Ξεχασμένα Και Μη!..

1.

TSK’dan Gelibolu’da dev tatbikat

TÜRK Silahlı Kuvvetleri’nce (TSK) Çanakkale’nin Gelibolu ilçesinde, ‘Tabur Görev Kuvveti Tam Birlik Atışlı Arazi Tatbikatı’ gerçekleştirildi.

17.06.2019 
Milli Savunma Bakanlığı’nın (MSB) sosyal paylaşım sitesi Twitter’daki hesabından yayımlanan açıklamada, “2’nci Kolordu Komutanlığı Kıtalı Komuta Yeri ve Mekanize Piyade Tugay Komutanlığı Tabur Görev Kuvveti Tam Birlik Atışlı Arazi Tatbikatı, Kavakköy/Gelibolu’da başarıyla icra edildi” denildi.

KAYNAK: DHA

2.

Hepsi Türkiye’de konuşlu! İspanya’dan dikkat çeken Patriot kararı

İspanya Savunma Bakanlığı, Adana’daki Patriot füze savunma sisteminin süresinin 6 ay uzatılmasına onay verdi.

17.06.2019 
İspanyaTürkiye‘nin hava savunması için Adana’ya konuşlandırılmış Patriot füze savunma sisteminin süresini 2019 sonuna dek uzattı. AA muhabirinin İspanyol diplomatik kaynaklardan edindiği bilgilere göre, sistemin yıl sonuna kadar uzatılması onaylandı.
Süre uzatımı, NATO‘nun onayıyla yapılacak bildirimden sonra resmi olarak kamuoyuna açıklanacak.

Suriye‘den Türkiye’ye yönelik saldırı tehdidi kapsamında NATO’nun Türkiye’yi koruma çabalarını desteklemek üzere Hollanda‘ya ait Patriot füze savunma sistemi 26 Ocak 2013’te Adana’da konuşlandırılmıştı.

Hollanda’dan Ocak 2015’te bu görevi devralan İspanya, 4 yıldır bu misyonu sürdürüyor.
KAYNAK: AA

3.

Yeni askerlik sistemi ilgili son dakika açıklaması! Tarih verdi

AK Parti Grup Başkanvekili Mehmet Muş yeni askerlik düzenlemesiyle ilgili açıklama yaptı. Muş, ‘Meclis’te görüşmelere Salı günü yeniden başlayacağız. Haftaya Cuma’ya kadar teklifin geçmesini bekliyoruz. Celp sayısının 10 ya da 12 olmasını MSB düzenleyecektir.’ dedi.

17.06.2019 

AK Parti Grup Başkanvekili Mehmet Muş önemli açıklamalarda bulundu.

Muş, yeni askerlik düzenlemesiyle ilgili “Meclis’te görüşmelere Salı günü yeniden başlayacağız. Haftaya Cuma’ya kadar teklifin geçmesini bekliyoruz. Celp sayısının 10 ya da 12 olmasını MSB düzenleyecektir.”dedi.

Ordu Valisi’ne hakaret eden CHP’li İmamoğlu’na tepki gösteren Muş, “Ekrem Bey’in 82 milyondan özür dilemesi gerekmektedir. İmamoğlu, Beylikdüzü’nü 104 milyon borçla aldı, 457 ile devretti.” açıklamasında bulundu.

 

4.

v

XAIΡETAI“!

Doğu Akdeniz’de yeni politika gerekli

  • 17.06.2019

Doğu Akdeniz’in enerji potansiyeli ve önemi konusunda belki de en çok yazı yazanlardan biriyim. 2017 yılında da “Türkiye’nin Enerji Ticaret Merkezi Olmasında Doğu Akdeniz’in Rolü” adlı bir rapor hazırlayarak Doğu Akdeniz hidrokarbon rezervlerini, bölge aktörlerinin işbirliklerini ve Doğu Akdeniz’de Türkiye’nin rolü ne olmalıdır konusunu detaylıca incelemiştik.

Yazdığımız kapsamlı Doğu Akdeniz enerji raporu SETA Vakfı tarafından yayımlanmıştı.

Raporun isminden de belli olduğu gibi Doğu Akdeniz, Türkiye’nin enerji arz güvenliği için önemli olduğu kadar Türkiye coğrafyasının kendisine sağladığı avantaj sayesinde bölgede en uygun rota olması nedeniyle ” Enerjide Ticaret Merkezi Olma” hedefi konusunda da önemli bir yere sahiptir.

Türkiye’nin Doğu Akdeniz bölgesinde en fazla söz sahibi ülke konumunda olması gerekirken, bölgede yalnız bırakılması ve tüm aktörlerin Türkiye ’siz Doğu Akdeniz projelerini hayata geçirmeleri nedeniyle Türkiye için de artık yeni bir politika ihtiyacı zorunlu hale geldi.

Bu kapsamda Türkiye’nin Doğu Akdeniz’de oyun kurucu aktör olması, enerjide ticaret merkezi haline gelmesi ve bölge ülkeleri için cazibe merkezi olabilmesi için yeni bir “Doğu Akdeniz Enerji Stratejisine” çok ihtiyaç var.

Şu açıkça bilinmelidir ki, Doğu Akdeniz yalnızca enerjiden ibaret değil. Doğu Akdeniz’de, bulunacak hidrokarbon kaynakları ile bölgede birçok dengenin değişeceğini düşünüyorum. En önemlisi de Türkiye’nin enerji bağımlılığı kıskacında kurtulmanın da reçetesidir.

Bu nedenle yeni Doğu Akdeniz Enerji Stratejisinde bölgedeki gelişmelere tepki vermeden ziyade keşiften sondaja ve transfere kadar yapılacak çalışmalarla birlikte ayrıca var olan olumsuz algıların giderilmesi konusunda da ciddi çalışmalara ihtiyaç var.

TÜRKİYE, DOĞU AKDENİZ İÇİN NELER YAPMALI?

Öncellikle Doğu Akdeniz bölgesi için araştırma yapacak bir merkeze ihtiyaç var. Bu merkez araştırmalar yapacak ve politikalar geliştirecek. Cumhurbaşkanlığı ya da Enerji ve Tabii Kaynaklar Bakanlığı’nın uhdesinde ya da desteğinde olması gereken bu merkezde akademisyen, asker, diplomat, işadamı, deniz hukukçusu gibi uzman kişiler istihdam edilmeli.

Bu merkezde ilk olarak, Türkiye’nin bakış açısı anlatılmalı ve dış dünyada Doğu Akdeniz ile ilgili var olan olumsuz algının kırılması için çalışmalar başlatılmalı. Bunun için de üniversiteler, düşünce kuruluşları ve ilgili kurumların katkısıyla kapsamlı ve güçlü bir stratejik iletişim planı hazırlanmalı.

Diğer yandan, Doğu Akdeniz bölgesinde bugün en çok tartışma konusu olan ve bölge ülkelerini savaş noktasına getiren Kıta sahanlığı ve MEB sınırlarının belirlenmesi konusunda uluslararası hukuk alanında çalışma yapacak ve bunu dünyaya anlatacak uzman kişi ve akademisyenlerin katkısıyla güçlü bir ekip oluşturulmalıdır.

Türkiye’de ve dünyada enerji alanında faaliyet gösteren düşünce kuruluşları ile gerçekleşecek ortak çalışmalar kapsamında Türkiye üzerinden geçecek olası rotalar, TANAP ve TürkAkım projelerinde olduğu gibi, enerjinin başta AB pazarı olmak üzere dış piyasalara transferi ile ilgili tezlerin geliştirilmesi, bu durumun dünyaya daha iyi aktarılacağı bir zemini hazırlamış olacaktır.

Bu çabaların tüm tarafların kazanması için (kazan- kazan) son derece önemli adımlar olduğu gayet açıktır.

Öte yandan bölgede bulunan Müslüman ülkeler ile ortak iş birliği platformları kurulabilir. Bu ortamın oluşturulmasında İslam İşbirliği Teşkilatı da aktif rol alarak söz konusu işbirliklerinin ilerlemesinde koordinasyonu sağlamalıdır.

Son olarak, Türkiye’nin yaptığı petrol ve doğal gaz aramaları sonucunda olası rezervlerin bulunması halinde bölgede dengelerin değişeceği açıktır. Türkiye’nin oluşacak yeni denklemde kritik bir konuma gelmesi ve bunu koruması için bölgede sorun yaşanılan uluslararası enerji şirketleri ile beraber çalışmalar yapılmasının yolu denenmeli ve bu şirketlerle diyalog artırılmalıdır.

Bu konuda gerçekten yapılması çok gereken çok şey var…

YENİ ŞAFAK GAZETESİ

6. 

F-35’lerin üreticisinden Türkiye açıklaması: ABD’nin emrini bekliyoruz

ABD ile Türkiye arasında iplerin gerilmesine sebep olan F-35’lerin üretici şirketi Lockheed Martin’in bir numaralı ismi Marillyn Hewson açıklamalarda bulundu. Financial Times’a konuşan Hewson, “Türk şirketler siparişler üzerine çalışmaya devam ediyor” dedi.

Ω
17.06.2019 

ABDTürkiyeRusya ekseninde başlayan S-400 ve F-35 krizleri devam ederken, F-35’lerin üreticisi Lockheed Martin‘den bir açıklama geldi. Lockheed Martin’in CEO’su Marillyn HewsonFransa‘nın başkenti Paris‘te düzenlenen bir etkinlikte Financial Times‘tan Sylvia Pfeifer‘a konuştu.

Hewson, ABD ile Türkiye arasında yaşanan krizin ardından gelen soruları yanıtladı. Hewson, şirketinin Türkiye’deki icraatları hakkında yorum yapmaktan çekindi. Lockheed Martin’in CEO’su, aralarında Türkiye’nin de olduğu farklı ülkelerin ortak fonladığı ve Türk şirketlerin de iniş takımları ile birlikte uçağın gövdesini ürettiği F-35’lerin üretiminin devam ettiğini söyledi. Hewson, “Üretim zincirinde olabilecek herhangi bir riski en aza indirme seçenekleri üzerine değerlendirme yapıyoruz” dedi.

“TÜRKİYE’YE YENİ SİPARİŞLER İÇİN WASHİNGTON‘UN EMİRLERİNİ BEKLEYECEĞİZ”.

Türkiye’deki tedarikçilerin F-35’lerin siparişi üzerine çalıştığını dile getiren Hewson, CEO’su olduğu Lockheed Martin şirketin Türkiye’ye yeni sipariş verip vermeyeceği konusunda da net bir açıklama yapmadı. Hewson, “Lockheed, Türkiye’ye yeni sipariş verilip verilmeyeceği konusunda ABD hükümetinin yönlendirmesini izleyecek” dedi.

ŞİRKETTEN İKİNCİ AÇIKLAMA

Lockheed Martin F-35 programı yöneticisi Greg Ulmer ise, Ankara‘nın Rus yapımı S-400 hava savunma sistemini satın alma planı nedeniyle yaşanan anlaşmazlığa rağmen, Türk şirketlerinin F-35 parçaları üretmeye devam ettiklerini söyledi. Ulmer, ABD hükümetinin Türkiye’yi F-35 programından kademeli olarak çıkarmaya başlama planlarının bu yıl şirketin üretimini etkilemeyeceğini açıkladı.

7. 

Bakan Akar, Rusya Savunma Bakanı ile telefonda görüştü

Milli Savunma Bakanı Hulusi Akar, Rusya Savunma Bakanı Sergey Şoygu ile telefonda görüştü.

17.06.2019
Milli Savunma Bakanı Hulusi Akar ile Rusya Federasyonu Savunma Bakanı Sergey Şoygu arasındaki telefon görüşmesinde, Astana ve Soçi mutabakatlarına bağlılık vurgulandı, bölgede barış, istikrarın sağlanması ve ateşkesin muhafazası için alınması gereken tedbirler hakkında görüş alışverişinde bulunuldu.
Görüşmede İdlib başta olmak üzere bölgesel güvenlik konularının ele alındığı belirtildi.

