Reports of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s sudden death on June 17 in a Cairo courtroom where he was being tried for espionage for the Hamas terror group centered around his poor prison conditions.

The former Egyptian president and Muslim Brotherhood leader, who was deposed by the Egyptian military in July 2013, had been jailed since shortly after his removal from office. He was charged and convicted of a host of crimes ranging from the deliberate killing of protesters to treason and espionage.

Very few of the details about his actions as president have been mentioned in the sea of reports about his untreated diseases during his prolonged imprisonment.

And that is a shame. For as bad as his suffering may well have been in prison, the suffering that Morsi and his colleagues in the Muslim Brotherhood were inflicting on Egypt and the Middle East, and the even greater suffering his retention of power would have inflicted on the region and the world as a whole, was far greater than his private travails in prison.

Today, as tensions rise seemingly by the day in the standoff between Iran and its proxies on the one hand, and Iran’s neighbors, the United States, and Israel on the other, it is important to consider just how much worse things would be today had Morsi remained in office in 2013 and we were now in the seventh year of his rule.

In January 2011, the wave of revolutionary fervor that had swept through Tunisia the previous month came to Egypt. After 29 years of authoritarian rule under President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian people seemed to have had enough. Unrest began in Alexandria and Suez, with protests and assaults on police stations, and quickly spread to Cairo. The Obama administration, with the eager support of former Bush administration officials, viewed the unrest with satisfaction. From the Bush administration alumni’s perspective, the popular protests were proof that George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda” was resonating with the peoples of the Middle East. From the Obama administration’s perspective, the revolt against Mubarak, which was led by the Muslim Brotherhood, was an indication that Islamism and democracy were complementary ideals.

Washington was unmoved by the warnings, which grew in intensity during the two weeks of protests that led to Mubarak’s abdication of power on February 8, 2011, from Egypt’s Middle Eastern allies and from Mubarak himself. The Israelis, the Saudis, and other allied governments warned the Americans that the only force in Egypt with the power to replace Mubarak was the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood, which was formed in 1928, developed the ideology for Sunni jihadists from Hamas to al Qaeda, which it spawned.

Its slogan — “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope” — left no doubt about its intentions or its planned policies.

And yet the Obama administration closed its eyes and ears to the danger. It disregarded the fact that for nearly 30 years in power, Mubarak was a steady U.S. ally. He studiously maintained Egypt’s peace with Israel and so ensured the prevention of a major regional war. He was also a consistent ally in the fight against al Qaeda. Under Mubarak’s rule, the Egyptian regime was committed to ensuring the safety of the Suez Canal.

Rather than stand by the man that had served as the anchor for the U.S. alliance system with the Sunni Arab world, the Obama administration demanded that he abdicate power while insisting that the Muslim Brotherhood was a positive force.

In testimony before Congress two days after Mubarak was forced from power, James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence, maintained that the jihadist Brotherhood was “a largely secular” organization that was dedicated to advancing “social ends and the betterment of the political order in Egypt,” in Clapper’s words.

Notably, a week after Clapper’s testimony, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Yousouf Qaradawi, who had lived in exile in Qatar for 31 years, made a triumphant return to Cairo. There he delivered a speech to two million Egyptians at Tahrir Square. He ended the speech with a rousing call for the Egyptians to renew their war against Israel and to conquer Jerusalem. His words were met with roars of approval from the vast assembly.

Qaradawi said, “Egypt, who fought four wars on behalf of Palestine, should not break from this path.”

The ground was set for the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of Egypt during the 16 months of the military caretaker government that ran Egypt from February 2011 until Morsi’s inauguration in September 2011. On September 10, 2011 a mob destroyed a concrete barrier protecting the Israeli embassy in Cairo. After hours of siege, it stormed the embassy. Two Israeli security officers were spirited out by Egyptian forces just moments before the embassy was overrun. Saving them required the direct intervention of President Obama, as Egypt’s military regime refused to take calls from Israel’s leaders.

Israel deployed a military transport jet to Cairo airport to evacuate its personnel. Netanyahu referred to the ransacking of the embassy as “a blow to the fabric of peace.”

In 1979 Egypt’s conclusion of its peace treaty on the one hand, and the Islamic revolution in Iran on the other, transformed the two allies into enemies. From 1979 through February 2011, no Iranian warship was permitted to transit the Suez Canal. Two weeks after Mubarak was forced from power, and in a signal to the global community that Egypt’s geopolitical position was rapidly shifting, two Iranian warships traversed the Suez Canal en route to Syria.

In October 2011, Egyptian military forces massacred Coptic Christians in what became known as the Maspiro demonstrations. In the meantime, during the course of the elections campaign, Morsi and other leading Muslim Brotherhood members and clergy insisted that their victory would represent the “second Islamic conquest” of Egypt. Under their rule, the Copts would be treated as second class citizens in line with Islamic sharia law, and be forced to pay the jizya, or poll tax, on pain of death.

After taking power in June 2012, Morsi and his colleagues in the Egyptian parliament set about keeping their promises. In December 2012, they amended the Egyptian constitution in a manner that would have transformed the country into an Islamic state governed by Sharia law, while rendering Muslim Brotherhood rule permanent. In November 2012, Morsi signed a presidential decree proclaiming that his decisions could not be checked by judicial authorities, effectively transforming himself into a dictator.

The month Morsi arrogated to himself absolute power to rule Egypt, Hamas opened a missile campaign against Israel in which more than a hundred rockets and mortars were shot into Israeli territory in 24 hours. Israel’s responded with an eight day counterterror operation called Pillar of Defense. While Morsi played a role in mediating the conflict, he also facilitated Hamas’s aggression. Upon taking office, he opened the Egyptian border with Gaza and allowed the free flow of missiles and other offensive weapons to Hamas, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood terror regime. Hamas terrorists, for their part, were deployed to Egypt as shock troops to defend Morsi and his regime. On Monday, when Morsi collapsed in the courtroom, he was being tried for coordinating the January 2011 prison breaks in Suez with Hamas. Morsi and thousands of other Muslim Brotherhood members were freed in that raid, allegedly carried out by Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated Egypt from Gaza.

