly claimed credit for Omar’s meteoric rise, saying: “If it wasn’t for our cash, Ilhan Omar would be just another black Somali refugee in America collecting welfare and serving tables on weekends,” according to Bender’s sworn deposition. The deposition was obtained by Al Arabiya English and authenticated by the attorney for the plaintiffs.

American and Turkish media previously reported that Omar met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a key supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, when she was a junior state representative in Minnesota in 2017. According to Bender, Omar met Erdogan and allegedly swore allegiance to him.

Bender claims that once Omar took office, she used her position in the House of Representatives to access sensitive information which she relayed to Qatar, and through them to Iran.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/272249

The post US Rep Ilhan Omar accused of being foreign agent first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Smoke billows from targets in Tel Abyad, Syria, during bombardment by Turkish forces. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

By invading northern Syria last week, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan achieved what many thought impossible – uniting all the regional countries and rival powers with a stake in the country in furious opposition to what they see as a reckless, destabilizing move.

A truculent nationalist-populist with dictatorial tendencies, Erdoğan has often cast himself as one man against the world during 16 consecutive years as Turkey’s prime minister and president. Now he really is on his own.

Fighting along the border is limited, so far, but that could quickly change. “Should hostilities intensify, a broader Turkish advance into densely populated areas could entail significant civilian casualties, displace many inhabitants and fuel local insurgency,” the International Crisis Group warned.

Even as the EU, the US, Russia, Iran, and the Arab states voice their differing objections to the invasion (Turkey terms it a “peace operation”), each is simultaneously trying to adjust to it, looking for advantage or leverage as the balance of power in Syria shifts again.

Erdoğan doubtless anticipated Europe’s hostile reaction. His response – a threat to send 3.6 million Syrian refugees westwards – was contemptuous. He knows the EU’s words are not matched by action. Nor is he fazed by calls to suspend Turkey from Nato.

Turkey’s relations with Europe were already at a low ebb because of its abysmal human rights record and thwarted EU membership bid. Now European leaders are paying a high price for past attempts to normalize Erdoğan’s authoritarianism. His latest actions prove he is no democrat, no ally and no friend.

While Europe has scant influence over what happens next, the US has plenty – but seems determined to throw it away. Despite denials, it is clear from the White House statement issued on 6 October that Donald Trump rashly agreed to Erdoğan’s invasion, without consulting his allies, and facilitated it by withdrawing ground forces.

It was a disastrous decision the US is belatedly scrambling to correct. Betraying the Kurds, comrades-in-arms in the fight against Isis, was bad enough. Appearing to abandon Syria to Russia and Iran, America’s rivals and the main backers of Bashar al-Assad’s criminal Damascus regime, was a big strategic own goal, capping eight years of post-Arab spring US policy failures.

It might be thought the Russians would be happy. After all, pushing the US out of Syria (and the wider Middle East) is their long-held aim. Yet Moscow’s reaction to the invasion has been largely negative, as was the case after Turkey intervened in Syria’s Idlib province last year.

When Vladimir Putin sent forces to Syria in 2015, he put his money on Assad to win, but victory has proved elusive, while costs – political and financial – have mounted. Erdoğan’s move further complicates matters by obstructing the peace settlement Russia, Iran (and Turkey) have been pursuing via the so-called Astana process.

That’s why Russia is urging the Kurds, now the US has abandoned them, to agree to a mutual defense pact or some kind of federal arrangement with Assad. And that’s why regime forces and pro-Iran militia are edging towards Kurdish-held areas from the south. Assad sees a chance to recapture lost territory. Erdoğan’s fatuous “safe zone” wheeze has no appeal for him.

Iran is not happy either, but for different reasons. It, too, wants to see the back of the Americans and has no love for the Kurds, a troublesome minority inside Iran. But Turkey’s move threatens Tehran’s hopes of controlling a northern territorial corridor linking it with its Shia allies in Lebanon – what Israel calls a “corridor of terror”.

After struggling to establish a pro-Tehran, Shia-dominated government in post-2003 Baghdad, Iran does not want to face another Sunni uprising across Syria and Iraq.

“The US withdrawal will kindle fears in Iran of a galvanized Sunni insurgency through a renascent Islamic State (Isis),” wrote regional analyst Bilal Baloch.

Worries about an Isis revival, considered more likely thanks to Turkey’s move, are common to all the regional players. Strangely, in this respect at least, the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia, on the brink of war a few weeks ago, now find themselves on the same side.

Arab governments including Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, and the UAE, as well as the Saudis, have all condemned Turkey. After initially backing Syria’s rebels, several have pursued a cautious rapprochement with Assad in recent months, based on a shared interest in regional stability and upholding the principle of territorial sovereignty.

Arab leaders also object to Erdoğan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and his neo-Ottoman ideas about Turkish regional dominance. Like Russia and Iran, they calculate, reluctantly but pragmatically, that the only way to end Syria’s war and contain Isis, is to back Assad. Erdoğan has now got in the way.

The crisis has produced another cautionary lesson: that American alliances cannot be trusted. The Kurds already knew this. They were betrayed in Iraq in 1991 when the US left Saddam Hussein in power at the end of the first Gulf war.

But US unreliability is new for the Saudi regime which, like Israel, ultimately depends on Washington for its security. The more the Saudis realize they cannot count on America, the more likely they are to mend fences with Iran. By some accounts, this is already happening.

How ironic if Trump’s Syrian cop-out – providing a reality check about the limits of American power – led indirectly to peace in the Gulf, an end to the Iran-Saudi proxy war in Yemen, and spiked the guns of US and Israeli hawks who have pushed so hard for war with Tehran.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2019/oct/12/turkey-invasion-syria-trump-withdrawal-gulf-rivals-unite

The post Erdoğan has managed the unthinkable: uniting all the other Middle East rivals first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.