Açıklamada, “Her iki Bakan tarafından Astana ve Soçi mutabakatlarına bağlılığın vurgulandığı görüşmede, bölgede barış, istikrar ve ateşkesin sağlanması için alınması gereken tedbirler hakkında görüş alışverişinde bulunulmuştur.” ifadesi yer aldı.

KAYNAK: AA
8. 

Son dakika haberine göre  Avrupa Yüksek Müttefik Komutanı Orgeneral Tod Wolters, “Türk-Amerikan ilişkileri kesinlikle pozitif durumda.” ifadelerini kullandı

 Avrupa Yüksek Müttefik Komutanı Orgeneral Tod Wolters, ABD- ilişkilerine ilişkin açıklamalarda bulundu. Wolters konuşmasında Türk-ABD ilişkilerinin kesinlikle sağlam olduğunu belirtti.

Avrupa Yüksek Müttefik Komutanı Orgeneral Wolters, ABD Savunma Bakan Vekili Patrick Shanahan ile Türkiye Savunma Bakanı Hulusi Akar’ın gelecek hafta S-400 ve F-35 alımını konuşmak için bir araya gelebileceğini söyledi. Türk-ABD ilişkilerinin de kesinlikle sağlam olduğunu dile getirdi.

 

9.

Σχέδιο “Λίμνες”: Τρικυμία “εν κρανίω” και στρατολόγηση μέχρι και Τσάμηδων!

17/06/2019 

Ω

Το σχέδιο «Λίμνες» υπήρξε προϊόν της ονειροφαντασίας του ηγέτη του ΚΚΕ Νίκου Ζαχαριάδη. Τέθηκε από αυτόν στην 3η Ολομέλεια και φυσικά, «δημοκρατικά», εγκρίθηκε. Η 3η Ολομέλεια πραγματοποιήθηκε στις 11 Σεπτεμβρίου 1947 στη Γιουγκοσλαβία και το σχέδιο ονομάστηκε «Λίμνες» λόγω των κοντινών Πρεσπών…

Το σχέδιο «Λίμνες» προέβλεπε τον τριπλασιασμό της δύναμης του «Δημοκρατικού Στρατού Ελλάδας» (ΔΣΕ), ώστε αν διαθέτει 60.000 μαχητές ως την άνοιξη του 1948 από τις 24.000 που διέθετε τον Σεπτέμβριο του 1947, δηλαδή εντός 6-7 μηνών! Δεδομένου ότι καθ’ όλη τη διάρκεια του βίου το ΔΣΕ δεν κατάφερε να στρατολογήσει, βίαια ως επί το πλείστον, λίγες μόνο χιλιάδες ανδρών και γυναικών, το σχέδιο ήταν εξ’ ορισμού ουτοπικό.

Αυτό το σημείο όμως ήταν το πλέον εύπεπτο. Πέραν της αύξηση της δύναμής του ο ΔΣΕ έπρεπε να εξοπλίσει πλήρως τους 60.000 μαχητές, την στιγμή που δεν διέθετε επαρκή βαρύ οπλισμό για τα υπάρχοντά τμήματά του. Επίσης προβλεπόταν η συγκέντρωση υλικού αρμοδιότητας μηχανικού και διαβιβάσεων και μεταφορικών μέσων. Επίσης ο ΔΣΕ θα μετατρεπόταν σε τακτικό στρατό. Στόχος ήταν η «απελευθέρωση» εκτεταμένης περιοχής στη βόρεια Ελλάδα με κέντρο τη Θεσσαλονίκη με παράλληλη ανακήρυξη «δημοκρατικής κυβέρνησης».

Αναφέρει το σχέδιο: «Πρώτο βασικός σκοπός. Αποκατάσταση εδαφικής ενότητας μεταξύ Μακεδονίας, Ηπείρου και Θεσσαλίας. Αυτό θα επιτρέψει να μεταφέρουμε στο νότο σοβαρές ενισχύσεις σε υλικά για να πετύχουμε την ανάπτυξη των δυνάμεων του ΔΣΕ στις περιοχές Θεσσαλίας, Ρούμελης και Πελοποννήσου και των σοβαρών επιχειρήσεών τους και έτσι να εξασφαλίσουμε τη μέγιστη δυνατή διασπορά των δυνάμεων του εχθρού και, κατά συνέπεια, να ανακουφίσουμε τις περιοχές της Κεντρικής και Δυτικής Μακεδονίας.

«Δεύτερος βασικός σκοπός: Αποκατάσταση εδαφικής ενότητας μεταξύ των βουνών Χάσια – Πιέρια – Όλυμπος – Κίσσαβος. Σταθερή κυριαρχία του ΔΣΕ στο οροπέδιο Κοζάνης μέχρι τον ποταμό Αξιό με κέντρο βάρους προς τις διόδους Έδεσσα – Άρνισα και Καστανιά με σκοπό την αποκοπή της Δυτικής Μακεδονίας από το νότο και την ανατολή. Ταυτόχρονα ενίσχυση της Κεντρικής Μακεδονίας από την πλευρά της Δυτικής και Ανατολικής Μακεδονίας.

«Τρίτος βασικός σκοπός: Να αναληφθεί αποφασιστική επιθετική προσπάθεια για τη δημιουργία ελεύθερης περιοχής στο χώρο Κόνιτσα – Μέτσοβο, Γρεβενά – Τσοτύλι – Νεστόριο».

Επίσης ανά εδαφικό διαμέρισμα προβλεπόταν: «Ήπειρος. Μόνιμη εγκατάσταση στην περιοχή Παγωνίου και Λάκα Σούλι και εξασφάλιση ελέγχου στην αρτηρία Άρτα – Πρέβεζα – Γιάννενα. Θεσσαλία. Απώθηση του εχθρού από την κεντρική οροσειρά της Πίνδου (Κόζιακας – Άγραφα) και των εκεί θέσεων του ΔΣΕ.

«Ρούμελη. Κυριαρχία του ΔΣΕ στο δρόμο Λαμία – Καρπενήσι με σκοπό την αποκατάσταση εδαφικής ενότητας μεταξύ Θεσσαλίας και Ρούμελης. Ενίσχυση του ελέγχου στο βασικό οδικό άξονα Αθήνα – Λαμία με σκοπό την αγκίστρωση κατά μήκος αυτής της αρτηρίας του μέγιστου δυνατού των δυνάμεων του εχθρού. Προώθηση προς το όρος Πάρνηθα (κοντά στην Αθήνα), ανάπτυξη των επιχειρήσεων στη νήσο Εύβοια και αποκατάσταση άμεσης επαφής με την Πελοπόννησο ώστε να επιτευχθεί η μεταφορά εκεί υλικού.

«Ανατολική Μακεδονία – Θράκη. Αύξηση των δυνάμεων του ΔΣΕ μέχρι 10.000 άνδρες. Οχύρωση των δυνάμεων του ΔΣΕ στην ανατολική Μακεδονία και τέτοια διάταξή τους που να επιτρέπει τη δική μας κυριαρχία στο οροπέδιο του Ζιρνόβου. Αποκοπή της Θράκης με μόνιμη και σταθερή εγκαθίδρυση σοβαρών δυνάμεων του ΔΣΕ στον τομέα του όρους Χαϊντού.

Το σχέδιο πρόβλεπε, ακόμα πιο απίθανα πράγματα, όπως την απόκτηση και ανάπτυξη αντιαεροπορικών πυροβόλων και ακόμα χειρότερα παράκτιων πυροβόλων και καταδιωκτικών αεροσκαφών, ελαφρών σκαφών προς πόντιση θαλασσίων ναρκοπεδίων.

Από τα ανωτέρω φυσικά ελάχιστα έγιναν. Στις 23 Δεκεμβρίου 1947, συγκροτήθηκε «προσωρινή δημοκρατική κυβέρνηση», αλλά με πρωτεύουσα ένα χωριό, η οποία δεν αναγνωρίστηκε ποτέ από τις «δημοκρατικές σοσιαλιστικές χώρες». Την επομένη ο ΔΣΕ επιτέθηκε στην Κόνιτσα, αλλά τελικά ηττήθηκε, μη μπορώντας να εξασφαλίσει καν μια κωμόπολη ως πρωτεύουσα.

Αναφέρει σχετικά ο Τάκης Λαζαρίδης: “Καταστρώνουν μεγαλεπήβολα σχέδια (π.χ. σχέδιο «Λίμνες») για την δημιουργία μεγάλων εφεδρειών, την κατάληψη μεγάλων πόλεων και την απελευθέρωση εκτεταμένων περιοχών που ήταν αδύνατο να πραγματοποιηθούν και φυσικά δεν πραγματοποιήθηκαν ποτέ. Και το πιο αστείο στην υπόθεση είναι ότι ο Ζαχαριάδης εμφανίζει το σχέδιο «Λίμνες» ως προϊόν επιτελικής επεξεργασίας ενώ, όπως αποδεικνύεται, οι στρατιωτικοί ηγήτορες του ΔΣΕ δεν είχαν ιδέα…

“Προσπαθώντας απεγνωσμένα να πυκνώσουν, έστω και με Σλαβομακεδόνες, τις τάξεις του Δημοκρατικού Στρατού που είχαν απελπιστικά αραιώσει από τη συνεχή αιμορραγία, ξαναζεσταίνουν το «Μακεδονικό». Αδίστακτοι και αδιάφοροι για τις συνέπειες, στην 5η Ολομέλεια το Γενάρη του 1949 διακηρύσσουν:

«Δεν πρέπει να υπάρχει καμμιά αμφιβολία ότι σαν αποτέλεσμα της νίκης του ΔΣΕ και της λαϊκής επανάστασης, ο μακεδονικός λαός θα βρει την πλήρη εθνική αποκατάστασή του έτσι όπως την θέλει ο ίδιος, προσφέροντας σήμερα το αίμα του για να την αποχτήσει».

Παράλληλα ο ΔΣΕ μετατράπηκε σε τακτικό στρατό, έναν όμως τακτικό στρατό χωρίς σοβαρό πυροβολικό, με λίγα βαρέα όπλα, χωρίς εφεδρείες, με μονάδες υποεπανδρωμένες, άνευ αξιόλογων στελεχών και με σύνθεση όχι πάντα και τόσο «ελληνική».

Σε όλη τη διάρκεια του πολέμου από τις τάξεις του ΔΣΕ πέρασαν περίπου 100.000 άνδρες και γυναίκες μαχητές, κυρίως νεαρής, έως και εφηβικής ηλικίας. Από αυτούς η συντριπτική πλειοψηφία προερχόταν από βίαιη ή ακούσια έστω στρατολογία. Πιο φανατισμένοι ήταν οι Σλαβομακεδόνες που ανέμεναν «εθνική αποκατάσταση» από τον ΔΣΕ. Οι Σλαβομακεδόνες αποτελούσαν το 20% κατά μέσο όρο της δύναμης του ΔΣΕ, ανάλογα με την περίοδο. Επιχειρήθηκε και στρατολόγηση μουσουλμάνων της Θράκης αλλά δεν απέδωσε και για θρησκευτικούς λόγους.

Το χειρότερο ήταν ότι ο ΔΣΕ επιχείρησε να στρατολογήσει και Αλβανούς Τσάμηδες, τους σφαγείς των Ελλήνων, που είχαν εκδιωχθεί από την Ελλάδα από τον ΕΔΕΣ. Το πρώτο σχετικό αίτημα στα Τίρανα έγινε από τον Μάρκο Βαφειάδη το 1947, ακριβώς σε μια προσπάθεια συγκέντρωσης των μαχητών που προέβλεπε το σχέδιο «Λίμνες».

Ακολούθησαν και άλλα αιτήματα το 1948 που απορρίφθηκε και το 1949 που έγινε δεκτό από την κυβέρνηση αλλά όχι και από τους Τσάμηδες που δεν είχαν ξεπεράσει τον φόβο των Ελλήνων. Έτσι μόνο περί τους 150 εντάχθηκαν στον ΔΣΕ.