During his 13 months in office, Morsi also moved swiftly to rebuild Egypt’s relations with Iran. He visited Tehran in August 2012, signaling the shift.  In February 2013, he hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Cairo, rolling out the red carpet at the Cairo airport, where Morsi greeted the Iranian leader in an official ceremony.

Morsi would have been successful in his bid to transform Egypt into an Islamic state, had it not been for his incompetence in handling Egypt’s economic crisis. During his short tenure, Egypt’s foreign currency reserves disappeared. As a country that imports half of its grain, its bankruptcy rendered Egypt incapable of feeding its people. And on the eve of Morsi’s overthrow, the Egyptian people were on the brink of mass starvation.

Morsi failed to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would have attenuated the crisis because he refused to introduce austerity measures the IMF required.

It was Egypt’s financial collapse that convinced Egypt’s Minister of Defense, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, to take action to remove Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Morsi’s radical Islamist policies terrified the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates who pledged to support Egypt in the event that Sisi and the military acted. Israel, for its part, worked assiduously to block a cut off of U.S. aid to Egypt in the aftermath of Morsi’s overthrow.

Morsi’s rise was the result of a combination of American bipartisan imprudence and Islamist determination and power. Had he and the Muslim Brotherhood successfully retained power, the Egyptian-Iranian alliance he was forging would have mounted a challenge to the Muslim world and to the West that has rarely if ever been contemplated by Western policymakers.

Morsi’s fall was a testament to the Egyptian people’s ability to recognize and correct their mistakes. It was a testament to Sisi’s courage. And it was a testament to the wisdom and willingness to act of the Israelis, and the Sunni Arab states who recognized the danger, even as Washington willfully refused to see it.

It is regrettable that Morsi apparently received ill treatment in Egypt’s prisons. But his failure to maintain power is a blessing for humanity.

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18. Analysis: How has Israel fared under Netanyahu’s leadership?

 June 26, 2019

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Flash90/Noam Revkin Fenton)

As Netanyahu reaches a new milestone, it’s worth looking back over his leadership to ask how he’s done.

By Daniel Krygier, World Israel News

Benjamin Netanyahu will soon surpass David Ben-Gurion as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. He has dominated Israeli politics during the past decade. Now his political future is uncertain and clouded by looming indictments for corruption.

So how has Netanyahu fared during his time in power? Is Israel better or worse off under his leadership? How will history judge him?

Certainly, on the economy most would argue Netanyahu has made important strides. Israel has experienced unprecedented economic prosperity. More than any other Israeli prime minister, perhaps because he has a better understanding of economics, Netanyahu has focused extensively on reforming Israel’s economy and making it more competitive.

When Netanyahu became Israel’s finance minister in the early 2000s, the economy was in crisis. The debt ratio was over 100 percent of GDP and the economy was contracting. Netanyahu’s fiscal policies stimulated positive GDP growth and gradually reduced the debt ratio to 64 percent in 2019.

Under Netanyahu’s leadership, the shekel transformed from a weak and unstable currency to a strong and stable one. In 2010, Israel was formally recognized as an advanced economy by becoming an OECD member.

When Netanyahu won re-election in 2009, Israel’s GDP per capita was $27,000. Today, it stands at $43,000 per capita, higher than several European countries. Israel’s GDP per capita soared by 60 percent over the past decade.

 The standard of living has risen for most Israelis and keeps rising. While work remains to integrate haredi men and Israeli-Arab women into Israel’s modern economy, a growing number from both sectors are earning advanced degrees and joining the job market.

Diplomatic efforts

In the sphere of diplomacy, Netanyahu challenged the conventional wisdom that insists that Israel’s international relations depend on peace with the Palestinian Authority. Critics often claim that Netanyahu’s policies are isolating the Jewish state. However, recent trends tells a different story.

Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Israel has deepened and strengthened its relations with the emerging BRIC powers: Brazil, Russia, India and China. Chinese-Israeli trade alone has soared from $50 million in 1992 to $13 billion in 2017.

Past Israeli leaders often focused on seeking international sympathy for Israel. By contrast, Netanyahu’s pragmatic diplomacy has focused on Israeli technological know-how and security skills.

Netanyahu has developed strong personal ties with the leaders of Russia, India and Brazil. Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin nine times, more than any other Western leader. The strong relations between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Netanyahu have dramatically boosted trade between Israel and India.

India is today the largest export market for Israeli military technology. For instance, in 2017, Israel Aerospace Industries won an Indian order worth $1.6 billion for the land-based Barak 8 missile system.

Earlier this year, Brazil’s newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro was warmly greeted in Jerusalem, his first overseas visit as president. During Bolsonaro’s visit, Brazil and Israel signed various bilateral trade agreements.

Similarly, Netanyahu’s strong ties with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have boosted trade between Tokyo and Jerusalem. In 2018, bilateral trade between Japan and Israel amounted to $3.5 billion, an increase of 20 percent compared to 2017.

Critics argue that Netanyahu’s policies have undermined Israel’s relations with the European Union. However, Brussels’ hostility towards Jerusalem predates Netanyahu and seems largely connected to Europe’s Middle Eastern policies and the growing Muslim communities on the Continent.

Arab ties

Ironically, Israel’s ties with the Sunni Arab world have improved under Netanyahu. While paying lip service to the Arab-Israel conflict, Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf States increasingly seek Israeli technologies and security expertise. The United Arab Emirates has expressed interest in Israeli high-tech, especially cyber security, medical supplies and irrigation technologies.

Behind closed doors, Arab leaders across the Sunni world see Israel as the only regional power that is capable of confronting the Iranian regional threat. Like Netanyahu, Saudi leaders oppose European appeasement of Iran.

Under Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, U.S.-Israeli relations and cooperation are stronger than ever. During this period, America moved its embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights, departed the Iran deal and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. Unlike his predecessor President Obama, President Trump holds the PA accountable for the lack of Arab-Israeli peace.

The legacy of Israeli leaders tends to be viewed through the lens of war and peace. Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s legacy is the Camp David Peace Accords with Egypt and the First Lebanon War. Prime Minister Yitzkah Rabin’s name is associated with the rise and fall of the Oslo Peace Accords. During Netanyahu’s premiership, peace remains elusive and no new treaties have been signed with Israel’s Arab neighbors.

Netanyahu’s opponents say he is responsible for the lack of peace with Ramallah. Critics on the right are frustrated with the Netanyahu government’s inability to find a long-term solution to the Gaza crisis.

After being in power for a decade, Netanyahu’s critics argue that the time has come for him to step down from political life. They argue that it is unhealthy for any democracy to have the same leader in power for such an extended period of time. With corruption scandals facing him, they say this is the moment for him to step aside.

It may be that Netanyahu is forced to step down. Be that as it may, his legacy will include many important achievements.

19. Palestinians ‘not completely honest’ when they say they want a state, historian observes

 June 26, 2019

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas (Flash90)

The Palestinians “have a leadership that is keeping them at a state of perpetual victimhood,” says Hebrew University’s Gaudi Taub.

By World Israel News Staff

With the Palestinian Authority boycotting the U.S.-led conference currently taking place in Bahrain, are the Palestinians again showing that they “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” in the now-famous phrase of legendary Israeli diplomat Abba Eban?

“In our world of moral kitsch, where victimhood is moral justification for everything, I think the one asset the Palestinians are not willing to give up is their misery,” said Gaudi Taub, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in an interview with FRANCE 24 TV.

“They have a leadership that is keeping them at a state of perpetual victimhood,” he argued.

Stating that the Palestinians are “not completely honest” when they say that they want a state, Taub adds: “If it was Zionism we would have taken the money, built stuff with it, and then tried to move on to other goals, not give it up in advance,” Taub told the French television channel.

Pre-state Zionist leader and Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion “would have taken the money and then demanded a state,” said the historian.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) announced that it was cutting off diplomatic contacts with the Trump administration when the U.S. president recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017.

“We need the economic [support], the money and the assistance, but before everything there is a political solution,” said PA leader Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday, criticizing the American approach of presenting its economic plan for the region before announcing its political vision for Israelis and Palestinians.

Therefore, Abbas predicted, the Bahrain conference, which is promoting only socio-economic aid, “will not be successful.”

However, there have been top-level meetings in the past at which political solutions have been discussed.

In the summer of 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and PA leader Yasser Arafat held a summit at the Camp David retreat, during which, according to U.S. and Israeli accounts, Barak was prepared to hand over nearly all of Judea and Samaria to a Palestinian state.

In addition, Israel was prepared to “compensate” the Palestinians by giving them land within the internationally-accepted boundaries of the State of Israel to make up for the territory in Judea and Samaria which would be recognized as part of the Jewish State.

Under the plan, which Arafat rejected, control over the Old City of Jerusalem would have been divided. A couple of months after the summit, Palestinians launched a second “intifada” violent uprising, in which some 1,000 Israelis were killed between 2000 and 2005.

In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went even further in discussions with Abbas, saying that in addition to offering the same kind of deal regarding Judea and Samaria, he was willing to give up Israeli sovereignty over the Old City altogether and place even Judaism’s holiest shrine under international control.

Abbas rejected that offer, although Olmert warned him, “Remember my words, it will be 50 years before there will be another Israeli prime minister that will offer you what I am offering you now. Don’t miss this opportunity.”

20. 

‘Not enough progress’ in Vienna talks on salvaging Iran nuclear deal Iran’s deputy foreign minister says progress has been made in Vienna talks aimed at saving the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers but the demands of the Islamic Republic are yet to be met. …

Trump to Kim: Let’s Shake Hands at the DMZ U.S. President Donald Trump says he is willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, “just to shake his hand and say hello.” …

US Senate Rejects Amendment Requiring Congressional Approval to Strike Iran Earlier, a bipartisan group of senators announced a legal proposal which would amend the 2020 National Defence Authorisation Act to require the president to seek congressional approval if he wanted to carry out military actions in foreign countries. …

Haftar orders forces to attack Turkish ships, interests in Libya Libya’s strongman Khalifa Haftar has ordered his forces to attack Turkish ships and interests in the North African state, his spokesman said Friday, accusing Ankara of supporting Haftar’s rivals in the Libyan conflict. …

UAE withdraws ‘large’ number of troops from Yemen The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has withdrawn large numbers of troops from the embattled country of Yemen allegedly in fear of escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. …

Mexico Bolsters Borders as US Talks with Northern Triangle Continue As U.S. lawmakers agreed this week to provide billions of dollars in funding to federal law enforcement agencies at the Southwestern border, Mexico ramped up its own border efforts, deploying thousands of newly commissioned National Guard troops to its southern and northern frontiers. …

Treasury Sanctions Nicolas Maduro’s Son for Serving in Venezuela’s Illegitimate Government “Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the son of Venezuela’s illegitimate regime leader Nicolas Maduro Moros, who was previously sanctioned on July 31, 2017.” …

Turkey Moving Special Forces, Military Equipment to Syrian Border – Reports Turkey is moving special forces and military equipment to its border with Syria, the Anadolu news agency reported on Friday, after Turkish forces shelled the Syrian army’s positions in Idlib. …

21. Janne E. Nolan +

Janne E. Nolan died 26 June 2019. Dr. Nolan was a noted Defense and foreign policy analyst. A national security scholar, author, Senate Armed Services staffer and advisor to Senators, presidential candidates and presidents, she was a pioneer and mentor to women in the national security field. In the early 1980s she was among the first women to assume a prominent role in a field entirely dominated by white men, not as the “token girl” but as a respected voice of wit and wisdom. Dr. Nolan a rare figure, equally at home in the groves of academe and the corridors of power. was Her book “Trappings of Power: Ballistic Missiles in the Third World”, first published in 1991, was the first major work to explore the emerging missile threat from countries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea, a challenge that has dominated American planning in the following decades.

Her education included a BA in Political Science and Foreign Languages, Antioch College (1976), an MA in Law and Diplomacy, Fletcher School, Stanford University (fellowship, 1981-83), and a PhD in International Economics, Tufts University (1983). She was a Professor of International Security, Georgetown University (1990-2009), Professor: International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh (2005-10), and Professor: International Affairs, George Washington University (2011-2019). She chaired the Nuclear Security Working Group and was a faculty member at the Elliott School of International Affairs of the George Washington University.