10. 

Bakan Akar’dan ABD’ye gönderilen mektupla ilgili ilk açıklama

ANKARA, (DHA) 18.06.2019

Milli Savunma Bakanı Hulusi Akar, “ABD’li muhatabımız tarafından bize gönderilen mektupla alakalı çalışmalarımızı tamamladık ve cevabımızı bugün öğle saatlerinde Amerikan tarafına teslim ettik. Biz müttefiklik ruhuna uygun hareket edilmesinden yanayız ve bu konuya azami hassasiyet gösteriyoruz” dedi.

Milli Savunma Bakanı Akar, Ruanda Genelkurmay Başkanı Orgeneral Patrick Nyamvumba’yı kabul etti. Genelkurmay Başkanı Orgeneral Yaşar Güler’in de katıldığı görüşme öncesi Bakan Akar, gazetecilerin sorularını yanıtladı. Bakan Akar, ABD Savunma Bakanı Vekili Patrick Shanahan’ın mektubuna verilen cevaba ilişkin soru üzerine şöyle konuştu:

“ABD’li muhatabımız tarafından bize gönderilen mektupla alakalı çalışmalarımızı tamamladık ve cevabımızı bugün öğle saatlerinde Amerikan tarafına teslim ettik. Karşılıklı saygı ve iş birliğimizin devam etmesi için üslup ve yaklaşıma hassasiyet gösterilmesinin gerektiğini daha önce de çeşitli şekillerde belirtmiştik. Biz müttefiklik ruhuna uygun hareket edilmesinden yanayız ve bu konuya azami hassasiyet gösteriyoruz. Birbirimize saygılı ve iş birliğimizi destekleyici olduğumuz sürüce herhangi bir rahatsızlığa, olumsuzluğa neden olmadan ülkelerimizle, Silahlı Kuvvetlerimizle alakalı konuları rahatlıkla görüşebiliriz, görüşmeliyiz. Çünkü bizim uzun süreli bir iş birliğimiz, müttefikliğimiz var. Dolayısıyla bütün çalışmalarımızda bu iş birliğine, müttefiklik ruhuna uygun hareket edilmesinden yanayız. Bu konuda biz Türkiye, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri olarak azami dikkat, hassasiyet gösteriyoruz.”

‘CUMHURBAŞKANI’MIZ TRUMP İLE GÖRÜŞECEK’

Türkiye ve ABD’nin uzun süreli ortak değerleri, çıkarları ve sorumluluklarının olduğunu belirten Bakan Akar, “Bu nedenle aynı şekilde önümüzdeki dönemde de görüşmelerimizin bu doğrultuda, bu inançta yapılmasını bekliyoruz. Önümüzdeki hafta ABD Savunma Bakan Vekili ile Brüksel’de NATO Savunma Bakanları Toplantısı çerçevesinde bir araya gelme fırsatımız olacak. Bu ayın sonunda da Osaka’da G20 Zirvesi çerçevesinde Sayın Cumhurbaşkanı’mız Sayın Trump ile görüşecek. Bu görüşmelerin de olumlu sonuçlanması için müttefiklik ruhuna uygun bir şekilde bize düşen ne varsa yapmaya çalışıyoruz” dedi.

Bakan Akar, Ruanda ile Türkiye arasında askeri ve güvenlik alanlarındaki ilişkilerin daha da artacağına inandıklarını belirterek, “Bir taraftan eğitim, iş birliği programları, tatbikatlar varken diğer taraftan da önümüzdeki dönemde savunma sanayii konusunda da ortak çalışmalarımız olabilir. Bu konularda Ruandalı dostlarımıza elimizden geldiğince destek olmaya, onlarla beraber çalışmaya gayret gösteriyoruz” diye konuştu.

Ruanda Genelkurmay Başkanı Orgeneral Nyamvumba ise gösterilen ev sahipliğinden duyduğu memnuniyeti dile getirerek, “Türkiye ile olan ilişkilerimizi geliştirmek istiyoruz” dedi.

11.

Θύελλα στην Αλβανία: Σκάνδαλο παρακολουθήσεων καίει τον Έντι Ράμα.

Πολιτικό σεισμό έχουν προκαλέσει στην Αλβανία οι αποκαλύψεις της γερμανικής εφημερίδας Bild για τις παρακολουθήσεις που εμπλέκουν τον πρωθυπουργό της χώρας Έντι Ράμα σε σκάνδαλο εξαγοράς ψήφων στην Περιφέρεια Ντίμπρα το 2016.

Εμπλεκόμενοι στην υπόθεση είναι εγκληματίες, αξιωματούχοι της Αστυνομίας και υψηλόβαθμα στελέχη της κυβέρνησης.
Οι παρακολουθήσεις επιβεβαιώνουν ότι ο Αρμπέν Κέσι, επικεφαλής της Διεύθυνσης για τους παράνομους αλλοδαπούς στο Υπουργείο Εσωτερικών, έχει στήσει στρατηγική για την εξαγορά ψήφων, για άσκηση εκβιασμού και εμπόδιση ψηφοφόρων του Δημοκρατικού Κόμματος.
Σε αυτές καταγράφεται μάλιστα κι ένα τηλεφώνημε με τον ίσιο τον Έντι Ράμα, ο οποίος ρωτά τον Κέσι εάν «πέτυχαν τους στόχους» και ο Κέσι του απαντά ότι το κάθε τι προχωρά σύμφωνα με τις προβλέψεις – γεγονός που αποδεικνύει ότι η όλη επιχείρηση ήταν σε γνώση του.
Σε πλήθος συνομιλιών με κυβερνητικά στελέχη ο Κέσι εμφανίζεται να τους διαβεβαιώνει ότι έχουν πληρωθεί ψηφοφόροι ή να διαμαρτύρεται σε συνεργούς του για καθυστερήσεις στην πληρωμή συγκεκριμένων ομάδων ψηφοφόρων.
Σε ένα τηλεφώνημα ο Κέσι επικοινωνεί με τον Αστυνομικό Διευθυντή της Συνοικίας Κάμζα Τιράνων και του ζητά να εμποδίσει τους ψηφοφόρους του Δημοκρατικού Κόμματος – κατοίκους της Συνοικίας, να μεταβούν στη Ντίμπρα – τόπο καταγωγής, για να ψηφίσουν.
Μάλιστα, πληροφορίες αναφέρουν ότι σε μία παρακολούθηση, που είδε το φως της δημοσιότητας ο υπουργός Ενέργειας της Αλβανίας, Νταμιάν Γκικνούρι, φαίνεται να είχε θέσει στη διάθεση του Κέσι «μια ομάδα προβληματικών νεαρών», προκειμένου να τους χρησιμοποιεί «εάν παραστεί ανάγκη».
Τέλος ακούγεται ο βουλευτής και νυν υποψήφιος Δήμαρχος Λέζας Πιερίν Ντρέου, να ζητά από το Διευθυντή Παιδείας της Ντίμπρα, ο διευθυντής κάποιου σχολείου να ψηφίσει ανοικτά διαφορετικά, προσθέτει ο Ντρέου, τη Δευτέρα ο διευθυντής να φύγει από τη δουλειά του.

 12. 

Rusya’dan kritik S-400 açıklaması

Rusya Dışişleri Bakanı Yardımcısı Aleksandr Gruşko, Türkiye’nin Rusya’dan S-400 füze sistemini almasına ilişkin anlaşmanın uluslararası kurallara uygun olduğunu, tüm kararların alındığını bildirdi.

Gruşko, ABD’nin Türkiye’ye karşı olası yaptırım uygulamasına yönelik açıklaması üzerine yaptığı açıklamada, “Biz uzun zaman önce tavrımızı dile getirdik. Her egemen devlet askeri -teknik alanda kendi partnerlerini seçme hakkına sahip. Tüm kararlar alındı, anlaşma uluslararası kurallara uygundur” ifadesini kullandı.

Daha önce medyada ABD Başkanı Donald Trump idaresinin Temmuz ayında Türkiye’ye karşı 3 yaptırım paketi uygulanması ihtimalini değerlendirdiği belirtilmişti.
13. 

NATO’dan Türkiye-ABD (S-400 F-35) açıklaması! Tarih verdiler

NATO Avrupa Yüksek Müttefik Komutanı Orgeneral Tod Wolters, Türkiye ve ABD ilişkilerini konu alan bir açıklama yaptı.

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18.06.2019 
ABD ve Türkiye arasındaki S-400 gerginliği konusunda NATO‘dan yeni bir açıklama yapıldı.
NATO Avrupa Yüksek Müttefik Komutanı Orgeneral Tod Wolters, ABD Savunma Bakan Vekili Patrick Shanahan ile mevkidaşı Hulusi Akar‘ın 26-27 Haziran’da düzenlenecek NATO zirvesinde S-400 ve F-35 alımını konuşmak için bir araya gelebileceğini söyledi.

Wolters, Türkiye-ABD ilişkilerinin de “tamamen ve mutlak olarak” sağlam olduğunu dile getirerek, “Türk-Amerikan askeri ilişkileri kesinlikle pozitif” dedi.

Fransa‘nın başkenti Paris‘te devam eden Uluslararası Havacılık Fuarı sırasında gazetecilerin sorularını yanıtlayan ABD’li general şu ifadeleri kullandı: “S-400 ve F-35’leri aynı noktada konuşlandırmamız mümkün değil. Türkiye ile bu konuda görüşmelerin süreceğini biliyorum. Konunun detayları Türk Savunma Bakanı Hulusi Akar ve ABD Savunma Bakan Vekili Patrick Shanahan arasında. Akar ve Shanahan, gelecek hafta Brüksel‘deki NATO Savunma Bakanları Zirvesinde görüşme fırsatı bulabilir.”
14. 

Netanyahu to Israel’s enemies: ‘Don’t test us’

By World Israel News Staff

Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, attended an IDF exercise in the north. The Prime Minister was briefed on the exercise and spoke with soldiers and commanders who participated in it.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, said, following the exercise:

“I am concluding a major, multi-corps IDF exercise in several areas. I am very impressed by the improvement in readiness, by the fighting spirit of the soldiers and commanders, and mainly by the destructive power of the IDF.

“I hear our neighbors from the north, south and east threatening our destruction. I say to our enemies: The IDF has very great destructive power. Don’t test us.”

Israel is conducting a major air force exercise this week to evaluate its capabilities to wage a multi-front war. According to a senior Air Force official, “The entire air force is in the air.”

By chance, the 98th Paratroopers Division was also conducting an exercise.

It’s not clear from reports if the prime minister was attending one or both of these exercises, or yet another.

15. 

Trump says he would ‘certainly’ go to war over Iranian nuclear weapons

On the issue of whether he would go to war “to protect international oil supplies,” the U.S. president said that he would keep that “a question mark.”

By World Israel News Staff

“I would certainly go over nuclear weapons,” U.S. President Donald Trump toldTime Magazine when asked “what moves would lead him to consider going to war with Iran.”

Time says that the president made the statement “just hours” after Iran announced Monday that in 10 days it would break the uranium stockpile limit set by the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“If Iran feels that the sanctions have been reinstated or not lifted, Iran has the right to partly, or on the whole, suspend its commitments,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Iranian atomic agency announced, in reference to the earlier lifting of sanctions against Iran within the framework of the 2015 deal.

Last year, Trump imposed sanctions on Tehran after pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear pact. Iran has repeatedly criticized European countries for not acting to save the deal.

In response to Iran’s announcement on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated that “Israel will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.”

On the issue of whether he would go to war “to protect international oil supplies,” the U.S. president said that he would keep that “a question mark,” says Time.

“The Pentagon is dispatching an additional 1,000 troops to the Middle East in response to recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman that the United States blames on Iran,” reports Politico.

“The recent Iranian attacks validate the reliable, credible intelligence we have received on hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region,” said a statement from acting U.S. Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, though it said that the American military move was “for defensive purposes.”