Dr. Nolan’s public service includes positions as a technology trade and arms control specialist in the Department of State US Arms Control Agency (1980-83), Congressional Staff National Security Adviser, US Senate Armed Services Committee (1983-87), and as the defense advisor to several presidential campaigns and transition teams. She served as an appointed member to the White House Presidential Advisory Board on U.S. Arms and Technology Policy (Chair), the National Defense Panel, the State Department’s Accountability Review Board (investigating terror attacks against U.S. embassies in East Africa).

Nolan was a member of the National Defense Panel, a congressionally appointed group that provided yearlong review and oversight of the Pentagon’s first Quadrennial Defense Review in l999, and, throughout the Clinton Administration, she served as a member of the Defense Policy Board, which provided advice to the Secretary of Defense. In l997, she was appointed by Congress to the Gates Panel to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the US examining the ballistic missile threat to the United States.

The Nuclear Security Working Group [NSWG] was chaired by Dr. Janne Nolan of the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. With membership drawn from a wide variety of professional backgrounds, the NSWG provides a forum for experts in different fields to share their perspectives and learn from one another. Through frequent dinner meetings and conferences, the NSWG enables the nation’s leading experts in international security and nuclear issues to share information and collaborate. The group conducts its activities in a not-for-attribution setting, enabling members and participants to freely express their thoughts and ideas.

By establishing a knowledge base of non-partisan foreign policy professionals, the NSWG serves as a resource for administration officials and members of Congress to utilize when real-time expertise is needed. Members of the group regularly meet with senior administration officials and members of both parties on Capitol Hill to help bridge the partisan divide and contribute to the formation and implementation of a nuclear security policy that serves the national interest of the United States.

Her private sector appointments included Professor of International Affairs and Deputy Director of the Ridgway Center at the University of Pittsburgh; Director and Research Professor at Georgetown University; Director of Foreign Policy for The Century Foundation of New York (1998-2001), and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution (1986-98). Administrator: Dir., Intelligence and Strategic Surprise Project, Georgetown University (2003-10).

She received major research awards from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation (5 time recipient), the Ford Foundation, and the Ploughshares Foundation and served on the boards of the American Middle East Institute, the Arms Control Association, and the Monterey Institute’s Non Proliferation Review. Dr. Nolan was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Committee on International Security (second appointed term), the Aspen Strategy Group (Distinguished Emeritus), and the Cosmos Club.

Her nine books include “Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy ; Trappings of Power: Ballistic Missiles in the Third World, An Elusive Consensus: Nuclear Weapons and American Security after the Cold War, Tyranny of Consensus: Discourse and Dissent in American National Security Policy, Cold combat: The memoir of a nuclear convert, and Two Triads: The Nuclear Equation.  She also published numerous articles in publications such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Scientific American, The New York Times, The New Republic, the National Interest and The Washington Post.

Born in France on 28 December 1951, Janne is survived by a sister, Cathy, and a daughter, Emilie.

22. 

History made as UK F-35s complete first operational missions The UK’s newest and most advanced fighter jet, the Lightning F-35B, has successfully completed its first operational missions.

US State Department Claims Russian Frigate Heading for Venezuela Previously, Washington repeatedly reproached Russia for allegedly sending its military to the Latin American state, despite Moscow explaining on multiple occasions that it was actually sending maintenance technicians under the provisions of pre-existing military supply treaties with Caracas. …

Palestinians Reject Economic Vision of Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza clashed with Israeli forces Tuesday as they protested an economic initiative launched by the White House Tuesday at a conference in Manama, Bahrain. …

Trump Ratchets Up Verbal Attacks on Iran Top American and Iranian officials are continuing to fire verbal warning shots at each other while insisting they want to avoid war.

Joint Statement by the Political Director’s of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS “We, the Political Directors of the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS Small Group, met (…) to reaffirm our determination to continue the fight against Daesh/ISIS in the post-liberation era and to create conditions for an enduring victory against the terrorist group through a durable, multifaceted effort.” …

Special Forces Capture Leader of Daesh (ISIS) Branch in Yemen The official spokesman of the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, Colonel Turki Al Malki, stated that at 9:20 am on Sunday, June 3rd, 2019, Saudi Special Forces with cooperation of Yemeni Special Forces conducted a successful operation that resulted in the capture of the leader of Daesh (ISIS) branch in Yemen, a.k.a Abu Osama Al-Muhajir, as well as other …

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Georgians Protest For Sixth Night As Opposition Leader Faces Arrest Thousands of protesters rallied in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, for the sixth consecutive day, demanding the resignation of the interior minister.

Netanyahu Leads Historic US-Russia-Israel Security Meeting Focused on Iran, Syria

23. 

06-24-19

‘Destroy terrorists’ homes – even if they killed no one!

---

INN – Shabak (Israel Security Agency) is demanding the IDF destroy the home of an Arab terrorist who carried out a stabbing attack in Jerusalem last month, despite the fact that he did not succeed in killing any of his victims.

Shabak’s demand contradicts the stance of the IDF’s military prosecutor, who until now had ordered that only the homes of terrorists who succeeded in their mission of killing Jews have their homes destroyed.

According to Army Radio, Shabak is now demanding the demolition of the terrorist who carried out a terror attack at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate which left two Jews wounded: Gavriel Lavi, 47, was wounded seriously while 16-year-old Yisrael Meir Nachumberg was wounded moderately.

Both have been released from the hospital, and the terrorist was eliminated by police officers.

The IDF responded that it is “examining Shabak’s request,” the report said.

24. 

Cash-strapped PA kicks Trump’s $50 billion economic package: It has ‘nothing positive’

June 24, 2019

Palestinians riot in Hebron, Jan. 23. 2018. (Flash90/Wisam Hashlamoun)

“We will not be slaves or servants” to the American peace team, the Palestinian president tells journalists.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The international conference that will be held this week in Bahrain to discuss the economic elements of the Trump administration’s peace plan will fail, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas told a press conference on Sunday.

The PA is boycotting the event and has urged all Arab countries and businessmen to do the same, because “the economic situation should not be discussed before the political one,” Abbas said. “And as long as there is no political [solution], we do not deal with any economic issues.”

“We will not be slaves or servants to [US peace team] Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt or [American ambassador to Israel] David Friedman,” he added. The Palestinians “will not accept this or let them say whatever they want.”

This is the case even though he admitted that the PA needs “the money and the assistance.”

The primary reason for this is that Ramallah has refused to accept any of the tax revenues Israel collects on its behalf in protest of Israel’s withholding of six percent of it – the amount the PA pays out to Palestinian terrorists and their families. The tax money amounts to 65 percent of the Palestinian budget.

The PA has slammed the Trump administration’s attempt to broker an agreement. Before knowing what was in the economic portion of the peace plan, the PA decried it as an attempt to buy off their political aspirations. Kushner and Greenblatt’s team had worked on the plan over the last two years, coming up with a suite of 179 projects covering areas from education to healthcare.

The $50 billion plan, details of which were released on Saturday, earmarks $24.5 billion to projects in Judea, Samaria and Gaza which could create up to a million jobs.

But Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy chairman of the ruling Fatah faction in the PA, said on Sunday, “We have rejected the idea of economic peace dozens of times in the past. The main issue for us is independence and sovereignty. The current U.S. administration has nothing positive to offer the Palestinians.”

Only a few private Palestinian businessmen are scheduled to go to the conference that will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday in Bahrain’s capital of Manama. Several Arab countries, such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Morocco, will sent delegations.

World Israel News

“This plan is very strong. It has a deep idea, which is fundamentally important and genuine,” Netanyahu said regarding the Trump administration’s economic vision for the Palestinian people.

25. 

THE LEFT’S METAPHORICAL HOLOCAUST DENIAL

When everyone is Hitler, no one is Hitler.

June 28, 2019

Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

The Revolutions of 1989, which ultimately brought down the Soviet Union, were marked by major symbolic events and minor ones. One of those seemingly minor events was a Holocaust memorial.

In that year, it was announced that the first Holocaust memorial had been permitted in the USSR.

Soviet policy in the past had been to refer to the millions of Jews massacred in the Holocaust as “victims of fascism”. Information about the atrocities circulated through Samizdat and covert channels. The Black Book of Soviet Jewry was censored and would not be published until the fall of the Soviet Union.

Memorials to the Jewish victims were held covertly by political dissidents.

The Soviet ban on the Holocaust was not merely due to anti-Semitism. It followed the same political line as the current progressive historical revisionism which erases the Jewish character of the victims while emphasizing that the atrocities could only be the result of a right-wing, not left-wing, political ideology.

Jewish Communists, like their non-Jewish counterparts, worked to minimize the Jewish element of Holocaust histories. Vasilij Grossman, the co-author of the Black Book of Soviet Jewry, urged replacing “Jews” with “people” and “civilians”. This approach defined the USSR’s approach of memorializing millions of undefined people murdered by the former allies and later political foes of the Communists.

The erasure of the Jews in the Holocaust was not limited to the leftists in the Soviet Union.

The Diary of Anne Frank, the play seen by more people than any other depiction of the Holocaust, was hijackedby Lillian Hellman, a militant Stalinist, who turned it over to Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, the Communist-linked married couple who excelled at churning out heartwarming leftist propaganda from traditional material, whether it was It’s A Wonderful Life or the story of Anne Frank.

The Jewish elements of Anne’s story were purged. “We’re not the only people that’ve had to suffer,” the fictionalized version of a dead Jewish girl declares to applause. “Sometimes one race, sometimes another.” The real message soon became about the evils of segregation and racism. The various Anne Frank memorial organizations have promoted BDS, banned Jewish clothing and compared Jews to ISIS.

Just as in the USSR, the erasure of Jews from the story of the Holocaust paves the way for anti-Semitism.

Last year, a Los Angeles theater put on a production of Anne Frank with a Latino cast hiding from ICE. After a backlash from Holocaust survivors and Jewish organizations to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar equating immigration law enforcement to the Holocaust, the media doubled down. A plethora of leftist essays defending the slur spread the historical revisionism through the echo chamber.

Rep. Omar and Rep. Ocasio Cortez had their own anti-Semitic moments. By transforming anti-Semitism and the mass murder of Jews from a reality to a metaphor about the oppression of minorities, they become the metaphorical victims and the Jews objecting to them become metaphorical Nazis.

The USSR mastered this technique when having renamed the dead Jews as “victims of fascism”, it was free to work toward the murder of millions of Jews in Israel by denouncing them as “Zionist fascists.” A typical example  was a Pravda article, “Fascism and Zionism” which claimed that Israel, like Nazi Germany, was guilty of capitalism, imperialism and genocide. The Communist article argued that Jews everywhere were a “fifth column” while insisting that the USSR was anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic.

Modern leftists also argue that Jews are the real Nazis. Hating them isn’t anti-Semitism. It’s anti-Zionism, which is really anti-Fascism and anti-Nazism. Killing Jews becomes the real message of the Holocaust.

Turning the Holocaust into a political metaphor makes Nazis out of its victims and its commemorators.

Instead of condemning evil, the transformation of the Holocaust into a metaphor whose protagonists are interchangeable, turns a real event into a blank slate on which any agenda can be superimposed. If everyone can be Hitler and anyone can be the Jews, then the Holocaust becomes a myth. A fairy tale into which any of us can read our own meaning and offers us no morality we do not already possess.

The Holocaust is not a metaphor. It is not a toolset to apply to every political event to demarcate the borders of the political spectrum. It was not the work of fascists, as the Soviet Union insisted. The Franco regime in Spain made efforts to save Jews even while the Soviet Union was executing some Jewish refugees as spies. FDR, a progressive hero, blocked the entry of Jewish refugees to the United States. El Salvador, governed by a fascist dictator, turned a blind eye to thousands of visas given to Jews.

When you study the Holocaust as history, rather than metaphor, it becomes impossible to reduce the events to a simplistic progressive parable about the virtue of tolerant lefties who resist racism. Bigotry is inherent in human beings and mass murder is how totalitarian regimes implement their utopian visions.

The Nazis and the Communists both imagined an ideal world in which the Jews did not exist. They went about implementing it in somewhat different ways because, like all fanatics whose morality comes from ideology, they had different theories to explain their own supremacism and the inferiority of the Jews.