“So far, it’s been very minor,” Trump told TIME, in describing the attacks on oil tankers.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that Iranians “will overcome the challenge created by the enemies,” according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

“We are not in war with any nation, rather we are confronting a handful of inexperienced politicians,” Rouhani said, according to IRNA, the official news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“The U.S. has breached all international laws in the hostility against Iranians,” the Iranian president charged, according to the news agency.

16. 

IMRAN KHAN ON THE UNFAIRNESS OF LINKING ISLAM TO TERRORISM

Why are other faiths not blamed for terror attacks?

 

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Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan recently attended a meeting of Muslim states in Mecca, where he delivered himself of some thoughts on the unfairness of blaming Islam for terrorism. He asserted, not for the first time, that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism.

No one ever blamed Hinduism for Tamil Tigers’ bombings or Japanese religion when they blew up themselves on US ships. So why Islam is branded so?” Khan said during the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Makkah.

He asserted that “the Muslim world has not been able to powerfully convince the world that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism,” adding that the OIC should clarify its ‘propaganda’ about Muslims.

This was duly reported around the world, without his charges being subject to critical examination. But Imran Khan had a number of things wrong — aside, of course, from his absurd claim the “Islam has nothing to do with terrorism.”

First, he wondered why Hinduism was not blamed for the terrorist attacks of the Tamil Tigers. But the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), were not inspired by Hinduism; no Hindu texts were relied on by them to justify their attacks; some of the Tamil Tigers were not even Hindus. Compare the Tamil Tigers to Muslim terrorists, who are acting according to the Qur’anic verses that command them to wage violent Jihad against all Unbelievers, and to “strike terror” in their hearts. The goal of jihad is ultimately to conquer the world for the faith, so that Islam everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule, everywhere.

The LTTE, by contrast, was a self-styled national liberation organization, with the primary goal of establishing an independent Tamil state in northern Sri Lanka. It had nothing to do with spreading Hinduism; Tamil nationalism was the basis of its ideology. The LTTE denied being a separatist movement based on religion — non-Hindu Tamils were members, while non-Tamil Hindus were not. It t saw itself as fighting for self-determination and the restoration of Tamil sovereignty in part of Sri Lanka. The LTTE was an avowedly secular organization; religion did not play any discernible part in its ideology. In fact, the LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was a secularist who criticized what he saw as the oppressive features of traditional Hindu Tamil society, such as the caste system and gender inequality. And that is why no one blamed Hinduism for the terrorism of the Tamil Tigers. It’s doubtful that Imran Khan knew any of this; he is known not for his intellect, but for his skills as a cricket player and playboy before he entered politics, and apparently he did not feel the need to learn more about the Tamil Tigers and their nationalist and secular agenda, before presuming to pontificate about them.

It may be worth noting that Khan’s knowledge of geography has also put to the test, and found wanting:

“Imran Khan was recently the object of scorn for confusing Japan with France, when he made comments about Japan and Germany sharing a border, discussed here; https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/pakistan/imran-khan-on-the-border-region-of-germany-and-japan-1.63501476

“Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s knowledge of geography came under the scanner when he said that Germany, situated in Central Europe, shares a border with Japan, an island nation in East Asia.

“The faux pas happened when the Pakistan PM was emphatically advocating the necessity of promoting trade between the two countries to ensure peace ibeen n a speech.

“The more trade you have with each other…your ties automatically gets [sic] stronger. Germany and Japan killed millions of their civilians, until after the Second World War. [[In]the border region of Germany and Japan they had joint industries. So now there is no question of them ever having bad relations because their economic interests are tied together,” the Pakistan PM said in a video clip, which was widely circulated on social media.

“It appears that the Pakistan Prime Minister was referring to the close Germany-France ties forged after the Second World War. However, the Prime Minister ended up mixing Japan with France.

“Khan’s lack of knowledge of geography not only left the delegates present at his speech puzzled but also rocked up a storm on social media.

“Please can someone find him a speech writer, or someone should give him lessons in geography. How much can one troll him?” a Twitter user wrote.

Neither geography, nor history, nor world religions, are Imran Khan’s strong suit.

Imran Khan asks why no one blamed Hinduism for the terrorist attacks of the Tamil Tigers. But why would they? Everyone in Sri Lanka knew that Hinduism was neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the phenomenon of the Tamil Tigers, a nationalist, separatist, and secular movement, whose leaders were critical of central elements to Hinduism, and who were fighting not to further Hinduism, but only to carve out a homeland for ethnic Tamils, whatever their religion.

Imran Khan’s further claim that no one blames the “Japanese religion” for the kamikaze pilots deserves comment. Which “Japanese religion” does he mean? There are two — Shinto, the religion native to Japan, and Buddhism, an import from China. I suspect Khan does not realize that these are different faiths. Shinto consists mainly of a series of rituals designed to keep the Japanese people connected to their distant past, a religion of public shrines devoted to the worship of a multitude of “spirits,” “essences,” or “gods” (kami), suited to various purposes such as war memorials and harvest festivals. Practitioners express their diverse beliefs through a standard language and practice, adopting a similar style in dress and ritual, dating from around the time of the Nara and Heian periods (8th–12th centuries). Shinto was not an aggressive faith; there was no impulse to spread Shinto outside of Japan; it would have made no sense to do so, given that it was designed to keep the Japanese aware of their uniqueness.

But beginning in the 1920s, and increasingly in the 1930s and during the war years, Shinto was exploited by the Japanese militarists, who connected it with the cult of sacrifice for Emperor Hirohito as the God-Emperor. The Americans, recognizing the Japanese military’s misuse of Shinto for aggressive purposes, required the Japanese, as part of their surrender, to end state support for Shinto. This was not the traditional Shinto itself, which was pacific, but the distorted version constructed beginning in the 1920s to support Japanese militarism. That is quite different from Islam, which, unlike Shinto, needs no distorting to support aggression. Islam has always been a fighting faith, and the 109 Qur’anic verses commanding Muslims to “fight” and to “kill” and to “smite above the neck” and “strike terror in the hearts” of Infidels are surely enough to justify laying the blame for the attacks by Muslim terrorists — of which there have been 35,000 since 9/11 — on Islam itself.

When Imran Khan indignantly claims that no one blames “the Japanese religion” for the kamikaze pilots, he is wrong in two ways. First, the real Shinto religion, which primarily connected the Japanese people to their past through rituals and shrines, cannot be blamed for the distorted version promoted by the Japanese military, who used the cult of the God-Emperor to encourage the kamikaze pilots who sacrificed themselves by the thousands. Second, as noted above, Shinto, or more exactly the distortion of the faith in the service of Japanese militarism, was indeed blamed by the Americans for contributing to Japanese aggression. Imran Khan’s claim that “no one blamed” the “Japanese religion” for the kamikaze pilots is wrong; he has forgotten, or more likely never knew, the American-imposed Terms of Surrender, which included the requirement that Shinto would no longer be the state religion of Japan.

Imran Khan would do well to take the time to study the irrelevance of Hinduism to the secular, nationalist struggle of the Tamil Tigers, and to learn a bit more about both traditional Shinto and the version created by Japanese militarists. And finally, he might read the Qur’an more closely, so as to comprehend what it is that leads so many of us to believe that Islam does indeed have a great deal — indeed, everything — to do with Muslim terrorism.

17. 

WEAKENING HEZBOLLAH IN LEBANON

Disarm Hezbollah — or let it dictate Lebanon’s future.

The Lebanon-based terrorist organization Hezbollah has served its Iranian masters well. It has murdered Americans and Israelis. More recently Syrian Sunni-Muslims, and Christians have been its victims.  Hezbollah has done the killings on behalf of the Ayatollahs in Tehran, and the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. In recent months however, it has taken several blows from Israel. Israeli strikes thwarted missile deliveries from Syria to its Lebanese bases. There is also growing global condemnation of its activities and an increasing designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. i24TV reported on February 27, 2019 that the, “United Kingdom has officially labeled Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in its entirety, as opposed to just its military wing, as some European powers have.” In the period spanning December, 2018 to January, 2019, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched Operation Northern Shield. In this operation, the IDF exposed and neutralized Hezbollah’s extended cross-border tunnel network. Six tunnels were destroyed and shut down, with all of them violating international law, specifically, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. In late May, 2019, the IDF uncovered the longest and most significant of Hezbollah’s attack tunnels. This latest tunnel was nearly a mile long, 22 stories deep, and stretched more than 250 feet into Israeli territory.

These events deflated Hezbollah’s claims to be the guardian of Lebanese security. Although it dominates the Lebanese government, its excesses have now opened a stream of criticism against its machinations over the border and existing complaints about its role in Syria. In a few weeks from now, American sponsored talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials will commence in Naqoura, on the Lebanese side of the Israeli-Lebanese border. The talks will focus on the maritime boundaries between the two countries, and the future of the gas deposits in the area. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David M. Satterfield, have been shuttling between Israel and Lebanon to settle the dispute between the two parties, with the hope of strengthening the Beirut government, and weakening Hezbollah’s grip on power in Lebanon. The mere fact that Lebanese officials will be meeting their Israeli counterparts face to face is a significant American accomplishment. It is also indicative of the U.S. increasing influence in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Daily Star reported on June 4th, 2019 that, “Among the bridging ideas put forward by both sides was for international energy groups, operating in both Israeli and Lebanese waters, to carry out first a seismological survey of the disputed area.” Israel and Lebanon have been at least formally at war since the re-establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. The two countries have long disagreed on the border demarcations in the eastern Mediterranean, an issue that has become more acute in the last decade when large deposits of natural gas were found there. The Daily Star also reported that “Lebanese lawmakers close to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (leader of the Shiite Amal party) quoted him as saying there was ‘clear progress’ on the efforts to resolve the border dispute.”

Both Lebanon’s Christian President Michel Aoun, and Speaker Nabih Berri, who is also in a close relationship with Hezbollah, are cognizant of the economic benefits Lebanon would derive from resolving the dispute with Israel and producing gas. Lebanon’s Sunni-Muslim Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, has likewise endorsed the talks with Israel under U.S. mediation. Hariri is committed to removing Lebanon from regional conflicts, and as such, he has been critical of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, and its stirring of troubles with Israel. Clearly, Lebanon’s weak economy is in dire need of a boost, and income from the gas fields, which might alleviate its chronic economic crisis. The fact that Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has shown little resistance to the American mediation and open talks with Israel, indicates that despite its electoral gains in the last elections, its influence in Lebanon is declining.

The U.S. is currently arming and training the Lebanese armed forces, and it is therefore in a much better position to pressure the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, and thus drastically weakening the terror group. The Lebanese government will have to decide whether it is an independent state or a subsidiary of Hezbollah, and controlled by Iran. If the Lebanese government declines to do so, then the U.S. can exercise the option of boycotting Lebanon, and those doing business with it. Although the Shiites are the largest sect in Lebanon, they are not the majority. When Christians, Sunnis, and Druse combine forces, they can overwhelm the Shiites and form a majority. Even among Shiites, there are those who oppose Hezbollah, and who fear like the rest of the Lebanese, that the terrorist group might drag Lebanon into a war with Israel, resulting in destruction for the Land of the Cedars. The 2006 war with Israel is a somber reminder of what can happen to Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s war in Syria has cost it thousands of casualties. The organization paying pensions to its retirees and the families of those killed in Syria, has put the organization under a major financial strain.  Moreover, U.S. sanctions on Iran has forced the Islamic Republic to cut its financial outlays to Hezbollah. Hezbollah officials were targeted by the U.S. in February, 2018.  The Voice of AmericaNews reported that the U.S. “imposed sanctions” on seven businesses and six people associated with Hezbollah, aiming to disrupt the terror organization. Unlike the situation with Iran, where the U.S. and its European allies disagree on the nuclear deal, the same European nations are more than likely to back the U.S. on the demand to disarm Hezbollah. Also, unlike in Syria, where Russia has a strategic interest in backing Iran, it does not exist when it comes to Lebanon.