The Nazis believed that they were superior for genetic reasons and viewed the Jews as a racial phenomenon that had to be physically eradicated at the genetic level. The Communists believed that they were superior for political reasons and the Jews had to be eradicated as a cultural phenomenon. The erasure of Jews from the story of the Holocaust, then and now, is part of that leftist genocide.

Erasing the Jews makes it easier to eliminate these complex realities while leaving only the metaphor. But the danger of reducing people to metaphors is part of the reason why the Holocaust happened. Lefties universalized the Holocaust, shifting it from a story about Jews to a universal tale about the wickedness of being mean to people, of bigotry, discrimination and general meanness of spirit.

And yet, anti-Semitism has come roaring back and is bigger than it’s been in generations.

The trouble with universal messages is that they’re meaningless. Most people already believe that being mean to others is wrong. They just disagree on the specific implementation of it. For leftists, the story of Anne Frank or the Holocaust is, at the moment, about the evils of deporting illegal aliens. It has nothing to say about the evils of anti-Semitism or of Islamic terrorists who cheer Hitler and murder Jews.

Learning about the Holocaust hasn’t made them better people, only more self-righteous about their views. They haven’t questioned their beliefs, instead they appropriated the Holocaust to support them.

When you turn history into metaphor, all you’re really doing is manufacturing propaganda.

On the campaign trail, Senator Cory Booker attacked President Trump’s immigration policies by invoking the Holocaust. “There was a ship that came here during World War II with a bunch of folks trying to escape the Holocaust, and we turned it around where they got killed in the Holocaust. The shame of that, you think we would learn our lesson about people coming here to seek asylum escaping terror.”

The “folks” in question were Jews.

Booker’s anonymization of Jews as “folks” strongly echoed Obama’s dismissal of a Muslim terrorist attack on a Jewish supermarket before the Sabbath, as “randomly shot a bunch of folks in a deli.”

The 2020 candidate, who had condemned criticism of Rep. Omar as Islamophobia, has announced that he would be okay with meeting with “Minister Farrakhan”, a bigot who has praised Hitler. This was the second timethat the New Jersey senator had good things to say about a man who praised Hitler.

“I am very familiar with Minister Louis Farrakhan and his beliefs and his values,” Booker told an audience member in South Carolina.

Those values include calling Hitler, a “very great man”.

Previously, Booker had favorably quoted Stokely Carmichael in a Senate speech whose most famous line was, “The only good Zionist is a dead Zionist, we must take a lesson from Hitler.”

Historical revisionism isn’t just denying that the Holocaust happened, it’s also eliminating the history. When you wipe out the context, then before you know it, you can end up next door to Hitler.

26.

TRINIDAD: THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE’S JIHADIST HOTSPOT

The Caribbean island has produced more ISIS recruits than any other western country.

June 28, 2019

Stephen Brown

It is difficult to believe that a lush, tropical vacation destination like the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, a relatively prosperous country with full religious and legal freedoms, has produced more fighters per capita for the murderous Islamic State (ISIS) than any other country in the Western Hemisphere.

But, unfortunately for Trinidad and the civilized world, that is the tragic fact of the matter. While Muslims constitute only five per cent of the country’s population, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, a portion is “causing outsized global security concern,” states Todd Benson in the publication Center for Immigration Studies.

Unknown to most and largely unreported by the media, Trinidad, with only a population estimated between 1.2 and 1.5 million people, has sent at least 130 of its citizens to join the Islamic State. The United States, by contrast, with a population about 240 times larger than Trinidad’s, has sent about 250 to 300, about one per cent of the 30,000 foreigners who joined ISIS.

T. and T. citizens in ISIS “are high up in the ranks, they are very respected, and they are English-speaking. ISIL have used them for propaganda to spread their message through the Caribbean,” said John Estrada, former U.S. ambassador, to Trinidad and Tobago, adding Trinidadians did “very well” in ISIS.

Part of the problem was that no law existed in Trinidad that forbade joining ISIS until 2017; however, legislation was then introduced. But no reason has been given as to why Trinidad has such a strong, radical Islamic scene.

However, Dr. Simon Cottee of England’s Kent University, who has studied this Trinidadian phenomenon, has attempted to explain the attraction ISIS has for some of the island’s Muslims.

“Redemption through violent self-sacrifice is a pretty big draw,” Cottee said in Trinidad and Tobago News. “But I also think a lot of those Trinis who went truly believed that the ISIS caliphate was the real deal, a kind of Islamic utopia where they could go with their families and be spiritually saved.”

Trinidad is a nation whose population is split almost evenly between those of black African descent and those of East Indian origin, most of whom are Hindus. Both groups largely form separate political parties and separate churches and temples. Cottee dismisses the notion, though, that the jihadists came primarily from the island’s black population.

“Quite a few were Afro-Trinis who had converted to Islam,” Cottee said, “but many were born-Muslims from wealthy families of East Indian origin. Some had criminal records or pending court appearances while others were law-abiding and came from respectable families.”

But there was one curious aspect of this migration of Trinidad’s citizens to ISIS not found in any other Western country, and it concerns the number of children the Trinidadian recruits brought with them to ISIS territory. They numbered about 42, constituting what has been termed a “unique situation.”

“The most striking thing is the block recruitment of Trinis to ISIS,” said Cottee. “Entire families went. It was mothers, daughters, fathers and sons. According to my estimates about 30 per cent were men, 30 percent were women and the remainder – 40 percent were children. This is pretty unique because you don’t see this elsewhere in Europe.”

In the main, Cottee says ISIS volunteers from Europe were young men.

The United States’ concern regarding Trinidad’s radical Islamic scene is not unwarranted.

For example, two of the men wanted in the 2007 plot to bomb fuel lines that ran underground through populated areas of New York City to JFK airport were arrested in Trinidad where they visited a known, radical mosque. A U.S. Attorney called their homicidal plans “one of the most chilling plots imaginable.” (The two men arrested were not Trinidadians but Guyanese; a co-conspirator, however, was from Trinidad.) The New York Times (NYT)states United States authorities said the island’s radical Islamic community was “an obvious place…to turn when they were looking for Islamist support.”

Rondell Henry, a native of Trinidad and naturalized U.S citizen, was planning last March a Nice-like, truck-ramming attack in Washington D.C. to kill as many innocent people as possible. But no connection has been established with his homeland’s radical Islamic scene.

In 2005, a Muslim from Trinidad was convicted in Florida of trying to smuggle 70 machine guns and 20 silencers to Trinidad, while in 2017 U.S. authorities assisted Trinidad’s security forces in thwarting an Islamic terrorist attack on the island’s famous carnival.

In the carnival plot, Trinidadian police said “several persons of interest were detained.” Eight were reported arrested, all connected to the island’s Islamic community. The U.S. embassy issued a security alert but the carnival went ahead as planned.

In 2018, the Treasury Department also put two Trinidadians on its terrorism sanctions list for raising money for countrymen with ISIS in Syria. They joined eight other citizens of Trinidad and “enterprises” on the list.

Besides directly assisting Trinidadian security authorities, the United States has taken other measures to confront Islamic radicalism in the Caribbean nation. In 2017, the NYT states President Trump spoke to Trinidad’s prime minister by phone about terrorism and common security concerns, “including foreign fighters.” The United States is particularly concerned about attacks against U.S. embassies in the region and against commercial concerns such as oil industry infrastructure.

According to the NYT, the American government has also “hosted meetings with Muslim leaders at the U.S. embassy in Port of Spain,” the country’s capital, and paid some to attend workshops on “anti-extremism” in the United States.

The United States is probably targeting the main problem with Islamic radicalism in Trinidad, namely, some Islamic leaders. Cottee states “there were some local clerics who promoted the idea of holy war.” The NYT states efforts to stop the flow of Trinidadian fighters to ISIS “have been complicated by some imams and parents.”

Many of the Trinidadian fighters in Syria said they were “swayed” by certain imams. One ISIS volunteer said he was influenced by Islamic lectures and a Trinidadian Muslim leader. The father of another volunteer, killed in Syria, said he “welcomed his son’s death as a martyr.”

“I feel elated. Speaking about it now, I am over-elated,” he said.

At one mosque near Port of Spain, 15 to 20 ISIS volunteers spent two weeks there before leaving for the Islamic State where, one official said, they received an “orientation.” But the imam denied he was running “an Islamic State training program,” although two of his children and five grandchildren “are believed “involved with the Islamic State.”

America and other nations should be very concerned about this island “breeding ground” for jihadists so close to the United States and its interests. For example, one Trinidadian ISIS volunteer, Shane Crawford, known as Abu S’ad al-Trinidadi, represents this jihadist danger. Crawford was given prominence in an ISIS publication calling for attacks on Western embassies.

Of special concern are such radicalized jihadists, like Crawford, returning from Syria with combat and explosives experience. After all, one has to keep in mind it is only a three-hour plane flight from the island to Miami.

27. ΜΑΥΡΗ ΕΠΕΤΕΙΟΣ

Το Δοξάτο… “εκ ποδών” από τους Βουλγάρους (Τα Μπαστάρδια των Σλάβων)!..

 

 

 … ΙΤΑΛΟΙ – ΓΕΡΜΑΝΟΙ – ΤΟΥΡΚΟΙ – ΒΟΥΛΓΑΡΟΙ – ΤΟΥΡΚΑΛΒΑΝΟΙ – ΣΚΟΠΙΑΝΟΙ, ΟΛΟΙ… ΦΙΛΟΙ ΜΑΣ!..

(ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΤΕ ΔΕ ΠΩΣ, ΜΕΤΑ ΤΙΣ ΠΡΟΣΦΑΤΕΣ… ΤΣΙΠΡΙΚΕΣ ΠΡΕΣΠΕΣ, ΟΙ ΣΚΟΠΙΑΝΟΙ ΕΓΙΝΑΝ ΠΙΟ… ΦΙΛΟΙ ΜΑΣ!.. Αχαχαχαχαχα)

 Η τραγωδία αυτή έχει μείνει ζωντανή στην μνήμη όλων.

 

– Μετά την απελευθέρωση των Σερρών, το 21ο Σύνταγμα της 7ης Μεραρχίας διατάσσεται να κατευθυνθεί προς τη Δράμα και να συνεχίσει την καταδίωξη των Βουλγάρων, που κατείχαν την περιοχή, από τον Οκτώβριο του 1912. Το πρωί της 30ης Ιουνίου 1913, μία ίλη ιππικού της 10ης Μεραρχίας του βουλγαρικού στρατού, με επικεφαλής τους ταγματάρχες Μπίρνεφ και Σιμεόνοφ, συνεπικουρούμενη από ένα τάγμα πεζικού και ομάδες κομιτατζήδων, κυκλώνει το Δοξάτο (9 χιλιόμετρα ΝΑ Δράμας).

– Σκοπός τους να σφάξουν και να λεηλατήσουν το πλούσιο χωριό της Δράμας, που κατοικείται από Έλληνες χριστιανούς και ελαχίστους μισέλληνες μουσουλμάνους, τουρκικής συνειδήσεως. Ως δικαιολογία προβάλλουν το επιχείρημα ότι είχαν παρενοχληθεί από ομάδες Ελλήνων… προσκόπων.

– Αμέσως, οι επιδρομείς άρχισαν να σφάζουν αδιακρίτως όσους κατοίκους του Δοξάτου είχαν απομείνει στο χωριό, με πρωτοστατούντες τους κομιταζήδες. Στη συνέχεια περιέλουσαν με πετρέλαιο τα σπίτια του Δοξάτου και το παρέδωσαν στις φλόγες. Με τους Βουλγάρους συνενώθηκαν και οι περισσότεροι μουσουλμάνοι του Δοξάτου, τους οποίους οι επιδρομείς έπεισαν ότι η Βουλγαρία και η Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία είχαν συμμαχήσει κατά της Ελλάδας.

– Ο τραγικός απολογισμός των βουλγαρικών ωμοτήτων στο Δοξάτο ήταν 650 νεκροί (περίπου το ένα τρίτο των κατοίκων), ενώ 240 σπίτια και 80 καταστήματα καταστράφηκαν ολοσχερώς. Αφού ολοκλήρωσαν το απάνθρωπο έργο τους, οι επιδρομείς με τη λεία τους κατευθύνθηκαν προς τα βόρεια. Την επομένη, 1η Ιουλίου 1913, το 21ο Σύνταγμα του ελληνικού στρατού κατέλαβε αμαχητί τη Δράμα και το Δοξάτο και ολοκλήρωσε την απελευθέρωση της Ανατολικής Μακεδονίας.