Al-Jazeera reported (May 23, 2019) that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a meeting with Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, warned that “Lebanon faces a choice: bravely move forward as an independent and proud nation or allow the dark ambitions of Iran and Hezbollah to dictate your future.” He also pointed out that last year, while the U.S. provided the Lebanese people with $800 million in aid, Iran has only given to the Hezbollah (not to the Lebanese people) $700 million.

According to Lebanese-native, Joseph Hakim, President of the International Christian Union, “the first thing that the U.S. should demand of the Lebanese government is to implement fairly the Taif Agreement, which called on all armed militias to disband, including Hezbollah. While all other militias disarmed, Hezbollah, under the pretext of defending Lebanon, did not. This must change. Hakim added “Hezbollah is bound to hijack the revenue flowing from the gas fields.”

The recent Israeli operation to destroy the tunnels into Israel that Hezbollah built over years with large investments in cash and manpower, weakened the terror organization. The U.S. must now press the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, and allow the Lebanese army, which the U.S. equips and trains, to be the sole defense force for Lebanon. The Lebanese people, in the words of Mike Pompeo, have a choice to make.

18.

WHY FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS ARE SHIELDING IRAN

Despite the regime’s escalating aggression.

Iran is making good on its threats.

Last Thursday’s bombing of two oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz was just the latest in a string of attacks that have taken place in the maritime choke point in the past month. Thirty percent of global petroleum exports transit the Straits of Hormuz annually.

On April 22, Alireza Tangsiri, the Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval force, announced that if the U.S. went ahead with placing a full embargo on Iranian petroleum exports, Iran would close the Straits of Hormuz. “If we are prevented from using it, we will close it,” Tangrisi said, according to the state-run Fars news agency.

On May 10, four fuel tankers were attacked outside the Fujairah port of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). U.S. investigators assessed that the ships were attacked with magnetic limpet mines, as in Thursday’s attacks. U.S. Central Command published photos of such a mine on the Kokuka Courageous, one of the two ships attacked on Thursday. Apparently a dud, the mine didn’t detonate during the attack. Central Command later published video footage of an alleged IRGC naval craft removing the unexploded ordnance, apparently to prevent U.S. forces from seizing it and using it to prove that Iran conducted the attack.

According to the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis, Thursday’s attacks occurred in the Gulf of Oman close to the Iranian port of Jask. The port serves as “an Iranian naval base and a center for drones and submarines.”

MECRA’s website reports that the Iranian naval base at Jask “has submarines, drones and anti-ship missiles have been tested near the site. Major Iranian naval operations took place in the area in February.”

Given the abundance of evidence linking Iran to the attacks, reasonably, on Thursday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid responsibility for that day’s attacks, along with the May 10 attacks and a host of other attacks that have taken place in recent weeks.

In Pompeo’s words, the assessment was based on “intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks in shipping and the fact that no proxy group  operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act iwith such a high degree of sophistication.”

Despite the video footage, the proximity of the attacks to the Iranian naval base, the open threats against shipping in the Straits of Hormuz made by Tangsiri and other senior Iranian officials in recent weeks, and the IRGC’s aggressive detainment of the crew of the Front Altair — the second ship attacked on Thursday — Germany, the EU, Russia, and China refused to admit that Iran carried out the attacks.

Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister who was in Tehran meeting with “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei earlier this week, insisted Thursday that the footage of the IRGC crew removing the unexploded mine from the Kokuka Courageous was insufficient.

“The video is not enough,” he said. “We understand what is begin shown, sure, but to make a final assessment, that is not enough for me.”

The European Union similarly refuses to lay the blame on Iran. It released a statement saying, “While we are gathering additional information and evidence and consolidating the elements available, we will refrain from speculations and premature conclusions.”

Russia also refuses to acknowledge that Iran is behind the attacks. China’s President Xi Jinping met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a high-profile summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Council on Friday. There, he pledged to develop a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Iran.

Even Japan, whose Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in the middle of a meeting with Khamenei in Tehran when the Japanese and Norwegian tankers were bombed, has yet to acknowledge that Iran was responsible for the attacks. Abe was in Tehran hoping to mediate between Khamenei and President Donald Trump. Kahmenei flatly refused his offer.

On the face of it, the refusal of ostensible U.S. allies like Germany, Japan, and the EU — and U.S. adversaries like China and Russia — to acknowledge Iran’s obvious guilt for the attacks on oil shipping and pipelines in the Persian Gulf region over the past month is odd. Don’t they want to end Iran’s aggression?

Why would they shield Iran from responsibility for aggression that threatens the global economy and threatens their own economic interests far more than it threatens U.S. economic interests? After all, since the U.S. began producing shale oil, U.S. exposure to global oil shocks has dramatically decreased.

The U.S. today is the largest oil producing country. States like Japan and China are much more vulnerable to oil supply disruptions from the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al Mandab, another maritime choke point now controlled by Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen.

There are various reasons that a variety of governments do not wish to acknowledge Iran’s responsibility for the attacks. First, as has been reported, Maas and Abe were both in Iran ostensibly to reinstate negotiations between Iran and the U.S. As self-appointed mediators, the Japanese and the Europeans likely wish to be seen as neutral parties. They likely fear that by acknowledging that Iran is responsible for the attacks on shipping, Iran will refuse to speak to them.

As for negotiations, the Europeans – led by the Germans – have refused to accept any U.S. demands for significant revisions of the 2015 nuclear deal the Obama administration led them in concluding with the Iranian regime. In the lead up to Trump’s decision last May to pull out of the nuclear deal, senior state department official Brian Hook conducted intensive negotiations with the EU to convince them to make substantive changes in the agreement. They refused.

If they acknowledge that Iran is behind the attacks in the Persian Gulf, it will make it more difficult for them to maintain their position that Iran’s terrorism, and other forms of aggression, as well as its missile tests are all of a piece with its nuclear proliferation. If that happens, they will be hard pressed to maintain their stubborn allegiance to the 2015 deal, which is founded on the false premise that Iran is an inherently peaceful, non-hostile actor that just needs to be appeased.

Another reason that so many governments – both hostile and ostensibly allied with the U.S. — refuse to acknowledge Iran’s effectively self-evident responsibility for the tanker attacks is because doing so will make it more difficult for them to argue against U.S. sanctions.

Governments in Japan, Germany, China and other states are interested in ending or abating U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. As Benny Avni argued Wednesday in the New York Sun, the German and Japanese push to renew negotiations between Iran and the U.S. is at least in part due to their desire “to revive the smooth flow of goods and business with Iran.”

Their diplomacy, he argued, “is meant to put pressure on Washington to start a process that would lead to direct talks. Iran, they claim, will behave better now that its economy is strained. America should take advantage and aim for a fresh rapprochement,” he wrote.

Obviously, Iran’s wanton and repeated aggression against peaceful maritime traffic in international waterways is evidence that the contrary is true. Iran is certainly hurting economically as a result of U.S. sanctions. But its response is not to improve its behavior in order to diminish U.S. economic pressure. Rather, Iran is responding to the U.S. sanctions by escalating its aggression, thus proving that the Trump administration’s decision to renew and strengthen economic sanctions against Iran was justified and reasonable.

It is difficult to imagine that mere embarrassment will pry the Europeans away from their preference for ignoring the reality of Iranian aggression in order to pursue their longstanding policy of appeasing Iran and its terrorist proxies. Germany and the EU still refuse to acknowledge that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is permitted to operate openly in EU states despite the fact that it has been caught planning and carrying out terrorist attacks in Europe repeatedly in recent years. Indeed, Britain took no actionagainst Hezbollah after Israel tipped it off in 2015 that Hezbollah had built a bomb factory in North London. The British Parliament only outlawed the Iranian proxy force in February 2019.

Whereas Britain, with its close ties to the U.S., has sometimes evinced a willingness to abandon general European appeasement of terrorists and state sponsors of terror, Germany, France, and other major European governments have never entertained the prospect of abandoning appeasement for confrontation, let alone defeating terrorists and their state sponsors. Acknowledging Iran’s aggression is largely inconceivable for Germany and its EU partners.

As for Russia and China, their refusal to take action against Iran stems in part from their strategic competition with the United States. If they admit that Iran is behind the attacks, like the Europeans and the Japanese, they will need to admit that the U.S. strategy of maximum pressure is reasonable and justified. Such an admission would strengthen the U.S. position.

Admitting Iran’s responsibility would empower the U.S. to diminish Iran’s capacity to continue committing acts of naval aggression, either directly or through its Houthi proxy. As Jim Hanson from the Security Studies Group suggested on Fox News, such action could include U.S. strikes against Houthi bases in Yemen or IRGC bases in Jask or other locations.

Given the behavior of U.S. allies and adversaries in light of Iran’s self-evident aggression against merchant tankers in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. cannot expect to operate with their support as it pursues its goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and denying the regime the means to continue sponsoring terrorism and aggression against the U.S. and its regional and global allies.

As a consequence, going forward, the Trump administration must continue to place all of its evidence of Iranian aggression on the table and continue to pursue its policy of maximum aggression. Unlike appeasement, the U.S.’s policy is based on reality. And so, unlike appeasement, it is a policy with the potential to actually succeed.

19. 

LEFTISTS HAVE ALWAYS LIED ABOUT AUSCHWITZ

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s rhetorical strategy descends from Stalin himself.

On Monday, June 17, and again on Tuesday, June 18, freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated that the “authoritarian and fascist” Trump administration “has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying.” “Concentration camps are an institutionalized practice in the home of the free … a presidency that creates concentration camps is fascist.”

I was a teenager the first time I visited Auschwitz. I grew up with one foot in New Jersey, and with one foot, through my parents’ heartfelt stories, songs, recipes and reminiscences, in Poland and Slovakia. I met anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet resisters, victims of torture and rape, all members of my own family, when I was fifteen. I sat around the table and watched my strong, resilient, subsistence farmer aunts’ and uncles’ faces melt with shame and terror as they recounted Nazi, and then Soviet, occupation. I watched my mother, a monument to strength and stoicism, cry when she heard, firsthand, of the fate of her beloved Jewish neighbor who had saved her from drowning in the River Nitra. She had long known he was among the millions. She had read of his fate in letters. Now back in her village for the first time since her departure as a child, she just couldn’t take it when they told her to her face, as she stood in front of what used to be his home.

After the visit to Auschwitz, I met both survivors of the camp and Polish citizens who had hidden Jews in their homes. These rescuers radiated a quality I can’t quite capture in words but I can say that sitting in front of them and listening to them speak was comparable, for me, to sitting in front of Yosemite’s Half Dome. These Poles, senior citizens in Soviet-era rumpled clothing, who spoke few and humble words, not lush vocabulary out of any epic saga but rather monosyllabic words focused on how to dispose of human waste without detection or how to manage to cadge enough calories while living under a genocidal occupation, conveyed the aura of massive natural wonders. These rescuers’ souls seemed to have outgrown their human flesh and have already transcended to the ageless, the mythic.

It’s the hardest country I’ve ever visited, but I kept going back to Poland, both in the flesh and in my publications. Several people whose parents had been in concentration camps became part of my day-to-day life. Some of these children of camp survivors are Jews, some are Poles, and some are Ukrainian. Another close friend is the son of a Nazi soldier who fought in North Africa with Rommel as well as on the Eastern Front, winning two Iron Crosses. Please forgive what I am about to say. People whose parents were in concentration camps are not easy. There is a raft of symptoms that all these friends, including the son of the Nazi, display. Touchiness. Paranoia. Outrage. Tilting at windmills. Self-sabotage. A terrible loneliness that can never be slaked. I love these people, I owe them much, and my life would not be the same without them. But they are not easy people.

All the survivors, rescuers, witnesses and children of survivors I know care about the suffering of immigrants. They care because they were all immigrants, of one kind or another, themselves. They all know hunger, bruises, humiliations, frustrations, and exclusion. They all, also, know hope and working hard toward a better future for the next generation.

I grew up a child of immigrants, and, inevitably, I went on to be an immigrant myself, living and working in Africa, Asia, and Europe. I held my mother’s hand as she died, seventy-two years after her forced migration to America, and I can say that she never got over the trauma of that passage. She told me about walking to school along railroad ties because the ties hurt her bare feet less than the gravel between the tracks. She was barefoot so the “cardboard” shoes she received from the “Poor Board” would not disintegrate in her walk to school. She told me about being beaten by a nun who spoke Slovak but wouldn’t speak it to her because it was her job, as a child immigrant, to sink or swim. She told me about the first time she ate that most American of foods, peanut butter, out of a half empty jar encountered while foraging in a garbage dump.

“Get me a Hunky; I need a donkey,” was the refrain my father heard when showing up to be selected to tunnel his child’s body into the narrowest passages of coal mines. “Hunky” was the word for immigrants like him. Beatings? Discrimination? Abuse? Tuberculosis? Unjust incarceration? Yes, all of those were part of my father’s life, before he turned fifteen. Death? He witnessed death. His own father’s death. I won’t tell that story here; it’s too hard, and it belongs to my cousins as well as to me, and I don’t want to violate their memories. Let’s just say that things were so bad, and his family was so hungry, that he joined the Army under someone else’s papers when he was still underage. He fought in the Philippines and New Guinea and insisted that America was “the greatest country in the world.”

So, yes, those of us familiar, even though handed-down stories from our elders about the Nazis, are also familiar with the burdens of immigration. This much we know. A decent person does not steal the vocabulary of one horror to discuss the discomforts and inconveniences, or even the heartbreaks and tragedies, of the other. As horrific as the black lung, the police chases, the incarceration, and the death all were, they were not those horrors as lived in Auschwitz, which was an experience so cursed you don’t use the same vocabulary when speaking of the one about the other. You just do not do that.

The term “concentration camp” existed before the Holocaust, and pre-Holocaust governments have set up what were called, at the time, concentration camps. During the 1899-1902 Boer War between Boers, or Dutch-speaking South Africans and the British Empire, the Empire drove Boers into concentration camps. Approximately 28,000 Boers, that is 25%, of Boers in these camps, and 10% of the overall Boer population, died of hunger and disease. Twenty thousand black South Africans also died.

No one objects to the use of the term “concentration camp” for discussion of the Boer War, or other pre-Holocaust atrocities. Why, then, do we express such revulsion when Ocasio-Cortez claims “concentration camp” to discuss facilities to house illegal immigrants?

The answer is obvious. The answer is history. In the same way that the word “apple” is heard differently in the post-Steve-Jobs world, the term “concentration camp” is heard differently in the post-Auschwitz world. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous. And to pretend otherwise is to camouflage a very real leftist agenda.

The left itself has a doctrine that should, if followed, obviate this lie. It’s the doctrine of cultural appropriation. You do not take the cultural inheritance of another group and claim it as your own. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez knows about this doctrine. She was blasted for violating it on April 5, 2019, when giving a speech to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Ocasio-Cortez, in an attempt to curry favor with her mostly African American audience, adopted a faux Ebonics rhythm and syntax. All leftist cultural appropriation stories are ridiculous; it’s difficult to pick which is most exemplary of the trend. Perhaps Lena Dunham fretting over Oberlin college students’ sushi consumption. Perhaps the height, or depth of cultural appropriation sermonizing took place after Keziah Daum, a Utah high school student, wore a Chinese-style dress to her prom and posted the photo on social media. In a frequently retweeted twitter post, Jeremy Lam accused 18-year-old Keziah Daum of colonizing Asians.

Since leftists preach against cultural appropriation, why are leftists now trying to appropriate the term “concentration camp” to talk about immigration? One of the most disturbing, and obvious, trends in today’s Democratic Party is anti-Semitism. Not all Democrats are anti-Semites, but Congressional Democrats surrendered to the anti-Semites in their midst when, on March 7, 2019, they failed to sanction freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for her frequent and egregious expressions of anti-Semitism. Ocasio-Cortez made it a point to support Omar in the midst of that controversy. Ocasio-Cortez was also happy to mouth anti-Semitic tropes, tropes she clearly did not understand and could not support when exposed to questioning. In a July 17, 2018 appearance on PBS’s Firing LineOcasio-Cortez said she objects to “the occupation of Palestine” and a “humanitarian crisis.” When questioned what she meant by these terms, she collapsed, laughing, acknowledging, “I am not the expert on geopolitics … Middle Eastern politics was not exactly at my kitchen table every night.” Why the Democratic Party is currying favor with anti-Semites is a topic for another piece, but that toadying is on display for all to see. Ocasio-Cortez’s attempt to claim the term “concentration camp” for her very own is part of that agenda.

And there’s more. Leftists have always lied about the Holocaust. I saw those lies firsthand, during my visit to Auschwitz. In those Soviet days, visitors were shown a film. I watched the Polish language version of the film. I listened for the word “Jew” – “Zyd.” I never heard it. What I do remember hearing, over and over, was the term “victims of fascism.” I recognized that I was being propagandized. I wondered how many viewing this film would not recognize that. “After the war internal politics led the Soviet leadership to erase the Holocaust from historical memory,” writes historian John Klier in “The Holocaust and the Soviet Union.” Soviet Russia and its satellite states systematically lied about the Holocaust from the end of the war till its toppling in 1989. Communists inflated the numbers of those killed at Auschwitz. They did so in order to minimize the number of Jews murdered there. Soviet Russians called Auschwitz “the ultimate capitalist factory where the workers were dispensable.” “One of the least appealing aspects of the Soviet analysis of Auschwitz, now and later, was the downplaying of the scale of suffering endured by Jews.” This downplaying constituted “a rift in historical interpretation between East and West concerning the operation of the camps that would not be resolved until the fall of Communism,” writes Laurence Rees in Auschwitz: A New HistoryThis downplaying of Jewish suffering occurred throughout the Soviet Empire. Thomas Haury writes that East Germany, “emphasized the workers, the party, and the Soviet population as having suffered most from National Socialism. The genocide of the European Jews was only one crime among many, to which the GDR hardly paid attention.” Jews were also accused of crimes said to be “just as bad as the Holocaust.” “Not only Holocaust deniers but also communists used Holocaust Equivalence early, aiming at Jews. In 1953, the Soviet Union’s daily Pravda published alleged information about a conspiracy of mainly Jewish doctors to kill communist leaders through wrong diagnoses and sabotage in treatment,” writes Georg von Rauch. Romanian textbooks emphasized Romanian suffering and downplayed Jewish deaths. People often criticize Poles for their apparent lack of awareness of Holocaust history. After all, Poland was the site of many concentration and death camps. But Poles, too, were taught a Holocaust history consciously distorted by Communism, and it is only post-1989 that Polish historians have been able to tell their own country’s story without that distortion dominating their work. When perusing a Soviet-era history book about WW II, or watching a Soviet-era film about the liberation of Auschwitz, or listening to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s justifications for using the term “concentration camp,” one must remember this core principle: “The truth is that which serves the party.”

Czeslawa (ches WAV ah) Kwoka was a 14 year old Polish Catholic girl. She was murdered in Auschwitz. Wilhelm Brasse, as his name suggests, had some Germanic ancestry. But he was born in Poland and he self-identified as Polish. After the Nazis invaded, the SS “invited” Brasse to identify as German. He declined, and he was sent to Auschwitz, where he was forced to photograph prisoners. Later he was ordered to destroy those photos. Through subterfuge, he saved many of the photos.

Brasse took the photograph we have of Czeslawa Kwoka. He described the process to an interviewer, who said that Brasse trembled while speaking. “She was so young and so terrified. The girl didn’t understand why she was there and she couldn’t understand what was being said to her. So this woman Kapo took a stick and beat her about the face. This German woman was just taking out her anger on the girl. Such a beautiful young girl, so innocent. She cried but she could do nothing. To tell you the truth, I felt as if I was being hit myself but I couldn’t interfere. It would have been fatal for me. You could never say anything.”

I do not begrudge anyone the compassion they feel for immigrants. I do not begrudge anyone for actually extending aid to immigrants. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her leftist allies are not expression compassion, and they are not helping anyone, by appropriating the term “concentration camp.” Rather, they are appropriating cultural material that does not belong to them, and that no decent person would want. They are doing this as part of the left’s current and growing anti-Semitic program. Stalin, we are told, said that one death was a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. If the deaths of the eleven million leave Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her allies cold, I ask them to look into the face of Czeslawa Kwoka, who was murdered at 14 because she was the wrong ethnicity.

20. 

THE HISTORY OF THE ISRAELI COMMUNITY OF RAMAT TRUMP

War, peace and thousands of years of history.

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

At an elevation of over 2,000 feet, the road to Ramat Trump or Trump Heights at times appears to be climbing into the sky. The Golan Heights with its scrub and brush, the vast Mediterranean vistas, nature reserves and artsy cottages, interrupted by secluded villages with more livestock than people, could easily be mistaken for some rural part of California. But occasionally there is the distant sound of artillery or the sonic booms of Israeli or Russian jets reminding everyone that this is a war zone.

On the other side of the wineries and ranches isn’t California, but a murderous struggle between Sunni and Shiite Islamic terrorists battling each other and themselves for control of Syria. Factions on the other side include Iran, Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood. Ever since Trump won, the struggle has been dying down. ISIS has mostly been crushed. But the cows up here can’t count on the quiet.

The announcement that Israel would be naming a town after Trump, in appreciation of his recognition of the Golan Heights, was met with jeers and media cries that it would be an “illegal settlement”.

There’s plenty of history behind dismissing the notion of “illegal settlements” on land where Jews had lived for thousands of years. Ramat Trump will be under the authority of the Golan Regional Council based out of Katzrin, a Jewish village with an ancient synagogue dating back to at least the 4th century built by refugees fleeing the might of Rome, only for it and other small Jewish villages built on the Heights to encounter the Islamic invaders claiming the land not for the emperor, but for the caliph.

On the Syrian side, there are still jihadis hoping to invade and claim the land for another caliph.

The Democrats, activists and media hacks who condemned President Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights and who denounce Ramat Trump as an “Israeli settlement” haven’t explained what they want to see done with it. Do they want to turn it over to the Sunni or Shiite jihadists? To ISIS or to Iran?

The calm waters and scattered stones, the massive clouds slowly drifting across the sky and the breeze rich with the smell of growing things, belie the many battles that have been fought here.

And may be fought yet again.

After the next Israeli election, Trump Heights will slowly come into being near the community of Kela Alon named after the oaks that thrive here and which were referenced by the prophets in biblical times. A more recent landmark is Petroleum Road, the remnants of a pipeline which once ran from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon. The pipeline and the road have long since become defunct. One day archeologists will dig them up to unearth their secrets. But for now, Petroleum Road has another secret to tell.

On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of Judaism, Syria and Egypt launched a surprise attack on the Jewish State. Some of the bloodiest battles for survival were fought here as a handful of Israelis held out against overwhelming odds.

On Petroleum Road, Lieutenant Zvika Greengold, 21, with one tank, held off an entire Syrian armored division. Greengold, who had been born in a kibbutz named after the ghetto fighters, destroyed 60 tanks in 30 hours of fighting. His tank was knocked out, his uniform caught on fire, but he never gave up.

Highway 98, off Petroleum Road, leads to the Valley of Tears. That’s the memorial for the Israeli soldiers who fought and died when 175 Israeli tanks stood against 700 Syrian tanks. Highway 98 isn’t just a road. The location was one of the objectives of the battle that left hundreds of enemy tanks in ruins.

Such lopsided battles defined the struggle for the Heights with outnumbered and overwhelmed Israeli forces building temporary walls out of enemy armor while waiting and praying for reinforcements.

The bloody lessons of those days have settled the question of the Golan Heights for virtually all Israelis.

The commanding heights that allowed Israeli forces to survive, to win battles by holding the line and preventing superior enemy forces from breaking through gaps, cannot be surrendered at any price.

You might as well have asked the 300 Spartans to surrender the Hot Gates to the Persians as to demand that the Israelis turn over the Kuneitra Gap and its lava beds to Iran’s proxies in Syria.