– Η σφαγή και η πυρπόληση του Δοξάτου απασχόλησε τον διεθνή Τύπο, που περιέγραψε με μελανά χρώματα την συνολική συμπεριφορά και στάση των Βουλγάρων.

Ο Άγγλος πλοίαρχος Κάρνταλ έγραψε στη “Daily Telegraph“:

– Κατά την είσοδον εις την πόλιν, το πρώτο όπερ προσέπεσεν εις τους οφθαλμούς μου, ήσαν αι αγέλαι κυνών καταβροχθιζόντων ανθρωπίνους σάρκας. Η πόλις ήτο τελείως κατεστραμμένη, εφαίνετο έρημος, ως εκ τούτου  ηναγκάσθην να φωνάξω επανειλημμένως δια να εμφανισθώσι γραίαι τινές, εκ των ερειπίων. Όλα τα πτώματα ήσαν διάτρητα υπό τον λογχών και έφερον ίχνη απιστεύτων ακρωτηριασμών. Οι τοίχοι των οικιών είχον ρυπανθεί(!) από αίματα, εις το ύψος έξι ποδών από τους εδάφους, τουθ’ όπερ εξηγείται, κατά το λέγειν των επιζώντων εκ του ότι τα δυστυχή θύματα δεν είχον σφαγεί αμέσως, αλλά εθανατούντο δια λογχισμών…

– Ο απεσταλμένος των “Τάιμς”, του Λονδίνου, Κρόφοντ Πράις, παραθέτει συγκλονιστικές μαρτυρίες από θύματα και αυτόπτες μάρτυρες της σφαγής:

– Δεν ήτο δύσκολον να συναγάγη τις την αλήθειαν, περί του τί συνέβη εν Δοξάτω. Διεσώθησαν πολλά βασανισθέντα θύματα, όπως αφηγηθούν τα συμβάντα, εν οις και εις νεανίας (ο οποίος παρ’ όλους τους δέκα λογχισμούς, τους οποίους έλαβεν, έζη ακόμη, καθώς και πολλά μικρά παιδία εις το νοσοκομείον, φέροντα τραύματα επί της κεφαλής, κατενεχθέντα διά της σπάθης των Βουλγάρων ιππέων, καθ’ ήν στιγμήν κατεδίωκαν τα νήπια θύματά των δια των αγρών […]

– Οι πρώτοι παραστάντες επί τόπου Ευρωπαίοι συμφωνούν ότι ο ολικός αριθμός των σφαγέντων δεν ήτο ολιγώτερος των 400 (πολλοί τους υπολογίζουν εις 600). Μερικά των πτωμάτων είχον ήδη ταφεί, άλλα είχαν καεί, αλλά τα υπόλοιπα απέμενον εκτεθειμένα, μερικά δε μόλις εκαλύπτοντο δι’ ελαφρού τινός στρώματος άμμου. Οι επισκέπται είδον σκύλους καταβροχθίζοντας ανθρωπίνους σάρκας, αυλάς οικιών αχνιζούσας εκ του αίματος των θανατωθέντων ατυχών, λίθους επί των οποίων διετηρούντο ακόμη υπολείμματα τριχωμάτων των κεφαλών των θυμάτων, αίτινες είχον καταθραυσθή δια κτυπημάτων, δωμάτια, οι τάπητες των οποίων, αι ψάθαι και τα προσκεφάλαια ήσαν καλυμένα με το αίμα των σφαγέντων, τοίχους δεικνύοντας τους τύπους των όλων, δια των οποίων μια γυνή και εν παιδί είχον σταυρωθή.

– Η ιταλική εφημερίδα “Il Secolo XIX“ περιγράφει την επιδρομή των Βουλγάρων:

– Οι κάτοικοι έντρομοι συλλέξαντες ό,τι πολύτιμον είχον ήρχισαν να φεύγωσιν προς Καβάλαν και άλλοι δια της κοίτης του ξεροχειμάρρου προς τα όρη. Εκατοντάδες τινές εκλείσθησαν εντός των οικιών. Αίφνης ενεφανίσθη βουλγαρικό ιππικό και ήρχισε λυσσώδη καταδίωξη των φευγόντων. 400 Βούλγαροι στρατιώτες εισήρχοντο με «εφ’ όπλου λόγχη», ακολουθούμενοι υπό δύο αμαξών, φορτωμένων με πετρέλαιον. Το ιππικό εξ 120 ανδρών υπό των Μπίρνεφ και Συμεώνωφ κατεδίωκαν τους φεύγοντας , άνδρας, γυναίκες και παιδιά ρίπτοντες αυτούς καταγής διά σπαθισμών.

– Τις βουλγαρικές ωμότητες εκθέτει και ο απεσταλμένος της ρωσικής εφημερίδας Ρούσκιε Ούτρο, Βλαντιμίρ Τορνόφ:

– Αι ανθρωποθυσίαι αι διαπραχθείσαι υπό των Βουλγάρων υπήρξαν φρικαλέαι. Εκατοντάδες αθώων πολιτών κατεσφάγησαν, αι δε διαρπαγαί υπήρξαν κολοσσιαίαι. Είδομεν κατά γής εν μέσω ερειπίων χρηματοκιβώτια βιαίως διερρηγμένα, ραπτομηχανάς κατεστραμμένας […] Γυναίκες εθρήνων πικρώς και συνέστρεφον τας χείρας εξ απογνώσεως. Είδον ιδίοις οφθαλμοίς παιδία πληγέντα δια λογχισμών. Εις πλείστα μέρη συνηντήσαμεν σωρούς πτωμάτων εκτεθειμένων εις τον καύσωνα του ηλίου και άλλα πτώματα κατά το ήμισυ ξεθαμμένα και των οποίων οι πόδες, η κεφαλή και αι χείρες προέβαλον φρικαλέας εκ της γης…

 Η ΠΑΡΑΚΑΤΩ “ΦΩΤΟ” ΕΙΝΑΙ… ΑΣΧΕΤΗ!.. 

 

-/-