It’s been a long time since 1973. Old heroes have gone to their resting place. But the war waits.

Aside from the visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Ambassador Friedman to dedicate Ramat Trump, the area is quiet. The new community will rise out of an older community of Bruchim or Welcome. The symbolism is significant because when Bruchim village was pioneered back in the 90s, a furious Secretary of State James Baker had blasted Israel’s “provocative” actions in creating a “settlement”.

Three decades later, the few Soviet Jewish refugees who found welcome in these heights live quietly and provoke no one. Baker’s efforts at Israeli-Syrian peace talks not only failed, but were irrelevant. Syria, like much of the rest of the region, is not a country or a people, it’s a dictatorship welding together different peoples and tribes who would fight for dominance and independence any chance they get.

A deal with the Assad family is as hollow and meaningless as one signed with a drug cartel or Hamas.

President Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights disavows the fantasy foreign policy of both Bush administrations and of the Obama administration. Trump is a realist and how better to honor him than to recognize the reality on the ground. That’s the message that dedicating Trump Heights sends.

Israelis have brought American diplomats and politicians to the Golan Heights for generations to show them how vulnerable the country is. They all nodded their heads as if they understood. But none did.

Trump Heights is named after the only man in the White House who understood how important it is.

James Baker III had represented generations of the old Republican foreign establishment. His protégé, Condoleezza Rice had carried on his work under Bush II. But Baker’s closest equivalent in the Trump era, Rex Tillerson, another oil company man, was gone and replaced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo is a realist not given to fantasy diplomacy, ambitious regional solutions or wishful thinking.

The old Arabist anti-Israel alliances have fractured and some of the Sunni Muslim oil powers would rather that Israel hold the Golan Heights than that Iran add another strategic region to its empire.

Trump Heights will not be a booming hub of commerce and technology. The Golan Heights are remote and not suited for huge bustling crowds. With 110 housing units planned, Ramat Trump will probably have fewer residents than most Trump hotels. Traffic will be light. And likely limited to tourists and artists staying for a while in the nearby cottages of Matsok Orvim or the Cliff of Crows.

But the vistas and the history here are too overwhelming for big buildings and shopping malls.

The Israelis who live in Trump Heights will not be wealthy. They will have few luxuries. But they will be determined. All Israelis live in a war zone. But some do more than others. All Israelis live close to heaven. But some heights are closer than others. The unyielding patience of history has formed the rock and dust here. And some of that quiet determination has made its mark on the land and the people.

The Heights are crowded with thousands of years of history, with the sounds of falling shells and screaming men, but also with a vastness of sky and earth that open the human heart to wonder. There are strange megalithic monuments that have never been explained, unexpected springs bounding from the earth, and massive waterfalls. And in the air is that intangible taste of a timeless eternity.

21. 

IMMIGRATION MADNESS

A legal immigrant weighs in.

Former Virginia state attorney Ken Cuccinelli has become acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The new USCIS boss warns that “If the sponsored immigrant receives any federal means-tested public benefits, the sponsor will be expected to reimburse the benefits-granting agency for every dollar of benefits received by the immigrant.” This got Cuccinelli tagged as extremist, when it shouldn’t even be news.

This writer spent childhood stints in Alliance, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, but as an adult when I sought to reside in the United States, the government imposed certain requirements. I had to certify that I would not become a public charge, a burden on American taxpayers. I never became a public charge and neither did any member of my family.

So this writer tends to look askance at the acceptance of thousands of people, most of them with few if any job skills, who violate U.S. immigration law for the express purpose of gaining publicly funded benefits. Their sponsors, or home countries, should be on the hook for those costs. And as this legal immigrant sees it, those who accept public benefits should be disqualified from citizenship.

When entering the United States, this writer had to certify that he had a working knowledge of the English language. So this writer is not pleased by thousands of people crashing the border with no knowledge of English and no intention of learning. These illegals are not like other immigrant groups, who never thought they had a claim to the southwestern United States, that they were only entering their own country, and that they are some kind of superior race, as Mexican education minister Jose Vasconcelos wrote in La Raza Cosmica.

When this writer entered the United States, he had to certify that he was not a member of the Communist Party. Despite some decidedly leftist ancestors, and capers during the 1960s, I wasn’t. So this writer rejects the concept of admitting anybody about whom we know nothing at all.

When this writer entered the country, the United States government did not provide him with health care, and he received no reward for following the legal process. So this legal immigrant is less than thrilled about California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to grant government-paid health care to people who violated U.S. immigration law, who use false documents, commit identity theft, and who received taxpayer funded benefits in other forms.

When this legal immigrant entered the United States, he was issued a Green Card and required to register yearly as a resident “alien.” So don’t tell me that no human being is an “alien,” but there’s more to it.

As a legal alien, this writer could not vote in U.S. elections. So this legal immigrant takes a dim view of California registering more than one million illegals to vote through the DMV’s “motor voter” plan. How many actually voted in 2016 and 2018? State officials won’t say, but this legal immigrants believes they all voted for the party that gives sanctuary to illegals, even violent criminals. That is, the Democrat Party, and this legal immigrant believes that the “free” health care handout is an open reward for the illegal votes.

If this writer had committed crimes in his native Canada, that would likely have prevented his legal entry to the United States. If the legal immigrant committed a crime, that could have nixed the quest for citizenship. If he had committed a crime, he would not expect police and judges to aid his escape. Therefore, this legal immigrant finds rather startling the protections accorded to violent criminals who violated U.S. immigration laws.

For example, on May 4, drunken illegal Ismael Huazo-Jardinez crashed his truck into a residence in Knight’s Landing, California, taking the lives of Jose Pacheco, 38, Anna Pacheco, 34, and their 10-year-old son Angel. Incredibly enough, Sutter County judge David Judge Ashby granted bail to a triple manslaughter, felony DUI suspect who had already attempted to flee the scene.

Nearly a month later, it emerges that the previously deported Mexican national also had two stolen firearms, more than two dozen cell phones, and $12,000  in cash. He was attempting to flee and would have got away if ICE had not arrested him. And it was this writer, not the establishment media, who broke the story that the Mexican national was illegally present in the United States.

So this legal immigrant is good with Ken Cuccinelli’s plan to recover costs from the sponsors of illegals who use public services. I would also tax the $33 billion in remittances that Mexicans sent back last year, and charge Mexico and other countries for the incarceration, education and health care American taxpayers provide to their nationals. This legal immigrant supports the president’s plan to step up deportations, along with the right of all people to dream in their own country.

Meanwhile, the only people we should let in are those we want to be here, and this legal immigrant is also okay with a wall. If these views displease anybody, set up a pay-per-view and we’ll talk it over.

22.

Israeli intelligence exposes Iranian spy network within Israel

By World Israel News Staff 

The Israeli Shin Bet security agency says it has exposed an “Iranian intelligence effort” to establish a spying operation in Israel under the cover of commercial activity.

In conjunction with the Israel Police, the Shin Bet says it arrested businessman Thaer Shafut, 32, a Jordanian national, who is originally from the Hebron area.

“It was learned that Shafut had entered Israel on behalf of Iranian intelligence in order to carry out missions designed to advance the formation of cells in Israel and in Judea and Samaria for use in covert Iranian activity,” says the Israeli agency’s statement.

The suspect first came into contact with Iranian intelligence when he was in Lebanon, with additional meetings taking place with his “Iranian handlers” during 2018 and 2019 in Lebanon and Syria, according to the Shin Bet.

Shafut is said to have been arrested in April but the Shin Bet’s announcement was not made until now, after the IDF Judge Advocate General’s Office filed an indictment earlier this month against the suspect in the Judea military court. He is accused of “contact with an enemy, contact with a hostile organization, and conspiracy to smuggle enemy funds into the area,” says the Shin Bet.

He had been instructed by his handlers, says the Israeli statement, “to establish a commercial infrastructure in Israel to serve as a cover for future Iranian activity, apparently to gain access to Israel and Judea and Samaria, and recruit spies to assist in gathering information pursuant to Iranian interests.”

Shafut was instructed to evaluate commercial possibilities and establish business connections, says the intelligence agency.

Upon entering Israel during the summer of 2018 and again in April 2019, he allegedly began contacting “local elements,” hoping that they would help him in accomplishing his mission.

Shafut is said to have successfully gained approval to set up a factory in Jordan to employ Shi’ite workers who would conduct “future Iranian activity” in Israel and in Judea and Samaria.

His handlers expressed a willingness “to invest considerable funds, approximately $500,000 initially, with additional funds to follow as necessary, in order to establish operations in the field,” says the Israeli statement.

Ultimately, Iranian intelligence intended to use Shafut as “a conduit to channel funds to terrorists in Judea and Samaria and in Israel,” it adds.

At the conclusion of the operations for which he was sent to Israel, says the Shin Bet, Shafut was expected to travel to Iran to complete his training as an agent and undergo advanced training in intelligence and espionage, but his arrest by Israeli authorities “thwarted these plans and led to the foiling of the actions that were planned by Iranian intelligence operatives through him,” says the Israeli security agency.

23. UN nuclear watchdog IAEA recognizes ‘State of Palestine’.

“Israel does not recognize the PA’s attempts to join such organizations and such institutions in which only states are members,” said Israel’s Foreign Ministry in response.

By World Israel News Staff 

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, took an additional step Tuesday in recognizing the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a state, according to the PA news agency WAFA. 

“Palestine and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) signed today a safeguards agreement at its Vienna headquarters,” said the news agency on Tuesday.

“The signing of this agreement follows the accession of the State of Palestine as a State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the beginning of 2015,” WAFA added.

A permanent Palestinian “observer to the United Nations and the international organizations in Vienna, Salah Abdul Shafi, signed the agreement on behalf of the State of Palestine along with IAEA director-general, Yukiya Amano,”  WAFA reports.

“Abdul Shafi said that the signing of this agreement is further proof that the State of Palestine shoulders its international responsibilities as an active member of the international community,” said the PA news agency.

Israelis condemn move

“This is another attempt by the Palestinian Authority to join international organizations with the aim of exploiting them for political purposes,” said Israel’s Foreign Ministry in response.

“Israel does not recognize the PA’s attempts to join such organizations and such institutions in which only states are members. Israel views this as a violation of international agreements,” the Ministry said in a statement.

The Palestinian Authority is not a state, but a self-ruling body in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip. It was established in stages during the 1990s as part of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The accords called for the future establishment of a Palestinian state but it never happened amid rampant Palestinian terror against Israel.

In 2005, the Hamas terror group overthrew the PA in the Gaza Strip and the Authority leadership has not been able to fully reestablish its control of Gaza since then.

24. 

Analysis: Israel could strike Iran first as tensions with Islamic Republic flare

By Doreen Horschig, University of Central Florida, via AP

Iran shot down a U.S. drone on June 19, further escalating tensions between Iran and its adversaries.

Relations with Iran have been worsening for months. In early May, one year after the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal negotiated in 2015 between Iran, the U.S., the European Union and five other countries, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that his country may also withdraw from the agreement, which limits its ability to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting sanctions.

In June, Rouhani announced that Iran will restart uranium enrichment, which could put the country on track to develop a nuclear weapon within a year. Rouhani’s government insists its uranium will go to civilian nuclear power, not weapons.

As a “deterrent” to Iran, the United States is sending an additional 1,000 troopsto the Middle East.

The U.S. is not the only country considering a military response in Iran.

Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times, including most recently, on June 17. Netanyahu also said Iran must be punished for violating the nuclear agreement.

Israel, which has faced threats to its national security since its founding as a Jewish homeland in the Middle East in 1948, is known to take aggressive, preventive action to protect itself – including by launching preemptive strikes on neighboring nations it perceives as threatening.

If international relations with Iran grow more volatile, Israel could take dramatic, unilateral action against its neighbor and longtime adversary.

25. 

How the Begin Doctrine justifies preemptive strikes

I’m an international security scholar who studies Israel’s proactive use of its military to prevent nuclear buildup in the Middle East.

Israel has a counterproliferation policy, called the Begin Doctrine, which allows it to wage preventive strikes against enemies with weapons of mass destruction programs. Using the Begin Doctrine as a justification for preemptive strikes, the Israeli government has for decades quietly decimated nuclear and chemical facilities across the Middle East.

When President Saddam Hussein’s potential nuclear military ambitions raised concerns in 1981, the Israeli government destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in a surprise attack called Operation Opera.

“On no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against the people of Israel,” a government release stated at the time. “We shall defend the citizens of Israel in good time and with all the means at our disposal.”

In 2007, Israel responded to Syria’s failure to report its uranium processing by striking a nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region. The United States, which was reportedly informed ahead of the attack, made no effort to stop Israel.

Israel has also been accused of sponsoring the assassinations of at least four Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010. The incidents have never been fully investigated, and Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the targeted killings.

Israel has also deterred nuclear proliferation in the Mideast using less lethal, more high tech strategies.

In 2008 and 2009, Israel used computer malware called Stuxnet to disrupt Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The program infected the software that controlled centrifuge speed at the Natanz nuclear plant, alternately speeding up and slowing down the machines that produce enriched uranium to cripple production of the material. The Obama administration secretly supported the cyberattacks.

Though the United States, United Nations and other world powers officially condemned some of these unprovoked Israeli military aggression, other preemptive Israeli attacks have been met with silence from the international community.

The international community may even appreciate Israel’s role as a nuclear nonproliferation watchdog in the Middle East, my research suggests. Israel has never been punished for attacking its neighbors’ weapons programs.

Decades after Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear plant, President Bill Clinton called it “a really good thing.”

“It kept Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear power,” he said at the 2005 Davos World Economic Forum.

“But it’s not clear to me they have that option in Iran,” he added.

Israel vs. Iran

That was 14 years ago. In 2005, Iran was just beginning its nuclear buildup.

Today, Israel’s government seems strong in its belief that it has the option to strike Iran.

Iran’s Islamic fundamentalist government is openly hostile to Israel. Citing fears that Iran would use nuclear weapons against Israel, Netanyahu has warned, “Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons would be infinitely more costly than any scenario you can imagine to stop it.”

He told Iran and other adversaries not to “test” Israel.

If the nuclear deal ruptures further and Iran does restarting uranium enrichment, Israel might launch targeted airstrikes against it.

Risks of an Israeli strike

History suggests other countries are unlikely to actively deter Israeli military aggression in the guise of nuclear nonproliferation.

The Trump administration has expressed anti-Iranian sentiment and is a staunch backer of Netanyahu’s government.

And while European powers will recognize preemptive Israeli strikes on nuclear facilities as a violation of international law and of the sovereignty of Israel’s neighbors, they also see Iran’s nuclear program as a grave global security concern.

A nuclear Iran could escalate ongoing Middle East conflicts into nuclear exchanges, and, as some commentators say, spur other regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to develop nuclear weapons themselves.

Of course, potential Israeli attacks on Iran present their own serious risks. Because most of Iran’s reactors are in full operations, air strikes may mean cutting off the power supply to Iranian citizens and could release large amounts of radioactive contaminants into the air.

Iran, a militarily well-equipped country, would surely retaliate against any Israeli attacks. That, too, would trigger a conflict that would spiral throughout the Middle East.

Of course, Israel faced similar dangers when it went after the weapons programs of Syria, Iraq and other neighbors.

If history is any guide, Israel may strike Iran while the world quietly watches.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: http://theconversation.com/israel-could-strike-first-as-tensions-with-iran-flare-119146

26. 

The ICC can only try cases involving countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute – the treaty that established the International Criminal Court – and neither Israel nor Turkey have joined it, says head of Israeli advocacy group.

by  Ariel Kahana  Published on  2019-06-17 11:29
The Mavi Marmara, Archive: Reuters
An Israeli advocacy group has recently appealed to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, demanding it be allowed to be a respondent in the complaints filed against Israeli soldiers and officers with respect to the Mavi Marmara ship.

The Mavi Marmara was a Turkish vessel that in 2010 attempted to breach the maritime blockade on the Gaza Strip. Upon approaching Gaza’s waters, the Israeli Navy hailed the ship several times, ordering it to stop and turn around. The Marmara refused and Israeli commandos raided the ship. The operation was met with violence by the passengers, 10 Turkish nationals were killed and several Israeli soldiers were beaten.

The incident caused a rift between Israel and Turkey, and the once warm diplomatic relations between Jerusalem and Ankara have become chilly, at best, despite Israel’s $20 million reparations to the victims’ families.

Despite the settlement, the ICC has recently ordered Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to reopen the investigation following an appeal by the IHH, which organized the flotilla led by the Mavi Marmara.

The Turkey-based IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation has been designated as a terrorist group by Israel, Germany and the Netherlands.

Shurat HaDin Attorney Robert Feldmeier has reportedly presented Bensouda with a document he obtained on a special trip to Comoros, in Africa’s east coast.

Feldmeier was seeking documentation suggesting the Marmara was sailing under a Comoros flag, as the IHH claims.

This is essential to any potential IHH proceedings against IDF soldiers in The Hague, as the ICC can only try cases involving countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute – the treaty that established the International Criminal Court – and neither Israel nor Turkey have joined it.

However, it appears the documents Feldmeier obtained revealed that the Marmara was not sailing under the Comoros flag. It also appears he was told that any registration to the contrary was made by a clerk who had no authority over the matter and was, in fact, fired over it.

This has prompted Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin, Israel Law Center, to argue that as neither Israel nor Turkey are party to the Rome Statute, the ICC lacks the jurisdiction to hear any case related to the Mavi Marmara.

“It’s unclear to me why the ICC can’t see that the IHH is using it. IDF soldiers who raided the Marmara have not committed any war crimes,” she said.

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ABD’de İran alarmı! Acil toplantı çağrısı!

27.

ABD, Birleşmiş Milletler Güvenlik Konseyini İran konusunda acil toplantıya çağırdı.

ABD'de İran alarmı! Acil toplantı çağrısı!
 21.06.2019 
KAYNAK: AA
28. 

Mossad, adım adım Türkiye’yi takip ediyor

Savaş gemilerinin yığınak yaptığı Akdeniz’de Türkiye’nin her faaliyeti adım adım izleniyor. İsrail, Kıbrıs çevresinde konumlanan Fatih ve Barbaros gemilerinin net uydu görüntülerini paylaşacak kadar pervasızlaştı. İsrail şirketi ISI, gemilerimizin koordinatlarını da verdi. Şirketin İsrail ordusu ve Mossad’la derin bağlantıları var.

21.06.2019 
Savaş gemilerinin yığınak yaptığı Akdeniz’de Türkiye’nin her faaliyeti adım adım izleniyor. İsrail istihbaratı, Kıbrıs çevresinde konuşlu Fatih ve Barbaros gemilerinin uydu görüntülerini kesin koordinatlar eşliğinde paylaşacak kadar pervasızlaştı. Fatih sondaj gemisi, Barbaros sismik arama gemisi ve güvenlik amacıyla bölgede bulunan Barbaros fırkateyninin uydudan çekilen yüksek kalite görüntüleri, koordinatlarıyla birlikte İsrail merkezli şirket tarafından ortaya döküldü. Şirketin İsrail ordusu ve Mossad’la derin bağlantıları bulunuyor.

Ω

Ω

Ω

FOTOĞRAFLAR UYDUDAN

16 Mayıs’ta Türk sondaj gemisi Fatih’in Kıbrıs açıklarına hareket etmeye başladığını sosyal medyadan paylaşan Image Satellite Intelligence (ISI) adlı kuruluş, “Türkiye, Kıbrıs’ta sondaj planlarına start verdi. Lefkoşa’ya meydan okuyan Ankara, Fatih sondaj gemisini gönderdi. Bugün Fatih, Kıbrıs’ın Baf kentinin 80 km batısında faaliyet gösterirken ISI’nın merceğine takıldı” ifadelerini kullandı ve Fatih’in koordinatlarını yayınladı. 20 Mayıs’ta bir devam paylaşımı yapan ISI, “Takip: Bir Türk firkateyni Kıbrıs’ın Münhasır Ekonomik Bölgesinden geçerek Türk Fatih sondaj gemisine eşlik ediyor” diye yazdı. Paylaşımın görselinde, “Türkiye’nin Fatih gemisi Baf şehrinin 80 km batısında hâlâ Kıbrıs’ın Münhasır Ekonomik Bölgesi içerisinde faaliyetlerini sürdürüyor. ISI, Türk fırkateyninin sondaj gemisine refakat ettiğini tespit etti” denildi.

‘BULUTLARIN ALTINDA…’

Sözde Kıbrıs’ın münhasır ekonomik bölgesini haritalandıran kuruluşun KKTC’yi tamamen görmezden gelerek Rum Kesimi’nin iddia ettiği sınırları kullanması dikkat çekti. Fatih ve Barbaros fırkateyninin yakın çekim görüntüsünü de kullanan İsrail merkezli kuruluş, iki gemi arasında tam 2.5 km mesafe bulunduğunu belirtti. Geçtiğimiz gün yeniden bir güncelleme paylaşan ISI, “16 Mayıs 2019’da ISI, Türkiye’nin Fatih sondaj gemisinin, Kıbrıs’ın münhasır ekonomik sınırları içinde Baf’ın 80 km batısında faaliyet gösterdiğini ortaya çıkarttı. Dört gün sonra, sondaj gemisine eşlik eden bir Barbaros sınıfı Türk fırkateyni tespit edildi. Bir ay sonra, her ikisi de bulutların altında tespit edildi, hâlâ aynı alanda çalışıyorlar” mesajını yazdı.

3 bölge 3 hedef

Kıbrıs çevresindeki Türk gemilerini uydudan takip eden İsrail şirketi ISI, daha önce de Venezuela krizinin patlak verdiği süreçte Venezuela ordusunun ABD’nin olası bir müdahalesine karşı askeri hava üslerindeki hareketliliği paylaşmıştı. Paylaşımlarda S-300 füze sistemlerinin adım adım Venezuela’nın Capitán Manuel Rios askeri hava üssünden çıkartılarak hangi lokasyonlarda hazır pozisyona getirildiği koordinatlarıyla birlikte yayınlandı. Mossad bağlantılı ISI son olarak Güney Çin Denizi’ndeki Woody Adası’nda konuşlu J-10 tipi Çin savaş uçaklarının görsellerini kamuoyuna açtı.

Görüntü ve bilgileri paylaşan ISI, internet sitesinde ‘müşterilerine yüksek kalite uydu görüntüleri ile coğrafi istihbarat servis ettiğini’ belirtiyor. Sitenin ‘ekip’ kısmında ise kuruluşun yöneticilerine ve geçmişlerine ilişkin bilgiler yer alıyor. Buna göre şirketin İcra Kurulu Başkanı olan Noam Segal, geçmişte İsrail Hava Kuvvetleri’nde albay ve kıdemli İHA operatörü olarak görev aldı. Şirketin ikinci ismi İcra Kurulu Başkan Yardımcısı ve Stratejik İstihbarat Birimi Başkanı Noam Zafrir ise İsrail ordusunun hava savunma kuvvetlerinde binbaşı rütbesiyle çalıştı. Zafrir aynı zamanda 23 yıl İsrail Havacılık ve Uzay Sanayisinde çeşitli pozisyonlarda bulundu. ISI şirketinin operasyon direktörü Itamar Shahar’ın özgeçmişinde ise İsrail Başbakanlığında 20 boyunca görev yaptığı yazıyor. Shahar, askerliği süresince İsrail Hava Kuvvetleri’nde F-16 uçaklarını da uçurdu.

KAYNAK: YENİ ŞAFAK
29. Και πάλι… ΦΡΕΣΚΟΣ “ΑΡΚΑΣ!
Για “Ξελαμπικάζ
ΧΑΙΡΕΤΕ“!
ΕΛΛΗΝΑΣ
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